Interact Offers Analytics, Benchmarking To Identify Intranet Problems In Real-Time

Interact Internet has always managed to keep its intranet application up to speed with market trends. In June it added social capabilities to Intranet v5.1 in response to growing enterprise demands. In v5.2 which is being released today, it is adding intranet analytics.

Intranet Analytics

The release does not bring analytics to intranet platforms to analyze business trends, or customer behaviors, but uses analytics to…well to analyze itself.

That is to say that an enterprises uses it to analyze its intranet: assess intranet performance, compare it with other intranets of similar sizes, or intranets in the same verticals, identify problems, and suggest ways those problems might be fixed.

This, as far as we know, is the first tool on the market that actually does this using the Interact Analytics component, which also comes with an integrated benchmarking tool.

It enables enterprises to answer what business managers ask themselves everyday: Is our intranet being used, is it effective?

Given the amount of investment that is being put into intranets, and the fact that they are increasingly being used for enterprise collaboration on content of all kinds, this really is a fundamental question.

Without the ability to compare the performance of other intranets,  it is also a question that is being asked in a vacuum.

Interact benchmarking

Interact v5.2

In practical terms, it aims to identify and eliminate out-of-data content, poorly authored content, badly developed user profiles and encourages secure content collaboration across the intranet.

Every intranet in the world faces numerous operational challenges and for many intranet managers, it can be a mystery as to why these problems occur. So we developed Interact Analytics with powerful tools that take the guess work out of why an intranet could be failing and provide statistical, hard evidence that can be quickly acted on, to guarantee a healthy intranet,” VP of Product, Simon Dance said.

The benchmarking works in real-time so that intranet managers can follow developments across the intranet as they happen, and target areas of weakness as soon as they are identified.

Interact problem warnings
 

On top of this, it also suggests ways of fixing the problems as they occur, and identifies areas that are likely to become problems in the future. Other functions include:

• Reporting: Daily intranet activity reports that outline data, device and problem flagging that is sent directly to the intranet manager’s inbox.
• Profile Analytics: Analysis of profile pages to ensure that they are up to date and that other users can find suitable co-workers to resolve issues, or collaborate with.
• Search Analytics: Shows what users are trying to find, what they found, and what they didn’t find.
• Document Score: All documents on the intranet are scored based on enterprise criteria. The Document Quality Score ensures that content present on the intranet is the best available in the enterprise, and that it is useful for other workers.
• Data over Time: Data analysis over time enabling enterprises to identify content trends.
• Influence Score: Shows who is really using the intranet and who is paying attention to what is being said by others in relation to specific content. It encourages users to contribute to intranet content by content scoring.

The new version of Interact Intranet is available Wednesday.

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

This Week: Keeping Your Intranet Relevant + Web Experience Marches Forward

Getting Your Intranet Right
Good reminder this week — you need to design your intranet to suit how you work, not how someone else thinks you should.

Some good reads:

• Avoid the Intranet Info Architecture Trap
• Tricks for Keeping Your Intranet Relevant
• Developing Trust in the Digital Workplace

What Collaboration Means To You
People look at collaboration differently, that's one thing we learned from our #SocBizChat Tweet Jam this week. Another is the that best collaboration evolves organically — it's not forced. Read the full Tweet Jam recap.

Tools to Enhance Web Experience
This week Sitecore added a Social Starter Kit to its Web Experience Platform. And on the open source side, Acquia announced its new OpenWEM offering for marketers. 

Forrester: Reconsidering Open Source for Web Experience Management
Join Stephen Powers of Forrester Research for a discussion about
how open source tools can play a key role in multi-channel web
experience management (Oct 31st).
> Reserve Your Seat Here

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Beware the Information Architecture Trap

IBM’s intranet information architecture is not good enough for you; nor is Microsoft’s. 

Trap Number One: Looking Outward

When redesigning an intranet or portal, there is a natural inclination by some architects and consultants to reinvent the IA to best reflect what others have done, or simply copying what has worked for "best practice" or "award-winning" intranets. This of course is the most dangerous trap.

It doesn’t matter what Microsoft, IBM or Google has for their intranet, and how they structured their IA, your organization is not theirs. No outside consultant or architect could truly appreciate and know intimately the culture and the formal and informal corporate nomenclature as those who have worked for an organization for years.

An effective information architecture best reflects the most common vernacular of the organization — the most used or common words for describing things.

Information architecture is essential to a successful site. An IA provides a content blueprint for navigating the intranet. It is the science of labeling and placing information where it can be found and reused easily — and quickly.

Information architecture (IA) is mostly science with a hint of art. As it relates to the intranet, the IA is best represented by a site map or organization chart of the major information or content categories (parents) and the sub-categories (children) and how they all relate to each other. IA is generally defined as the content structure of a website or intranet, or the structure or framework for how content is categorized and labeled in relation to other content. In short, IA is the art and science of structuring, labeling and categorizing content.

And yet, most intranets fail to understand the most critical component of effective intranet information architecture — employees need to construct the information architecture. This is not to say they literally take-up the physical architecting, but rather must be involved in the process, and formally engaged for feedback via interviews, testing and card sorting.

An expert should craft the final information architecture, but not without first intimately knowing and understanding the common vernacular, language and specific needs of the employee audience.

Trap Number 2: Getting Cute

Another poisonous trap: cute labels.

The antidote: old, tired labels that everyone knows should be kept.

@Work, MyPlace, MyWork — all new age labels for the same old category, HR (Human Resources). Why on Earth, if there’s been an HR section on the intranet for 8 years, would anyone rename it MyWork?

A tried, tested and true label replaced with something a high-priced consultant only dreamed up the night before represents a major mistake. Go with what you know, with what employees know; old labels may seem tired, but if everyone knows and understands it, then it should be left alone.

When redesigning the intranet, stick with what works: tried, tested and simple. And for god’s sake, don’t be cute about information architecture.

Image repurposed from original by Linn Currie (Shutterstock)

Editor's Note: Toby not only talks the talk, he walks the intranets walk. Read more with Building a Social Intranet

About the Author

Toby Ward is Founder and CEO of Prescient Digital Media, and the author of the Intranet Information Architecture white paper (October 2012).

 

 

Source : cmswire[dot]com

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

The Evolving Role of Content Management in Modern Intranets

As 2012 comes to a close, it’s safe to say that the modern intranet has become a mission-critical resource for most in mid to enterprise sized organizations. If we were to look at an intranet today and compare it to the 2009, 2006 and 2003 versions within those organizations, the differences would be nothing less than striking in terms of their effectiveness and impact on the overall organization.

One might reasonably ask what is the role of content management in today’s intranet, and how is it evolving?

Those of us that design and implement these experiences know that content management has an essential role in any interactive project, but understand that an Enterprise CMS isn’t a panacea; there’s plenty going on in a modern intranet these days that’s not content. Today’s intranets are dynamic, social, highly collaborative experiences that connect people to all sorts of content, data, applications and, perhaps most importantly, to each other. 

Content Management in Action on Today’s Intranet

While enterprise social capabilities are clearly essential, a practical intranet implementation simply can’t succeed without some “traditional” Enterprise CMS feature support. For example:

• Easily adopted tools: Non-technical content contributors must be able to create web pages, documents, centralized asset libraries for video, images, etc. This is especially important for inherently social content like blogs, wikis, and threaded discussions. If you want people to create and share, it can’t be too difficult or time consuming.
• Governance tools often found in the Enterprise CMS stack: Editorial approval workflows, security enacted via permissioning and personalization, revision control with audit trails, analytics containing access data. These are especially critical for any group beholden to a standards body (Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, SEC, etc.).
• Templating concepts: Structured/normalized content and branding/design standards are usually necessary, especially when building an organization’s primary intranet site.

Taxonomy Matters

The CMS often provides the core "glue" for all collaborative experiences on an intranet: the classification engine.

A well implemented Enterprise CMS with a robust classification engine for taxonomy, folksonomy and metadata is at the heart of any intranet with “long-legged” strategic goals. While technical scalability is essential, a “killer back end” isn’t nearly enough on its own. Here’s how I’d define “robust” in this context:

• The classification engine has to be easily adoptable, by information architects, librarians, subject matter experts and the entire contributing user base alike.
• The same terminology within the enterprise classification engine must be universally available to all content — and people. All related implementation decisions should be non-technical in nature. For example, a major adoption barrier in SharePoint 2007 was rooted in an inability to share terms across Site Collections.
• Folksonomy and controlled vocabularies must have an inherent relationship. Tools that allow for easy promotion from the former to the latter, along with the ability to define synonyms, must be available to SMEs and librarians.

Where Social and Collaboration Fit In

Wait, aren’t intranets all about enterprise social connections and collaboration these days? Why the taxonomy rant?

This isn’t an “either/or” decision point. At a minimum you need a cocktail of content management tools, Enterprise Social feature support and a super-reliable search engine to unlock the potential of the intranet and raise an organization’s IQ. Consider how combining these tools can become an “intranet trifecta,” if we tune and prioritize search result ranking, using:

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

When is the Best Time to Turn Your SharePoint Intranet into a Social Intranet?

There's a social enterprise revolution going on and your intranet is right in the middle of it.

The social tsunami that has swept the consumer space has also spread to the corporate world, where social enterprise tools have been gaining user traction and executives are getting excited and anxious in equal measures about getting "Facebook for the enterprise."

For organizations using Microsoft SharePoint, the upcoming 2013 release — which is bringing a full battery of social capabilities, like micro blogging, activity streams, following and communities of interest — may have you seriously considering adding social capabilities to your intranet.

Add to this is the game-changing acquisition of Yammer by Microsoft and even the most hard bitten Luddite realizes they need to give some serious consideration to the use of social in their organization.

Of course, many organizations will have already been thinking about how to "socially enable" their intranet already, but have not yet been able to get it underway. (Perhaps you wanted to get started on social using SharePoint 2010, but just couldn't figure out what to do with those "Tags and Notes" — I know I still haven't!)

When is the best time to turn your SharePoint intranet into a social intranet? To answer this question, we need to be clear on what we are talking about when we say "social intranet."

Fundamentally, a social enterprise is going to put more emphasis on staff as individuals, on the establishment and support of peer to peer networks and on encouraging transparency. Let's break this down:

Staff as Individuals 

An organization is made up of people. What are coolly referred to as "resources" in the classic workplace model are also and ultimately, individuals i.e., people, with ideas, opinions, emotions, desires, goals, etc.

People, when in decent shape, like to help, to share, to offer suggestions, to be recognized and acknowledged. A social enterprise seeks to empower its people and social intranets can play a major part in this, providing rich user profiles that include meaningful information and providing tools for staff to express themselves.

Peer to Peer Networks

Organizations are built on command hierarchies, policies and processes. People however, work both within and outside of the standard systems, establishing peer networks that are not limited to their immediate teammates or "process connections."  

Jon Husband refers to these deep connections as the "wirearchy" and for staff, it is these peer networks that provide the deepest workplace connections. An intranet is traditionally a company to worker communication. A social intranet will extend on this by allowing staff to engage with one another.

Transparency

The previous elements (staff as individuals and peer to peer networks) are arguably just descriptions of collaboration. And perhaps they are. This last one, transparency, is what most distinguishes a social enterprise. It describes a manner of working in which a person's activities are visible to their workmates.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

DreamForce 2012: Closer Towards the Cloud Based Intranet? #df12

In last month's column I took a generic look at whether an organization could move its intranet to the cloud, lock stock and barrel. As ever, my conclusion was "maybe" as it very much depends on your organization and what exactly you want to do. While at DreamForce, I had the opportunity to return to this question.

Last week I, along with allegedly 90,000 others, attended SalesForce's DreamForce conference in San Francisco. This was my first DreamForce and it was interesting for many reasons: for example the product announcements and consolidation of acquired products and functionality into the SalesCloud, ServiceCloud and MarketingCloud product streams. But I was there with my work hat on, there to dig into and learn more about Chatter as a specific product, and to meet with other users and learn from them about their implementations.

The SalesForce teams definitely split the Chatter news into two broad categories: external facing use of Chatter in the form of the new Chatter Communities and the internal enterprise use of Chatter, which was largely focused on the ChatterBox file sharing offering. They even went so far as to have two distinct product road map sessions built around these two specific use cases.

Chatter for External Use - Communities

The SalesForce press release for Communities firmly places the functionality in the context of the ServiceCloud offering.

The story is all about enhancing existing customer facing web portals with social interactivity; it foresee's user based communities where customers can go to ask questions which may be answered by your staff, or by other communities members (wisdom of crowds and all that!).

In one session, the presenter used the term "next generation portal" in conjunction with the Service Cloud offering and istated that this would be based on Chatter Communities, Site.Com and applications built on the underlying Force.Com platform. I had an interesting discussion about the intranet possibilities of this combination with a SalesForce person, but we'll come back to that later.

Chatter for Internal Use - Chatterbox

ChatterBox is a file sharing solution able to sync documents between desktop, cloud and mobile devices. There is a simple FAQ online.

It should be noted that the apparent sweet spot for this product is the synchronization service. Unlike some others, I really don't see this killing off SalesForce's relationship with partners like Box.net or Spring CM. I can see ChatterBox's synchronization being useful if its use is built into certain processes, and of course if those processes are largely based on the base CRM (Sales Cloud) or Service Cloud, or Marketing Cloud etc, then so much the better.

Chatter IS your Intranet?

So as I mentioned, I had a quick chat with a SalesForce person about where the use of its platform and products could go from an intranet perspective. He stated that Chatter IS the "social intranet." I disagree. Some organizations are just not ready to make that leap!

I understand that Chatter is delivered via the portal layer of the Force.com platform, via the VisualForce user interface development tool kit, and thus you can use the (confusingly named) Force.com Sites capability to publish data into new tabs in the Chatter interface.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Can You Move Your Intranet to the Cloud ?

A recent set of experiences at work has led me to ponder the question: can you move your intranet to the cloud?

The answer it would appear is that often given by consultants: "yes, but it depends!"  

So what does it depend on? Well, let's investigate some of the variables.

What and Why ?

The first thing to consider is what is your definition of "cloud"? I am not going to be purist about this. Whether it's a "true" multi-tenant public cloud, hosted managed services or even a corporate private cloud, what I am really looking for here is removing the technology stack from my data center / LAN and thus potentially supporting the stack, and even developing for it using staff who aren't on my organization's core payroll.

      
This diagram is courtesy of Sam Johnston via Wikipedia (Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike V3.0)

I will be a little more proscriptive in defining the technology stack. In essence, what I am looking for is a Web CMS for the core information publishing function on an intranet. Whether you prefer the term Digital Workplace, Intranet Ecosystem or some other label, when it comes down to it there are many cloud based solutions for content centric collaboration or social collaboration.

However, apparently there are far fewer alternatives for that good old fashioned core intranet use case of content publishing, or portal development and not every organization is culturally mature enough yet to move to a social platform (e.g. Jive) as their intranet solution.

Organizational Size

Oh yes, size does indeed appear to count! There are some excellent cloud-based or hosted intranet solutions that unfortunately just do scale to 5,000 users. For example ThoughtFarmer is an excellent "social intranet" platform which can run on site or in the cloud, but either way, the ThoughtFarmer team doesn't recommend it for more than 5,000 users.

There are other alternatives, which may serve you in the Small to Medium Enterprise space, with many “intranet in a box” offerings moving to a cloud model, and even heavy duty intranet focused CMS platforms like Ektron are doing interesting things which can include hybrid models via their Cloud Manager product.

Organizational Readiness

So how mature is your organizational culture with respect to moving data into the cloud in general? Do you have standards in place? Or do your Info Sec and Enterprise Architecture colleagues have apoplexy when you mention moving content off your network and outside of your trusty firewall?

This is potentially where the variations of public versus private cloud, versus managed hosting services etc. come into play. Risk assessment is of course the broadly scoped answer to this conundrum, for which there are many corporate or public methodologies which are beyond the scope of this article.

Potential Paths to Investigate

If you're a SharePoint house for portal, WCM and other Intranet functionality, then you can investigate their cloud offering under the Office 365 brand. There will of course be plenty of potential partners to advise you on advantages and warn you of pitfalls, but I am no Office 365 expert, and I don't like SharePoint as a Web CMS !

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com

Intranet Launch Checklist

You are about to launch your intranet site and you ask yourself “Have I forgotten anything?

Ensure that you are ready for launch with this simple checklist.

Engage Users

Intranet naming competition

Get the whole organization involved with an intranet naming competition. This is a fun, informal way to get users involved with the intranet prior to launch.

You want to motivate employees to get involved, so some sort of prize on offer is a great idea. The prize for the winning suggestion usually depends on the size and culture of the organization. I’ve seen everything from a fully paid holiday to fancy dinners. The key here is to create a buzz and excitement about the intranet. You know your organization, so choose a prize that you think will most motivate employees to get involved. Do not underestimate the power of recognition. A great way to put this into action is by acknowledging the winner in the next company newsletter, along with the winning suggestion.

Assemble a group of "intranet champions"

Gaining acceptance and buy-in from key stakeholders and all staff is essential. Combat this challenge by putting together a group of intranet champions. These are the people who put up their hand and want to be involved in the intranet project. They trust and believe in the new intranet and are happy to tell everyone else how great it will be! Support and encourage your intranet champions, and you will be rewarded with a highly anticipated intranet launch.

Countdown until launch day

Build anticipation and awareness of the new intranet by creating a countdown until launch day. Do you have a current intranet? Implement a ticker that tells staff how many days until launch. Alternatively, use current media like email, newsletters and posters to keep users up to date with the anticipated intranet launch.

Have a launch party

Most organizations don’t need an excuse to have a party, so why not have one for the launch of the new intranet? This can be anything from a launch morning tea, to a fully catered evening event. Again, the goal here is to create a positive association with the new intranet.

This is also a great time for the CEO to reiterate the pain points of the current methods and present the new intranet as a key business tool and solution. Reinforce user engagement by posting the photos of the launch party on the new intranet.

Goals and Objectives

Review your intranet road map

Just like a street map, your intranet road map will show you exactly where you need to go to reach your destination. In this case, your destination is a successful intranet!

This is a good time to review the objectives that have been set for Phase 1. Have these objectives been met?

The importance of feedback

Once the intranet has been launched, what are the goals for the next six months? 12 months? An essential element in setting goals is user feedback. Re-interview key stakeholders after launch to gauge feedback. Has the intranet met expectations? What can be improved?

You may also want to introduce a suggestion box onto the intranet. This is where all users can have the opportunity to post their feedback. It is also a good way to find out what else users want to see on the intranet. Use this information to engage the whole organization, by creating an intranet wish-list. Create a quick poll with the wish list suggestions and have users vote on what they would most like to see implemented on the intranet.

Again, this will ensure that users remain engaged after the launch and make certain that your intranet is constantly changing in line with company objectives.

 

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Source : cmswire[dot]com