Lotusphere: IBM embraces social tools with updates to Connections platform

ORLANDO: IBM has unveiled a series of major updates to its Connections social networking tool designed to boost its collaboration capabilities and make the platform available on all major mobile operating systems.

Unveiling the changes at its annual Lotusphere event, the firm explained the updates were designed to help businesses take advantage of the benefits of using data from social networks to gain better insights and make better decisions.

Key to this is the inclusion of the firm’s Cognos analytics tool within the platform in order to analyse the sentiment of messages on social networks such as Twitter or Facebook and share this information across the Connections platform.

It has also added the ability for staff to access and share documents, images, video and access applications via a live stream that mimics the look of Facebook and Twitter in order to offer collaboration in real-time from a single location.

Speaking at the event, Alistair Rennie, general manager for collaboration solutions at IBM, said taking advantage of social data and providing a platform to share this data will help firms derive numerous benefits.

“The application of social tools and data to business processes can help take advantage of a firms’ collective intelligence, helping lead to the creation of new ideas and improved working practices,” he said.

“However, embracing social media is not just an IT project, it requires a change to the organisation’s culture, training people to do new things and embrace these changes.”