Last Friday I spent the day in Melbourne, running an Intranet Design + Redesign workshop for local councils. The in-house workshop was organised by one council, and with other councils invited to join the session. We ended up with about 24 people in the room representing 15 different councils ...
Monthly Archives: November 2009
November 30, 2009
A day on intranet design with Victorian councils
Categorised under: Conferences & presentations
Tags: design, Information architecture, Intranets, usability, user-centred design, workshops
November 30, 2009
When it is not all about the CMS software
Seth Gottlieb writes about choosing a good CMS partner, not just the right product. To quote: In one case there was a comprehensive site redesign that included digital strategy, re-branding, and information re-architecture as well as implementing new functionality. In another case, the client was shifting to an outsourced model ...
Categorised under: Content management
November 30, 2009
Podcast interview with Gerry Gaffney
The Step Two team have been very busy recently across every possible medium. Having been in the US for a week at KMWorld, I've fallen hopelessly behind in sharing all this. So this will be the first of a series of posts over the coming week that highlights our outputs... To ...
Categorised under: Intranets, James' articles, Usability & user-centered design
Tags: Intranets, podcast, strategy, user experience
November 25, 2009
How long could you survive without the intranet?
We've got great stories coming out at the two-day Intranet Leadership Forum intensive in Sydney. One that jumped out to me was the following: The intranet team at a major Australian bank talked about their data gathering efforts over the last year. The goal has been to build a strong ...
Categorised under: Intranet Leadership Forum, Intranets
Tags: Intranets
November 24, 2009
The softer side of intranets
For the last seven years we've been writing about intranets, and our focus has relentlessly been on how to make the intranet more valuable for staff and the organisation. Our over-arching statement has always been this: Staff will use the intranet if it's useful. The challenge is to uncover and understand staff needs, ...
Categorised under: Intranets, James' articles
Tags: brand, cultural change, culture, Intranets
November 24, 2009
Photos in staff directories
Photographs can be a very valuable inclusion in a staff directory. They are helpful for putting faces to names, and nowadays in our on-line socially connected world are somewhat expected. However, talk to any intranet team and you will hear about how difficult it can be in practice to achieve this. The ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: Photos, staff directories
November 24, 2009
Intranet Innovations 2009: insights into this year’s winners
The 2009 Intranet Innovation Award winners were unveiled in Sydney on 5 November 2009. There's a wealth of great screenshots, information, tips and advice in the 2009 Awards report, which you can find on the Step Two Designs website. This article summarises the winners and hits on some of ...
Categorised under: Intranets, intranet innovation awards
November 24, 2009
The value of drop-in labs
Jeni Cram has written on the the value of drop-in labs when launching a new CMS. To quote: Drop-in labs are a great way to make the rollout process smoother. A drop-in lab is simply a set time where you invite users to a working session with staff on hand ...
Categorised under: Content management
November 24, 2009
Gold winner: SunGard (NZ/USA)
[caption id="attachment_3888" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Sungard's Skills Matrix dispenses with a wall-sized spreadsheet and allows managers and other staff to find the right employee for a task. Image provided courtesy of Sungard"] Post 6 of 10 in a series of blog posts giving ...
Categorised under: Intranets, intranet innovation awards
November 24, 2009
Roll out the red carpet for your intranet
Rachel Lai has written an article on intranet launches. To quote: When you enter the latest top-rated restaurant in town, the ambience makes you feel: if the restaurant design is warm and intimate, you feel comfortable and relaxed; if the design is hip and leading edge, you feel upbeat ...
Categorised under: Intranets
November 23, 2009
Future principle: provide universal access
In 2015, staff will have universal access to information and functionality, delivered at the point of need, regardless of where they may be. This means going beyond the "intranet as an internal website", a concept that has been holding back intranet teams for many years. A few of the ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Future intranet, Information management, Intranets
Tags: future, Intranets, ubiquitous access
November 23, 2009
The immense value of expertise location will help drive enterprise social media
Ross Dawson has written about the value of expertise location. To quote: I have been interested in the field of expertise location for over a decade, from back when knowledge managers were building 'corporate yellow pages' and other tools to find the best expertise in the organization. Unless a large organization ...
Categorised under: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, Knowledge management
Tags: expertise location, social media
November 20, 2009
I’m going to start talking about the future, and I need your help
Our unwavering efforts over the last 7+ years have been focused on helping teams deliver better intranets. This has all been about "today", and what we can do to make intranets work better. This has involved uncovering successes (and failures) from across the globe, and distilling these into best ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, future, Information management, Intranets
November 19, 2009
A gathering of award winners in San Jose
This morning we held an awards ceremony at KMWorld in San Jose for some of the US-based winners of the Intranet Innovation Awards. In front of the assembled masses, I was delighted to hand over the lovely glass trophies in ...
Categorised under: Conferences & presentations, Intranets, intranet innovation awards
November 18, 2009
Gold winner: Prophet (USA)
[caption id="attachment_3888" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Prophet's in-house designed online performance evaluations system reduced the appraisal process timeframe from two months to one week. Screenshot courtesy of Prophet."] Post 5 of 10 in a series of blog posts giving more insight into this year's ...
Categorised under: Interface design, Intranets, intranet innovation awards
November 18, 2009
Integrating CMS with recordkeeping?
I provided a CMS short-list to a client today, just one of a number of CMS selection projects that we currently have underway. What made this different, however, was the requirement for integration between the CMS and TRIM, their records management system (RMS/EDRMS). Their needs were fairly straightforward: Take documents stored in ...
Categorised under: Content management
Tags: content management systems, integration, recordkeeping, records management
November 18, 2009
Intranets must be task-centric
Gerry McGovern argues that intranets must be task-centric. To quote: Let's say you have an organization of 1,000 people, and 50 of them work in Human Resources (HR). An organization-centric intranet will work great for those 50 people, but it will not work very well for the 950 people who ...
Categorised under: Intranets, Usability & user-centered design
November 18, 2009
Do you really need in-context content editing?
Apoorv Durga asks: do you really need in-context content editing? To quote: Many Web CMS products tout "in-context," wiki-like content editing as an important feature or enhancement. In-context means letting contributors create or edit content from within the context of the site, without actually having to retrieve a content item ...
Categorised under: Content management
November 17, 2009
The collaborative intranet: involving users in intranet designs
Patrick C. Walsh writes about directly involving staff in redesigning the intranet. To quote: So let’s imagine that we’re in the process of designing or re-designing an intranet. We’ve done all our user research and now its that scary time when you have to somehow turn the research into design ...
Categorised under: Intranets, Usability & user-centered design
Tags: Intranets, user-centred design
November 17, 2009
How to create clear web navigation menus
Gerry McGovern has written about the value of clear navigation menus. To quote: Good web navigation is unsubtle. It is clear, precise, familiar, consistent, boring, unemotional. Good navigation is ugly and functional. You've just designed a new plane. It's sleek and ergonomic, fuel efficient yet roomy. You're now sitting with ...
Categorised under: Intranets, Usability & user-centered design
November 12, 2009
Gold winner: Sabre (USA)
[caption id="attachment_3888" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Sabre Town is social networking for the enterprise, an in-house developed, Facebook-style platform that's led to quantifiable savings for the company. Screenshot courtesy of Sabre."] Post 4 of 10 in a series of blog posts giving more insight ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, intranet innovation awards
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, intranet innovation awards, Intranets, social networking, web 2.0
November 10, 2009
Gold winner: IBM (USA)
[caption id="attachment_3888" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="The w3 Toolbar is an active, multi-functional browser tool enabling users to recommend, share and link to content, files and more. Screenshot courtesy of IBM."] Post 3 of 10 in a series of blog posts giving more insight ...
Categorised under: Interface design, Intranets, intranet innovation awards
November 9, 2009
Gold winner: IDEO (USA)
[caption id="attachment_3877" align="alignnone" width="600" caption="Rich people profiles, including projects and availability. Screenshot courtesy of IDEO."][/caption] Post 2 of 10 of a series of blog posts giving more insight into this year’s Intranet ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, intranet innovation awards
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, intranet innovation awards, Intranets, web 2.0
November 9, 2009
Inexpensive ways to target problem areas
Todd Elliott has written an article on remote usability techniques. To quote: Until fairly recently, when designers wanted to test an idea or design, they sought out an outside usability agency or, rented a room, some expensive equipment and recruited users to come into an artificial environment to participate in ...
Categorised under: Usability & user-centered design
Tags: card sorting, remote testing, usability, usability testing
November 8, 2009
Intranet 2.0 after the global financial crisis?
Heading towards the end of the year, it's interesting to start to look back on what has been a roller-coaster of a year. The Global Financial Crisis seems to have transformed everyone's thinking, and the ripples are still being felt in every industry. So what has this meant for the present ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
November 6, 2009
2009 platinum winner: CRS Australia (Australia)
Post 1 of 10. This is the first of a series of blog posts giving more insight into this year's Intranet Innovation Award winners. Workflow inbox and moreCRS Australia (Australia) CRS Australia provides vocational rehabilitation services and assistance for people with ...
Categorised under: Intranets, intranet innovation awards
Tags: integration, intranet innovation awards, Intranets, sap
November 5, 2009
Winners announced for this year’s Intranet Innovation Awards!
The day is finally here, and we're excited to announce the winners of the 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards! These are global awards that celebrate new ideas and innovative approaches to the enhancement and delivery of intranets. Winning entries in 2009 include CRS Australia (Australia), IDEO (USA), IBM (USA), SunGard (USA/NZ), ...
Categorised under: Intranets
November 2, 2009
Top 5 intranet KPIs
Toby Ward writes about intranet KPIs. To quote: Failure to measure your intranet’s performance above and beyond simple analytics (e.g. HITS and page views) is a failure of responsibility (particularly in this economy where most organizations are looking cut costs wherever they find them).
Categorised under: Intranets, Metrics & ROI
November 2, 2009
Organizational collaboration: four foundations – overview
Michael Sampson talks about the four foundations of organisational collaboration. To quote: 1. Summarized Expertise ... Who are the people in your organization, and what are they good at? 2. Correlated Knowledge ... What is known about a particular topic in your organization, and who has demonstrated knowledge in a particular ...
Categorised under: Collaboration
Tags: Collaboration
