It's now just over a week until I start into my next around-the-world trip. This time I'll be visiting London, Copenhagen and San Jose. The main reason for my trip is to run a two-day intranet masterclass in Copenhagen (17-18 September). This will cover all my latest intranet thinking, ...
Monthly Archives: August 2008
August 31, 2008
Off soon to London, Copenhagen and San Jose
Categorised under: Conferences & presentations
August 29, 2008
Intranet 2.0 survey
Prescient Digital Media are running a survey on intranets 2.0, looking at adoption and plans. To quote: In response to customer and market demand for a detailed analysis of Intranet 2.0 tools (Web 2.0 tools used on the corporate intranet) used, considered and deployed by global organizations, Prescient is preparing ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, survey
August 29, 2008
New Twitter group – IntranetWatch
Jane McConnell has just setup a private Twitter group for intranet teams, called "IntranetWatch". To quote: The idea of the group is to share links, questions, quick ideas among people involved in intranets. Members of the group will post intranet-related stuff to this group, but will not post personal and ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Tags: Intranets, intranetwatch, twitter
August 28, 2008
Collaboration: leading by example
Collaboration: by stealth or by design, to a few or to all, in some form or other organisations are getting into it. Those that do, realise that there is more to collaborating than the mere introduction of tools. There is undoubtedly a large amount of online chatting, blogging and social networking ...
Categorised under: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Tags: blogs, case studies, Collaboration, wikis, wwf
August 28, 2008
Two uses for wikis
Wikis are gaining rapid adoption with organisations at present, driven in part by the very visible success of Wikipedia, and other similar sites. While organisations are still learning how to use wikis in practice, it is clear that they can offer considerable benefits. Wikis can be used in many different ways, and ...
Categorised under: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, James' articles
Tags: Collaboration, Intranets, wikis
August 28, 2008
Close team spaces when projects end
Establishing team spaces for projects can be one of the most productive uses of collaboration tools. Projects have a lot of information to share between team members (and beyond), and collaboration can provide new ways of meeting this need. Projects are also nicely ‘bounded’, with a defined membership (the project team), ...
Categorised under: Collaboration, James' articles
Tags: Collaboration, projects, team spaces
August 27, 2008
Does your company have a component content management problem?
Ann Rockley has published a small quiz to identify whether you need a component content management solution. To quote: You may sense that you need Component Content Management, but how can you be sure? Using the checklist below, click each box that represents a symptom your enterprise presently experiences. We'll ...
Categorised under: Content management
Tags: component content management, Content management, reuse
August 27, 2008
Planning & coordinating content migrations
Maish Nichani has outlined a methodology for content migration. To quote: You’ve spent months researching and redesigning your intranet or website. The wireframes and the sitemaps have done their job in communicating the benefits of the new design to the stakeholders and you’ve got good feedback from the users. The ...
Categorised under: Content management, Intranets
Tags: Content management, content migration, Intranets, websites
August 26, 2008
Triangles of information delivery
This diagram captures some of my evolving thinking on intranets, information management and enterprise 2.0. It outlines three scenarios: Scenario A This is the "now" scenario, typical of most intranets and information management strategies. Information is mostly published at the corporate ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Information management, Intranets
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, governance, Information management, Intranets, personalisation, triangles, web 2.0
August 26, 2008
Welcome to Serena!
In amongst everything else that is happening around here, Serena Joyner joined us yesterday as another senior consultant. Serena brings with her in-depth experience with knowledge management and the people side of collaboration. This will further build our depth in these spaces, and expect ...
Categorised under: Announcements
August 26, 2008
Asking staff for feedback on your intranet
Craig Thomler has written about obtaining feedback on your intranet. To quote: To achieve these goals I've worked with my team, and others in the agency, to put some systems in place to capture information on the behaviours of intranet users and their usage of the system. We've also put several ...
Categorised under: Intranets
August 26, 2008
Intranets can’t just be about conversations
Alex Manchester argues that intranets can't just be about conversations. To quote: Intranets can be fantastic connectors for employees. I mean, let's break the word down: intra (inside) net (network). To use them solely as top down information dumping grounds, as inferred above, is a waste and a misuse. I ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Tags: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
August 25, 2008
What NOT to do with your intranet
Patrick C. Walsh has written an post on what not to do with your intranet. To quote: Don’t let it be a mouthpiece for the boss Where this is allowed to happen it can be the kiss of death for any intranet. If users feel that every time they access the ...
Categorised under: Intranets
August 25, 2008
Houston: we have a go!
The new website is officially live, as of midday yesterday. It's been a long time coming, but hopefully worth the wait. The key changes/improvements: Commenting: you can now comment not just on this blog, but also on the articles themselves. This has been the biggest point of pain for a long ...
Categorised under: Announcements
August 22, 2008
The big move
It's been a long time coming, but I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that we're just about to re-launch our site, this weekend or soon after. This will get us into a modern design, as well as delivering such much asked-for functionality (details to come!). This is a transitional move, just the start ...
Categorised under: Announcements
August 22, 2008
5 effective wiki uses and how companies benefit from them
Stewart Mader outlines five uses for a wiki within organisations. To quote: Red Ant, a Sydney, Australia based Web design and development firm, uses a wiki as the main collaboration hub for employees and customers. I asked Ben Still, managing director, how they use wikis: “First, a designer makes a ...
Categorised under: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0
Read more | Comments Off
August 22, 2008
Design cop-out #2: breadcrumbs
Jared Spool writes about the issues with breadcrumbs. To quote: Breadcrumbs aren't bad, per se. However, like all things, they take resources to implement well. Of course, with less resources, you can create poorly designed breadcrumbs. But poorly designed breadcrumbs won't help anyone, so if you're going to make them ...
Categorised under: Usability & user-centered design
Read more | Comments Off
August 20, 2008
CMS or ECM – what is the difference?
Jed Cawthorn talks about the difference between CMS and ECM. To quote: The whole world often seems full of unfathomable jargon, and no one tops the information technology industry for its love of the Three Letter Acronym (TLA). Two TLA’s that cause much confusion in our industry are CMS and ...
Categorised under: Content management, Information management
Read more | Comments Off
August 19, 2008
Kudos to BOSE
Last month, my expensive BOSE noice-cancelling headphone disintegrated in the middle of an international trip. They'd been dying for some time, with the ear pieces shedding bits of rubber, and the plastic cracking throughout. A year ago, I'd had to tape up one arm with sticky tape, but this time ...
Categorised under: Announcements
Read more | Comments Off
August 19, 2008
How we work (3): selecting a CMS
This is part 3 in our series of posts that outlines how we work with clients. There are a very large number of content management systems (CMS) in the marketplace, 140+ in Australia alone. These vary hugely in price, design and capabilities, and we've often said that CMS products are only ...
Categorised under: Content management
August 19, 2008
Changing an intranet from ‘talk at’ to ‘talk with’
Craig Thomler writes about changing an intranet from 'talk at' to 'talk with'. To quote: Our latest initiative in this area has been to add a page rating/feedback system, which allows any staff member, on most pages of our intranet, to tell us whether the contents met their needs fully, ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Read more | Comments Off
August 15, 2008
People finder: searching without logic?
Vivek Deshmukh has written an article about improving search in staff directories. To quote: Our intranet provides many applications that have a people finder feature to help staff find each other. The goal in using this feature varies depending on the application and situation. For example, people may want to ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Read more | Comments Off
August 14, 2008
The site map: an information architecture cop-out
Jared Spool has written an article on site maps, highlighting their weaknesses. To quote: A 'design cop-out' is when a designer works on treating a symptom instead of putting resources into solving the root problem. It's choosing a quick fix over solving what could be a wicked problem. Don't get me ...
Categorised under: Usability & user-centered design
Read more | Comments Off
August 13, 2008
Welcome to Alex!
This week we're pleased to welcome Alex Manchester onto our team as another senior consultant. Having helped to setup the Australian office of Melcrum, Alex brings with him expert knowledge on intranets, internal communications and social media. With a keen interest in evolving uses for ...
Categorised under: Uncategorized
Read more | Comments Off
August 12, 2008
The intranet team
Simon Goh has written a post on the intranet team that has worked well for him. To quote: It's been a 1.5 years intranet revamp project and what sticks at the back of my mind is to nurture an intranet team who would continue to sustain and improve this animal. ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Read more | Comments Off
August 11, 2008
A good CMS salesperson will…
The CMS Myth has written about the attributes and behaviours of a good CMS salesperson. To quote: Being a CMS vendor salesperson can be a tough gig. Content management extends far beyond just selling software (or a hosted service) and the sales process can become long and complex. ...
Categorised under: Content management
Read more | Comments Off
August 8, 2008
How we work (2): in-house workshops
This is part 2 of our ongoing series that explains how we work and what services we provide as a business. We spend a lot of time on planes, keynoting conferences and running workshops across the globe, including in Australia, New Zealand, S-E Asia, Europe and the US. The workshops are ...
Categorised under: Conferences & presentations
Read more | Comments Off
August 8, 2008
Does size matter with CMS vendors?
The CMS Myth asks the question: does size matter with CMS vendors? To quote: With all the factors to consider when selecting a CMS, how much should the size of the CMS vendor matter? If you are considering open source options, does it matter how large a community supports ...
Categorised under: Content management
Read more | Comments Off
August 7, 2008
Two workshops at KMWorld & Intranets 2008 (San Jose, September 23-25)
I'll be participating heavily this year in the KMWorld & Intranets 2008 conference, held in San Jose on September 23-25. In addition to presenting on a number of topics, I'll be running two workshops: W5 – Strategies for Innovative Intranets 9:00 a.m - 12:00 p.m While the concept of the intranet as ...
Categorised under: Conferences & presentations
Read more | Comments Off
August 7, 2008
5 differences between Wikipedia & enterprise wikis
Stewart Mader has written an article on the differences between Wikipedia & enterprise wikis. To quote: Enterprise wikis and Internet wikis (of which Wikipedia and Wikitravel are examples) provide the same basic function - the ability to edit content in a web browser - but they differ in several significant ...
Categorised under: Content management, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Read more | Comments Off
August 7, 2008
The value of engaging staff with your intranet
Craig Thomler has written about the value of engaging staff with your intranet. To quote: No matter how well designed, structured and written, an intranet has little value if it isn't top of mind for your staff. One of my primary goals in managing my agency's intranet is to ensure ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Read more | Comments Off
August 6, 2008
Low value content is destroying your website
Gerry McGovern has written that low value content is destroying your website. To quote: The study also found that the ratio of content/data being accessed in the system versus new content/data being published was about 2-1. In previous studies this ratio was 4-1 or higher. This means that the rate ...
Categorised under: Content management, Intranets, Usability & user-centered design
Read more | Comments Off
August 6, 2008
Using social media (Ning) to manage a social project – KETC and the mortgage crisis
Rob Paterson shares an interesting case study of using social media to support a social project. To quote: To do all of this we have to work across the silos -- the TV production people have to work with Outreach -- who has to work with Marketing - who has ...
Categorised under: Collaboration
Read more | Comments Off
August 5, 2008
Update on Intranet Innovation Awards
Just a quick update on this year's Intranet Innovation Awards. We're just finishing the judging process, and are about to start working on producing the trophies and getting the report written up. Like any awards, the winners are kept hush-hush until the official awards day, to be held this year at ...
Categorised under: Uncategorized
Read more | Comments Off
August 5, 2008
Content migrations: options, strategies and faux pas
My latest article, titled Content migration: options and strategies generated a healthy amount of discussion (and debate) on various mailing lists and on the blogosphere. Barb Mosher has posted a wrapup of some of the discussions, pointing to some of the useful posts. To quote: After reading James’ piece, Adriaan ...
Categorised under: Content management
Read more | Comments Off
August 5, 2008
Using persona advocates to develop user-centric intranets and portals
Howard McQueen has written an article on using personas for intranet and portal projects. To quote: Persona development can be an enjoyable and rewarding group process that focuses and prioritizes audience segments. A longer-term benefit is that personas feed into the iterative usability testing and user feedback that will ...
Categorised under: Intranets, Usability & user-centered design
Read more | Comments Off
August 4, 2008
The Content Building Blocks of Web Content Management
The CMS Myth has written about the building blocks of web content management. To quote: Planning a content management driven website requires a rigorous look at the underlying content. Proper planning in the early phases of the project can ensure a content architecture that is flexible and scales with your ...
Categorised under: Content management
Read more | Comments Off
August 4, 2008
Designing a different kind of intranet: an intranet for a UX team
Anirban Basu Mallik has written about creating an intranet for a UX team. To quote: Ideally, a UX team’s intranet should provide a platform where team members belonging to different disciplines --with their diverse profiles—can collaborate on design and research activities. Often on large teams -- especially in cases where ...
Categorised under: Intranets, Usability & user-centered design
Read more | Comments Off
August 2, 2008
Ten tips for succeeding at collaboration (+ audio)
view presentation (tags: blogs sharepoint wikis openpublish08) I gave a presentation ...
Categorised under: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Knowledge management
Read more | Comments Off
August 1, 2008
How we work (1): intranet needs analysis and strategy
At Step Two Designs, we do a lot of work relating to intranet strategy and management. While the hundreds of articles we've published are a very visible manifestation of this, we've realised that not everyone knows how this is reflected in our consulting practice. So this is the first ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Read more | Comments Off
