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Column Two
News and opinion on all things KM & CM |
James Robertson
Step Two Designs
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Written by James Robertson Step Two Designs |
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Articles by Month: April 2008
Making collaboration workI was co-facilitating the Intranet Leadership Forum workshop in Melbourne today, and we started the day with a discussion around collaboration. We covered a variety of questions, but one key topic was: how do we make collaboration work well? In five minutes the group had brainstormed the following list:
Need I say more... Posted by jamesr at 11:42 PM
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16 days until the Intranet Innovation Awards closesIt's now only 16 days until entries for the 2008 Intranet Innovation Awards closes, on 16 May 2008. We're aware of a lot of organisations who are planning on submitting this year, so you don't want to miss out! Winners of the inaugural awards demonstrated a wide range of ideas, and have been very generous in sharing these for the benefit of the wider community. In return, they gained much-deserved recognition, including YouTube interviews, writeups in major journals, and inclusion in the Intranet Innovations 2007 report (not to mention receiving a beautiful glass trophy!). This year will be even bigger, with entries covering many individual improvements to intranets. These may include valuable staff directory enhancements, powerful search tools, delivery of information to Blackberries, interactive features on intranets, new ways of meeting frontline needs, or interesting intranet applications, just to mention a few ideas. We also have an international judging panel this year, consisting of four intranet experts across four continents:
Putting in an entry should only take an afternoon, or slightly longer if you want more time to polish. Full details can be found on the awards page. A reminder of some useful resources:
Good luck! Posted by jamesr at 11:27 PM
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5 ways to improve customer service in call centresIain Barker has written about 5 ways to improve customer service in call centres. To quote: Over the last few years I’ve conducted a number of contextual research studies in call centres. It is an interesting environment in which to conduct contextual research. Generally I’ve double-jacked in to calls, observing how the customer service consultants address the queries, and then asked a few questions of the customer service consultants. Posted by jamesr at 08:00 AM
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Collaboration tools: STAGSMatt Moore has published his STAGS model for collaboration tools. To quote: I've been thinking about different collaboration tools for various groups recently and I was pondering on some of the different factors you need to consider and I came up with this (click to enlarge). Posted by jamesr at 10:00 AM
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Pilots and avoiding trainingWhen in Melbourne this last week, we ended up in a crowded restaurant, sitting next to a pair of pilots. From one of the major international airlines, they were enjoying a 48-hour layover in Australia, between long-haul trips. Inevitably, the discussion touched upon intranets, whereopon they exclaimed: "Ours is awful! We need to get you over to fix it!". That aside, they also told a very interesting story about their training systems. Apparently a new "home study" program has been recently put in place. A fairly typical e-learning system, the pilots read through a number of screens of information, and then answer a short quiz at the end to verify their comprehension. All pretty standard stuff, and expected for a globally dispersed workplace. What was very interesting was how the pilots had reacted to this. First off, they didn't like it, and thought it was pointless. So some got their kids to click through the pages, rewarding them with sweets. The two pilots we were talking to used a tool called "auto click", which they'd downloaded off the net. This automatically fed clicks through to the web application, allowing them to go off and do something else while the e-learning system paged through. They also talked about getting to the quiz at the end, and then deliberately dropping their internet connection. This would reset the application, allowing them to go back through the information screens knowing exactly what questions were going to be asked. This highlights the huge gap that exists between corporate hopes and frontline realities. (I'm sure the e-learning program isn't cheap to run.) It also demonstrates the value of conducting "needs analysis" to understand the true issues and environment of staff. As ever, I'm also amazed at how willingly people will volunteer their actual practices when asked, despite clearly being in breach of corporate policies. This story came out in the first 15 minutes of chatting, and all it really takes is someone showing a genuine interest... Posted by jamesr at 09:40 AM
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More reasons that a content management company will go out of businessGeorge Dearing has listed more reasons that a CMS vendor will go out of business. To quote: The next five reasons on my list come from an ECM executive who asked to remain anonymous because he said it would be too obvious which company he's talking about, and he's already been accused of having a bad attitude. Because that was such an interesting comment, I've decided to add it in as reason 5-1/2 that a content management company will go out of business: Posted by jamesr at 09:33 AM
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What do innovative intranets look like? [+ audio] | ViewFor those who missed my talk at the recent IA Summit in Miami, here's my full presentation (including audio). In it, I walk through a number of the winners from the inaugural Intranet Innovation Awards, as well as answering questions on what they've done. Pointers are also given on where to focus innovation efforts, and how to deliver a more valuable intranet. (Don't forget that entries for this year's Intranet Innovation Awards are now open, with a closing date of 16 May 2008. This talk should give you some good ideas about what to submit, and you should also read through the How to win an Intranet Innovation Award presentation on Slideshare.) Posted by jamesr at 08:13 AM
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Actual benefits from enterprise 2.0Andrew McAfee writes of an example of benefits from enterprise 2.0, as provided by one of his business students. To quote: The comment had come from a low-level marketing manager located in a satellite office. In his remarks submitted to the CEO’s blog, the marketing manager openly questioned Chemco’s sacred cow - its ability to wring costs out of a process and to successfully operate an ultra-lean efficient organization. Specifically, he questioned the importance of one of the company’s favorite metrics (something they are extremely proud of); I’ll call it Metric A. (This is also a great example of the power of simple storytelling, much more engaging and powerful than numbers.) Posted by jamesr at 11:37 AM
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Compliance is a dirty wordAlan Pelz-Sharpe has written about the issues with compliance. To quote: If there is one word I hate to hear used in this industry it's the word compliance. Posted by jamesr at 10:00 AM
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Benefits of plain english URLsGadgetopia has written about the benefits of plain english URLs in a CMS. To quote: The plain-english URLs are more memorable to the customer, and they impart some meaning. When picking URLs, we envison someone at the client’s firm reading the URL to someone over the phone. How easy is it going to be? Posted by jamesr at 09:49 AM
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Managing taxonomiesJames Kelway has written a post on the process for managing taxonomies. To quote: Taxonomy creep inevitably occurs to all sites and there is a need to be able to monitor and adjust the taxonomies without impacting on the user experience or the workflow of the content producers. Here I propose to set out a process that businesses can employ that will ensure their taxonomies are accurate. That they reflect the industry, user groups and business objectives of the site and will utilize their web technologies and people available. [Thanks to Patrick Lambe.] Posted by jamesr at 09:00 AM
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Photo: Crescent (II)As you can see, I'm enjoying taking these stitched-together photos. It certainly provides a different view of the South Beach art deco architecture in Miami... Posted by jamesr at 10:43 AM
Questions to ask before replacing corporate emailDennis McDonald has written an article on replacing corporate email. To quote: Email is not necessarily a good collaboration tool. This document discusses some of the questions you can ask about your organization’s current use of email and how improvements can be made. Also discussed is email’s impact on the adoption of new tools more suited to supporting workgroups and collaboration such as blogs, wikis, and groupsites for sharing information about people and projects. Posted by jamesr at 11:27 AM
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Call for papers: Open Publish 2008 (Sydney)Open Publish 2008 is an event focused on issues such as improving the quality of information, better productivity for users and reducing non-productive costs. It will be of particular interest to those who believe in the potential of technology but understand the importance of people. By combining the flexible collaboration of a user group with input from the leading thinkers and practitioners in publishing, Open Publish fosters meaningful discussion in the publishing community. The conference is now calling for speaking proposals about the management and implementation of publishing technology based on open standards. With attendees drawn from both government and enterprise, presentations should explore the technology, business and human factors that are driving change in the publishing process. Examples of some topics of interest are:
Further details about presenting a conference session or delivering a tutorial can be found on the Speaker's Information page. Posted by jamesr at 09:39 AM
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Language reality checkpoints - moving targetsJane McConnell has written an article containing language reality checkpoints. To quote: Language strategies are moving targets, evolving along with your enterprise strategy and business and operational changes. You need to start by asking the right questions, then once you know what you’d like to achieve, see how technology can help you, how much it will cost and what organizational changes are needed. This article proposes some “reality checkpoints” you will find helpful when analyzing your needs. Posted by jamesr at 01:07 AM
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Enterprise RSS, what? | ViewJames Dellow has published to Slideshare a deck that could be used as part of the upcoming Enterprise RSS Day of Action. Posted by jamesr at 12:54 AM
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The importance of being firstSteve Arnold has written a post on the importance of the first page of search results. To quote: Alex Moskalyuk’s Web log contained a posting on April 10, 2008, that asserted “68 percent of search engine users click on the first page of results.” The story appeared in his Web log on Ziff-Davis’ ZDNet.com site. These data can be tough to find after a few days. Please, access the story and capture the data, which are from iProspect, a unit of the Aegis Group. Posted by jamesr at 12:55 AM
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Designing ethical experiences: some practical suggestionsJoe Lamantia has written an article on ethical approaches to design, as a way of resolving conflicts between stakeholders and users. To quote: In the future, designers will lead the creation of increasingly multilateral, multidimensional, and co-created experiences. Such integrated experiences could introduce substantial, new potential sources of conflict—thanks to their greater interconnectedness and complexity. Therefore, I suggested this clear imperative in response to this potentially conflicted future: Design must find effective ways of managing conflict, encourage the creation of ethical experiences, and avoid ethically unsatisfactory compromises. Posted by jamesr at 12:51 AM
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Top 5 reasons a content management company will go out of businessGeorge Dearing has written a list of 5 reasons a CMS vendor will go bust. To quote: Several months ago a content management vendor told me that the oncoming recession was causing it problems with revenue generation. I said perhaps, but it's also possible its problems were related to the fact that its customers were really angry and really vocal. It's too easy to blame market conditions without taking a hard look in the mirror sometimes. Posted by jamesr at 04:50 AM
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Six phases of intranet evolution (including audio) | ViewI've been talking about the evolution of intranets for some time now, at conferences and workshops around the globe. What I haven't done, until this point, is share this model more broadly. I've now uploaded the slides to Slideshare, with a related audio track recorded at the IA Summit in Miami, Florida. This outlines the following phases:
This should give an in-depth of idea of the model, and please do leave comments with your thoughts or feedback. (If nothing else, this is the first time I've tried this format.) Posted by jamesr at 12:54 AM
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Photo: The CarlyleI'm currently in Miami, speaking at the IA Summit. It's been great to finally get some sun, after rain in Sydney for so long. This is a stitching of the art deco waterfront along South Beach. These photos are a lot of fun to take, although it does leave my laptop crunching numbers for several hours... Posted by jamesr at 12:14 AM
NSW Department of Primary Industries intranet demonstration (Canberra)When Kate Needham demonstrated her award-winning intranet in Sydney a month or two ago, the sesions sold out in a matter of days. So if you'd like to see the same demonstration in Canberra, you'd better be quick! Details as follows:
Posted by jamesr at 10:32 PM
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London workers hampered by information graveyards, survey claimsSara Yirrell reports on a results of a survey into search satisfaction, conducted by an enterprise search vendor. To quote: According to the results, 59 per cent of workers questioned said the search tools provided by their company were either poor or very poor. In addition, 46 per cent said that information searches within their organisation were 'generic and not comprehensive'. [Thanks to Steve Arnold.] Posted by jamesr at 09:44 AM
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Menuing in content management: implicit vs. explicitGadgetopia has written an article on implicit vs explicit menuing, when using a CMS. To quote: Navigation is often a pain when it comes to content management. Now, don’t confuse “navigation” with information architecture — that grand plan of what goes where in relation to what. Posted by jamesr at 06:07 AM
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Australian Museum uses Open Calais to tag collectionJosh Catone has written about Australian Museum tagging their online collection. To quote: The automatically generated tags at right were created by the API for some swim wear designed by Speedo for the 1991 Australian swimming team that competed at the World Swimming Championships in Perth. Open Calais was correctly able to identify some important locations in the document -- Perth where the competition took place, and Sydney where Speedo is based -- as well as an important corporation (Speedo). It also picked up the name of the designer, and the name of the person who owned the suits before the museum. Posted by jamesr at 09:01 AM
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Search behavior & designPeter Morville has added more images to his Flickr set, relating to search behaviour and design. To quote: What do we know about user behavior as it relates to search? How can we best illustrate common or interesting patterns of search behavior? And, how do we use what we learn to improve the design of search applications? Posted by jamesr at 08:59 AM
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In-context vs back-end authoringMost modern content management systems provide two different ways of editing site content: in-context editing and back-end editing. While in-context editing is often seen as 'sexier', each method has its strengths and weaknesses. This briefing will explore these two editing options, providing advice on when to use them in practice. In-context editing In-context editing allows authors to browse the published website, using site navigation in the normal way to find the desired page. By clicking a small or hidden button (or some other equivalent action), they can switch into editing mode, updating the content of the page in place. During editing, the author can see how the published page appears, including the formatting of the text. By updating the content 'in context', the author can immediately see the finished product, even as changes are being made. Depending on the vendor, this functionality may be called different things, including 'live site editing', 'in place editing' or 'surf-to-edit'. The big advantage of this method is its simplicity. Authors are familiar with the structure of the published site, and comfortable with navigating through it. By hiding most of the underlying complexity of the CMS, this alllows authors to concentrate on updating the content. For these reasons, in-context editing is often seen as the more usable authoring option. It is also commonly seen as a more 'modern' option for updating the site. In-context editing is not without weaknesses. The very simplicity of the interfaces makes some tasks harder, or at least, less obvious. [CM Briefing 2008-04, read the full article] Posted by jamesr at 12:12 AM
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Clean up your LDAP or Active DirectoryA lot of intranet and portal projects aim to deliver functionality related to personalisation or customisation. This may involve tailoring information based on staff role, delivering news relevant for specific offices, or limiting access to information based on seniority. Any of these capabilities requires the system to know who staff are, the business unit they belong to, and where they sit in the real world. Unfortunately, too many of these projects run aground before they start because a key piece of IT infrastructure has not been correctly put in place. LDAP and Active Directory Sitting invisibly behind the scenes in organisations is the 'authentication' platform run by IT. In simple terms, this contains the usernames and passwords staff use when they log on to their PCs each morning. Over time, these details have been migrated into one of two standards: LDAP (an open industry standard) or Active Directory (the Microsoft variant of the same thing). These expanded 'directory services' have the ability to store much more than just names and passwords. If configured to do so, they can contain all the information that is in the internal phone directory or staff directory, including job titles, business unit names, locations and more. The most obvious benefit to come from putting in place these new standards is the progressive move towards 'single sign-on', allowing one username and password to be used across a wide range of corporate systems. Crucially for intranet and portal projects, LDAP or Active Directory is also the source of the information needed to drive personalisation and customisation. [CM Briefing 2008-03, read the full article] Posted by jamesr at 12:08 AM
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Using cultural probes for intranet user researchOften it's difficult to tell exactly who is using an intranet, and how they are using it. Obviously, some research is required to help answer these questions, but what technique can capture the tacit knowledge without shadowing users in an uncomfortable and expensive way? A relatively recent research technique that can be very useful in this situation is known as a 'cultural probe'. In essence, the technique involves getting users to give you information without you actually being there. Often this means giving them a diary to write things down in, but the technique can make use of all manner of objects. The name of the technique usually raises some eyebrows, but it is also known by other names, such as: 'diary study', 'cognitive probe', 'reality research' and 'multimedia study'. In a departure from the typical KM column format, this article follows an interview with well-known proponent of probes, Gerry Gaffney, founder of Melbourne-based user experience consultancy Information and Design. Step Two Designs recently talked with Gerry about his experience in using cultural probes, in particular for intranet design research. S2D: What are cultural probes? GG: First of all, I don't like the term probes. It's not a very client friendly term. To me, it's a bit like saying 'heuristic evaluation' -- while practitioners might have some idea what we mean by those terms, and even that in my experience is not a given -- clients certainly don't know what we mean by it. Having said that, 'cultural probe' is actually a very good description of what these things are about. If you think about a probe as something you send off into the unknown -- typically I use the analogy of a space probe like Voyager -- it's something that goes somewhere where we can't go ourselves and transmits back data. So 'probe' is a very appropriate word. And 'cultural' is a very appropriate word too, because it is looking at culture in terms of the way people act, behave and what their beliefs are. But while it's a very accurate name, it's still rather obscuring. I would typically use the term 'diary study' when talking to a client because people will know what you mean, which is you give people a diary and ask them to fill it in every day, or whatever. That's essentially what a cultural probe is about, you give people the materials to enable them to self-report and send information back to you. [April KM Column written by Patrick Kennedy, read the full article] Posted by jamesr at 12:04 AM
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Call for speakers: JBoye08 (Denmark)Last year I had the great pleasure of speaking at the JBoye conference in Denmark. All in all, a very worthwhile event, with good talks and many friendly conversations. While I won't be making it back this year (only so much travelling I can do!), I'll nonetheless highlight the call for speakers that has just gone out. If you're active in the content management, portal, website or intranet space, then definitely consider putting in a proposal. After all, who wouldn't want an excuse to visit beautiful Denmark... Posted by jamesr at 09:48 AM
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The fine art of wireframesT. Scott Stromberg has written a beautiful post on the art of wireframes in information architecture. To quote: One of the greatest advantages of sketching is that it can become a foundational tool which can easily be used to more fully explore your design treatments and architectural studies. The ability to hand-craft wireframes might take some practice, but the benefits gained from their use in client presentations can be priceless. High-fidelity, computer-generated deliverables can be a perfectly adequate way to present your ideas, but there is something liberating about being able to break out a pen and paper and clearly record creative ideas without the use of a computer. Likewise, there is also a special credibility gained with clients when your deliverables are handcrafted and unique—especially when they excite and empower your audience to participate in the creative process. [Thanks to Peter Van Dijck.] Posted by jamesr at 08:59 AM
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Photo: Space invader in ParisI was very pleased to find a space invader when I was recently in Paris. Just walking around the street, and there it was, perched on a wall in a nondescript location. Very exciting! What is all this about? There is an artist called "Invader" who puts up these novel forms of grafitti, not just throughout Paris, but internationally. You can read more about him on Wikipedia. Posted by jamesr at 08:50 AM
Getting to know collective and collaborativeThomas Vander Wal has written an article that differentiates between collective and collaborative. To quote: One of the things that has been a little bothersome in the last year or two and has been the lack of understanding between the difference between two terms, collaborative and collective. The two terms are rather similar in definition (in some dictionaries they are nearly identical), but the differences between the two terms have a huge difference when it comes to value in social software. This difference and value is often overlooked or missed by those crafting these tools and services, which I hope gets corrected as both have great value and compliment each other. Posted by jamesr at 11:09 AM
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A case for Movable Type as your IntranetGadgetopia have written an article on using Movable Type as your intranet. To quote: Here’s a fact: intranets don’t have to be crazy-complicated. Intranets are fundamentally about sharing simple information, which is not as hard as some people make it out to be. As simple as this is, most organizations either have no intranet, or a smattering of HTML pages someone threw together with Front Page that no one looks at. I’m all for keeping intranet technology simple, but I think this article misses the point. I’ve previously identified four fundamental purposes for an intranet:
I would see a lightweight publishing solution such as Movable Type as being a pretty good fit for the communication component, but perhaps not the rest. The content aspect needs to be supported by decentralised authoring, and MT just doesn’t support this in a scalable way. The collaboration aspect pretty much always needs to be supported by additional software, whether it’s wikis or SharePoint. The activity aspect is the big gap, as it is for most intranets. If the intranet is just a “place for reading stuff”, it won’t succeed. Instead, it also needs to be a “place for doing stuff”, and this obviously isn’t MT. In summary, we need to take a broader view of intranets, if they are to be valuable and used. This doesn’t necessarily mean more complex (or more expensive!) software, but it does mean we need to be careful about not getting trapped in one particular box. PS. you can read an earlier article describing was then the “three purposes of an intranet”. In the way of these things, collaboration was (sensibly) added shortly after this article was released, giving a much more complete picture. Posted by jamesr at 11:45 AM
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Managing and Growing Your Intranet (Auckland & Wellington)I'll be running a pair of two-day Managing and Growing Your Intranet masterclasses in New Zealand in May. These have a huge amount of information packed in, and they'll be further tuned with the latest thinking between now and May. The key details:
Despite NZ being so close (comparatively!) to Australia, I don't seem to get across the ditch very often. So this will be the only time I'll be running these workshops in NZ this year... Posted by jamesr at 09:58 AM
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Think like a userAnn Rockley has written an article on thinking like a user when designing documentation. To quote: When assembling a document (or creating the required information the first time), it’s important to ask not ‘what do I need to see here?’, but ‘what does the user need to see here?’. The differences may be small, but they are often important. Posted by jamesr at 09:09 AM
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