The new social media is really impressive. Not just blogs and wikis, but the whole cultural dynamic of people collaboration. I'm astounded by how fast it is growing. It's not growing as fast on the corporate intranet, of course, but it's growing.

From my post on the Content Matters blog:

Firstly, before I end this unpaid advertisement for the *free* membership in MyRagan.com, let me say how impressed I am by how easy it is to sign-up, and how easy it is to use. Some people know me as an ‘intranet guy’ (and that’s how my wife knows me, my children too, friends, the kids across the street, that dog down the block… I do Internet too, I swear!) so I went into the Internal Communications discussion forum (click on “Forums” and then choose “Internal Communications”) to have a look. I noticed Anne in Regina needed some advice on building a business case for an intranet. So I gave her my thoughts and offered to send her my white paper on Intranet ROI. Bang! She got help. And many others are finding help and similar advice, or if you’re Steve Crescenzo, whining about some kind-of-something, too-many-martinis, and a fall off an airplane…

Continue reading "MyRagan is living proof of the new revolution" »

The current state of the intranet is terrible; piss poor. There are some great leaders such as IBM, HP and many others that I’ve documented as case studieson this site, but most are quite terrible.

Corporate communications is to blame; IT is to blame; HR is to blame; and above all else, senior management is to blame. IT needs to better understand the business and usability; HR needs to better understand the technology; and communications needs to get better at everything. Moreover, corporate communications is uniquely positioned to step-up and take control of the intranet as its champion; to convince senior management of the benefits, to bring together disparate groups in the organization, and to paint a vision of the future while leading the march towards it. Before they can take charge, communicators need to better understand the technology and the future.

The technology underpinning the intranet has rapidly changed in the past 10 years, and it will likely change even more dramatically in the next 10 years. In recent years we’ve witnessed the rise of advanced content management, knowledge management, search, and the enterprise portal solution. The new social media, Web 2.0, burst onto the scene and is proving to play and important part of this future. Another critical arc in the intranet’s evolution is represented by service-oriented architecture (SOA), a mission-critical important component to the increasingly important portal solution.

Firstly, the concept of portal is nothing new. A portal is a door or gateway of importance. An enterprise portal solution is a complex piece of software that powers a portal intranet and provides user personalization, search, advanced security and, perhaps most importantly, enterprise application integration (EAI, the software and processes that link together or integrate an organizations many applications (e.g. ERP, CRM, HR applications). Application integration is arguably the most important component of the portal and SOA is the catalyst that fuels the integration.

GLOSSARY:

Composite application – an application that draws its functionality and data from different sources

Portal – a composite application that integrates data from many different sources

SOA – a style of integrating disparate resources or applications

Notwithstanding the underlying technology, if you subscribe to the notion that the intranet in purpose is very different from the Internet, and that employees are typically after very specific pieces of data and knowledge, and rarely if ever ‘surf’ the intranet, then the importance of application integration is clear. As employees most often complain they “can’t find anything!” Therefore, quick access to the data and knowledge they need is tantamount to success. SOA enables this quick access.

SOA is not a product but a style or framework for integrating disparate resources or applications. SOA allows different applications written in different languages on different systems to be accessed and retrieved by a single composite application,  such as a portal, for all to see – without the end user having a proprietary piece of software (client) to use each of the different applications. In short, applications are ‘loosely coupled’ together and are consumed or used (viewed most often in the web browser) despite the different technologies. Put another way, different applications are used or made available by independent services regardless of platform.

Portals are not really entities unto themselves, but rather a composite of all the tools and applications linked together by the SOA. Portals work in coordinated fashion with other supporting technologies including:

• Content management systems
• Document management systems
• Knowledge management tools
• Enterprise search
• Light directory access protocol
• Business intelligence
• Web applications for finance, HR, and operations
• Customer relationship management
• Web 2.0 (blogs, wikis, etc.)

In short, SOA is the glue that holds the enterprise intranet portal together. Without SOA, the intranet home page can never be a true portal without a phenomenal amount of manual effort to integrate and update all of the little pieces that comprise the enterprise intranet. Additionally, the SOA framework allows for easy application portability – or the ability to change application server without reinventing the wheel.

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About the author: Toby Ward is an intranet consultant (Internet consultant too) and the founder of Prescient Digital Media He has worked with and improved many, many company intranets including Amgen, HSBC, Mastercard, Manulife, PepsiCo, Royal Bank, etc. Toby and his company are consultants for hire and can help improve your intranet… if given the right amount of time and motivation J Toby is also available to watch or play just about any sport – including the culinary sports J You may contact this intranet consultant directly.

According to a Harvard Business Review study of Project Management Best Practices in Global 500 Enterprises face-to-face meetings and interaction in the work place is declining rapidly – and instead many teams are working virtually. Among the results from the study:

• fewer than 4% of teams ever meet physically as a whole
• fewer than 17% even have individual team members meet in person
• more than 66% of teams include members from at least three time zones
• 57% are cross-functional
• 48% extend beyond company walls to include outside contractors, agencies, counsel, outsourcers and other third parties

“The implications of this study are clear: the notion of collaboration as something that happens around a conference room table is quaint and outdated,” says Chris Cummings in his articleWhy Document Management and Portal Implementations Fall Short ...  “While the physical project space has become a thing of the past, the need for a unifying collaborative environment remains no less critical. This role must now be played by software: to provide a virtual project space that can serve as the primary platform for work team productivity.”

This of course is garbage. The physical space has not become “a thing of the past” and “the role” must NOT be played by software. We are all people and the intranet and all of its supporting software and interconnected applications are supporting and enabling technology – not replacements.

Technology and supporting software are important to effective communications. In fact, they’re critical components. But they will NEVER replace face-to-face communications.

Many studies support the notion that communications has less to do with what you actually say than how you say it (including tone of voice and non-verbal expression and gestures). We hear this all the time during an election campaign and the post-analysis of candidate debates. This is just as true with employee communications.

Here’s a test: ask different workers about the quality of their relationship with their boss and the quality of the direction and guidance they receive from their manager. Now ask them how much time they spend face-to-face with their boss. I guarantee you will see the corollary. Generally speaking those employees with higher job satisfaction have a better relationship with their immediate manager than those that don’t have a satisfactory (or less than satisfactory) relationship with their manager. Without a prior one-on-one relationship it is very hard to have a good relationship with someone without face-to-face time.

“Despite the rise of emails and intranets, employers still value face-to-face sessions the most when it comes to keeping staff up-to-date, according to a British survey,” states a report from Management-Issues (see You can't beat face-to-face communication). “The study by specialist journal IRS Employment Review found that, while organisations do now use an extensive range of communication methods, including online systems, handbooks, newsletters and memos, team briefings, executive briefing sessions and road shows tended to work best.”

And effective communications is critical to any organization. It’s not just about staffing, project management and supporting technology.

The Watson Wyatt 2005/2006 Communication ROI Study 2005/2006 study found evidence that communication effectiveness is a leading indicator of financial performance.  Among the findings:

• Companies that communicate effectively have a 19.4 percent higher market premium than companies that do not.
• Shareholder returns for organizations with the most effective communication were over 57 percent higher over the last five years (2000-2004) than were returns for firms with less effective communication.
• Firms that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to report high levels of employee engagement versus firms that communicate less effectively.

Don’t think for a second that because you have a great intranet and other supporting technologies that face-to-face communications don’t matter – or matter less. If anything, a great intranet can distract management and communicators from the need and importance of face-to-face communications.

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: I love Microsoft Windows XP!! What a difference! What quickness and performance! (But what a brutally painful experience getting back to it).

I’m sorry I haven’t written much as of late but the whole Vista experience has completely dominated by time not spent on critical business and management needs. (And though they were very polite and watch what they said the HP technical support staff have been swamped with complaints and requests for help). Nonetheless I’m back on XP and almost at 100% productivity once again.

Congratulations to Manchester United fans for winning the EPL title (note the Bombers did not beat Arsenal this year and lost to them at Old Trafford). Congratulations to Dallas Maverick fans on Dirk Nowitzki winning the MVP. I’m not sure I agree but congratulations! (Compare the records of the Suns without Nash and the Mavericks without Nowitzki and you’ll no what I mean).

Intranet columnist Paul Chin has also had a lot of fun with Windows Vista. He wrote the following love letter to MS on Intranet Journal…

Dear Windows,

 

I'm sorry to do this with a letter but I don't think I can handle seeing you in person. We both know that things haven't been quite right between us these last couple of years. I've noticed that we've been drifting apart for a long time. I haven't spoken with anyone in your family -- Internet Explorer, Outlook, Office -- in ages and have been spending more and more time with Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice. I was hoping we could work out our differences, but we're beyond that. I hate to end things like this; I just don't think we're compatible anymore.

 

I thought if we took a trip to Vista we might ignite that spark in our relationship again -- you know, a new setting, a new beginning (remember how exciting it was when we first went from MS-DOS 6 to Windows 3.11?) Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate the effort you're making to win me over. Those scrolling 3-D application windows are really, really cool. You look absolutely fantastic and you're showing me a lot of glitz, but deep down, we still have the same old problems. We can't solve them with a simple makeover; this relationship needs to be more than skin deep.

 

I know that I'm not perfect, and I don't expect you to be perfect either; but I do expect you to be reliable. I want to be able to count on you and to trust you. It's been about five years since you promised me more security and reliability with your Microsoft Trustworthy Computing Initiative, but we're no more secure now than we were then. I also don't appreciate what you're doing when I'm not around ... Do you think I don't know that you're calling your mother with your Windows Genuine Advantage and talking about my PC behind my back? And when you were confronted by this you got defensive and kept denying that WGA is spyware. I'm sorry, if it looks like a chicken, walks like a chicken, and clucks like a chicken ... it's a chicken.

 

Who owns my computer anyway? You or me? I want you to stop changing things around without telling me. You're supposed to help me get my job done but you seem to be more concerned with licensing issues than security. I was hoping Vista would be a fresh start for us -- but it's ended up being the last straw. Instead of working things out, you just keep demanding more and more from me: graphics card upgrade, hi-def monitor, and all kinds of additional memory. I'm not made of money... Sorry, I just can't give you what you want.

 

There's no easy way to say this so I'm just going to come right out with it: I met someone else; her name is Mac OS X Tiger.

Read Paul's entire letter Hasta la Vista, Windows

I’m not in a position yet to invest in a Mac yet, but I have purchased a complete version of Windows 2000 so that I can delete this horrific Windows ‘upgrade’. I can’t use my previous Windows XP upgrade version to replace it because it’s an upgrade; and I can’t upgrade from Vista.

What’s worse is that the bundled-with-Vista-whether you like it or not and horrendously crappy MS-Office 2007 trial version is now trying to take over all of my functions instead of the MS-Office 2003 that I installed. (You should see this piece of annoying crap and how they’ve changed everything around to make it more complex to use (e.g. MS-Word has a completely different set-up and set of buttons and functions). You see Vista comes bundled with a trial version of MS-Office 2007 but it’s only a trial version.

Not only has the MS-Office 2007 taken over my default settings (e.g. opening a spreadsheet from an Outlook message defaults to the bundled 2007 instead of the full 2003 version that I enjoy and installed), but the computer won’t even let me use 2007 because it demands a product key. So I have to work around that to find a way to open the spreadsheet in 2003). But do you think I can uninstall 2007? Just try… it’s an exercise in futile frustration. There is no such command for Add/Remove Programs under Control Panel. I once found it and it didn’t work. I can’t find it anymore…

Worse still, my computer which has a processor speed of over 2 MB is incredibly slow. Outlook is constantly freezing. Internet Explorer is constantly freezing. The performance of Vista is embarrassingly poor. Oh it looks pretty – it’s really pretty. However, it’s not even remotely in my top 20 priorities when it comes to my computer’s operating.

I just rebooted after it froze on me again in Outlook. It took me 5 minutes to shut-down and fully re-boot. It was so slow and clunky that I re-boot again. This time it took 3:45 seconds to re-boot. And yes, I have had virus scan and protection enabled since the beginning. And I don’t even have enabled that idiot Vista Sidebar featured enabled on my desktop (shudder).

I just rebooted again and got into Outlook and it’s not responding. I can’t send and receive… I’m opening the task manager now (which requires an extra step that MS has smartly added to my workload. No, CRTL+ALT+DELETE no longer opens the task manager – now I you get a pretty screen with a menu of more options. Friggin’ unbelievable!!). It doesn’t end!!

Okay, I’m now back into Outlook and I hit SEND/RECEIVE…. Guess what I get? “Please wait while Microsoft configures Microsoft Office 2007!!! All I did was hit SEND/RECEIVE to collect my e-mail!!!!! Unbelievable!!! A minute later my e-mail starts to download...

Wow! What a productivity tool!!

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Okay, I finally found the remove programs tools – it’s buried a couple of clicks away under a different view of the Control Panel. That’s right, a different view. So, I uninstalled Office 2007 and then as it completed it prompted me with several windows including 1) to reboot, and 2) an error message (Error 1719) telling me that the uninstall had problems because the Install service was improperly installed! It won’t let me properly uninstall this! The second time I tried to uninstall a program and was blocked by Windows Vista!!

Microsoft should be taken to court over this Windows Vista. It is unfriendly, invasive, productivity killing, and is a massive irritation. I can’t tell you how much I hate Vista. When the full version of Windows 2000 arrives I will wipe this computer no matter how many days it takes to back-up, uninstall, copy and transfer files, etc.

STAY AWAY FROM WINDOWS VISTA!!!

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I know I’m going to get hammered for this and the folks at MS who read this will slam me, but I think my story speaks for itself. And frankly, I’m not afraid to call a spade-a-spade. Before Vista came out I did a couple of promotional stories touting the new features. In other words, I gave it free promotion without critique. I’m sorry that MS has failed to deliver the goods, but I’m not sorry for writing a brutally fair critique. If you’re with MS and want to help, that’s fine. But save your flame-mail because if you flame me, I will quote you on this blog for all the world to see (150,000 readers per month).

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