(LAS VEGAS) Lest you be tingling with excitement about the potential enhancements to your less than spectacular content management system, there are two realities for SharePoint 2010: what is promised, and what is hoped for.

 

Those working with MOSS 2007 can be forgiven for the vacuous deflating sound from their proverbial balloons – those familiar with 2007 promises that don’t materialize as promised (e.g. People Search); others attending the annual SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas can be forgiven for their rapid inhalation of hot air as there is great reason to be optimistic, even excited.

 

Nonetheless, I’ve been both impressed and underwhelmed with what I’ve seen, but more time is needed for Microsoft to complete the beta testing and final refinements before 2010 ships to customers in the spring of 2010. When I asked SharePoint chief Tom Rizzo to explain how he thought the content management functionality compared with other market leaders, Rizzo – speaking as a proud, if not slightly defensive father – instead turned the question back on me: “I challenge all of the other vendors to offer as comprehensive a platform as SharePoint – nothing comes close.” Touché!

 

Here are five of the biggest impact, promised improvements to enterprise content management (ECM) that I’ve seen with my own two eyes, and even used (albeit with mixed success as the ‘lab’ demos are not all working as promised, and a demo is in fact just a demo):

 

1-     Publishing platform – the entire publishing platform is, in essence, a wiki. You can choose to lock down wiki or public authoring rights, extend them to some, or extend them to all. However, it is possible to create sites as wikis. The wikis come with complete version control, history and permissions, and the rich editor or “ribbon” functionality (as seen in Word 200).

2-    Web content management (WCM) – communications professionals rejoice: publishing news and other static content just got a lot easier. The new publishing includes the new “ribbon” user tool that opens when you click on a page or a document, or you simply hit the edit button at the top of a page. Instead of opening a content ‘template’ the new publishing features in-context editing: click on whatever piece of content you want to “edit”, and edit right there on the page (just as you would a wiki). New image tools allow for better control and manipulation of photos, and you no longer have to make the extra step of uploading a photo to a document library before you input it into the page – you can now pull images right from your hard drive, or a website URL.

3-    Records management (RM) – Microsoft has invested a lot of money in improving RM in 2010. Among the many features that have impressed, users or administrators (or someone else that has permission to do so) are able to lock down a document in a document library, as a record. And with a right click, can send that document to a Record Center with confirmation. Additional Life Cycle controls have been added.

4-    Digital asset management (DAM) – yes, SP 2010 actually includes DAM – you no longer have to use a third-party option to professionally manage images, video and other multimedia.

5-   Taxonomy & meta data – perhaps the single, most impressive upgrade or enhancement to SharePoint is the addition of true taxonomy and meta data  controls. All content now comes with a Managed Meta Data Service Term set that can be inherited from the global taxonomy (site collection), can be built upon or controlled by an administrator, or open to all users (or a combination). In other words, when content is created, be it a page, document, wiki, meta data can be added on the spot, as determined by the publisher or limited to a pre-determined set or tree of terms that is locked down. End readers and users can ‘tag’ the content as well with term tags, ratings (1-5 starts) and “I like it.” What is most encouraging about the use of meta data is that it can be “forced” or a “mandatory field” for all content (we all know that most organizations have options to input meta tags on content, but most content authors ignore it if given the choice).

 

Other taxonomy features:

·        Term ‘nesting” or “threading”(think of the tree with parent & children categories)

·         “Fill-in” choices as an option in locked-down taxonomies

·        Different taxonomies at different levels: site collections, sites, libraries, etc.

·         Managed meta data service can be consumed by multiple farms

·        Multilingual taxonomy support (taxonomies using multiple languages)

·         Taxonomy workflow (invite specific people to contribute or review the taxonomy)

·         View and filter documents by term:

o              Geography

o              Product Category

o              Vertical Industry

o              Content Type

o             Deal Size

o            Folders

o              Etc.

 

While not all of these promised improvements were working in the hands-on labs in my time spent using MOSS 2010, this is in-fact only the beta version (in fact, one of the MS officials helping me through the hands-on labs told me that some of the tutorials are in fact still alpha versions. In fact, the first time I used the new wiki I was convinced it was the 2007 version as I could see not a single improvement to it). There is still some 6 or 7 months still to pass before Microsoft has to work out all the bugs, kinks, and refinements (planned release to existing MOSS 2007 customers is at the end of April, though I would not expect something for installation much before the summer; new customers will have to wait even longer).

 

Finally, it’s worth noting that MOSS is a massively complex, and powerful system. It’s to be expected that some of the promised functionality may not work for some time, or without serious additional development and customization. In fact, any organization considering an upgrade may do well to wait until after the first service pack, or simply trial the new SharePoint Online which will have close to feature parity with the installed, on premises version.

 

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(LAS VEGAS, NV) If there was one, overarching message delivered by CEO Steve Ballmer in his keynote unveiling Microsoft SharePoint 2010 (at the annual SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas): SharePoint is no longer just an intranet solution, it’s been architected for all forms of web scenarios.

 

“SharePoint is one of my favorite Microsoft products…. It’s true,” says Ballmer. “SharePoint, in my estimation, is kind of magical.  I don’t think there’s anything like it in the market. It has become a platform for a whole big set of scenarios that were served by niche (products).”

 

New scenarios include all of the typical intranet scenarios, but all the Internet scenarios they can attack. To drive the point home, Ballmer cited many companies already using MOSS 2007 for their public website including:

 

·         Kraft Foods (consolidated 200 websites to a single platform saving $2 million per year)

·         Volvo (36 languages, 70 countries)

·         Pfizer

·         Library of Congress

·         Hawaiian Airlines

·         Kroger

·         Conservation International

 

However, it remains to be seen whether the improvements to MOSS’s web content management will be sufficient to quell the traditional content publishing and management concerns of marketing and communications managers who operate external websites. The new UI for web content management is a marked improvement – in-context editing deploying the ‘ribbon’ UI introduced in Office 2007.

 

Ballmer announced that MOSS 2010 will public beta test this November (no specific date was delivered). The MS chief also spent a lot of time talking about “the cloud” and was even so bold as to state that “SharePoint is in the center of the cloud.”

 

“It’s all in the cloud–we certainly agree with that,” said Ballmer, who stressed that SharePoint Online has more than 1 million online users (and 7,000 partners). “SharePoint is more capable, more extensible, more Internet & cloud focused. It’s an amazing product.”

 

NEW FEATURES / TOOLS:

 

·         “Ribbon” interface (in-context editing)

·         "Visual web parts” (“no more hard-coding of web parts”)

·         Supports development / design on Vista & Windows 7

·         Access services (publish Access dbases through SP)

·         New sandboxed solutions

·         Integrated rich media & Silverlight

·         Improved Visual Studio & SQL

·         Upgrades from 2007 will include a complete migration of an existing home page design / UI to 2010

·         Improved social computing (blogs, wikis, tagging, ratings, etc)

·         Improved search algorithms and FAST Search integration

·         New site scenarios for:

o        Pricing analysis

o        Hiring processes

o        Citizen management (citizen portals)

o       Project tracking

o       Sales reporting

o       Conference planning

o        Delivery scheduling

o        Compliance review sites

 

SOCIAL COMPUTING

 

“We needed to facilitate this next generation of social computing,” stated Ballmer, though not convincingly, when asked about the improvements on social media – a notorious weakness of the MOSS 2007 platform. “We’ve done this with My Sites, mashing-up, etc. I think we’ve moved towards 3.0.”

 

Improvements to the highly criticized social computing of MOSS include:

• Better blogs, wikis, calendars
• Co-authoring
• Content tagging
• Tag clouds
• Ratings
• Bookmarks
• MySites “Smart Profiles” and feeds
• Browse colleagues and experts
• “Share This Site.”

 

“There isn’t an enterprise on the planet that doesn’t want to embrace social computing, but they worry about how to do it,” explained Ballmer. “If we can show a path to CEOs and CIOs that we can let people interact with each other the way they want to (and still protect privacy and security) then they will embrace social computing.”

 

CONTENT MANAGEMENT

 

Improvements to ECM include:

 

·         Document management: The ceiling limit on a document library moves to 10 million, and within a site collection, to hundreds of millions of documents; no longer will you have to right click to bring up the actions / options of a document, the ribbon hosts all of the options / actions the user needs

·         Taxonomy management: you will be able to have consistent content types taxonomy across server farms (applied at the document level)

·         Pictures: photos no longer have to be in an SP library, but can be uploaded from your hard drive

·         The addition of true Digital Asset Management

 

GOVERNANCE

 

Perhaps the biggest criticism or flaw of SharePoint has been the issue of governance, which Microsoft has only addressed half-heartedly, as reflected in Tom Rizzo’s comments: “There’s a lot we’re doing on governance, but its only 20% software, and 80% process,” says Rizzo, Senior Director, SharePoint. “We’ve invested a lot in best practices, centers of excellence. We’ll continue to invest, but I think we’re still need near the beginning, than the end.” In other words, governance is more the client’s responsibility than Microsoft’s.

 

SHAREPOINT CONFERENCE STATISTICS:

 

·         7.5 miles of network cable

·         7,400 participants (up from 3,800) – 94% growth

·         297 world class speakers

·        70 countries

·        165 sponsors

·         300+ hours

·         240 sessions

·         45+ hours of hands-on labas

·         18 customer sessions (Delloite)

·         2 SharePoint marriages

·         Biggest Beach Party ever by Mandalay with Huey Lewis & The News

 

Follow my SharePoint conference updates on Twitter: www.twitter.com/TobyWard #spc09

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(PHILADELPHIA, PA – J. Boye) Insights from CMS Watch founder, and co-author of the CMS Watch Report, Tony Byrne.

Tony Byrne, CMS Watch:

• SharePoint is part product, part platform, part ecosystem – a collection of technologies that have varying degrees of finish

• Under-reported and under-appreciated dimension of SharePoint: built solidly on (almost) latest .NET platform

• Be cautious of developer/integrator enthusiasm

• Keep Implementation of SharePoint Simple (KISS)

• Embrace configuration, some customization and integration, avoid extension (e.g. building custom applications, etc.)

• The latest marketing from Microsoft is “to really finish or complete MOSS you should look to external partners.”

• Oxcite, 3^rd party open source blog tool for .NET (not SharePoint)

• Just because a firm is a Microsoft partner, doesn't mean they have SharePoint expertise

Cautions:

• Some MS partners / vendors are in over their heads

• Not all are experts in all SP services

• Temptation to over-engineer

• Experienced integrators are in high-demand

Caveats:

• Test performance, reliability, and security features carefully

• Contrast software with "consulting-ware" (developed once for a client and re-sold)

• Remember: its not just another module, but another vendor

• Many partners fervently hope that MS will buy them, but Redmond typically recreates rather than acquires

• This can be very inconvenient for you down the road with MS upgrades SharePoint

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How many organizations are using a CMS for their intranet? What about a portal solution?

Respondents to the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey provide (530+ organizations ranging from small to huge, in all corners of the globe: 36% come from the U.S.; 24% from Europe; 60% have more than 1,000 employees; 32% have 6,000 or more employees) some very good insight into the use content management systems (CMSs), as well as portals and Intranet 2.0 tools.

Key findings:

• Less than 2/3s of organizations use a CMS for their intranet (62%)

• 24% use a custom built CMS (home grown CMS)

• 25% use an off-the-shelf solution

• 11% use a portal solution

• There is no dominant CMS solution – no one vendor has more than 20% market share

  • Microsoft SharePoint is used by 20% of those that use a CMS

  • Interwoven, Documentum and Vignette each have 4% market share

  • No other solution was cited by more than 8 organizations (2.5% share)

Clearly SharePoint's dominance in the market is showing here. Though only 20% of the respondents are using it as a CMS. For those that have implemented Intranet 2.0 tools, SharePoint (MOSS 2007) is present in 46% of the organizations (though some organizations are using multiple tools including SocialText, Confluence and MediaWiki). In other words, SharePoint is being used as a CMS, but its not its strength which is collaboration sites, document sharing, and portal functionality / features. SharePoint is more often being used for collaboration and portal functionality.

My full presentation on the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey findings is next week at J. Boye – Philadelphia 2009. There are still spots left if you want to register now (and some great case study presentations as well). The full study findings will be sent to survey participants only in mid-May (TBA) followed by a participant only webinar (yes you have to take the survey to get the results).

Speaking of intranets and measurement this is a great free webinar with a terrific case study from PNC Bank: Measuring Intranet Success in the Real World (Case study with PNC Financial Services group) Date: Thursday, 12pm EST – Register Online.

ALSO...

Social Media Webinar for Educators

This webinar is free and designed for university professors, instructors, and students. Topics for discussion include the role of the new media, how the Web is evolving, and what to expect in the future. Best practices and tips for how to engage with others and build trust in a virtual world will also be discussed. Hosted by Plank Center, the one-hour discussion and presentation is on May 1, at 1:30 CDT.

Moderated by Keith Burton, President, InsidEdge, presenters include Robert French, Instructor, PR & Digital Media, Auburn University; Jeff Beringer, SVP, Dialogue/GolinHarris, and Toby Ward, Founder and CEO of Prescient Digital Media.

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Like the content of your website or intranet, planning and governance is technology agnostic; whether its SharePoint or another portal or content management platform, the necessity for and the approach to governance is the same. Given its technology neutral status in the realm of website and intranet evolution this module on planning and governance is largely applicable to any technology platform and as such is generic to start.

While generic in nature, there are some components of SharePoint that require specific consideration, and are discussed and addressed by the interviewed subject matter experts and the included case studies (see Planning for SharePoint Success).

“Without proper architecture and governance, I can guarantee you that SharePoint will fail,” says Bob Mixon, President of Mixon Consulting, addressing the annual Enterprise 3 conference in San Diego.

In particular, the powerful Team Site features and easy deployment features (Site Collections) of SharePoint make it even more demanding of a rigorous plan and detailed governance model. While intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the titles, roles and responsibilities of its owners, managers, stakeholders and contributors.

Sadly, very few organizations actually have a well-defined governance model, and many of those have spent hundreds-of-thousands to millions of dollars on their website or intranet – amounting to extraordinary investments left to chance and execution on a whim.

According to the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey:

• only 47% of organizations have a defined governance model (32% have 6,000 employees or more; 11% have 30,000 employees or more);

• of the tools and platforms being used by survey participants, a whopping 47% are using SharePoint (MOSS 2007) in some shape or form.

Intranet Sprawl

As IP technology has advanced corporate intranets have become more complex and interactive including human resource and purchasing applications, collaboration tools, business intelligence and real-time reporting tools. Some organizations without intranet governance and enterprise standards (for web page and content creation) have seen the birth of individual intranets for every department and work team. “Do-what-you-like” was the only rule and the corporate network became the wild west or ‘intranet sprawl’.

'Intranet sprawl' can be a poisonous side-effect of SharePoint Team Site and site collection use without the proper “rules” for deploying and managing sites. However, its not merely a SharePoint problem. At one point at the turn of the millennium, IBM's network was choked with approximately 10,000 intranet sites before they undertook a governance process and federation (consolidation campaign) that saved the company untold millions (IBM claims its saved more than a $1 billion).

Perhaps more so than most, SharePoint (MOSS 2007 or WSS) requires a governance model. I categorize intranet governance by four broad approaches or models:

• Decentralized (no single owner; do-what-you-like)

• Centralized a single owner or department controls it all; highly bureaucratic; common in small organizations)

• Collaborative (shared ownership via committee)

• Hybrid, centralized (single owner, with collaborative accountability, decentralized content ownership)

Learn more about planning and governance for the corporate intranet, with a specific focus on MOSS 2007, during our free webinar Planning for SharePoint Success (April 13).

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“I'm not really sure who owns the intranet.” This is a far too common refrain cited by many clients and conference attendees alike when answering questions about intranet ownership. Shockingly, even the folks in Communications and IT often answer with confusion -- even sometimes believing that they are at least a part owner, but unsure who the real owner is. 

How can you operate a successful business or system if there is no clear owner? You cannot; it is simply impossible to achieve any long-lasting success without a clearly defined ownership and management structure. Far from being a buzz word or consultant jargon, intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the names, roles and responsibilities of its owners, managers, stakeholders and contributors (be it content, technology or other).

Imagine a platoon without a lieutenant, your HR department with no head, or your public website without an owner. All might might survive for a few weeks, maybe a year or two, perhaps, but all would die a slow death until someone put it out of its misery.

Politics and the issues of control, ownership and standards go hand-in-hand with intranet management and perhaps these issues more than any other have driven the requirement for defining governance models. Sadly, very few organizations actually have a well-defined governance model, and many of those have spent hundreds-of-thousands to millions of dollars on their intranet – amounting to extraordinary investments left to chance and execution on a whim.

According to the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey only 47% of organizations have a defined governance model (of which 32% have 6,000 employees or more; 11% have 30,000 employees or more). Of the tools and platforms being used by survey participants, a whopping 47% are using SharePoint (MOSS 2007) in some shape or form.

However, SharePoint is not getting the governance it deserves. According to the Global Intranet Trends 2009 report, which highlights detailed intranet findings and lessons from 227 participant organizations, 55% of organizations have implemented or are considering implementing SharePoint; a pitiful 30% of those SharePoint implementers have an intranet strategy. A stunning finding; I would be amazed to learn how the intranet managers or executives in these companies actually got their jobs.

However, if ever there was a platform or tool that required governance, it's SharePoint. “Without proper architecture and governance, I can guarantee you that SharePoint will fail,” says Bob Mixon, President of Mixon Consulting, addressing the annual Enterprise 3 conference in San Diego.

One MOSS expert, who prefers to remain anonymous when citing this particular client, tells of a major bank in the U.K. that upgraded to MOSS in 2007. A little more than a year later the bank had 23,000 instances of MOSS – a a massive problem for the bank. “The way it was deployed and structured was deplorable… but that’s the bank’s fault, not Microsoft’s.”

As I'm fond to continually reiterate, an intranet is one part process, one part people, and one part technology – and the technology is the least important component. An intranet cannot work on software and hardware alone. More specifically, Microsoft provides the software, it is the client's responsibility to build the plan and intranet governance.

When building an intranet a governance model for MOSS, or any other intranet, the major components should include:

• Defined ownership structure (names and titles)

• Roles and responsibilities (jobs and duties)

• Decision making process (who is responsible for what and when)

• Content and development policies & standards (the rules of establishing pages, sites and content)

Implementing proper governance for MOSS (or any intranet) does require some experience and an outside third-party expert or intranet consultant is strongly recommended if there is any hint of internal politics or competing priorities amongst intranet stakeholders. An outside intranet consultant is considered mandatory if HR, Communications, IT and all the key departments and business units are not in explicit agreement as to who should own the intranet and what the model should look like.

SharePoint may be the World's most popular intranet platform that is loaded with bells and whistles, but without the proper planning and governance, a MOSS intranet project could become your organization's most expensive productivity drain.

RELATED READING:

Intranet governance

The Politics of Intranet Ownership

Collaborative Intranet Governance (Intranet Politics Part II)

Intranet management is plural

Why is the intranet so political?

RELATED READING ON MOSS 2007 (SharePoint):

Advice for SharePoint customers

Sharepoint to be the new Windows?

The pros and cons of SharePoint (MOSS)

SharePoint overview (pros & cons, MOSS)

SharePoint requires proper architecture & governance

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