Get Your BUZZ On - Instant Apps for Connections

I have to say it! Damn this one is exciting. I am BUZZING (literally!)

Over the years since we launched Kudos Badges for IBM Connections about 9 years ago now, we have delivered a series of new products and capabilities for IBM Connections, all with a focus on adoption and improving the user experience and hence engagement for users of Connections.

After Badges, came Kudos Analytics delivering deep analytics and reporting to Connections. Kudos Thanks and Kudos Awards delivered peer to peer and management award and recognition programs. Then most recently Kudos Boards which dramatically improved team collaboration and projects in Connections using Kanban style user experience. We also have something else coming very soon....think Idea's and Innovation for Connections but more on that later;)

Lets get our Buzz On!

Well now this one takes Connections to a whole new level. The great team at Kudos has been busily working away with another great team from Buzzy to now deliver Buzzy for IBM Connections.

An intelligent instant app platform for IBM Connections and Watson Workspace

Buzzy for Connections provides a better way for users to interact with each other via Citizen Apps.

Many of us remember the days when on another platform we would empower users to create apps for many different purposes. This enabled citizen developers and end users to rapidly build situational apps so they could quickly get on with business and complete the job at hand. These might be apps such as Contract Registers, Job Applications, Expense Re-imbursements, Executive Reports/Briefings, Field Sales Reports, Event Management.........the list goes on forever.

Buzzy for IBM Connections brings these and many many more instant apps to the Connections platform. In a matter of minutes your line of business users are able to create intelligent (via Watson Services) apps for whatever business outcome they want to achieve. These apps are rapidly delivered via both browser and mobile clients, fully integrated with IBM Connections.

Maybe your Marketing Department are planning on running an event. So you create a Connections Community of course to get the team together to plan, discuss and execute the event. So now with Buzzy for IBM Connections you can create an Event Management App that helps you to store and share the planning details. You might create another app - Event Registrations - this time open to external users as well so they can submit their RSVP's for the event. You might also want to share post event collateral with the attendees of the event - just create another Buzz!

In another part of your organisation, your HR Department are managing the recruitment of some new staff. They create a HR/Recruitment Community, and add an App for managing and creating job positions. They can list the job positions and determine the criteria and type of skills needed. Once ready they can post the job publically via the Job Application Submission App that allows candidates to submit their resume and applications. Then the HR team can work together to review the resumes and vote on who should get the interview!

Over the next few posts we will demonstrate Buzzy for IBM Connections with a few videos.

If you are interested in some more information, a demo, or even want to give Buzzy for Connections a try for yourself you can let us know here - Buzzy for IBM Connections. Come join us and get your Buzz On!

IBM Connect 2017 - Top 5 Highlights

Well what a huge week! There were so many interesting things going on at IBM Connect 2017 last week in San Francisco. I had some fantastic conversations with colleagues around the world and that is probably the most important part of Connect. Learning from others experiences, thinking about our future path, just fantastic.

Yet how to sum it up! Well here are my top 5 highlights for IBM Connect 2017. Let me know what yours were?

Announcing Kudos Badges 2.1.1 - Connections 4.5, Mobile, Analytics & More!

Team Kudos have been working like bees over the last few months to bring even more features to Kudos Badges, which in January scooped an array of awards at IBM Connect in Florida, USA.

Now with the formal release of Kudos Badges 2.1.1, we've taken onboard a range of client requests and integrated a suite of improvements you are sure to enjoy too. Most importantly, 2.1.1 offers full support for IBM Connections 4.5!

Brand new formal features announced in 2.11 include Kudos Analytics, Kudos Awards, Kudos Mobile, as well as full support of the IBM Notes 9 Embedded Experiences. Read on for more details:

Connections 4.5 Support

Many of our clients around the world are already making to move to upgrade to IBM Connections 4.5, so ensuring Kudos Badges can not only support but take full advantage of the new capabilities in 4.5 has been a big priority. We love Connections 4.5 and wanted to make sure you could upgrade with the confidence that Kudos Badges is fully supported.

To start with:

A great new feature of IBM Connections and the IBM Notes/iNotes 9 Social Edition is the addition of Open Social Gadgets and support for embedded experiences. We've taken advantage of this to deliver a great user embedded experience within Connections and the Notes/iNotes clients (or anywhere that supports Open Social and embedded experiences for that matter!).

So what does this really mean for your users? Well in simple terms it means that they can interact with Kudos Badges in the context of their Notes client. This also means all Kudos Badges, Kudos Thanks and Kudos Awards are displayed in the Discover activity stream and you are able to like and comment on a Kudos related news item!

IBM Notes 9 - Embedded Experience

You can now experience Kudos in IBM Notes 9 with email notifications and an Activity stream widget.

• Watch the video...

Kudos Analytics

Kudos Analytics is the ideal light weight reporting and analytics tool for IBM Connections focused on user adoption.

Utilising data from both IBM Connections Metrics Applications and Kudos Badges, Kudos Analytics gives you the numbers you need to prove ROI, make decisions and plan your success. Looking at both Connections and Kudos, find out the answers to some key questions:

• How many people are using Connections?
• Which applications are being used most (Files, Communities etc)?
• How much is each feature in each application being used?
• How is each Community being used?

Kudos Analytics also really easy to install.

• Watch the video...

Kudos Awards

We've had some great feedback from our clients that really love Kudos Thanks. Users are telling us that Kudos Thanks in itself has created a positive culture of recognition and praise across their users, as well as making Connections a destination and driving further adoption. So we thought we could take this to a new level, and by popular demand have created Kudos Awards.

Kudos Awards allows management to acknowledge great achievements amongst their workforce, even integrate well-known workplace awards such as Employee of the Month. Users can build and customise an awards and recognition program to suit, such as certifications that have been achieved, awards for tenure or years of employment, and many other examples.

Kudos Awards integrates very nicely within IBM Connections, leveraging the Connections Profiles and Activity streams to promote users achievements.

We've Gone Mobile

Now you can 'give Thanks' and keep up with your Leaderboards while on the road! Kudos Badges Mobile can now integrate seemlessly with the new Connections Mobile app from IBM.

Kudos Badges Mobile provides seamless integration between IBM Connections Mobile app and Kudos Badges, without users having to install or regularly check-in with a separate app. We've also leveraged the authentication via the Connections App so users don't need to logon again - How neat is that!?

• Watch the video...

Find out more

To discover how simple it is to implement Kudos Badges into your workplace, or to learn more about how Kudos accelerates performance and productivity in your workplace, check our Youtube Channel or the website at www.kudosbadges.com. We're also available on twitter: @KudosBadges

Kudos Badges Webinar with e-office from The Netherlands

One of our great Kudos Badges partners, e-office from The Netherlands has an upcoming Webinar where they will be discussing how they leverage Kudos Badges to drive user adoption within IBM Connecitons. The host Mark Bouma has been working with a number of our clients implementing Kudos Badges so his experience is sure to be worthwhile.

Here are the details:

Webinar site
http://www.e-office.com/eog/nl/website2011.nsf/index/e-officewebinarwednesday#.UW6yyEoSBzc

The info for the webinar
8 th of May - demo Kudos Badges for IBM Connections
by Mark Bouma - 12.00 uur (CET)
free webinar

e-office uses Kudos Badges in IBM Connections to stimulate the adoption process within organisations.
Kudos Badges adds game mechanics to the IBM Connections-platform which encourages employees to work with this collaboration platform and enables them to be more effective with the social functionalities.
In this webinar Mark Bouma gives you a demo of Kudos Badges. You see the different parts of Kudos and you learn to configure Badges yourself, based on your organisation's key values and goals.

The registration for the Kudos Badges webinar is here.

An IBM Connect present.....Wildfire for IBM Notes 9 and Connections 4

Very pleased for Andrew Welch to provide this guest post:

WILDFIRE 1.6 IS NOW AVAILABLE

We are very pleased to announce the next release of WildFire. It has been a long time coming, but all good things come to those who wait and just in time for IBM Connect!

We have resolved a few of the issues that have arisen due to the life-cycles of the various Social Network APIs, as well as implementing a few requests from users.
Most notably here is the support for the XING network & custom feed background colors.

As of a couple of days ago we had 6835 downloads of Wildfire from OpenNTF. We have no idea how many of these then get installed across a user base and how many are just single installs but we would love to hear if you are using Wildfire so please let us know.

In other statistics, WildFire has made nearly 5 Million API calls to Facebook in the last year alone!


Here is the list of improvements:

New network support: XING
XING was both the first and most recent requested network.  With the recent launch of the Public API for XING we thought it was time to reward our loyal WildFire users.  Now you can both post and read statuses from the XING community!

Custom feed background colors
After the overwhelming positive responses of custom background colors in iWildFire, it was decided to bring them to WildFire as well.  This will make the biggest difference for those with multiple accounts of the same type.  Now you can easily tell at a glance which network the status was retrieved from

Facebook updates
Recently Facebook removed the Offline Access permission WildFire was using.  This meant that new Facebook accounts added to WildFire could not work for more than 2 hours.  In the new version of WildFire we have moved to Facebook's new authentication protocol and users now have 60 days access.  After this time simple repeat the account creation for another 60 days.

Additionally, we have added the following Facebook Feed enhancements;

• showing check-in locations
• showing people tags
• showing direct wall posts

Connections 4 support
WildFire 1.6 now supports IBM Connections 4.  You can now read and post status updates to your Connections 4 environments.  Additionally you can also comment upon posts.

LinkedIn improvements
WildFire 1.6 now supports new data structures introduced recently in LinkedIn.

IBM Notes 9 Support
WildFire 1.6 officially supports IBM Notes 9.

Performance improvements & General Bug Fixes
Some additional changes under the hood will speed up the rendering and reduce memory usage.

URL Shortening
WildFire has long supported automatic URL shortening by TinyURL when posting a status.  However, users reported trouble in keeping track of the amount of characters that had used.  With WildFire 1.6 we have added a more user friendly interface.  Simply paste a URL into the text area, or use the new keyboard short-cut (Alt+T) and the URL is automatically shortened.  This allows you to see the exact status message and length before it is sent.

Improved screen utilisation
Do you have limited screen real-estate and find yourself switching between widgets?

Users had reported their desire to keep an eye on their social feeds, but still wanting to display multiple widgets.
WildFire 1.6 includes the functionality to hide the Status Input field.  This means less wasted space and you never have to close WildFire again!

Reduced size
WildFire 1.6 is 20% smaller in size than previous versions.


In summary, WildFire 1.6 is worth the wait.  It's smaller, faster, more user friendly and connects you with more social networks than ever before!


Written by guest blogger;

Andrew Welch
Lead Developer of WildFire

Connect 2013: Booth C49
Twitter: @AndyLWelch
LinkedIn AndrewLWelch