Intranet Blog

Analyzing Enterprise 2.0 software

Toby Ward — Tue, 20 May 2008 11:42:00 -0700

There are small start-ups, emerging vendors, and the big enterprise portal and CMS vendors – all are developing and flaunting enterprise 2.0 software (social software). And none of these solutions are perfect.

In fact, even the big guns (e.g. BEA and Microsoft) haven’t figured it out yet. “Your WCM, Collaboration, Portal or ECM system may provide many (but not all) social software services, but some of them may suck,” says CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne.

Though not as broad and deep as the more mature CMS market, the emerging Enterprise 2.0 software market is rapidly growing with hundreds of vendors. Understanding those vendors and all of the emerging solutions is extraordinarily difficult, and would probably require a full-time team just to understand the leading vendors and solutions.

Byrne is an expert on evaluating software solutions (and of course has made a name for himself and a business from his CMS expertise demonstrated at www.CMSWatch.com). Tony provided a summary overview of the current marketplace in a presentation to the Enterprise 3 conference in San Diego, and offered some insights on the bigger enterprise infrastructure software vendors (which would include BEA, IBM, Microsoft, and other biggies).

Though Tony’s analysis and scoring of a solution feature is often done on a 4-point scale across many different categories, here’s my dimmed-down interpretation listed as either a general strength or weaknesses of the big gun vendor’s social software solutions (often bundled with their portal and/or CMS solution):

Strengths:

Most of the tools are good at spam and naughty word filtering (though missing in the BEA products)
Personalization
Specialized handheld delivery (particularly important in Europe)
Vocabulary, tagging and cloud services

Weaknesses:

Multi-installation management (“Almost always the answer is “no!” … SharePoint is a perfect example)
Repository versioning, version control, and search
Composite application development
Workflow and process management
Configuration management – version control of the system and platform (as opposed to the content)
Internationalization & localization
Standards compliance

Without question, however, the big guns generally have very shallow solutions that do not compare to the feature-rich and robust solutions of the new start-ups and emerging enterprise 2.0 vendors. But of course, the risks of purchasing a solution from a start-up is inherent – you trade long-term solution viability (i.e. financial strength of the vendor) for less cost and more leading-edge (i.e. bleeding edge).

Tony also provided an introductory analysis of one emerging solution vendor, cited by Gartner as a “Cool Vendor” last year, ConnectBeam. Connectbeam is a turnkey appliance with “an integrated set of social software applications for information sharing and team collaboration”. In short, ConnectBeam is a solution that allows employees to create rich profiles and to tag and share (social bookmark) content.

Specifially, ConnectBeam lists amongst its product features:

Social Bookmarking & Tagging
Social Networking
Project communities
Expert location
Collective Intelligence (search toolbar)

Users can import their browser bookmarks and their Deli.co.us bookmarks and share those with other employees as tagged content or via their own profiles (it comes with plug-ins for IE and Firefox (not all vendors have a FireFox vendor).

In a very cursory review (he did an admirable job in a short, one-hour presentation), Tony summed-up ConnectBeam as being good at information filtering, security and access control; but weak for group discussion, creating content, and people finding – and does not come with any RSS feeds. It also has low visibility and therefore its long-term future is not yet known.

Some of Tony’s other recommendations and cautions:

Socializing software is good, but its is not the same as social software (i.e. just because it’s a good portal solution doesn’t mean it’s a good social software platform)
The concept of social software is old, but many of the dominant technologies are immature
Don’t lose site of proper software evaluation techniques

“There is a notion that the tool itself will engender informal ways of working and that you can be similarly casual when introducing a new tool (i.e. social software such as a wiki)…” adds Byrne. “But you shouldn’t leave behind every thing you know about performance, security, and the long-term viability of the vendor.”

In short, due diligence is necessary when evaluating any technology solution.

You can view Tony’s research and summaries of some of his and his analyst’s now famous reports at www.CMSWatch.com.

Owning Knowledge Management

Toby Ward — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 22:47:00 -0700

Is Knowledge Management (KM) dying? Was it just a fleeting fad? I had to pause for a second when I read Dave Pollard’s Knowledge Management: Finding Quick Wins and Long Term Value because I hadn’t read anything about KM in quite a while.

It was a buzz word for many years that hasn’t generated much buzz as of late. I’ve not heard a client nor any conference attendee nor read anyone posting a question to this blog or e-mail me anything on the subject in at least 18 months. A quick search on Google News finds only a handful of stories in the past week. But one such tidbit caught my eye and perhaps provides a hint that KM is heating-up again: According to Bain & Company's Management Tools & Trends 2007 study, KM, for the first time, ranks among the top-10 "most used" tools.

For the record, the top 10 tools cited by executives (a survey of 1200 executives from around the World):

Strategic planning

Customer relationship management

Customer segmentation

Benchmarking

Core competencies

Mission & vision statements

Outsourcing

Knowledge management

Business process reengineering (tied for 8^th)

Scenario & contingency planning (tied for 8^th)

For those keeping score, KM isn’t just a tool though. In fact, it’s not a tool at all. KM is a business discipline built around people and process, and supported by technology. And there are many tools in the field of KM (see The lost meaning of knowledge management, written almost a year ago to the day, for a full definition and overview of KM).

However, viewed as a tool in the context that Bain uses, KM is increasingly important. Not surprisingly though is this telling statistic: in the top 25 most used tools, KM is the least satisfactory off all the tools (save for RFID which narrowly beat out KM for least satisfactory). In other words, the biggest gap between importance and satisfaction is awarded to KM.

In short, effective KM requires cultural adoption and change management with strong, well defined practices for sharing knowledge, and multiple supporting technologies (including intranet, document management, collaborative tools, etc.).

In Knowledge Management: Finding Quick Wins and Long Term Value Dave Pollard offers up six quick wins for KM:

Create focused, managed directories of acknowledge experts in subjects that matter to a lot of people in your organization.

Provide employees with a desktop search tool and show them how to use it effectively.

Provide 'cheat sheets' to users that show how to organize (and name) documents on your hard drive and messages in e-mail folders.

Use RSS and encourage people to publish their information on blogs.

Create a template for requesting information that is needed in a hurry where the requestor isn't sure who to ask for it (via e-mail, IM or other routing system).

Teach people how to do research, not just search: This skill isn't just for information professionals.

Clearly KM is important – and very important to executives. And yet intranet managers don’t seem to be doing much about it…

(Just an interesting side note from the study: 30% of companies use blogs, with a satisfaction rate of 3.39 out of 5.)

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Intranet predictions for 2007

Toby Ward — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 18:05:00 -0800

I’m not a big fan of predictions and soothsaying, but I still read those that are well thought.

Tony Byrne has developed his Predictions for 2007 which include:

Google de-googles its appliance
AJAX UI backlash
Web managers embracing the delete key
Falling seat prices
Rediscovery of workflow
Portal platforms will diversify

I agree with most of Tony’s predictions, but I think there are bigger ones at play. I know I said I don’t do these predictions but since my company is called ‘Prescient’ I feel compelled to become a hypocrite.

The year 2007 will see:

Microsoft crank-up the marketing of Sharepoint leading to more and more customers buying without seriously examining alternative solutions
Standalone portal products will continue to be considerably out-done by CMS solutions
More vendors delivering a complete all-in-one solution that includes robust content management, search and portal functionality
Continued market consolidation with many more CMS vendors being bought, merged or disappearing
Dramatic growth in open source implementation and increased profile and functionality for bigger name solutions such as Zope, Alfresco, OpenCMS, and Plone
More and more organizations will convert PDF and MS-Word forms to online submission forms with a mixture of in-house and outsourced solutions
The search engine market will experience less growth than previous years as more organizations realize their current engine suffices and instead focus on content tagging, categorizing, process and policies
Discussion and focus on Knowledge Management (KM) will continue to decline as more organizations instead narrow their attention to specific tools such as Web 2.0 applications
More organizations will implement blogs and wikis, but they will still be part of a minority group; social bookmarking and podcasting will still remain little more than a fad on the intranet

Agree? Disagree? What other predictions will come true? Post your comment or question below.

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For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

The lost meaning of knowledge management

Toby Ward — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 02:23:00 -0800

Knowledge management is a funny subject – it’s such a hot buzz word and yet its rare to read anything meaningful on the subject. In fact, most managers and executives are under the illusion that KM is something that can be purchased from a vendor.

I’ve not done a study on this but I’ll wager $1000 that if you were to ask 10 executives to define KM, 9 of 10 would make some reference to a plug-and-play solution.

I know this is old hat for some of you, but let’s redefine KM. Of course, depending on the vendor, there are also varying definitions, but I define KM as KM is how corporate knowledge – both tacit and explicit – is stored, retrieved and reused for achieving corporate objectives. Notice there is no direct reference to technology.

Effective knowledge management requires three key components:

· Participatory individuals – employees who are willing, able and active sharers of tacit knowledge.

· Process and rules – defined rules and standards (e.g. corporate taxonomy) for categorizing and storing information and knowledge.

· Technology – physical infrastructure including software that enables the above and allows for effective knowledge retrieval.

A recent article It's what you know and how you use it in the Sydney Morning Herald takes a look at KM placing an importance on business and process…

And while technology plays a supporting rather than lead role in knowledge management, it is also providing ASIC with a method of measuring the effect of its knowledge management initiatives. Ms Sbarcea has implemented an open source social network analysis system which "visualises in a map the connections and pathways between people".

There are many, many tools and systems that fall under the KM umbrella – from search to social media such as blogs and wikis to content and document management. The future of KM may in fact be glimpsed by looking at Google. In a recent ZDnet article Google dodges knowledge management question, Andrew Donoghue writes that Google is extremely well positioned to be a major player in the KM space, but as is typically Google, is sufficiently vague about its plans.

Google has hinted that it could create an extremely powerful corporate knowledge management or information management platform by integrating products such as its search appliances with its other search and communications applications.

Speaking at the launch of Google’s latest Mini search appliance on Thursday, product marketing manager Arvind Desikan admitted that integrating different Google enterprise-class search technologies together, such as the Enterprise Desktop Search and Google Enterprise Toolbar, would benefit business customers. "The more things we have integrated, the more useful it will be," he said.

Personally, I think KM is still in its infancy. So don’t despair if you find the subject matter confusing and daunting. It is confusing – and daunting. I’d watch Google closely as I also would watch Autonomy and Microsoft. In the meantime, focus on people and process. Build a strong, central intranet portal with an intuitive information architecture and a powerful search engine supported by well-defined and rigorous rules and policies including a corporate taxonomy.

Survey says KM is the most critical strategic technology

Toby Ward — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 22:43:00 -0700

Knowledge management (KM) solutions are now the most important strategic technologies for large companies – beating out CRM and mobile/wireless technology priorities – according to a report of European executives, sponsored by Tata Consultancy Services.

Brought to my attention by the excellent blog Portals & KM by Bill Ives “Know how managing knowledge for competitive advantage” details the findings of asurvey by the Economist Intelligence Unit:

· 67% of companies cite knowledge management/business intelligence solutions as important to achieving their strategic goals over the next three years

· 63% believe CRM solutions are vital over the next three years

· 35% see mobile/wireless technology as critical

Other findings of the report include:

· Too much information impedes decision–making. Over half (55%) of executives say that IT's failure to prioritize information is the main barrier to effective decision–making. Consolidating information and providing consistent performance indicators are regarded as the most important step firms can take to improve the speed and quality of decision–making.

· Good customer information remains elusive. Knowledge about customers, their preferences and their behavior is the overwhelming focus for improving the quality of information in large organizations over the next three years. The focus of CRM initiatives is now shifting from automating processes and collecting data to enabling more sophisticated analysis of customer requirements and buying habits.

· Relevant information is more important than "information anywhere.” When asked where IT needs to improve most to help managers make better decisions, the top two priorities are to make it easier to analyze and drill down into information (40%) and improve the quality of data (31%). Only 12% of executives see ensuring access to information anywhere as a priority for improvement.

· Corporate culture is as important as IT for effective knowledge management.The biggest obstacles to knowledge sharing in large organizations are organizational, rather than IT–related. Half of executives say that internal barriers between departments hamper information sharing. Ignorance of what knowledge exists, or of where to find it, is another major barrier according to 41% of respondents. In some cases, a simple solution such as keeping a regularly updated record of who knows what can be more effective than throwing IT at the problem, according to the report.

· Effective knowledge management pays. Executives increasingly see knowledge management as a vital tool for competitive advantage. One case study in the report shows how Schlumberger, an oil services company, achieved a return on investment of $200m in a single year from a recent knowledge management initiative.

It’s important to stress however what I’ve said before: successful KM relies on more than technology. Off-the-shelf solutions are not a silver bullet. Optimal KM depends on participatory employees guided by process and policies and finally supported by the appropriate technology (see No Silver Bullet for Knowledge Management).

Download the report for free.

$9 Billion Bugs for U.S. Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (back issue)

Toby Ward — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 09:50:00 -0700

Most I.T. projects have some hurdles or bugs. The $9 billion U.S. Navy-Marine Corps intranet (NMCI) is no exception.

Of course the military would use an acronym like NMCI, but I was hoping that we would be privy to one of those cutting-edge mission names like Mission Intranet Freedom or Mission Global Information Dominance... Ooops! That moniker might be letting the cat-out-of-the-bag....

Speaking at a conference of 1,200 military vendors in Norfolk, Virginia, the NMCI head honcho Rear Admiral James B. Goodwin III lamented about some of the challenges. As reported in the Virginian-Pilot, some of the bugs have included e-mail problems for Admiral Michael G. Mullen, President Bush’s nominee for chief of naval operations.

Rear Adm Goodwin joked, ““Probably not the e-mail I wanted to see from my new boss, but it’s one of the realities right now.”

For those not familiar with the project, EDS was hired to work with the Navy and Marine Corps to build a "comprehensive, enterprise-wide initiative that will make the full range of network-based information services available to Sailors and Marines for day-to-day activities and in war.”

The $9 billion project is in its fifth year.

NMCI features more than your average run-of-the-mill secure access to US Armed Forces information and systems and “universal access to integrated voice, video and data communications.

While it is not complete the Navy Marine intranet will "afford pier-side connectivity to Navy vessels in port. And it will link more than 360,000 desktops across the United States as well as sites in Puerto Rico, Iceland and Cuba.”

The Navy and Marine Corps use the NMCI to achieve "a number of critical objectives:

Enhanced network security
Interoperability with CINCs and other Services
Knowledge sharing across the globe
Increased productivity
Improved systems reliability and quality of service
Reduced cost of voice, video and data services

Want to know more? The public can visit the intranet home page at www.nmciinfo.usmc.mil (updated URL).

Poorly written drivel kills employee productivity

Toby Ward — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 06:40:00 -0700

Everyone has content, but how well is it written?

An Information Mapping (IMI) survey shows that about 65% of the respondents spend from 1 to 3 hours per day reading and writing emails.

· 40% "waste" thirty minutes to three hours per day reading poorly written emails.

· 80% of respondents deem email writing skills as 'extremely' or 'very' important to their jobs.

Not surprisingly, the respondents don’t represent chicken little companies. Nearly 50% of the respondent companies had 5,000 or more employees or more. More than 80% of the respondents were management or had a “professional” function. Key jobs included:

· general management

· operations

· human resources & training

· information technology

The study (Information Mapping Survey Reveals Email Writing Skills Vital to Job Effectiveness)identified the biggest email problems as:

Disorganized content
Missing critical information
Unclear action or request
Content is too wordy, long and difficult to read

"It is evident that organizations can greatly improve productivity and performance by helping employees write more effective email communications," said Deborah Kenny, IMI's Vice President and General Manager of Learning Solutions. "Email writing is a critical competency for today's business professionals, but too few email messages are organized clearly or effectively. Poorly written emails translate into substantial inefficiencies and costs that have a significant impact on an organization's bottom line."

The bottom line: poor content costs money. Employees should be trained how to write effective email and content on the intranet. Furthermore, there should be an effective use policy for e-mail which also dictates what belongs on e-mail and what belongs on the intranet.

Wiping-out 15 minutes of wasted employee time on average for each of your company’s 5,000+ employees would save or earn back millions of dollars in productivity gains.

Protecting your goods

Toby Ward — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 21:11:00 -0700

There’s an adage that is old for the intranet age (since they came to be mainstream in the early 90s) that says you shouldn’t put anything on the intranet that you wouldn’t put in print. It relates to the older adage that you shouldn’t print anything that you wouldn’t want anyone outside the company to read.

Your content is valuable. You wouldn’t want to share most of it with the outside world – especially the competition or media. However, if you are making content available via the intranet then it is possible it can be leaked externally. The number one leaking culprit, of course, is the employee.

There are three general positions or models to adopt vis a vis content protection:

Open market – publish just about anything you can on the corporate intranet.
Closed market – put sever constraints on what can be published.
Asynchronous market – a hybrid model that entrusts employees with a certain level of responsibility to maintain confidentiality.

My own personal opinion is that if you’ve hired and trusted an individual to do a job that the organization deems crucial enough to justify the pay then most individuals are trustworthy and not likely to leak confidential information to outside sources. On the other hand, I wouldn’t publish any corporate top secrets either. As such I recommend most companies adopt an asynchronous model that assumes a certain level of responsibility and trustworthiness of employees but does not make widely available all information and data to all employees.

Regardless, intranet and corporate information managers do have a responsibility to inform employees of their responsibility and to limit the organization’s liability. Such action includes the development of several policies:

Editorial policy
Terms of use
Acceptable use

Editorial policy

Your editorial policy is less of a legal security blanket and more of a definition of roles and responsibilities of those developing and maintaining online content. The editorial policy should include details on...

content types
style acceptability
news determinants (e.g. currency, impact, etc.)
formatting
archiving
photo treatments and bylines
content management system rules and directions
copyright and legal
privacy and security
governance including roles and responsibilities
taxonomy (classification)
site registration and indexing

Terms of use

Terms of use is a standard legal disclaimer. It says who owns it and declares the copyright, disclaims accuracy of content, etc.

Acceptable use

Acceptable use spells out the rules. Thall shall not...

Email content outside of the company.
Print and distribute content outside of the company.
Release content to any media outlet.
Rewrite or reproduce content for personal purposes or profit without the expressed written consent of the company (legal department).

Page footers

If you’re not already doing so make sure you have coded into your style sheets or CMS templates a footer that always includes the following:

A legal disclaimer
Terms of use
Copyright stamp
Name and email address of author
Date of publish

While clients have hired me to develop these policies and standards the work is not really rocket science. It just takes a little time and thought that could save your organization some headaches in the future.