Articles by Month: June 2004

Collaboration first, then knowledge management

Matthew Clapp has written a very practical article on implementing collaboration tools. To quote:

You are probably being asked to join more and more global or national working groups with your business peers in other locations, some of whom you've never even met. What is the best way to work together to share common knowledge and drive toward common goals? ECM vendors and knowledge management (KM) specialists often give the same answer: collaboration solutions. Yes, but towards what end?

Posted by jamesr at 05:08 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

The tao of ROI

Sandra Winters has written an article on the issues surrounding ROI. To quote:

ROI analysis is an important part of your due diligence for new IT investment. How could you even think of participating in a new business venture or investing in another company without it? While ROI analysis is a must-do for any self-respecting management team, ROI is often misused and little understood.

[Thanks to the eGovernment Resource Centre.]

Posted by jamesr at 05:35 PM | Permalink
Categories: Metrics & ROI

Topic Maps awareness seminar at the National Library of Australia

Alexander Johannesen has shared his PowerPoint slides from a recent Topic Maps awareness seminar he gave in Canberra. To quote:

On Friday I held a Topic Maps awareness seminar here at the National Library of Australia, and in addition to being well received and jolly good for beginners and learners, it was also done with a 112 slides bullet-point free PowerPoint presentation!

Posted by jamesr at 05:30 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, XML

Don't start with technology

Ann Rockley has written an article on not starting with technology, and only afterwards looking at business needs. To quote:

I've seen dozens of companies waste hundreds of thousands of dollars because they chose their management tools before they had a clear understanding of their business needs, information life cycle and content.

[Thanks to The Content Wrangler.]

Posted by jamesr at 04:16 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Search and taxonomy--why separate teams?

Lou Rosenfeld has written a blog entry about combining search and taxonomy teams. To quote:

To rant a bit, it really drives me nuts to hear people talk of "search and IA" (which they often understand as browsable taxonomies). This is an absolutely false distinction, and leads to poor search design, poor taxonomy design, and perhaps worst of all, missed opportunities to better integrate the two to support finding, IA's ultimate goal. For example, search often is greatly improved when it leverages metadata tags. Metadata therefore should be designed with search in mind. So why separate teams? I don't see any good reason, just a lot of bad ones.

Posted by jamesr at 03:57 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Search tools

Ask Tony: Open source CMS

Tony Byrne has written an "Ask Tony" entry on open source CMS. To quote:

What's your view on Open Source Content Management Systems within the Enterprise? We use a LAMP (Linux Apache MySQL Perl)-style model for our intranet (although the rest of our infrastructure is resolutely MS-based) This decision was based on trying to get a CMS into place for as little cost as possible (so we built one).

Posted by jamesr at 12:53 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

In Auckland

I'm writing this from a hotel room in Auckland, New Zealand. It's good to travel overseas, and I was very pleased to be invited as the "international speaker" at the Strategic Intranet Management conference being held here.

Posted by jamesr at 12:29 PM | Permalink
Categories:

A look at the CMS marketplace

Tony Byrne has written an article looking at the CMS marketplace, as it currently stands. To quote:

Despite some recent turbulence at the enterprise level, the Web content management software industry still supports a plethora of healthy, growing players, in North America, Europe, as well as Asia-Pacific. The good news is that buyers have more solid choices than ever; the bad news is that distinguishing among the different offerings remains as challenging as ever. Still, there are major differences among CMS vendors when you dig deeply.

Posted by jamesr at 03:18 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Marketing and promoting your intranet

Paul Chin has written an article on marketing intranets. To quote:

An intranet is not a marketing vehicle for a product; it is the product. Without proper system promotion, users won't know about the existence of an intranet or the true value of the content contained within it. And the time, money, and effort expended to build an intranet is far too great to hope users will simply happen upon it by chance.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 11:28 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Keeping the website up-to-date

Internally, we have a task-tracking system we use for all our work. Today, we created our 500th task related to the Step Two Designs website. That's a lot of work put into keeping it up-to-date...

Posted by jamesr at 10:46 AM | Permalink
Categories:

Storytelling for leaders

Evelyn Clark has written an article on storytelling for leaders. To quote:

Storytelling is a powerful communication tool that marketing and advertising professionals use very skillfully to promote their companies' products or services. But did you know that stories are also effective as a leadership tool?

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:18 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

An introduction to information architecture

Subha Subramanian has written an introduction to information architecture. To quote:

Information architecture (or IA) is the science -- some would insist art -- of defining the structure, organization, navigation, labelling and indexing of a Website. It is the role of the information architect to decide how a site should be structured, what kind of content it should host, and how to accommodate future growth. In short, information architecture defines the backbone of a Website.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 11:30 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Intranet installed base in the UK

Martin White writes about the estimated number of intranets in the UK. To quote:

The country with the highest intranet penetration is reported to be Canada with 58% of businesses having an intranet. The UK figure is reported at 52%, the USA figure is 48% and 44% for Australia. These figures just seem much too high to me. A 52% penetration in the UK would mean that there are at least 800,000 intranets. I’d like to think so, but that is way above the 9% penetration from the much larger National Statistics figure, even allowing for the survey being conducted a year later. According to the DTI survey the top three uses for intranets in the UK are knowledge-sharing, business helpdesks and personal diaries.

Posted by jamesr at 10:41 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

User experience honeycomb

Peter Morville has published his new user experience honeycomb, which provides a new perspective on the facets of user experience. To quote:

When I broadened my interest from IA to UX, I found the need for a new diagram to illustrate the facets of user experience - especially to help clients understand why they must move beyond usability - and so with a little help from my friends developed the user experience honeycomb.

Posted by jamesr at 10:28 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Making knowledge management work on your intranet

Shiv Singh has written an article on knowledge management and intranets. To quote:

This article discusses typical KM challenges facing large organizations and how a company intranet can be leveraged to create lasting and measurable business value. It does this by examining the relationships between two aspects of knowledge management and how they contribute to a goal-oriented knowledge management initiative. The aspects of knowledge management discussed are people (in the form of communities of practice) and enterprise intranets as knowledge platforms.

These are two topics clearly dear to my heart, and this article does a good job of exploring the issues and approaches...

Posted by jamesr at 10:08 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Knowledge management

Managing content with automatic document classification

Rafael A. Calvo, Jae-Moon Lee and Xiaobo Li have written an academic paper on automatic document classification. To quote:

News articles and Web directories represent some of the most popular and commonly accessed content on the Web. Information designers normally define categories that model these knowledge domains (i.e. news topics or Web categories) and domain experts assign documents to these categories. The paper describes how machine learning and automatic document classification techniques can be used for managing large numbers of news articles, or Web page descriptions, lightening the load on domain experts. The paper uses two datasets, one with with more than 800,000 Reuters news stories and another with over 41,000 Web sites, and classifies them using a Naive Bayes algorithm, into predefined categories. We discuss the different parameters and design decisions that normally appear when building automatic classifiers, including, stemming, stop-words, thresholding, amount of data and approaches for improving performance using the structure in XML documents. The methodology developed would enable Web based applications or workflow systems to manage information more efficiently, i.e. by assigning documents to topics automatically or assisting humans in the process of doing so.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:16 AM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Ten best government intranets

Jakob Nielsen's Alertbox for this month on their ten best government intranets. To quote:

Redesigning an intranet for usability often more than doubled the use of these award-winning designs from ten public-sector organizations.

(Despite the title of the article, I don't believe Nielsen is claiming these are the 10 best public-sector intranets world-wide. At least, I hope he isn't, because the strategies listed are all very widespread.)

Posted by jamesr at 10:07 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, Usability & user-centered design

Enterprise Content Management market share

Brice Dunwoodie reports on the most recent Gartner Dataquest Enterprise Content Management market share report. To quote:

According to the report, the emerging enterprise content management market is now estimated to be worth more than $1 billion, and is still very much in a growth phase.

The worldwide content and document management software market, which includes web content management (WCM) and integrated document management (IDM) grew 9.2 percent in 2003, to $1.03 billion in new license revenue, up from $940 million in 2002.

While it's always interesting to see numbers, I'm going to highlight a few issues I have with these sorts of reports:

• You could be forgiven for thinking that the vendors listed in this sort of research are the only vendors in the world. They aren't.
• Nothing is said about the proportion of total content management sales that the ECM vendors represent. If my experience in Australia is anything to go by, ECM sales are a very small (and falling) percent of overall sales.
• I will confidently argue that the web content management system market is growing much faster than the ECM market.
• These sorts of reports have little meaning in the Australian market (and perhaps in other markets). Most of the vendors listed have little (or no) presence in the local market, and few are prospering.
• Instead, the local market is dominated by smaller, local vendors.
• On the whole, the vast majority of vendors (and there are estimated to be about 1000 worldwide) are "under the radar" for research companies like Gartner.
• While the market for ECM may be growing, nothing is said about whether these systems are successful in organisations. I have my doubts.
• At the end of the day, what do these numbers mean for organisations looking to purchase a CMS? Not much, I would argue.

Anyway, just needed to get that off my chest.

Posted by jamesr at 08:27 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Differing opinions

OK/Cancel have published a comic on the differing opinions that can arise in the interface design process. Most amusing, highly relevant.

Posted by jamesr at 07:28 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Website updates & migrations, how to maintain old URLs

Brice Dunwoodie has written a blog entry on migrating a website when implementing a new CMS. To quote:

If you have an existing website that you are revamping or converting to a new content management system, you must consider what happens to your old URLs.

Not doing so means: 1) you will lose valuable traffic to previously linked or bookmarked resources, 2) you will annoy and possibly lose pre-existing customers, and 3) you will lose valuable search engine ranking and search engine traffic for previously indexed pages.

This is an important issue for any website migration or CMS implementation project that effects change on a website's structure. The good news is that it is easy to deal with.

Posted by jamesr at 11:43 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

90% of all usability testing is useless

Lane Becker has written an article that suggests that 90% of all usability testing is useless. To quote:

Ninety percent of all usability testing performed on Web sites is useless. This is not to say that it doesn't have a significant role to play in user experience design. When done right, usability testing will improve your Web site and your development process, but the current culture surrounding Web site usability testing is such that it rarely benefits the design. Worse, this misapplication can undermine the acceptance of this important technique throughout an organization.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:21 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Too busy for blogging

Apologies for the lack of consistent blogging over the last few weeks, these have been some of the busiest weeks I've had this year. Last week I was in Canberra & Newcastle for four days in total. This week sees me in Melbourne, Newcastle & Canberra (in that order).

All of this travel is for clients looking to purchase a CMS, which is a sign that the industry is definitely getting busier...

Posted by jamesr at 06:44 PM | Permalink
Categories:

How to get great content from people

Gerry McGovern has written an article on delivering great content. To quote:

There is a need to connect the person who creates the content with the person who reads it. Content creation must be seen as an important and valuable task within the organization. When a piece of content delivers value, the person who created it should be praised and rewarded.

Posted by jamesr at 06:51 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Back to patterns

Denham Grey has written an blog entry on using patterns as part of knowledge management. To quote:

Need to capture experience and expertise?, introduce new ideas into your organization?, want a template to document rationale and good practice?, wish to explain and teach novices?, share solutions that have been tested and validated?, provide a 'language' to convey & improve difficult concepts?

Posted by jamesr at 11:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Sydney IA Hour - Thursday June 17th

Eric Scheid has announced the details for the next IA Hour in Sydney. I can't make this one, but the past evenings have been well worth the effort. Details as follows:

Sydney IA folks are once again invited to the monthly IA Hour.

Who: IAs and like-minded folks
When: Thursday June 17th @ 7:00pm
Where: Out of India Restaurant, Victoria St, Potts Point
RSVP: eric@ironclad.net.au

This is an informal event with no agenda other then hanging out and gabbing about Information Architecture stuff. Everyone is invited, and you don't necessarily have to be an Information Architect to come. The more diverse the group the better.

If you are thinking of coming along then please drop Eric a line so he has some idea of numbers.

Posted by jamesr at 08:14 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture

Knowledge sharing at the World Bank

The World Bank has always been very well known for their knowledge sharing initiatives, and these are explored on their very interesting website. To quote:

Knowledge sharing at the World Bank has evolved over time. From an early emphasis on capturing and organizing knowledge, its focus now is on adopting, adapting, and applying knowledge in a way that helps World Bank staff, clients, and partners work more effectively to reduce global poverty.

[Thanks to David Gurteen.]

Posted by jamesr at 07:51 PM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

List of Enterprise Content Management Systems

Erik M. Hartman has put out a call to vendors to add themselves on the Hartman Communicatie list of Enterprise Content Management Systems. To quote:

Hartman Communicatie has improved its overview of content management systems. At this overview visitors can select specific products and ask questions about these products.

All vendors and open source community members are invited to submit their product, using an on line form.

Posted by jamesr at 07:05 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Capturing user experience closes the feedback loop

Jon Udell has written an article on portable usability testing equipment and software. To quote:

Developers who possess deep but tacit knowledge of complex hardware and software environments are notoriously unable to project themselves into the beginner's mind. Observation is the only way to bridge the gap, but Pausch's innovative exercise notwithstanding, that's easier said than done. It's expensive to rent a so-called "fixed lab" and to bring people there to conduct a formal study. Even commercial developers can't do this routinely; many enterprise developers never get the opportunity to see users interact with their wares.

Portable labs -- available from Alucid Solution, Ovo Studios, and UserWorks, among others -- are a cheaper and more convenient alternative to fixed labs. These are typically suitcases packed with gear for capturing and editing videos of both onscreen activities and the users performing them.

Posted by jamesr at 06:44 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

How to use weblogs to create engaging learning experiences

Maish Nichani has written an article on using weblogs to support learning. To quote:

In conclusion, I would like to stress that the informal and engaging attributes of the weblog format can be used even in the light of tightly scheduled and highly focused training situations. The simple alternatives outlined in this paper can liberate us from the tyranny of product-oriented delivery and help us build continuous, engaging and memorable learning experiences.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 06:27 PM | Permalink
Categories: E-learning, Weblogs

Intranet Mentoring Programme

For a while now we've been slowly moving away from a traditional consulting model, to a coaching and mentoring approach. This is much more effective for our clients (and more enjoyable for us), and it really helps organisations to build their internal capabilities regarding intranet development and management.

I'm therefore very excited to announce our new Intranet Mentoring Programme. This provides a concrete framework for obtaining our services as intranet mentors.

The intranet mentoring programme will:

• build internal capabilities and experience
• provide the skills and techniques needed by the intranet team
• assist during the planning and redevelopment of the intranet
• improve the effectiveness of the intranet
• target resources to key needs and issues
• provide access to best practice approaches from across the industry

Read the 10-page programme brochure for full details on the Intranet Mentoring Programme.

Posted by jamesr at 01:14 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Enough is enough... but five probably isn't

Kath Straub looks at how many users to usability test. To quote:

Listeners get frustrated because the debate rages with the same opinions and no new and compelling data. The answer to the "how-many-users" question is important. However entertaining, the fact that there is no resolution frustrates practitioners who need to know how to justify the choice to test five (6? 10? 90? 150?) users to their management. Understanding the "right" answer (and why it is right) is particularly important for individuals institutionalizing their usability practice. They need to make critical decisions on how to prioritize activities with limited staff time and within a limited budget and a short window to build credibility. So, really... This year they will tell us, right? How many users?

[Thanks to Donna.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Blogs and CoPs: Can blogging replace communities of practice?

A discussion on Knowledgeboard explores the relationship of blogs and communities of practice. To quote:

Before the development of weblogs, "online community" tools like forums, mailing lists and bulletin boards were predominantly used for community building. Experience seems to show that weblogs are proving far more effective in creating meaningful interpersonal connections than centralized community spaces on the web. Can networks of bloggers be seen as the future of online communities?

[Thanks to Jack Vinson.]

Posted by jamesr at 11:52 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management, Weblogs

Phantom authority, self–selective recruitment and retention of members in virtual communities: The case of Wikipedia

Andrea Ciffolilli has written a very interesting article on the dynamics and growth of the Wikipedia. To quote:

This paper employs team and club good theory as well as transaction cost economics to analyse the Wikipedia online community, which is devoted to the creation of a free encyclopaedia. An interpretative framework explains the outstanding success of Wikipedia thanks to a novel solution to the problem of graffiti attacks — the submission of undesirable pieces of information. Indeed, Wiki technology reduces the transaction cost of erasing graffiti and therefore prevents attackers from posting unwanted contributions.

The issue of the sporadic intervention of the highest authority in the system is examined, and the relatively more frequent local interaction between users is emphasized.

The constellation of different motivations that participants may have is discussed, and the barriers–free recruitment process analysed.

A few suggestions, meant to encourage long term sustainability of knowledge assemblages, such as Wikipedia, are provided. Open issues and possible directions for future research are also discussed.

I've been saying for a while now that the Wikipedia has got to be a good case study for some KM research...

[Thanks to logos.]

Posted by jamesr at 11:26 AM | Permalink
Categories: Knowledge management

Self-sufficiency in a CMS

My second CM Briefing looks at self-sufficiency in a CMS. To quote:

While it is important to identify key functional requirements when selecting a content management system (CMS), some of the most important issues relate to how the CMS works, rather that what it does.

In particular, the issue of self-sufficiency is one that should be addressed by all organisations looking to purchase a content management system.

Posted by jamesr at 06:19 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, James' articles

Have we seen the perfect intranet?

The first of my two CM Briefings answers the question: have we seen the perfect intranet? To quote:

We have been lucky enough to see quite a few intranets across a diverse range of intranets, in both the public and private sectors.

Knowing this, we are often asked the question: so who has the perfect intranet? In most cases, the reason for asking this question is to find out who to visit, to see how to get an intranet right.

Our answer, however, is: we haven't seen a perfect intranet. While this is often a very disappointing (or even disheartening) response, it is valuable to explore some reasons.

Posted by jamesr at 06:06 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, James' articles

User-centred redesign of the FaCS intranet

Our KM Column article for this month is a case study written by Donna Maurer on the User-centred redesign of the FaCS intranet. To quote:

Following a user-centred design process proved invaluable. Conducting extensive user research at the beginning of the project, and then involving staff in design and testing activities throughout the process ensured that by the final stages there were no major surprises.

In many ways, this was a 'textbook' application of user-centred techniques to the redevelopment of a large Government intranet, and it serves as a useful model for other organisations looking to tackle the same issues.

Posted by jamesr at 05:58 PM | Permalink
Categories: Information architecture, Intranets, Usability & user-centered design

User-centered research: a status report

Paul Rothstein and Michelle Tornello Shirey have written a status report on user-centred research. To quote:

During the past twenty years, user-centered research (UCR) has become an increasingly common and important part of contemporary product development. The origins of this approach to design and development actually stretch back to the beginning of industrial design in America. Starting in the 1940s and 1950s, Henry Dreyfuss, widely considered the father of industrial design in the United States, practiced a method of design that clearly focused on studying people’s behaviors and attitudes as a first step in designing successful products. During the next forty to fifty years, Dreyfuss’ example served as motivation for other highly successful and influential designers (e.g., Robert Probst, Jay Doblin, Niels Different and William Stumpf) to adopt a user-centered research and design approach.

[Thanks to InfoDesign.]

Posted by jamesr at 10:40 AM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design