(AARHUS, DENMARK) “There’s a lot of stories and
expirments about wikis… and misconceptions’ says Dorthe Jespersen, an analyst
with J. Boye, and co-author of author of the report, Wiki in the Enterprise.
Jespersen
cites three major myths (or perceptions) of why organizations choose a wiki:
1-Everyone contributes
2-It’s easy
3-Information at hand
Myth 1: Everyone
contributes
The most
common means or purposes for using a wiki include:
Brainstorming
Project work
Meeting agendas
Encyclopedia
Manual
Documentation
Intranet
Communicating externally
Common
corporate refrains (comments):
·“We didn’t know what to expect and how to communicate at
all in the wiki.”
·“No one wanted to write in the wiki. And those who did,
got offended when others edited their text.”
Unfortunately,
for those that have started using wikis well-know, if you build it, they will
not come.
Myth 2:
It’s easy
Jespersen
points no further than Wikipedia’s editor (editor’s note: if you thought your CMS editor was user unfriendly…).
Myth 3:
Information (will always be) at hand
The wiki
is not necessarily going to give you what you need. Jespersen cites the search
engine in MediaWiki that produces very unruly and confusing results. Like most
technologies, the technology is as only as good as the people involved and
their contributions to the technology (editor’s opinion).
Jespersen
and the J. Boye report Wiki in the Enterprise offer four over-arching
recommendations for deploying wikis on the intranet:
Organisational readiness.
Organisational culture is a critical factor for success in wiki projects.
Organisations must be comfortable with sharing information and debating
openly.
Setting expectations. Before
deploying a wiki organisations should assess the commitment actually
required, both from management and employees.
Getting adoption. Adoption of
the wiki will not happen by itself; rather it can be supported through a
prepared launch followed by training.
Content creation. To tackle
problems with structure running wild and quality of content, employ
training, guidelines and dedicated wiki managers.
(AARHUS, DENMARK) “The 3-click rule: it’s complete
crap!” says usability guru, Jared Spool, addressing the jboye08 conference in Denmark. “In fact, the evidence suggest
the opposite. If you have hundreds of thousands of pages, it’s impossible to
adhere to this rule… you can have 30 or 40 clicks if each click is
progressively more relevant.”
Good
Content Must Suck (like a vacuum sucks)
Why designing for scent is
more successful than designing for navigation
How to design for scent
How to find out if you’ve
succeeded
What
we’ve found: Scent
The best sites are rich with
content
Content sucks users towards
it
From every likely page where
the user might want that content
Every link gives offscent that users follow
As the scent gets stronger,
the user gets more confident that they are going in the right direction
The secret: Design for Scent
And your content will suck
(them in)!
“If your
users are using the search engine 70% of the time or more, it’s probably
broken.”
Search
Engines are Scentless
Avoid search engines
Users click on them when they
don’t see a link with good scent.
They type in the words they
wanted in the link
We call them trigger words
Users are trying to make
their own scent
Except they don’t know if
the designers have anything that matches
Designing
for scent:
Start with a content page
Figure out from whwere users
will likely want to get to that page
Put links in all the places
people would most likely want to find your content
Good design
= confidence
Every design element that
makes scent stronger contributes to the user’s confidence
Before they click
Link quality, navigation
graphics, info organization
OTHER
LEARNINGS:
Short links don’t emit scent
Short pages reduce scent
Keep links and pages long
The best links are 7 – 12
words
Myth: users don’t want to
scroll. In short, if the content has value, they’ll scroll.
Users were scroll through
many pages of text if the design invites them to do so (editor’s note: I
completely disagree with this… there are exceptions of course).
Horizontal rules across a
page…. Users won’t scroll through it
Site Maps have a lot of
scent… but are hidden by a name with no scent “Site Map”
Try turning site map into
your home page… you’ll get tons of fan mail.
Myth: blue underlined links
are probably the worst combination for a link (men start to lose their
sense of blue in their 40s… women in their 60s).
(AARHUS, DENMARK: jboye08) You’ve seen American
Idol, and perhaps even the brutally awful version from Canada, Denmark, the UK and others… and now there’s Web
Idol, for CMS vendors.
A
fast-paced, entertaining set of competitive demos alla American Idol. Five CMS vendors present 7-minute demos
showing the best features of their CMS systems. Five succinct,
comparative presentations are judged by an expert panel of judges that offer
pithy commentary. However, like Idol, the audience vote for the winner!
Sitecore led-off and did
competently in the 7-minutes provide for the demo. I like the insite
editing alla Red Dot. The ciritcs were fair, but critical.
SDLTridion followed and was…
confusing. I like the on-page AJAX driven editing without
having to load multiple windows. I like the Tridion folks, but the critics were harsh.
Open-source CMS Hippo was next-up. More
focused, I like the drag-and-drop AJAX interface under user
management. I don’t like the lack of in-site editing – it’s the 21st
century. To quote Tony Byrne, “…like a hippo it’s (the CMS) potentially fatal to
humans.” Overall, the judges appear to like Hippo best… thus far.
eZ ran in 4th. The
two-time defending champ and open-source CMS led with a very smart demo
site that included advertising and lots of multimedia, and even Google
maps. I like the integration of commenting and Web 2.0 with the in-site
(in-context) editing. The judges seem confused and uncommitted.
e-Spirit in the anchor
position had a very competent, but lightning-fast confusing demo. The
presenter was very quick and the system seems quite capable… but drab. The
speed of the demo confused me greatly… I couldn’t follow what he was doing
or why. Unlike the other vendors, e-Spirit finishes early… but I’m
confused. I shall not be casting my vote for e-Spirit. The judges also
seem confused.
Tony was
a very good judge with some very good remarks, analysis, and quite funny. Erik
and Claudia however looked and sounded lost… Where have all the good judges
gone?
VOTING
Remember,
like Idol, this is not comparative analysis of which CMS is best, it’s a popularity
contest based on a lightning fast demo. The winner is voted on by the audience.
I voted for eZ Systems. I like the AJAX, multimedia and Web 2.0. The demo
site was nice and progressive.
The
audience cast their votes…. And the winner is…Denmark-based Sitecore (1st time winner).
(AARHUS, DENMARK: jboye08) “SharePoint
is good at a number of things,” says one SharePoint expert, addressing a group
of SharePoint users and followers here in Aarhus. “But it’s bad at just as many.”
There
continues to be much discussion, debate, interest, enthusiasm, and caution
about SharePoint (MOSS 2007). Such is the case here at jboye08 where I’m addressing
the conference on the subject of Intranet 2.0 (today) and eHealth 2.0
(tomorrow).
Gartner
nails the analysis in its spring report Five Best Practices for Deploying
SharePoint:
·“Though it covers a broad spectrum of capabilities, MOSS
2007 is not yet a full enterprise content management (ECM) system.
Organizations requiring advanced content management capabilities and
process-centric applications will need to augment their capabilities with
partner offerings, or deploy MOSS 2007 alongside an ECM system rather than as a
replacement for it.”
It might be the product for
you, but how do you know unless you analyse your requirements
A phased implementation
appears to be more successful, add bells and whistles later
Sharepoint in itself is not a
'strategy' - it can be part of ECM, Intranet or collaboration elements of
your overall Information Management strategy
Contrary to MS marketing
hype, Sharepoint does not actually do everything brilliantly
A Sharepoint deployment, like
any other technology implementation will ultimately fail if not aligned
with strategy, and if not properly planned with comensurate governance in
place
I should
disclose at this point that perhaps it might appear that I’m not a fan of
SharePoint – or that I oppose it. Not at all; in fact, we use SharePoint for
our own intranet and are upgrading to MOSS 2007. As well, we have many clients
that use WSS and MOSS. However, I do think however that SharePoint is being
used by too many organizations, including clients, that aren’t well served by
it.
I believe
there are two telling quotes, both by Shawn Shell and Alan Pelz-Sharpe, the
co-authors of the CMS Watch The
Sharepoint Report 2008 (TSR) (the best analysis report on MOSS that I’ve
seen) that best sum-up MOSS:
“MOSS is very good in smaller, workgroup environments (it’s not traditionally very good
for 5,000 or 10,000 concurrent users),” Alan Pelz-Sharpe (see SharePoint
overview (pros & cons, MOSS).
A number
of experts and users (owners / licensees) have weighed-in on their expert
opinions and analysis of SharePoint. To avoid any controversy and to protect
the individuals who were freely expressing and sharing their opinions here at
jboye08 in Aarhus, here are some of the more frank quotes:
“The perception is that the
search engine is terrible. I’m not 100% in agreement… the engine is pretty
good, but the search interface can be weak (e.g. the engine does support
wild card and Boolean searches, but usually the implemented interface does
not).”
“Personal sites (My Site
functionalilty) is both interesting and scary at the same time.”
“The complexity across farms
is ridiculous. Make sure your consultant (MS partner or implementer) give
you a list of those things that stop working across farms.”
Still
more advice from Information Week writer Nicolas Hoover (thanks to our own
Cathy Mcknight for bringing this to my attention, Can
Microsoft Keep SharePoint Rolling?)
“The software's
Swiss Army knife approach helps companies create more useful intranets, set up
document sharing, offer blogs and wikis, and build a richer online company
directory. This boundary-blurring nature is part of its appeal, and can even
help in budgeting: IT teams that might not get the nod for document management
software have been known to slip SharePoint into the Microsoft Office budget.
But
SharePoint's feature sprawl can be part of the problem. By taking what comes
bundled in SharePoint, companies can end up compromising on critical functions
compared with best-of-breed tools. And SharePoint deployments easily can go
wrong if IT teams just turn on additional modules without considering the
business case, requirements, and training needed to make them part of a
business process. SharePoint's all-in-one appeal may lessen as content
management standards become more prevalent, making best-of-breed approaches
more viable. Still, it's undeniable that SharePoint's on a roll because of
intense demand to better manage and share an expanding glut of diverse content."
If you
have MOSS, or are thinking of buying, Gartner offers the following
recommendations:
To ensure that SharePoint
does not become another content silo, build or update your enterprisewide
content management strategy to address collaborative and basic content management.
Build a broad inventory of
existing content management applications and repositories and assess the
investment levels in those before bringing in another platform such as SharePoint.
Define business requirements
and the corresponding technical and functional needs, which may span
collaborative and process-centric content applications. Map your content management
products to them with an eye toward minimizing the redundancy in
application development, IT operational or other costs.
Examine the integration
points required between MOSS 2007 and an ECM suite and assess the
availability tools and technologies to ensure interoperability.
Establish and enforce
governance policies regarding when to use and when not to use SharePoint.
MOSS 2007
is a wonderful solution – but its ideal for smaller companies, and can be a “massive
problem” for larger ones. I like it a lot, but I’m technology neutral and am
frank about its strengths and weaknesses. I’ll continue to recommend MOSS for
some, but not for others.
(AARHUS, DENMARK: jboye08) “MOSS is
very good for very good in smaller, workgroup environments,” says Alan
Pelz-Sharpe, analyst, CMS Watch and his
presentation on Evaluating SharePoint. “It’s not traditionally very good for
5,000 or 10,000 concurrent users.”
Content and Code's visual representation of the SharePoint Platform
CMS
Watch’s approach / focus to evaluating MOSS:
Customers
that are making a purchase today (or shortly)
Independent,
specific advice for end users and buyers
We
never work for vendors… and in fact can be (even) ‘rude’ or
honest about some products
We
have a reputation of being anti-SharePoint; not true, we’re
independent and in fact we’ve recommended MOSS to many
Sometimes
however MOSS has not always been accurately advertised; not they’re
(MS) dishonest, but it (MOSS) not always the best fit for an
organization
PROS:
MOSS
is really unusual: a lot of different dynamics
Most
people are fairly happy with SharePoint
SharePoint
is an end-user’s dream with some exceptions; users are usually
very happy
For
building small collaborative environments, it’s nearly perfect
(I’m exaggerating for affect)
File
sharing
Team
sites
Well
priced for small organizations
CONS:
Those
that aren’t happy with it are those that use MOSS where it’s not
a good fit
Those
that aren’t typically happy are those that are in-charge of
governance, legal, etc.
Before
MOSS there was chaos… now the chaos is more visible with MOSS (and
its bringing more visibility to this chaos)
Enterprise
content management (ECM) which demands strict controls (compared
with Documentum, Oracle, FileNet and IBM)
Very
poor at index/search of non-MOSS info
Search
results can be unexpected out of the box
Project
/ task tracking
Social
networking
Discussion
& collaboration and communication
Trouble
consuming its own RSS feeds (authentication issue)
Pricey
for larger organizations
Case
study example (editor’s note: SharePoint sprawl):
There’s
a bank HQ’d in the UK and they have SharePoint… started using it
as a test in 2006 and immediately upgraded to MOSS in 2007… and
now have 23,000 instances of MOSS… and it’s a massive problem
for the bank
The
way it was deployed and structured was deplorable… that’s the
bank’s fault, not Microsoft’s
“How
to bring it under control? I’m not entirely certain…”
MOSS
SharePoint history:
Initially
a countermove to the success of Lotus Notes
When
SharePoint was formally launched in 2003 MS had very low
expectations
The
initial success was very high… MS was stunned and very pleased
MS
managers were stunned… “Why is it such a big success?”
The
success was in users deploying it as a light-weight portal
MOSS
launched in 2007 and updated to .NET 2.0 / 3.0 as a development
platform
Recurring
Threats:
Separation
between underlying “free” Windows platform and richer portal
product with extra services, for a fee
If
you’re an MS enterprise client, you will get most MOSS services
for free
Traditional
disconnect between SharePoint and .NET (mostly resolved in 2007)
(e.g. MS is very large but very much like a college campus with many
different groups and departments… that don’t necessarily talk to
each other… and there are times that products get ‘out-of-sync’
with each other
Endemic
confusion about what resides in SharePoint and what does not (and
licensing implications)
MOSS
is very good for very good in smaller, workgroup environments (it’s
not traditionally very good for 5,000 or 10,000 concurrent users)
(e.g. Oracle on the other hand focuses on larger enterprises and are
traditionally “terrible” at the workgroup level
deployments)
MOSS
has to run on a MS technology stack (.NET, Windows Server, SQL
server)
“I’m
not really convinced that there really is any business intelligence
(in MOSS)… though MS says there is.”
Current
SharePoint Product Universe:
WSS
Foundation
components, free with Windows
Basic
collaborative features
MOSS
Fee
based server product that extends WSS
Advanced
features like CMS, personalization, forms processing and Excel
services
Some
enterprise features not included
SharePoint
Search
Search
engine for MOSS
Can
crawl a number of different content sources, including Exchange
(email)
MOSS
Standard can only index 500,000 pages
Forms
Server
Form
rendering and processing (“One of the best features of MOSS… I
love this. Really good value add.”)
Used
in conjunction with InfoPath to deliver electronic forms via the Web
Still
retain interactive attributes provided via InfoPath
Key
functions:
Functional
capabilities:
Enhanced
search
Business
data catalog
Excel
services
Forms
services
Shared
services: farm-level services
User
import/management
Search
engaging configuration
Basic
usage reporting
Profile-based
site for individual users
MySite
Both
profile and personalizable home page
Somewhat
controversial
Actually
provisions entire site collection
Things
that can affect pricing:
Extent
of external connectors and licenses for “Internet Site” licenses
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