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Over the past couple of years, Lotus has expanded their portfolio of offerings quite significantly. They showed a renewed interest in Sametime and really made it the best-of-breed enterprise web meeting and instant messaging software. Just over a year ago, Lotus announced Quickr and Connections. Quickr is a teamroom and collaboration platform while Connections is an enterprise-level social software platform.

These new software offerings are great additions to your Notes-based infrastructure and intranet. The problem is, as with any new technology, there is a learning curve. And even though you can read articles like mine on the technology, sometimes you really need to get your hands on it to understand its value. That's where the Lotus Greenhouse comes in.

It's all about Community

The Lotus Greenhouse (greenhouse.lotus.com) is a free online community that IBM Lotus has provided that integrates Sametime, Quickr, Connections and more. This community gives you live access to all of the features of these products in an integrated real-world environment. This site is more than just a testing ground, it's an actual community of Lotus professionals and software evaluators from around the world.

The Lotus Greenhouse Homepage

Once you sign up for a free account, you can use all of the features and functionality available in the featured products and collaborate with others in the community. You get access to Sametime, Quickr, Connections, and Domino Web Access webmail. There are help sections for all of the products, as well as links to the discussion forums for each product on Lotus Developer Domain.

Getting Started

The best place to get up-to-speed when you first join the Greenhouse is the Learn link in the Greenhouse navigation at the top of the screen. Clicking that link will allow you to see Frequently Asked Questions, download documentation as well as watch demos of many of the features.

Hitting that link and going through all of the products will really get you a good base to build on. You learn the lay of the land, and can start to explore. Once you've gotten comfortable with the site, you can always ask more questions in any of the team places and communities. You can also click the Discuss link to take you to the discussion forums for each product.

Now, for those of you new to Intranet Journal or Lotus products, I'll give you a little overview of each section you can utilize on the Lotus Greenhouse.

Using Enterprise Social Software

You can start using the Lotus Connections product by clicking the Launch button in the Greenhouse navigation and choosing Interact with Social Software. This will take you to Blogs section of Connections.

The learning page for Lotus Connections

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