Ann Rockley has published a small quiz to identify whether you need a component content management solution. To quote:

You may sense that you need Component Content Management, but how can you be sure? Using the checklist below, click each box that represents a symptom your enterprise presently experiences. We’ll total up your score at the end and offer some feedback. Please note that this quiz is not in any way scientific - it’s just indicative and fun advice!

Maish Nichani has outlined a methodology for content migration. To quote:

You’ve spent months researching and redesigning your intranet or website. The wireframes and the sitemaps have done their job in communicating the benefits of the new design to the stakeholders and you’ve got good feedback from the users. The new templates are done up and the CMS is getting tuned. It’s time to think about those 2000 or so pages of content that need to go into the new website. Yes, this is the content migration phase that’s been getting a lot of attention lately.

This diagram captures some of my evolving thinking on intranets, information management and enterprise 2.0. It outlines three scenarios:

This is the “now” scenario, typical of most intranets and information management strategies.

Information is mostly published at the corporate level, delivered to “all staff”. The closer you get to any one staff member, the less the information is targeted to their their needs. All staff are basically considered the same, and there is no personalisation or tailoring.

This is the “ideal” state, as outlined in the web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 world view.

The individual is at the centre of all things, and information is specifically delivered to meet their specific needs. This may be via customisation, tailoring, or self-driven social networks. This recognises that organisations are made of up individuals, who need to be effective and engaged.

There is, however, a huge change from scenario A to scenario B. While portals and other technologies have offered personalisation functionality, this has often failed to be used. “My page” and other personal homepages are commonly left empty. Adoption of “enterprise 2.0″ and “social” tools is still in its early stages.

Perhaps this is the middle ground we can work towards in the short term.

While information is still published at the corporate level, there is tailoring of information at business unit level. Call centre staff have relevant information delivered to them, distinct from that delivered to sales staff, engineers, or admin staff.

This is relatively easy for intranet and information management teams to handle. There may be anything from a few to many dozen business groups to target, but this is much easier than trying to address the needs of thousands of individual staff.

This is just some early thinking, but what I’m looking for is a way of bridging the gap between the corporate on one side, and the individual on the other. This is the middle ground that we need to play in for the immediate future.

So, does it make sense? Do the diagrams help?

(Don’t forget that there is now commenting on this blog!)

In amongst everything else that is happening around here, Serena Joyner joined us yesterday as another senior consultant. Serena brings with her in-depth experience with knowledge management and the people side of collaboration. This will further build our depth in these spaces, and expect to see our collaboration work further build up speed.

Serena also has a public-sector background, which is very useful in the context of the many government projects we have been (and will be) involved in.

So welcome to Serena!

Craig Thomler has written about obtaining feedback on your intranet. To quote:

To achieve these goals I’ve worked with my team, and others in the agency, to put some systems in place to capture information on the behaviours of intranet users and their usage of the system.

We’ve also put several different feedback mechanisms in place that improve our understanding of what our customers (staff) need - and allow us to improve on an ongoing basis.

Alex Manchester argues that intranets can’t just be about conversations. To quote:

Intranets can be fantastic connectors for employees. I mean, let’s break the word down: intra (inside) net (network). To use them solely as top down information dumping grounds, as inferred above, is a waste and a misuse.

I don’t think he’s saying there isn’t but of course, there is still plenty of room, and moreover plenty of need, for HR policies, organisational forms and so on. Multi-tiered use of intranets is a must. We need (and now expect) the cool stuff, but we also need the form to book a holiday while we’re at it.

Patrick C. Walsh has written an post on what not to do with your intranet. To quote:

Don’t let it be a mouthpiece for the boss

Where this is allowed to happen it can be the kiss of death for any intranet. If users feel that every time they access the intranet that the information flow is one way only they will quickly ‘vote with their fingers’ and stop using it.

(Patrick has also posted a part 2, which makes some good observations on intranet usability.)

The new website is officially live, as of midday yesterday. It’s been a long time coming, but hopefully worth the wait. The key changes/improvements:

• Commenting: you can now comment not just on this blog, but also on the articles themselves. This has been the biggest point of pain for a long time now, ever since the old copy of Movable Type was overwhelmed by spam.
• New design: the site is hopefully looking fresh and new, in keeping with modern design principles. There’s more work to be done on this, but at least the rounded corners have gone!
• Clean code: all the nasty 1996-era spacer images have been killed, and the site is now presented using clean code and CSS.
• Better functionality: there have been a range of incremental improvements to the site, including better navigation to (and between articles), and a number of blog enhancements. More to come, watch this space.
• RSS feed for articles: yes, there is now an RSS feed just for articles, which is something that a few have asked for.

Consider this a work-in-progress release for the site. Now that we finally have the site on a supported and manageable platform, there are a raft of enhancements planned for the coming months. Watch this space!

Oh, and please do provide feedback on the site (you can add comments to this post, or to any of the articles). In particular, I’m sure there are some bugs and teething problems to fix, and we’ll need your help with that.

Onwards and upwards.

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m hoping (fingers crossed) that we’re just about to re-launch our site, this weekend or soon after. This will get us into a modern design, as well as delivering such much asked-for functionality (details to come!).

This is a transitional move, just the start of many more improvements. (Just setting expectations.)

All going well, this will be my last blog post on this version of the site. If you experience some problems during the transition, please be patient. I’ll do a post as soon as the new site is up, detailing the changes and asking for input

Wish us luck!

It's been a long time coming, but I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that we're just about to re-launch our site, this weekend or soon after. This will get us into a modern design, as well as delivering such much asked-for functionality (details to come!).

This is a transitional move, just the start of many more improvements. (Just setting expectations.)

All going well, this will be my last blog post on this version of the site. If you experience some problems during the transition, please be patient. I'll do a post as soon as the new site is up, detailing the changes and asking for input

Wish us luck!

Stewart Mader outlines five uses for a wiki within organisations. To quote:

Red Ant, a Sydney, Australia based Web design and development firm, uses a wiki as the main collaboration hub for employees and customers. I asked Ben Still, managing director, how they use wikis: “First, a designer makes a page, attaches an image, and they’re done with their part. But then I might look at it and realize that it needs a bit more explanation, or a link to a wireframe diagram to give context. One of our developers might have also mocked up how a menu works, and so they stick in a link to that. Our client might email the link around, and then add some comments on the page. This kind of collaborative workflow is one of our strengths, and it is really important for us to be able to add these various types of content easily.”

Stewart Mader outlines five uses for a wiki within organisations. To quote: Red Ant, a Sydney, Australia based Web design and development firm, uses a wiki as the main collaboration hub for employees and customers. I asked Ben Still, managing director, how they use wikis: “First, a designer makes a page, attaches an image, and they’re done with their part. But then I might look at it and realize that it needs a bit more explanation, or a link to a wireframe diagram to give context. One of our developers might have also mocked up how a menu works, and so they stick in a link to that. Our client might email the link around, and then add some comments on the page. This kind of collaborative workflow is one of our strengths, and it is really important for us to be able to add these various types of content easily.”

Jared Spool writes about the issues with breadcrumbs. To quote:

Breadcrumbs aren’t bad, per se. However, like all things, they take resources to implement well. Of course, with less resources, you can create poorly designed breadcrumbs. But poorly designed breadcrumbs won’t help anyone, so if you’re going to make them useful, you need to spend the resources to do so.

Jared Spool writes about the issues with breadcrumbs. To quote: Breadcrumbs aren't bad, per se. However, like all things, they take resources to implement well. Of course, with less resources, you can create poorly designed breadcrumbs. But poorly designed breadcrumbs won't help anyone, so if you're going to make them useful, you need to spend the resources to do so.

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 ECM. Although there are similarities between the two, there are crucial differences that should be cleared up.

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 ECM. Although there are similarities between the two, there are crucial differences that should be cleared up.

Last month, my expensive BOSE noice-cancelling headphone disintegrated in the middle of an international trip. They’d been dying for some time, with the ear pieces shedding bits of rubber, and the plastic cracking throughout. A year ago, I’d had to tape up one arm with sticky tape, but this time it had broken for good.

I’d looked after these headphones very well, and they’d been used lightly (pretty much only on long-haul flights). So I was naturally not happy with their demise.

Still, I’d had them for 4 years, which is 3 full years past the 1 year warranty.

So with no particular expectations, I rang up my local BOSE store to find out what I could get done. A friendly salesperson gave me the details for the BOSE Service Centre, and suggested I send across the headphones with a covering letter explaining the history and current situation. I was then assured that they’d “see what they could do”.

That was Friday. Today (Tuesday), I hadn’t heard anything, so was going to ring me just to check that the headphones had arrived (I’ve got another round-the-world trip coming up shortly). But first a package arrived in the mail.

Inside was a brand-new pair of headphones, with a shipping sheet simply saying “Replaced as a gesture of goodwill from BOSE”. No big fanfair, no lengthy explanation, no complex procedures or bureaucracy. Just “here’s a new pair of headphones, enjoy”, with the implicit recognition of the quality and standing associated with the BOSE brand.

Now that’s what I call customer service. Just wanted to say thank you as publicly as I could. Back to regular programming…

Last month, my expensive BOSE noice-cancelling headphone disintegrated in the middle of an international trip. They'd been dying for some time, with the ear pieces shedding bits of rubber, and the plastic cracking throughout. A year ago, I'd had to tape up one arm with sticky tape, but this time it had broken for good.

I'd looked after these headphones very well, and they'd been used lightly (pretty much only on long-haul flights). So I was naturally not happy with their demise.

Still, I'd had them for 4 years, which is 3 full years past the 1 year warranty.

So with no particular expectations, I rang up my local BOSE store to find out what I could get done. A friendly salesperson gave me the details for the BOSE Service Centre, and suggested I send across the headphones with a covering letter explaining the history and current situation. I was then assured that they'd "see what they could do".

That was Friday. Today (Tuesday), I hadn't heard anything, so was going to ring me just to check that the headphones had arrived (I've got another round-the-world trip coming up shortly). But first a package arrived in the mail.

Inside was a brand-new pair of headphones, with a shipping sheet simply saying "Replaced as a gesture of goodwill from BOSE". No big fanfair, no lengthy explanation, no complex procedures or bureaucracy. Just "here's a new pair of headphones, enjoy", with the implicit recognition of the quality and standing associated with the BOSE brand.

Now that's what I call customer service. Just wanted to say thank you as publicly as I could. Back to regular programming...

This is part 3 in our series of posts that outlines how we work with clients.

There are a very large number of content management systems (CMS) in the marketplace, 140+ in Australia alone. These vary hugely in price, design and capabilities, and we’ve often said that CMS products are only 30% similar and 70% utterly differently. Yes, they all have the same bullet-point list of features, but it’s how they work that makes the difference between success and failure.

The ever-changing CMS marketplace makes it very difficult for organisations to find a new publishing solution for their website, intranet or extranet. What features should we be asking for? Which products should we be looking at? Where do we start?

We are recognised world-wide as content management experts, with a specific focus on CMS selection (see the many articles we’ve published). We help organisations through every stage of the CMS selection process, from business requirements to a short-list of products, through to the final decision.

What we do

1. Initial workshop: a one-day workshop with the core project team and wider stakeholders to make sure everything is ready to run a successful project. Core project goals and plans will be reviewed, and expectations will be set around likely CMS capabilities.
2. Requirements workshop: the core of the methodology is an intensive two-day requirements workshop. Key staff are “locked in a room” for two days, and we talk through the requirements. As you talk, we cut-and-paste from previous tenders, tuning as we go. By the time we walk out of the room at the end of the second day, we have 95% complete requirements, fully documented, ready to go.

   (That’s several months of work done is two days.)

3. Creating the tender: we then work with you to finalise the tender/RFP document, which can be as simple or as complex as needed (depending on your procurement policies).
4. Scenarios: we’ll also help you to write scenarios, day-in-the-life descriptions that form a “script” for the vendor demonstrations. This cuts through the standard smoke-and-mirrors demos given by most vendors, ensuring that you see the products doing exactly what you need.
5. CMS short-list: once the tender and scenarios have been completed, we provide you with a short-list of five products, pre-selected according to their ability to meet key selection criteria.
6. Facilitating vendor demos: if requested, we’re more than happy to sit in on the vendor demos, to make sure they run smoothly.
7. Expert support: we provide expert support throughout the selection process, to get you to a final decision as quickly as possible.

What you will get

• Dramatically streamlined selection process
• Concise and meaningful requirements document
• Alignment between business needs and marketplace realities
• Short-list of potentially suitable CMS products
• Assistance throughout the selection process
• The right CMS for the job!

Demonstrated experience

We maintain a list of all the CMS products in Australia, and spend a lot of time researching current (and evolving) product capabilities. We have internal notes on a large number of products, which we use when constructing our short-lists.

As far as we are aware, we are the only truly vendor-neutral CMS consultants in Australia (we don’t have any relationships with vendors, implement products or develop code). We have never provided the same short-list twice.

A selection of our past CMS clients include: Australian Health Service Alliance (AHSA), Australian Film Commission, BHP Billiton, ClubsNSW, Department of Immigration (DIAC), Hunter New England Health, Kobelco CNH Australia, National Prescribing Service, Oxfam Australia, Sydney Opera House, University of Melbourne, University of Western Sydney, VicSuper, Westpac and Woollahra Municipal Council.

If you’d like to know more

Our CMS selection work is amongst the highest-value consulting that we do, and in a very short period of time we can greatly assist help web and intranet projects. To find out more, please drop us a line.

This is part 3 in our series of posts that outlines how we work with clients.

There are a very large number of content management systems (CMS) in the marketplace, 140+ in Australia alone. These vary hugely in price, design and capabilities, and we've often said that CMS products are only 30% similar and 70% utterly differently. Yes, they all have the same bullet-point list of features, but it's how they work that makes the difference between success and failure.

The ever-changing CMS marketplace makes it very difficult for organisations to find a new publishing solution for their website, intranet or extranet. What features should we be asking for? Which products should we be looking at? Where do we start?

We are recognised world-wide as content management experts, with a specific focus on CMS selection (see the many articles we've published). We help organisations through every stage of the CMS selection process, from business requirements to a short-list of products, through to the final decision.

What we do

1. Initial workshop: a one-day workshop with the core project team and wider stakeholders to make sure everything is ready to run a successful project. Core project goals and plans will be reviewed, and expectations will be set around likely CMS capabilities.
2. Requirements workshop: the core of the methodology is an intensive two-day requirements workshop. Key staff are "locked in a room" for two days, and we talk through the requirements. As you talk, we cut-and-paste from previous tenders, tuning as we go. By the time we walk out of the room at the end of the second day, we have 95% complete requirements, fully documented, ready to go.

   (That's several months of work done is two days.)

3. Creating the tender: we then work with you to finalise the tender/RFP document, which can be as simple or as complex as needed (depending on your procurement policies).
4. Scenarios: we'll also help you to write scenarios, day-in-the-life descriptions that form a "script" for the vendor demonstrations. This cuts through the standard smoke-and-mirrors demos given by most vendors, ensuring that you see the products doing exactly what you need.
5. CMS short-list: once the tender and scenarios have been completed, we provide you with a short-list of five products, pre-selected according to their ability to meet key selection criteria.
6. Facilitating vendor demos: if requested, we're more than happy to sit in on the vendor demos, to make sure they run smoothly.
7. Expert support: we provide expert support throughout the selection process, to get you to a final decision as quickly as possible.

What you will get

• Dramatically streamlined selection process
• Concise and meaningful requirements document
• Alignment between business needs and marketplace realities
• Short-list of potentially suitable CMS products
• Assistance throughout the selection process
• The right CMS for the job!

Demonstrated experience

We maintain a list of all the CMS products in Australia, and spend a lot of time researching current (and evolving) product capabilities. We have internal notes on a large number of products, which we use when constructing our short-lists.

As far as we are aware, we are the only truly vendor-neutral CMS consultants in Australia (we don't have any relationships with vendors, implement products or develop code). We have never provided the same short-list twice.

A selection of our past CMS clients include: Australian Health Service Alliance (AHSA), Australian Film Commission, BHP Billiton, ClubsNSW, Department of Immigration (DIAC), Hunter New England Health, Kobelco CNH Australia, National Prescribing Service, Oxfam Australia, Sydney Opera House, University of Melbourne, University of Western Sydney, VicSuper, Westpac and Woollahra Municipal Council.

If you'd like to know more

Our CMS selection work is amongst the highest-value consulting that we do, and in a very short period of time we can greatly assist help web and intranet projects. To find out more, please drop us a line.