I've been talking about the future of how staff will work in organisations, starting with Sarah's first day, and then exploring products and innovation. An important question has been raised by more than a few people: So is this still the intranet? Or should we be calling it something different? An ...
Blog category: Information management
February 11, 2010 by James Robertson
Future principle: it’s more than the intranet
Tags: enterprise experience, future, Information management, information systems, Intranets, strategy
January 22, 2010 by James Robertson
Recordkeeping’s hill to climb
I've just spent the last two days helping an Australian government agency develop their web CMS requirements. As one might expect, the topic of recordkeeping came up, and how it should relate the CMS and intranet. I also had a long conversation at the end of the first day with ...
Tags: recordkeeping, records management
December 8, 2009 by James Robertson
Future scenario: starting a new job
Another year, another job. After 18 months in the last job, and a few months looking for work, Sarah is starting into her new role. The firm seems sounder than the last one, and its consumer products are red hot right ...
November 23, 2009 by James Robertson
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 ...
Tags: future, Intranets, ubiquitous access
October 26, 2009 by James Robertson
An information charter
Martin White has posted an information charter for organisations. To quote: The genesis of the Charter was a particularly challenging project to develop an information management strategy for a major pharmaceutical company, and then having to condense it into a single PowerPoint slide for an internal presentation. Driving home from ...
Tags: Information management
September 1, 2009 by James Robertson
Enterprises should live in a mobile world
Mobile devices have changed radically. In just the last two years new devices, such as the iPhone and modern Blackberries, have transformed the ability to access the net. Gone is clunky WAP, in is an amazing user experience away from the desk. Have enterprises taken advantage of this? In this year's ...
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, mobile devices
August 20, 2009 by James Robertson
Intranets: defining IA and UX in the Enterprise-wide Information System (Part 1)
Patrick C. Walsh looks and information architecture, intranets and information management. To quote: In my view the EIS must consider all instances of information and knowledge transfer that take place within an organisation. This does not mean that it is possible to actually manage all transactions. For instance the tacit ...
Tags: Information architecture, Information management, Intranets, user experience
June 9, 2009 by James Robertson
Recordkeeping and Toastmasters
Last week I met up with a former CIO of a local council in Queensland. We've done work together on-and-off over a number of years, and he'd recently moved into a new job in Sydney. He shared a number of stories about the work they'd been doing up in Queensland, ...
Tags: recordkeeping, records management
April 14, 2009 by James Robertson
New report: Governance and support for SharePoint team sites
I'm pleased to announce the release of our latest report: Governance and support for SharePoint team sitesA best practice case study Microsoft SharePoint is now rapidly spreading through organisations. In terms of team collaboration, this is meeting a very real need. If unmanaged, however, this explosive growth will generate ...
Tags: Collaboration, governance, team
March 27, 2009 by James Robertson
It’s time for seat-based software licensing to end
Kas Thomas writes that it's time for seat-based software licensing to end. To quote: Given the situation we're in, now might be as good a time as any for potential buyers of software systems -- and licensees whose contract renewals are coming up -- to declare war on per-seat pricing.
Tags: licensing
March 23, 2009 by James Robertson
Does your intranet close the business process loop?
Intranets are great places for staff to ‘get things done’. In tough economic times, many organisations are rediscovering that their intranet can be a very cost-effective way to help staff get things done more efficiently. By finding the holdups in everyday business processes, and fixing them, intranet teams are able to ...
Tags: business process, Intranets
March 16, 2009 by James Robertson
Christening your ECM project
Alan Pelz-Sharpe writes about naming your ECM project. To quote: It has always surprised me how many firms name their internal ECM applications and systems after the product that it runs on. For example, I have come across many organizations over the years that tell me things like-
Tags: ecm
March 3, 2009 by James Robertson
Announcing the ECM Maturity Model
CMS Watch, Wipro, Hartman Communicatie, and Smigiel Consulting Group have published Version 1.0 of an Enterprise Content Management Maturity Model (ECM3 in short). To quote: Like all maturity models, it is partly descriptive and partly prescriptive. You can apply the model to audit, assess, and explain your current state, as ...
Tags: ecm, Information management, maturity, model
March 2, 2009 by James Robertson
Picking the right supplier in a recession
Alan Pelz-Sharpe writes about picking the right supplier in a recession. To quote: "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM" -- so the saying goes. And in tough times there is without a shadow of a doubt, a tendency for procurement and IT buyers in general to lean heavily toward ...
February 24, 2009 by James Robertson
Battling ECM and E2.0
Alan Pelz-Sharpe has written a post about the conflict between ECM and Enterprise 2.0. To quote: For the past year or so there seems to have been a battlefield of sorts emerging between proponents of social networking and all things E2.0 and the more "traditional" proponents of ECM. The difference ...
Tags: ecm, Enterprise 2.0
February 11, 2009 by James Robertson
Custom code, CMS and portals
In the early days, intranets and websites consisted of pages and pages of static content. Originally published by hand, many of these sites migrated to a content management system (CMS) in due course. Over time, more sites started to include a range of rich interactive functionality. This included publishing content from ...
January 16, 2009 by James Robertson
Green IT versus blue sky
Kas Thomas has written an article on the challenges in centralising content management to save the environment. To quote: More and more these days, content lives at the edges of the network, on laptops and desktop machines and collaboration servers (and in SQL Server instances that support a group's SharePoint ...
December 5, 2008 by James Robertson
You don’t need an ECM strategy
Janus Boye has written a post arguing that you don’t need an ECM strategy. To quote: Over the last years, I’ve heard consultants, analysts, experts, gurus and even some vendors preach that strategy is the vital ingredient that’s too often missing in many organisations. For ECM projects, I certainly agree ...
November 6, 2008 by James Robertson
Online education courses from CMS Watch
CMS Watch are some of the wisest folks in the enterprise content management market. Their pragmatic and fearless reviews are built on an encyclopedic knowledge of products and vendors, and they've also learnt a lot about what works (and what doesn't). That makes their recently-launched online education courses of ...
Tags: content management systems, courses, enterprise content management, training
October 23, 2008 by James Robertson
Enterprise software: focus on user adoption, not features
Jason Rothbart has recommended that enterprise projects focus on user adoption, not features. To quote: Effective user adoption is the absolute best predictor of enterprise software success. That was one of the key takeaways for me from the OpenAir User Conference this week. According to a study done by the Sand ...
September 30, 2008 by James Robertson
Best-practice approach to SharePoint team spaces
SharePoint is rapidly spreading through organisations at the moment, and in terms of team collaboration, this is a good thing. There is a very real need to be met, and it will require a mix of tools, including team spaces. That being said, we've argued before that the unmanaged spread of ...
Tags: Collaboration, innovation, intranet innovation awards, Intranets, team spaces
September 24, 2008 by James Robertson
Implementing records management: the morning after
Ganesh Vednere has written about the activities after a records management system has been implemented. To quote: So you've chosen the right records management (RM) package, got the smartest developers in your firm to design and develop the solution, and today you successfully went into production with the application. Lo ...
Tags: edrms, records management, rm
September 1, 2008 by James Robertson
Easy Pickings
Patrick Lambe writes about the dangers of pursuing low-hanging fruit, and outlines his "REACH" planning model. To quote: Mary sums up brilliantly: “Collecting low-hanging fruit is a knowledge management tactic NOT a legitimate strategy. Strategy sets your goals and gives you a reason for the projects you undertake and the methods ...
Tags: Knowledge management, low hanging fruit, pilot, strategy
August 26, 2008 by James Robertson
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 ...
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, governance, Information management, Intranets, personalisation, triangles, web 2.0
August 20, 2008 by James Robertson
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 ...
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July 1, 2008 by James Robertson
JSR 286: The last portlet standard?
Janus Boye has written about the release of JSR 286, the latest portlet standard. To quote: Standards generally go missing in this marketplace, but judging from the very limited attention this new version of the portlet spec has received, it makes me wonder whether the marketplace has already left the ...
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May 15, 2008 by James Robertson
Enhancing dashboard value and user experience
Joe Lamantia has published the fifth article in his series on dashboards and portals. To quote: Portals gather and present content from a wide variety of sources, making the assembled items and streams more valuable for users by reducing the costs of content discovery and acquisition. By placing diverse content ...
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May 12, 2008 by James Robertson
Searching more is not always better
The rise of enterprise search has put an increasing focus on searching ever broader collections of content and documents within organisations. While enterprise search projects generally start with simple intranet search, attention quickly moves to searching document management systems, collaboration tools, business systems and fileshares. Underpinning this work is the belief (or ...
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April 23, 2008 by James Robertson
Compliance is a dirty word
Alan 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. To me it's like fingernails down a blackboard, and frankly if I never hear it used again then I would be a happy ...
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April 17, 2008 by James Robertson
Questions to ask before replacing corporate email
Dennis 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 ...
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April 8, 2008 by James Robertson
Clean up your LDAP or Active Directory
A 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 ...
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February 26, 2008 by James Robertson
Clarify. Simplify. Implement.
Nathan Wallace has written about his clarify - simplify - implement approach to information management. To quote: Relentlessly question, review and challenge the processes and solution being developed. Drive for consistency. Search for well-known models or applications you can copy. Don't be afraid to change basic assumptions, where simplicity can ...
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February 4, 2008 by James Robertson
Innovative Information Management Planning (Sydney, April 2)
Cairo's Innovative Information Management Planning workshop is a truly unique event, giving a fresh approach to planning information projects. We've just lined up a date in Sydney on 2 April, and this is not far off (the early-bird date closes on 2 March). At a glance: To be successful, information ...
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January 21, 2008 by James Robertson
Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2008 (Sydney, February)
Ross Dawson of Future Exploration Network will be hosting the Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum 2008 on February 19 in Sydney. Enterprise 2.0 is an important topic for many organisations, but the challenge is finding how best to deploy these new technologies and ideas. Enterprise 2.0 Executive Forum will provide a ...
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January 18, 2008 by James Robertson
Enterprise intranet predictions for 2008
Toby Ward writes his intranet predictions for 2008. To quote: Your intranet home page is poorly designed and far too busy (well, for most). Employees are screaming for simpler home pages, with fewer links, more white space, and less color. Time and time again when I test different home page ...
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November 29, 2007 by James Robertson
It’s nice to have friends
It's nice to have friends. Over the years, we've met a lot of people at conferences and events, and have steady readers of the articles we publish. We've also worked with a lot of organisations, or have had conversations via emails. The connections we build at conferences, however, can be lost ...
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October 9, 2007 by James Robertson
Segmenting staff information needs
There is no one-size-fits-all solution for meeting the needs of staff. Beyond the broadest level, the information needed by staff is not generic. Someone working in HR has quite distinct needs from a staff member in finance, the call centre, or in the sales team. This is why organisations are progressively ...
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October 9, 2007 by James Robertson
Collaboration tools are anti knowledge sharing?
There is a clear need for collaboration within organisations, and the rollout of collaboration tools will bring many benefits. What is not widely recognised, however, is that the unmanaged spread of collaboration tools can work against knowledge sharing. While collaboration tools work extremely well for the staff using them, they ...
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September 27, 2007 by James Robertson
Business Process Interoperability Framework
AGIMO have released a new Business Process Interoperability Framework, to assist in coordination between Australian Government agencies. To quote: The Australian Government Business Process Interoperability Framework (BPIF) provides a guide and tools to assist agencies in making the transition to connected and shared modes of operation. It has been endorsed ...
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September 11, 2007 by James Robertson
Adopting collaboration tools in four phases
I've been doing a lot of thinking recently about collaboration and collaboration tools. It's clear that there's a huge unmet need for this capability, but a lot of confusion about how best to introduce these tools to organisations. What is equally sure is that just providing the tools and hoping for ...
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August 19, 2007 by James Robertson
Some comments on enterprise 2.0 and intranets
Oscar Berg has written a post on enterprise 2.0 and intranets. To quote: With the adoption of Web 2.0 applications and technologies within an enterprise context (Enterprise 2.0), the old intranet sites will be replaced by or transform into a network of hyperlinked resources that connect people as well as ...
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August 19, 2007 by James Robertson
Centralized or distributed?
Alan Pelz-Sharpe has written an item on centralised vs distributed approaches to ECM. To quote: I was trawling through some old presentations the other day - when I came across a couple that were given at crisis points in major ECM implementations. What struck me about these was the focus ...
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August 11, 2007 by James Robertson
Elements of collaboration
Lars Trieloff has published a periodic table of collaboration. To quote: The aim of "Elements of Collaboration" is to give an overview about current collaboration techniques and technology and to show how better collaboration can lead to improved workflows and higher productivity. [Thanks to Patrick Lambe.]
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August 9, 2007 by James Robertson
6×2: a new approach to planning
Intranets have now grown to be core tools for most organisations, tools they cannot do without. Despite this, it is still a struggle for intranet teams to gain the resources and support they need to sustain and grow their sites. In general, it is not hard to describe what the 'perfect ...
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August 9, 2007 by James Robertson
Your new site will be 20% different from current site
Implementing a new website or intranet is a unique opportunity to work with new functionality and ideas and push the bounds of what the site will do. When a new underlying platform is being implemented, such as a content management system or portal, the scope for rethinking the site can ...
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August 8, 2007 by James Robertson
Confirmed: outside consumer forces drive enterprise technology
Joe McKendrick has summarised recent research on enterprise technology adoption. To quote: Ben Worthen, writing in the Wall Street Journal's business technology blog, cites a new study from Yankee Group, which confirmed that 86% of employees say that they "use at least one consumer-oriented tech tool that isn't supported by ...
July 31, 2007 by James Robertson
What is enterprise 2.0?
Fred Cavazza has written a long post that aims to answer the question: what is enterprise 2.0? To quote: If "Web 2.0" was 2006
July 25, 2007 by James Robertson
Practical enterprise architecture
Henrik Gustafsson has written an article on practical approaches to enterprise architecture. To quote: I was bewildered when I first started working with Enterprise Architecture (EA). To me, so far, the subject had belonged to some strange guys working somewhere in a remote part of the enterprise. Once in a ...
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July 17, 2007 by James Robertson
Where collaboration tools fit in (Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney)
To meet the huge level of interest in collaboration at the moment, we've organised three more sessions on Where collaboration tools fit in, with dates as follows: Brisbane (12 September 2007) Melbourne (25 September 2007) Sydney (10 October 2007) To quote: With the rapid spread of collaboration tools such as SharePoint, the ...
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July 15, 2007 by James Robertson
Innovative Information Management Planning (Melbourne + Canberra)
We've also organised two new dates for Cairo Walker's Innovative Information Management Planning masterclass. The inaugural event was very well received, and there's more to come: Melbourne (21 September 2007) Canberra (8 November 2007) To quote: In this one-day masterclass, Cairo Walker will present an innovative methodology for information management planning that ...
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July 13, 2007 by James Robertson
It’s not not about the technology
Andrew McAfee talks about the problems with the phrase "it's not about the technology". To quote: People usually mean one of two things when they say INATT; one of them is correct but somewhat uninformative, and the other conveys a lot of information, but is incorrect and even dangerous. The ...
July 12, 2007 by James Robertson
Avoid long-term strategies
When it comes to information management or content management strategies, particularly at the enterprise level, there is a strong tendency (and desire) to create long-term plans. These plans may outline activities more than of 18 or 24 months in advance, starting with the deployment of base infrastructure, through to the ...
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July 12, 2007 by James Robertson
Chatting bolsters business
No longer the antithesis of working hard, online chat has become an integral part of core business processes in some organisations. Across both the public and private sectors there is a trend toward online chat as a valid business tool, particularly in call centre environments. By using online chat to supplement ...
June 20, 2007 by James Robertson
Personalisation vs segmentation
'Personalisation' is a term very much in fashion at present. It is used by vendors to sell their products, and promoted by website and intranet managers as a way of delivering a brave new era of functionality. Separate from debates regarding the merits and approaches to personalisation, there is ...
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June 20, 2007 by James Robertson
Do staff make use of personalisation features?
Due to technology improvements, personalisation is a growing feature in both intranet and portal usage. Organisations around the world have already made their first forays into personalisation, however many more organisations are questioning what to personalise and how to go about it. So who is using personalisation and how effective it ...
June 13, 2007 by James Robertson
Leading and creating collaboration in decentralised organisations
Heather M. Caruso, Todd Rogers and Max Bazerman have written a working paper on creating collaboration in decentralised organisations. To quote: No matter how a multi-divisional organization is designed, it will need to find effective ways for its units to spontaneously and responsively cross boundaries. This paper discusses 3 key ...
May 28, 2007 by James Robertson
The IM family
Just catching up on my blogging, Patrick Kennedy has written a very amusing post describing the IM family. To quote: A discussion last week, during Bob Boiko's Taming the Content Beast workshop, lead me to personify the various information management systems that currently muddy the waters for many an enterprise.
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May 17, 2007 by James Robertson
Increasing portal adoption with user scenarios
Paul Bryan has written an article on increasing portal adoption with user scenarios. To quote: Low user adoption of company portals -- a common complaint these days as many companies upgrade their extranets and intranets -- is often a result of focusing on technical requirements rather than the real-life context ...
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May 17, 2007 by James Robertson
Where collaboration tools fit in (Canberra, 3 July 2007)
We've just organised the first in our new round of afternoon sessions, titled Where collaboration tools fit in. Scheduled for Canberra on July 3, this is what we'll be covering: With the rapid spread of collaboration tools such as SharePoint, the opportunity for new approaches to intranets and information management ...
May 13, 2007 by James Robertson
Compliance is not a big driver for ECM
Alan Pelz-Sharpe has written a blog post outlining his observation that compliance is not a big driver for ECM in practice. To quote: I have thought this for a long time, and my personal experience in consulting confirmed this, but polls and analysis by my industry peers say otherwise. From ...
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April 30, 2007 by James Robertson
Innovative Information Management Planning (27 June, Sydney)
In this one-day masterclass, Cairo Walker will present an innovative methodology for information management planning that will ensure that above-the-waterline benefits will be realised within the first six months. Drawing on extensive IM and project management experience, this masterclass will present practical solutions to real-world situations and challenges. Innovative Information ...
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April 30, 2007 by James Robertson
Taxonomy and metadata strategies for effective content management (June, Australia)
Taxonomies are a hot topic at present, with many organisations exploring how these can be used to coordinate practices across organisations and to integrate business systems. While the word 'taxonomy' is often used, it is often less clear what this means in practice, and how to make it all work. For ...
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April 27, 2007 by James Robertson
Mass adoption of social software
R. Todd Stephens talks about the application of the 1% participation rate to enterprises. To quote: To keep the math simple, let us assume that we have 100,000 employees. Based on the Wikipedia numbers, we might expect to have 1,000 people updating content. Of course, that would only be in ...
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April 27, 2007 by James Robertson
Methodology for web 2.0 collaboration experiments (in reluctant organizations)
Dave Pollard has written an article providing a methodology for web 2.0 experiments in corporations. To quote: ... any methodology that hopes to help improve collaboration in an organization needs to be very adaptable, modest in resource demands, sponsored, and attuned to the complexity of collaboration challenges. I think I've ...
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April 20, 2007 by James Robertson
Companies slow to adopt advanced portal technology
Toby Ward shares that companies are slow to adopt advanced portal technology. To quote: According to a new Gartner report on portals, "Portals Are the Swiss Army Knives of Enterprise Software," more than 50% of portal deployments (70% probability) are first generation portals with technology and features developed in the ...
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April 19, 2007 by James Robertson
Enterprise IA methodologies: starting two steps earlier
I've just had an article published on Boxes and Arrows titled Enterprise IA methodologies: starting two steps earlier. This follows on from my talks at both the IA Summit and Oz-IA events, and to quote: Information architects working within enterprises are confronted by unique challenges relating to organisational culture, business ...
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April 5, 2007 by James Robertson
Enterprise 2.0 – to be or not to be? Depends on how you approach it…
Jane McConnell has written an entry on enterprise 2.0 and intranets. To quote: You can drive organisational change through meeting user and business needs and 2.0 will sometimes be the best way forward. I have devised the following 5-step process for organisations considering 2.0. The order of the steps ...
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March 8, 2007 by James Robertson
FastForwarding to a better understanding, part 3
Andrew McAfee has written another insightful piece about enterprise 2.0. To quote: My skepticism about any wildfire spread of E2.0 stems from the fact that the new tools and approaches will succeed over time only in environments that have a set of characteristics. Technical characteristics are the most obvious ...
March 6, 2007 by James Robertson
There are no “KM systems”
With the rise of knowledge management as a discipline, vendors increasingly rebranded their products as 'knowledge management systems' (KMS). While this was a convenient label to cover a broad range of functionality, the use of 'KMS' as a term has caused considerable confusion. For this reason, this briefing will argue ...
March 6, 2007 by James Robertson
The importance of ‘tangible’ and ‘visible’
Intranets are often invisible tools within organisations. While staff rely on the intranet to help them complete common tasks, the site itself is taken for granted. The intranet team is similarly low in visibility, with little senior management recognition of the team or its role. The net effect is that ...
March 4, 2007 by James Robertson
Enterprise 2.0 may require ‘nudge 2.0′
Joe McKendrick reports on the latest edition of InformationWeek covering enterprise 2.0. To quote: InformationWeek commissioned a survey of 250 IT executives, which found that close to a third, 32%, already have active Web 2.0 initiatives underway -- such as blogs, wikis, search, or mashups. Wikis are widely used at ...
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February 28, 2007 by James Robertson
Fitting the enterprise 2.0 square peg into the web 2.0 round hole
Joe McKendrick has written an article on the merging of enterprise and web 2.0. To quote: Should Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0 be blended into one single category? Since the parade of Web 2.0 technologies has come to the fore, they have been mainly a consumer or business-to-consumer play, and ...
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February 26, 2007 by James Robertson
Modelling the new enterprise
Jevon McDonald has written an article outlining a model for the "new enterprise". To quote: How will the New Enterprise look? How about a real world example? Here is a normalized and downscaled (1/100, some roles weighted) view of how democratizing tools and platforms can remove friction from an organization ...
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February 24, 2007 by James Robertson
Wikipatterns
There is a new site devoted to the adoption of wikis, called Wikipatterns. To quote: Wikipatterns is not an instruction manual, it's a set of tools. It's examples of techniques that have helped people, and of situations that people have found themselves in that they wished they hadn't. We want ...
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February 19, 2007 by James Robertson
Tear down these walls!?!?
Andrew McAfee has written a post on enterprise 2.0 adoption. To quote: Howard's comment highlights an excellent question: what's the real problem if some E2.0 environments are mutually inaccessible walled gardens? If, for example, I'm a member of three distinct corporate wikis, each of which is accessible only ...
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February 4, 2007 by James Robertson
Beyond predictable workflows: enhancing productivity in artful business processes
C. Hill, R. Yates, C. Jones, and S. L. Kogan have written a journal article on managing 'artful' processes. To quote: Aside from the issues of scale, lock-in, and dependency, certain types of work simply cannot be formalized well enough to safely entrust to an enterprise application. The goals and ...
January 14, 2007 by James Robertson
Blogging on enterprise 2.0
I've just started blogging on enterprise 2.0 on the FASTForward blog, leading up to the FASTForward event in San Diego. This should be good fun, as will give me a different forum on which to explore my thoughts on this topic. I've already written a brief entry on ...
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January 11, 2007 by James Robertson
A brief history of information (part 2)
Ted Byfield continues his series of articles looking at the history of the word "information". To quote: In the centuries of use before its modern redefinition, as we've seen in Part 1, "information" had already toted up a formidable list of ambiguities. For example, it's an action in some usages ...
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January 9, 2007 by James Robertson
Managers say the majority of information obtained for their work is useless
An Accenture study reports on staff's ability to find useful information. To quote: Half (51 percent) of customer service managers -- more than managers in any other area -- are likely to encounter challenges when trying to obtain information about other parts of the company. In addition, 40 percent of ...
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January 3, 2007 by James Robertson
A brief history of information
Ted Byfield has written an article that explores the history of the word "information". To quote: The word seems to stand for everything, and nothing. "Information" describes everything from a precise mathematical property of communication systems, to discrete statements of fact or opinion (for example, the time a film begins ...
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December 10, 2006 by James Robertson
Usability weaknesses inherent in portals
Joe Lamantia has written an entry on the usability issues with portals. To quote: Portal user experiences suffer from a number of inbuilt usability weaknesses that the building blocks are designed to eliminate. For instance, flat tile schemes assume all tiles are structurally the same, and that they have no ...
November 29, 2006 by James Robertson
The trouble with portal dashboards…
Janus Boye has written an article on the usability issues with portal dashboards. To quote: Based on hundreds of interviews CMS Watch has conducted with users worldwide, it's clear that portal software customers must invest more in creating usable and accessible user interfaces. Today most organisations blindly adopt the default ...
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November 7, 2006 by James Robertson
Feed your enterprise with RSS
Conceptually, 'news feeds' are quite simple, allowing content such as news articles to be delivered over the internet without the need to browse a website. News feeds first came to our attention during the mid 90s when the hype surrounding 'push' was at its peak. The hype didn't last and it ...
September 27, 2006 by James Robertson
Introducing collaboration technologies to the enterprise is a challenge
Dennis McDonald has written a piece on the challenge of introducing collaboration technologies in the enterprise. To quote: Successful collaboration tool introduction is based less on the characteristics of the tool itself than on the motivation users have to use the tool, plus a heavy helping of Ease of Use. ...
September 18, 2006 by James Robertson
Enterprise Web 2.0: barriers and answers
Rod Boothby has written a blog post that provides answers to Enterprise 2.0 barriers (which were listed by Jerry Bowles). To quote: In the end, the adoption of Enterprise Web 2.0 technology is an issue of both risk and reward. Risk management is about balancing the risks with the business ...
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August 30, 2006 by James Robertson
Searching kills employee productivity
Toby Ward has written an article summarising recent research on search productivity. To quote: The Center for Media Research reports that professional workers are spending more and more time searching for information. The survey, HotTopics: 2001 vs. 2005: Research Study Reveals Dramatic Changes Among Information Consumers, commissioned by Outsell, reveals ...
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August 24, 2006 by James Robertson
A web 2.0 tour for the enterprise
Shiv Singh has written an article on web 2.0 tour for the enterprise. To quote: Thanks to the hype generated by Business Week, The New York Times, Fortune, and Newsweek (among others), Web 2.0 has captured the imagination of consumers and businesses alike. But knowing how to leverage Web 2.0 ...
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August 19, 2006 by James Robertson
Presentation: KM Australia (Sydney)
This week I gave a keynote presentation at the KM Australia conference on "The 10 principles for effective information management", which explored what hasn't worked, and introduced some key principles against to measure IM projects against. You can download my presentation: 10 principles for effective information management (PDF, 692kb) (You can ...
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August 18, 2006 by James Robertson
Understanding the requirement for a portal
There is no doubt that fuelled by a compelling business need, a portal solution can provide real business advantage. However provisioning a portal when it is a content-managed site that is required, will result in the most expensive website or intranet that an organisation can build. What then should those organisations ...
July 5, 2006 by James Robertson
The real cost of email in organisations
Much has been written about the impact of 'email overload', in terms of the productivity cost and impact on attention spans for staff. There is another very real cost of the reliance on email: the duplication of information management activities. 'All staff' emails are often used to send out new policies ...
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June 12, 2006 by James Robertson
Succeeding at IA in the enterprise
I've just had an article on succeeding at IA in the enterprise published on Boxes and Arrows. To quote: Working within the enterprise, we are confronted with new challenges. There is a lack of clarity around needs and goals, organisational issues are paramount, and the real challenge is making things ...
May 31, 2006 by James Robertson
Why defining requirements is not good enough
Patrick Cormier has written a blog entry on the importance of having an integrated information management plan. To quote: It is not good enough to adopt, as a starting point, "we need a content management system", or "we need a document and records management system". Other starting points are equally ...
May 24, 2006 by James Robertson
Email and content management
Seth Gottlieb has written about email and content management, highlighting the problems that email overuse causes, as well as discussing some possible solutions. To quote: Never to be one to rant without a solution, here are some tips to solve the information management problem. I refuse to believe that the ...
May 17, 2006 by James Robertson
Web 2.0 meets the enterprise
Howard Greenstein has written an article on web 2.0 in the enterprise. To quote: An umbrella term for an emerging core of technologies, trends, and principles, Web 2.0 is not only changing what's on the Web, but also how it works. Many believe that CIOs who understand these new applications ...
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April 4, 2006 by James Robertson
Rethinking EIA: becoming information ecologists
Rob Fay has written an interesting article on rethinking enterprise IA. To quote: This post attempts to rethink EIA and argues that information architecture need not be constrained to designing structures and managing content as it relates to the Web or for any electronic system for that matter. Instead, I ...
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March 3, 2006 by James Robertson
Tips for enterprise content management project success
Brian Buehling has written an article discussing tips for ECM project success. To quote: In recent years, there has been much debate on various approaches to solve the enterprise content management (ECM) and publishing problem. Initially, most of the discussion revolved around technical issues ranging from the selecting the best ...
March 2, 2006 by James Robertson
ECM is dead – long live ECM!
Alan Pelz-Sharpe has written an article about the future of ECM. To quote: As of today most firms spend little or no time studying content flows within their organization. They look instead to existing ECM vendors to offer solutions for their enterprise. Yet these ECM projects seldom ever scale out ...
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February 28, 2006 by James Robertson
Ajax arrives for the enterprise
Christopher Lindquist has written an article discussing the use of Ajax in the enterprise. To quote: But while clothing trends come and go, Ajax looks like it may stick around, offering Web developers a means to create rich clientlike applications on webpages without resorting to huge amounts of code or ...
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February 23, 2006 by James Robertson
Avoiding coupling in your portal implementation
Robert Bogue has written an article about avoiding coupling in your portal implementation. To quote: Portals, which are necessarily at the heart of an ever-changing array of programs and solutions within the organization are especially vulnerable to coupling. It starts out simple at first: the special notice that one application ...
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February 18, 2006 by James Robertson
Federated records management – the next check-off box?
Priscilla Emery has written a blog entry introducing "federated records management", a concept I haven't come across before. To quote: Federated RM can be extremely useful for those organizations that have a variety of document repositories in place and don't want to have to go through the hassle of migrating ...
