You can find information about integrating Lotus Connections with Microsoft technologies, here and here.

I am the first to assert, however, that humans will almost ALWAYS use the old school method first – “Hey Laurie, d’you know anybody who…?” – and reserve the use of a tool for when they get nada the old way.

The biggest difference? A tool lets a person plug in to hundreds or thousands more “sub-networks” in a given population. Instead of me asking a few of my people “hey, d’you know anybody who…?”, I can ask a few hundred, most of whom I don’t even know.

The simple view of doing this massive asking is to search Profiles. But, that just isn’t adequate. Otherwise, tools like your Conduit would suffice.

The thing to remember is that humans who are inclined to share, do so in myriad ways. So, you need to give them multiple sharing outlets (e.g. blogs, forums, social bookmarks, wikis, files, etc.) that fit their personality, their role, and their work behavior. For example, I know many SMEs who will happily answer questions in a forum, but would never blog or keep their profile updated. I know others who share themselves solely through presentation files.

And really, you just need to ask the “connectors” in your organization the “Hey, d’you know anybody who” question. These connectors can exponentially broadcast your request for you. But, how do you know who the connectors are? You don’t, unless you continually do social network analyses throughout your organization, and keep a dynamic sociogram updated. Not practical.

Serendipity plays a part here as well, and I think it’s futile to try to force serendipity to happen using technology. All we can do is make it more probable.