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Showing posts with label article. Show all posts

Nov 9, 2012

Top Three Weekend Reads: AuthorRank, Documentum's Past, Social Media and Crisis

Have you started managing your Author Authority yet? Read our top articles of the week to find out why you should start today.

Top Picks

1. In this, his first article for CMSWire, Tommy Landry called attention to something that anyone who is concerned with SEO (and that means all of us, no?) can ignore: Google's AuthorRank: The Future of SEO and Content Marketing: Author Authority 

Google has been talking about Author Authority as a potential ranking factor for close to seven years. With that many years to figure it out and Google+ now in their corner, Google is likely mere months away from pushing it live.

The sooner you start establishing yourself as an author, the better. Anyone can join Google’s Authorship Program, including your competitors. With awareness of this still fairly low, you have a chance to get involved first. Go forth and get a head start on it." Read more.

2. Virginia Backaitis gave us the inside scoop on all things EMC IIG and Documentum this week, and kicked off her Vienna Momentum 2012 coverage with this look back at Documentum's roots: A Look at Documentum's Early Days; Will EMC Disrupt Content Management Industry Again? #MMTM12 

EMC’s Information Intelligence Group (IIG) (formerly known as Documentum) promises to make “the largest product launch in IIG’s History” at its Momentum Europe Conference on Tuesday. Content Management enthusiasts, CM industry analysts, and the Documentum Community at large, are all waiting, eyes and ears open, to see and hear what it (they) will be. Read more.

3. Contributor Rich Blank took a step back from the traditional methods of establishing ROI to see the return that social media offered during the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy in his article ROI of Social in a Crisis: 

As someone born and raised in NJ with a wife from Long Island, we have many friends and family in the affected areas hit by Hurricane Sandy. I’d like to share a few real life examples on how social technologycan be used in a crisis to connect with people, share knowledge, crowd source problems and provide feedback." Read more. 

Best of the Rest

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com
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Oct 23, 2012

All About Apple's 7.9-inch iPad Mini: Starts At $329

Apple unveiled a smaller version of its magic tablet, the iPad Mini. It's 7.9-inches and will start at $329. Should you buy one?

This article will be updated throughout today with the latest news, funny tweets, bon mots and geeky specs surrounding Apple's "Little" event in Cupertino. It turns out that Apple will also offer a live video stream for you to watch along with me.

The iPad Mini has been announced--that's the correct name--and it's everything you heard (and maybe a bit more). What can you do with an iPad Mini that you can't already do with an iPad? Apple's senior vice president of Worldwide Marketing Phil Schiller asked that on stage, and many of you have the same question. His answer: Hold it in one hand. "Fantastic for kicking back and reading a magazine," says Schiller. Power user tip: You can download Fast Company for your iPad right here.

The iPad Mini is 7.2mm thick. That's about as thin as a pencil. It's only .68 lbs -- that's 53% lighter than the fourth generation iPad. As light as a pad of paper. Comes in black and white. The resolution is 1024x768 and it's 7.9-inches diagonally.

There is no retina display on the Mini. But a lot of the other leaks proved accurate.

Should you buy an iPad Mini? Think back to when the first iPad came out... a lot of people didn't think a tablet computer would have a place next to their iPhone and Macbook. A lighter, thinner iPad might seem extravagant, but turn out to be quite handy--even though the Kindle Fire, Windows Surface and Nexus 7 are all likely to be less expensive.

But the real question is, should you buy one of the 10 million iPad Minis currently being produced by low-wage Chinese labor? I had a dream that Fred Armisen liveblogged this event in his SNL "Tech Talk" character of a Chinese factory worker (see the video below).

Hey look!

My bed is made from scraps from Mac notebook casings. Oh, and tears.

— Foxconn Worker (@FoxconnEmployee) October 23, 2012

As it turns out, Apple's Chinese manufacturing partners, including Foxconn, treat workers fairly well when compared with many other industries. That hasn't stopped the obsessive world of tech-news from telling you otherwise, as The Awl proves in this finger-wagging story about the "the media's thriving Foxconnomy." Which is to say that you don't need to feel guilty about wanting an iPad Mini, but maybe the media should feel bad for making you want one.

Now don't you feel a whole lot better about wanting a smaller iPad?

Or maybe it's time to reconsider the Surface tablet, which is powered by the boldest redesign in Microsoft's history.

There was a lot more hardware--even more than expected--announced today along with the iPad Mini. The iMac refresh was the most unexpected, while the 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina was the most obvious.

Those 13-inch MacBook Pro with retina display hits I found earlier on Google? That was the first hardware announcement during today's event. This is a serious laptop: 20 percent thinner than the previous 13-inch Pro, and four times the number of pixels. At 2560x1600 this screen has about double the number of pixels on my HDTV.

Resolution alone doesn't make the image work. This also has 29 percent higher contrast ratio, and 75 percent reduced glare with a 178-degree viewing angle.

It's available starting today for $1699. The old 13-inch MacBook Pro stays in the store for $1199.

Here's a surprise that wasn't on the rumor mill: A brand new iMac.

This is an incredibly thin computer, and Schiller rightly spends a lot of time talking about just how much engineering--"friction stir welding"--went into making it so slim. It's 45 percent thinner display. There are two sizes available. The 27-inch model is 2560x1440--note that that is still less than the 13-inch MacBook Pro--and a 21.5-inch model with 1920x1080.

The iMac will also have a new "Fusion Drive." It's 128GB of flash storage fused into a single volume with a HDD that is 1TB or 3TB (that's a lot of space).

A refreshed Mac Mini lineup matches the specs that were leaked earlier this morning. There are three models:

  • 2.5 GHz dual-core, 4GB RAM, 500GB Hard drive for $599
  • 2.3 GHz quad-core, 4GB RAM, 1TB Hard drive for $799
  • Server: 2.3 GHz quad-core 4GB of RAM, 2TB Hard drive for $999

How can I turn the Mac Mini server into an Apple TV?

Another surprise: the fourth generation iPad. It's largely the same but the components have been updated to include a new A6x processor for improved CPU performance (2x the speed of the version in your now-outdated iPad that's less than a year old). 10 hours of battery life. 16GB hard drive with wi-fi for $499 and 16GB with Wi-Fi and Cellular for $629.

What was missing from today's announcement? Scott Forstall, the senior vice president of iOS Software at Apple, who was expected to make the iTunes 11 update official (or perhaps add some new details).


Source : fastcompany[dot]com
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Oct 16, 2012

Rebuttal: Do Users Want A Self-Service DAM - Or A DAM Servant?

Ed Smith recently wrote an article for CMSWire, "My Other DAM is a Self-Service Intranet Portal," comparing DAM systems to self-service petrol stations where drivers can fill up their cars themselves. While Ed makes some good points, my own experience suggests that self-service isn't a stop and pump solution. 

The examples Ed has given are all good ones, however, in many cases, the range of functionality that DAM is now being put to are extending beyond simply finding assets. When one gets into MRM, or other more sophisticated asset manipulation activities, the process becomes more complex and that can present some new or unexpected challenges.

Technical or Human Challenges

As a consultant, I sometimes get called in to advise on implementations that aren't delivering the anticipated benefits. On a few occasions, an analysis reveals that it is often that euphemistic "PEBKAC (Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair) fault. At this point, the focus of the engagement shifts from away from technical considerations and towards HR (Human Resources) questions.

So, what how do you recognize those problems and avoid them with your own DAM implementations? The issue that I am talking about was briefly touched on in Ed's article where says:

As one DAM attendant recently bemoaned, 'They need my brain to find anything!'"

Many times I find that what end users really want is a "DAM Servant" rather than a "DAM Service."  I will illustrate this with an example from a client I once worked with.

The firm's staff headcount for the marketing department was already at the limit set by senior managers. Spending on productivity enhancements like software were permitted, but new hires would definitely not get approved. So they commenced a search for some DAM/MRM software that could be deployed to enhance productivity.

The objective was to reduce pressure on mid-managers in head office by enabling more of a self-service approach and to delegate the basic work to local users in regional offices. As well as asset searches for static marketing assets like presentations, brochures, etc, they also required facilities to prepare custom print templates and order promotional merchandise. The solution they decided to go with was a system that provided the "one-stop shop" DAM/MRM feature set they needed.

The vendor appeared to do everything by the book. They had a platform that could handle the majority of the required core functionality with minimal customization. They interviewed all of the key stakeholders in the marketing department. Business rules about workflow were documented in some detail. It all looked like textbook stuff.

A specification of both the configuration and customization needed was presented to the client for approval and feedback and the sign-off was delivered. The shortness of the timeframe between submission and sign-off (two business days) without any suggested amendments by the client was the first indicator of a potential problem.

The software was duly configured, custom changes made and it was rolled out. Training was delivered, but using the "cascade" method where head office staff were instructed on the understanding that they would in turn train each region. This was carried out too, but attendance by end users at workshops was optional (and patchy as a result).

When Self-Service Meets Resistance

As is common with new software, the end users were initially upbeat and eager to try it out. About a month or two afterwards, however, they were complaining about processes taking too long and being over-complex. The vendor and the client were also at loggerheads as the vendor's support helpdesk were inundated with requests for assistance which the vendor claimed were well outside their remit.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com
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Sep 17, 2012

How To: Adding Depth to User Experience (UX) with Generalists and Hybrids

In Part 1 of this "UX How To" article I explained the families of roles within the user experience discipline; UX Specialists, UX Generalists and Hybrids. The Specialists, from research, strategy, design and front-end development, were covered in detail. Generalists and Hybrids float above and in-between. If UX is a discipline of science and art, Generalists are those who harness the talent within a business context. Hybrids are those who create possibility by successfully merging two thought patterns into one.

Floating Above - UX Generalists

Many of my close colleagues (with whom I studied and practiced) have dramatically influenced me as we navigated together into a view of humanizing business. I would hope that the influence was mutual in this journey towards the business strategy and model of applying the humanities to enterprises..

UX Generalists are typically referred to as producers or directors and their duties, like their titles, vary widely from shop to shop. Project managers sometimes take the place of the generalist, but can quickly lose their footing if a project veers outside of interactive design and development. Very few project managers understand the nuances of the UX roles and how the activities performed and deliverables created by each role weave together to ultimately deliver a high-quality, business-grounded experience.

The best generalists are like conductors of the symphony. This unique ability is highlighted both in Dan Pink's A Whole New Mind and in the 10 Faces of Innovation by Tom Kelley. One of the most overlooked capabilities of generalists is that their ability to abstract does not end at the boundary of their discipline. The very same skill that helps them weave different UX roles, activities and deliverables also helps to make projects profitable and beneficial for both the client and the team alike.

The Inbetweeners - Hybrids

A close colleagues once said to me that he did not want his UX architects doing development work for solutions. Even if they had the skills to do so, he did not want to start a process where their design work would be biased by what was easier to implement rather than what was the most efficacious for the intended users. I understood his concern then, and I still do today, but I have a different perspective. While it is true that some practitioners can be tainted by what they know of the possible, it is also true that they can be uplifted and inspired by it as well.

Students of popular music already know a basic fact: genius emerges from practitioners who figure out a way to fuse multiple genres together. A beautiful illustration of this, pictured below, was created by Reebee Garofalo and is included in Edward Tufte's Visual Explanations. The Computational Media program at Georgia Tech is one of a new breed of university programs where students who want to fuse art and technology together can get  their creative-geek on. Daniel Chase Hooper, a recent graduate of the program, has shown the promise of the Hybrid that I am referring to.

musicHistory.png

Using skills from several disciplines including (interaction designer, software engineer, marketing and video production), Daniel created a completely new way to edit text on the iPad and then posted a clever video on YouTube that ultimately helped him land a post-graduation job working as a developer at Apple.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com
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Sep 4, 2012

The What and Why of Semantic Web Technologies

In my first article on The Semantic Web and the Modern Enterprise, I introduced the vision of the Semantic Web. I also discussed how the progress made while working towards that vision provides a strong foundation to help enterprises better deal with their information management challenges. In this article, we’ll take a high-level look at what the core Semantic Web technologies are, why they’re different from conventional technology approaches and how they deliver tangible benefits for enterprise information management.

Flexible Data Integration with RDF

Semantic Web data is represented using a technology standard called Resource Description Framework (RDF). RDF is a graph (web-like) structure that links data elements together in a self-describing way. RDF is perhaps best understood in contrast to how enterprise information has traditionally been represented for the past 30 years — relational databases.

What does data mean?

Relational data is stored in tables, and the meaning of a particular piece of data is dependent on the particular table and column it lives in. Details about the table and column, such as its name, its definition and acceptable values, are kept in a dark corner of the database known as the catalog. This information is difficult to access and is not directly linked to the data itself. In practice, this means that software that accesses relational data needs to have the meaning of the data hard-coded into it.

The meaning of RDF data, in contrast, is part of the data itself. This means that wherever data goes, details about it (i.e. metadata) are always immediately available. You don’t need explicit knowledge of what data means, nor do you need completely separate mechanisms to interrogate the meaning of data. In a very real way, RDF data is self-describing.

How is the data stored?

Relational databases store data in tables. These tables act as both physical structures that hold data on a disk and also as a way to represent a logical model of entities and attributes. The tables contain actual data (e.g. a user’s email address) and also artifacts of the data’s physical storage (things like IDs, keys, indexes and join tables).

Because the logical model and the physical storage are so tightly intertwined, even small changes to the logical model can require significant changes to the physical model, which in turn have a ripple effect for all software components that depend on this data.

With RDF, the logical model is decoupled from how data is physically stored on disk. Attributes and relationships can be added and removed as necessary without impacting deployed applications. Details of how information is physically stored are completely isolated from the logical data model, which also has the effect that RDF is well-suited to ad-hoc data integration and exploration.

How is the data identified?

In the relational database world, identity is local to a database. Each table uses its own scheme for identifying data and telling one row apart from another. There’s no standard way to refer to data from another table or another database altogether.

RDF, on the other hand, names everything using URIs. (URIs are just like the URLs that we use for web pages, except that they’re being used to identify data elements.) With RDF, you can be confident that if two databases from different organizations across the world use the same identifier, they mean the same thing.

Together, these characteristics mean that it is far easier and cheaper to deal with change and to combine together data represented in RDF than it’s been in the past with other approaches. You can begin to allow owners of diverse but related data to collaborate on each other’s data without requiring months and months of upfront coordination. Your software can evolve to incorporate new sources of data and new business requirements more quickly than before.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com
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Aug 30, 2012

SharePoint Governance: Needed Now More than Ever

Last week I had the opportunity to participate in the Tweetjam about SharePoint. One of the topics that came up was the importance of Governance. In this article I want to dive deeper into this topic and stress how important governance is within your environment. 

shutterstock_90296737.jpg

Governance can simply be defined as a set of controls in place to ensure that your SharePoint environment remains stable, accessible and highly responsive. These are controls that you put in place to keep the environment from becoming the black hole of misplaced and misused content.

Governance in many cases, seems to be the latest buzz word, the thing that all environments have to have in order to get the stamp of approval for following best practices. The simple truth however, is that it doesn’t matter what you call it or how you manage it, as long as it is getting done.

Here are a few simple questions that I like to ask that help you see the types of areas that are typically covered in a governance plan.

  1. Why SharePoint? What purpose does SharePoint serve in your organization?
  2. If a user wants to create a new solution and they think SharePoint is a good fit for what they need, how do they go about creating one?
  3. Who in the organization has attended SharePoint training?
  4. Are there quotas in place within your environment to help control how large solutions can become?
  5. How does the typical user within your environment use SharePoint?

In a nutshell, a Governance plan should outline what the intended use of your environment is and then provide guidance on how users can successfully use the environment as a tool to increase their success within the organization. Once the goals are set and the process is outlined, you then look at what needs to be put in place to ensure that the environment can fulfill its intended purposes. Governance is really nothing more than creating a roadmap and then building a road to successfully reach the final destination.

Starts with the Business

The first step to any good plan is knowing where we are going. In terms of SharePoint, this means we need to understand the goals of implementation. The goals will greatly determine how we move forward and should be the guide to all things we do.

These goals should generate within the business and should be based on business needs and not technology. If we based our plans on the technology alone, we can definitely miss the mark. The goals should be owned by a single point of contact, even if that contact is a committee that is working together. These goals will help determine what we configure within SharePoint, so they need to have strong backing and encompass a large vision of the organization.

The more these goals align with the overall goals of the organization, the more successful overall user adoption will be. This is due to the fact that users will more rapidly adopt the toolset because they can see how using the toolset will help them achieve the greater goals of the organization.

It Doesn’t End with the Business

Once the business comes together and works through a set of goals for the implementation, it is important for the business to continue to work with the system administrators and developers to help develop the actionable plan to move forward with the SharePoint implementation.

While it is true that the best governance plans start with the business, it is also true that the only truly successful governance plans include information from all areas of expertise. System administrators know better than anyone how to best maintain the environment to ensure long term usability and impact. By working together, the best of both sides meet in the middle, allowing for users to have access to stable, reliable systems that help them achieve real world goals.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com
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Aug 29, 2012

35,000 Foot View of SharePoint 2013 for End Users

shutterstock_105211814.jpgThis is the last article of a four-part 35,000-foot overview of some of the major changes expected in SharePoint 2013. What's in store for the end user?

What’s New for End Users?

When end users begin using SharePoint 2013, they will notice additional collaboration features, as well as an increase in social components.

Collaboration

SharePoint has always been a tool for collaboration, but SharePoint 2013 promises even more robust collaboration tools. SharePoint 2013 has added new features to increase collaboration, including:

  • OneNote Notebook included in the Team Site for taking and storing notes locally
  • Share Dialog Interface, which allows users to quickly add people to list and share content even between site collections
  • Callout Feature for managing Items in List or Library
  • Drag and Drop Between Sites or between SharePoint/Desktop allowing you to quickly move documents between sites or between SharePoint and your local environment.

Video and Rich Media Improvements

Video and rich media is invading the business world, and SharePoint 2013 is striving to make it easier to organize and access this form of data. Improvements related to video and rich media, include:

  • Videos have video pages that contain metadata to improve the search functionality.
  • Users can now preview videos from the search results before spending valuable time downloading the video.
  • Users can now search for videos by length or by date.
  • HTML5 and Silverlight Players are Supported in 2013 for viewing.
  • Improved refinement options when it comes to SharePoint 2013 from end user perspective.

Records Management and Compliance

There are improvements to the records management functionality that help meet compliance requirements you may have in your organization, including the following:

  • Site-Based Compliance — SharePoint Sites are now integrated with Team Mailboxes in SharePoint 2013, which means that any time an end user is preserving content, both the SharePoint Sites and the Team Mailboxes are searched.

  • In-Place Records Management — SharePoint 2013 still has In-Place records management, but now it preserves content that has been modified. So if a user has put a lock on the content, it allows other users to make a change to the document, but it keeps a copy of the content as it was prior to the modification.

    Documents, list items, pages and Exchange Server 2013 mailboxes can be preserved. The preservation of the information is done at the site level but you can use filters to avoid preserving the entire site or mailbox.

  • Enterprise-Wide e-Discovery — SharePoint Server 2013 introduces a new site for managing and holding your discovery cases. Within this site collection you can perform e-Discovery queries across multiple SharePoint farms and Exchange servers and preserve the items that are discovered.

    You create a new site for each case using the eDiscovery Center site template. This site creates a portal through which you can access discovery cases to conduct searches, place content on hold, and export content. To implement e-Discovery across the enterprise, configure SharePoint Server 2013 Search to crawl all file shares and websites that contain discoverable content. You can then export the results of an e-Discovery search for later import into a review tool.

     

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Source : cmswire[dot]com
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Aug 27, 2012

Survey Says More Companies Hide from Social Media for Customer Support

It's an interesting dichotomy — as more CIOs embrace social media, more companies are shying away from it for customer service.

More CIOs Embracing Social Media

An article in Public CIO declared that CIOs Flock to Social Media, citing that “a relatively small, but growing, contingent of public CIOs are prolific social media users, fearlessly Facebooking and eagerly contributing to the blogosphere and Twitterverse.” By chronicling the experiences of a handful of CIOs, Jessica Meyer Maria describes how being active across social media has helped them collaborate, network, recruit and gain valuable insights about their industry.

More Companies Hiding Social Media Channels

But as CIOs start recognizing the benefits of being on social media, a report from Genesys showed that many Fortune 500 companies are shying away from listing social media as a means for customers to contact them.

Not only did the survey show that 55 percent of Fortune 500 consumer facing corporations fail to list a Twitter handle on their “Contact Us” page, and 51 percent fail to list a Facebook page, but that similar information is also missing from 27 percent their website home pages.

So why are companies hiding their social media channels?

It’s hard to say for sure, but as more consumers turn to social media to voice their complaints or seek additional information from companies, it’s not inconceivable that some companies may not want the attention. Little do they know that regardless of whether or not they let their customers know where to find them on social media, people are talking about them.

Many companies are still struggling to embrace social media and are not confident in their ability to deal with customer queries and complaints via social media. Try as they might to hide, they’ll soon discover that it will do more damage in the long run.

Bridge Social Across All Touchpoints

Instead of hiding from their fans and followers, companies are behooved to resolve the disconnect by developing a customer service strategy that not only integrates social media channels across every customer touch point, but understands the benefits that it can bring to promoting brand recognition and loyalty.

Hopefully, as more and more CIOs join the ranks of social media users, they’ll help bring their companies out of hiding.

 
 

Source : cmswire[dot]com
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