Template for Social Business training using IBM Connections

1. IBM Lotus Connections
“Flight School”
Sample Communications & Adoption Plan
© 2009 IBM

2. About…
• Based on a series of successful rollout plans,
this is a sample Communications Plan for
fostering the adoption of Lotus Connections
• The plan is broken down into a five-week “flight
school”
• Each week contains:
– Activities and tasks for the Student Pilots
– Weekly Student Pilot expectations/tasks to be
completed
– Activities and tasks for the Flight Trainers (ie, YOU)

4. Goals by Week
• Week 1: On-board Systems Check
– “Matriculate” each student pilot into Flight school, and get them started with
Lotus Connections
• Week 2: Taxing down the Runway
– Student pilots have a general sense on how to organize their work and
colleagues, so it’s time to get them Blogging & managing their social
network with the Homepage
• Week 3: Taking Flight
– Once in the air, the student pilots will have a 10,000 ft perspective of the
their communities and effectively leverage their social networks
• Week 4: Connecting Flights
– Using & configuring plugins; ideas on how to use Lotus Connections in the
real world
• Week 5: Cleared for Takeoff
– Graduation & where to find help

5. Week 1
Flight Instructor Activities

6. Week 1
Pre Mission Briefing
Email & Blog Post
• Welcome and overall plans and goals for the training program
• Include a link to the Flight Training Community
• List overall program expectations; student pilots will need to
– Carry out a small list of assignments each week
– Attend a weekly call/web conference for five weeks
– Post questions in the Flight Training Forum
– Learn who their community advocate is & solicit their assistance as needed
– Check the Flight Training Blog daily for news, updates, and tips
• Include time & date of the Week 1 Mission Briefing

7. Week 1
Student Pilot Assignments
• Before Week 2’s Mission Briefing, each student pilot
should:
– Create an Activity
– Dogear up to 10 web pages
– Complete their profile

8. Week 1
Mission Briefing
• Outline the overall program and restate weekly expectations
• Demo this week's assignments
– Demo the Activity you set up for them and show them how to create
their own
– Demo how to Dogear, and how to get find their own bookmarks
– Demo how to edit a their Profile, and how to search
– Show where to find the Flight Training Community, Blog and Forum
• Describe mentor relationships
• Remind them the time & location of week 2’s Mission Briefing

9. Week 1
Post Briefing
Email & Blog Post
• List what the student pilot needs to do before
Week 2’s Mission Briefing
– Create an Activity
– Create up to 10 bookmarks
– Update their profile
• Include time & location for Week 2’s Mission
Briefing

10. Week 2
Student Pilot Assignments
• Communicate and share with Blogs
– Create a personal or team blog
– Create at least one blog entry (“What I think the value of Social Networking can be for us”)
– Make a commitment to blog at least once a week at a certain time
– Read other blogs
• Connect to your social network by customizing your Homepage
– Configure the Profiles Widget to show your colleagues
– Configure the Blog Widget
– Configure the Activities Widget to show “My Activities”
– Configure the Dogear Widget to show “My Bookmarks”
– Configure the Community Widget to show “My Communities”
• Set your Lotus Connections Homepage as your browser default or put a short-cut on your
desktop

11. Week 2
Flight Instructor Activities
• Create a blog entry that outlines this week's assignments
• Create a blog entry that outlines last week's accomplishments
• Create blog entries about tips and short-cuts
– How to get the most out of blogging
– How to setup the “Bookmark This” browser plugin
– How to setup the Activities plugin for Lotus Notes 8/Microsoft Outlook
– How to setup and use the Lotus Connections plugin for Lotus
Notes/Microsoft Outlook

12. Week 2
Pre Mission Briefing
Email & Blog Post
• List this week’s assignments
– Create at least one blog entry per week for the next four
weeks
– Read & comment on other blogs
– Setup and use your Lotus Connections Homepage
– Set your Lotus Connections Homepage as your browser
default during the Pilot or put a short-cut on your desktop
• “Please ask (or answer) at least one question in the
Forum”
• Include the time & location of week 2’s Mission
Briefing

13. Week 2
Mission Briefing
• Demo this week's assignments
– Demo how to create a new blog, create and tag a blog post
– Tell them what their first blog entry should be about
– Demo how to navigate other blogs and the blog homepage
– Demo how to login to the Lotus Connections Homepage
– Demo how to configure each widget per the above
• Mention time & date of week 3’s Mission Briefing

14. Week 2
Post Briefing
Blog post and email
• Document week 2’s progress and plug anyone who has created
something interesting – compelling blog post, new activity, etc.
• List what the student pilot needs to do before Week 3’s Mission
Briefing
– Post and tag in your Blog
– Make a commitment to blog at least once a week
– Read other blogs
– Customize your Homepage and configure the Profiles, Blog, Activities, Dogear,
and Community widgets
• Remind them to ask questions in the Forum
• Include time & location for Week 3’s Mission Briefing

15. Week 3
Student Pilot Assignments
• Create/Join a Community
– Discuss the kind of Community to create with like-minded, potential community organizers or create one based on an
event, area of expertise, or topic you’re associated with
– Invite everyone who might want to participate
– Add initial bookmarks, feeds (such as blog entries), Wikis, and/or Quickr Places
– Join other Communities
• Using search to get answers, find information, discover experts
– Search Dogear for bookmarks that interest you
– Search the homepage for the same term
• Dashboards
– Open My Bookmarks, review Actions and click “show details”
– Open My Profile and review all widgets
– Open My Communities and filter using the tag cloud
• Use Activities
– Mark an Activity Complete; change the Priority on an Activity; set an Activity as “tuned out”; Filter Activities by a Person
and by a tag
– Open your To-do List and mark an item as complete

16. Week 3
Flight Instructor Activities
• Finish off instruction on the key Lotus Connections
features
• Create a blog entry that outlines this week's activities
• Create a blog entry that outlines last week's
accomplishments
• Create blog entries about tips and short-cuts
– Effective searching, using AND, using tagclouds, search within
• Blog/email meeting invite reminder
• Answer any questions posted in the Forum

17. Week 3
Pre Mission Briefing
Email & Blog Post
• “Continue blogging, tagging profiles and bookmarks, and
commenting”
• What will we be covering this week?
– Using Communities
– Search, Dashboards, Activities
• Include time & location of Week 3 Mission Briefing

18. Week 3
Mission Briefing
• Demo how to create a Community and add each feature
– Demo adding a bookmark to a community
• Show how to join a community and add it to your
homepage
• Demo how to search from the Homepage, and search
within each Dogear and Profiles
• Remind student pilots of when Week 4’s call/briefing will
be

19. Week 3
Post briefing blog post/email
• Document week 3’s progress and plug anyone who has created
something interesting – compelling blog post, new activity, etc.
• List what the student pilot needs to do before Week 4’s Mission
Briefing
– Create and join a Community; invite members
– Add initial bookmarks, feeds, Wikis, and/or Lotus Quickr places
– Practice with search
• Search Dogear, and on the home page
– Practice with Dashboards
• Bookmarks, My Profile, My Communities, and My Activities
• Remind them to ask questions in the Flight Training Forum
• Include time & location for Week 4’s Mission Briefing

20. Week 4
Student Pilot Assignments

21. Week 4
Flight Instructor Activities
• Complete details on how to setup the Plugins your
student pilots will have. Include screenshots!
• During the weekly meeting, demo the setup and config to
enable Lotus Connections integration
• Answer Forum Questions
• Email/blog post about Week 5’s Mission Briefing

22. Week 4
Pre Mission Briefing
Email & Blog Post
• Setup desktop and web integration
• Continue blogging, tagging profiles and bookmarks, and
commenting
• Continue searching from the Homepage (or Firefox
plugin)
• Look for ways to use Lotus Connections in your daily
activities
• Include time & place of Mission Briefing

23. Week 4
Mission Briefing
• Demo how your organization can use the Lotus or Microsoft Plugins
• Discuss working with Teams
– Show how to create a team blog; how to use Activities for subteams or individual work efforts
– Demo searching Profiles to locate expertise and identify potential team members, search Dogear to help
team find information
• Discuss using Lotus Connections for event planning
– Event Planning with Activities; communicating about the Event with an Event Blog or Wiki
– Create an Event Community, tagging people associated with the event
• Discuss using Lotus Connections to plan and communicate about a topic or community of
practice
– Create a Community for the Topic; tag people related to the topic
– Bloggers tag entries specific to the Topic
– Add bookmarks to the Community and to Dogear
• Discuss using Lotus Connections to manage people
– Show how to create an Activity for each employee, or creating blog to share info with your staff
• Remind student pilots of when Week 5’s call/briefing will be

24. Week 4
Post Briefing
Blog post/Email
• Highlight top blogs (most starred, most commented on,
most interesting)
• Highlight/feature top or most active Communities
• Outline benefits Lotus Connections could have for
building teams, managing events, communicating, and
managing people
• Highlight key stats – numbers of bookmarks, blog
entries, communities, activities

25. Week 5
Student Pilot Assignments
• Getting Help
– Click Help from any Lotus Connections page and review the contextual topics
• Using additional features
– Watchlists
• Watch the bookmarks of a specific people or bookmarks that are tagged with specific keywords
• From All Bookmarks filter on a tag or a person (or both) and add them to your watchlist
• Monitor/review your watchlist from My Updates or the Homepage
– Notification
• Notify others of bookmarks you think they’d find interesting
• Notify others about Activities items you post
• Notify others about blog entries
– Flagging
• Flag a bookmark as a broken URL
• Flag blog as inappropriate

26. Week 5
Flight Instructor Activities
• Send invite for last weekly call
– Highlight top blogs (most starred, most commented
on, most interesting)
– Highlight/feature top Communities
– Highlight key stats – numbers of bookmarks, blog
entries, communities, etc
– Inform the users on how to get on-going support
• Answer Forum Questions

27. Week 5
Pre Mission
Briefing Email & Blog Post
• Include reminder of week 5’s Mission Briefing time &
location

28. Week 5
Mission Briefing
• Highlight top blogs (most starred, most
commented on, most interesting)
• Highlight/feature top Communities
• Highlight key stats – numbers of bookmarks,
blog entries, communities, etc
• Demo each Help page
• Demo the Dogear watchlist
• Demo Notification and Flagging features
• Feature guest speakers (to show the work
they've done using Lotus Connections)

29. Week 5
Post Briefing email/blog post
• Inform the users on how to get on-going support
• Highlight top blogs (most starred, most
commented on, most interesting)
• Highlight/feature top or most active communities
• Highlight key stats – numbers of bookmarks,
blog entries, communities, etc