Articles by Month: March 2006

Back from Vancouver

Well, I've made it back home from Vancouver, after somewhat over 20 hours of travel. The IA Summit was excellent, the highlight without question being the many conversations I had throughout the five days. Many thanks to all that spent time chatting with me, to the friends I caught up with again, and to the new friends I made this time around.

On a related note: while there were no slides for the panel on enterprise IA, Dmitry Nekrasovski took notes on the session which he's published.

Posted by jamesr at 04:21 PM | Permalink
Categories: Conferences & presentations

Wrapping up on workflow for now

My post on the problems with workflow has created a very pleasing amount of discussion, including a response from Jeff Potts, my reply to that, and his further thoughts.

I'm going to leave the discussions there, saying only that whichever approach is taken, organisations need to realise that some serious thinking will be required regarding workflow when selecting (and implementing) a CMS.

But no discussion regarding workflow would be complete without a reference to Dan Brown. My thoughts on workflow have been drawn from my direct experiences, and then heavily influenced by Dan's remarkable thinking. Everyone interested in this topic should read what Dan has to say, including:

• Conceptual blending in content management
• Content management's inevitable conclusions

Posted by jamesr at 01:12 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Throw out workflow? Not so fast…

Seems like my post on the problems with workflow has generated some interest (and debate) in the ECM community...

Jeff Potts has written an excellent and well-reasoned response to my post, which I'll respond to here.

Jeff: I agree that formalized workflows are probably not appropriate for the content authoring stage which is usually highly collaborative. And exceptions will always exist -- it helps, for example, if you can put an emergency or "fasttrack" workflow in place to handle some of those situations where there isn’t time to go through the normal process.

The problem I see in practice is that the "fast track" workflow becomes the default, and that this is used almost 100% of times to avoid the frustration caused by the workflow rules. I have personally see this occur in more than one case, and to me it highlighted some of the fundamental weaknesses in multi-step workflow rules.

Jeff: For example, James gives "review", "update", and "add additional detail" as three examples for types of tasks. If someone wants one or more folks to review a piece of content, start a "review this content" workflow. If content needs an update, start an "update this content" workflow. Don’t think you can name all of the types of tasks you might need? Implement a generic "action needed" workflow that the initiator could further define in workflow comments or instructions.

This seems quite reasonable, but I have to highlight that this is not how most CMS products work at present. All workflow processes (in general) result in the page being published to the site, and I haven't often seen the facility to use multiple workflows in this way.

There would still have to be a lot of flexibility around who the workflow rules define that the page is sent to. This comes down to the following principle:

Workflow is incredibly context-specific. Who needs to be involved varies on a case-by-case basis, depending on: who the author is, their level of responsibility, which business unit they are located in, the type of content, the subject of the content, potential legal issues, political sensitivities, and more.

This is workflow's greatest achillies heel. When we manage these things currently (without a CMS), authors make ad-hoc decisions all the time, and are free to do so. This is not really supported at all in the standard model of workflows. If you try to handle these variations with exceptions or extra rules, you end up changing your rules (and adding new ones) on a daily basis.

At the end of the day, I'm not saying that workflow needs to be entirely thrown away. What I am saying is that it needs to at least change considerably. Perhaps Jeff's approach is right, perhaps something else is needed, but either way it isn't what is currently provided.

And let these (vendor-neutral) discussions continue!

Posted by jamesr at 01:00 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

CMS Watch releases Enterprise Portals Report

Janus Boye has written a new report for CMS Watch, the Enterprise Portals Report. I was sent a pre-release version, and these were my thoughts:

Enterprise portals are now a widely-quoted technology in the marketplace, but are poorly understood by most. This report is therefore very timely, shedding considerable light on the strengths, weakness and roles of portals within organisations.

As is expected from CMS Watch, this report is very comprehensive, weighing in at over 200 pages. It is written from a pragmatic perspective, giving clear insight into how to make portals work, and even when to use different technology solutions instead.

Every organisation considering portal technology should obtain a copy of this report, to gain access to best-practice approaches and concepts, built up from real-world experience.

Posted by jamesr at 11:45 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Intranets

Unleashing the power of open source in document management

Seth Gottlieb and Sebastian Wohlrapp have written a whitepaper on open source document management systems. To quote:

The open source community has produced a number of useful, high quality content management systems which presents an opportunity to deliver tailored content management solutions without the high licensing or management fees associated with commercially-licensed or hosted software. However, the sheer number of open source CMS projects and the ineffectualness of traditional commercial software selection techniques can make the task of finding the right open source software an intimidating challenge. The strategy of using feature matrices is particularly ill-suited to open source software selection. A more practical approach is to match your needs to a common business problem that others have solved using open source software and engage with the community to learn about their experiences in implementing the solution. Doing so will take advantage of the unique aspects of open source software: the openness of the user community and the transparency of the development process.

Posted by jamesr at 11:16 AM | Permalink
Categories: Document & records management

Workflow: we have a problem

We have a real problem with CMS workflow...

I've been doing a lot of work recently with organisations to help them select a CMS. When sitting down with them to develop business reuqirements, I end up having the same conversation again and again regarding workflow. It goes something like this:

Client: We have a real issue with the quality of the content on the site, and there's no accountability or audit trail for what is being published. We want to use the new content management system to more tightly manage publishing, and to keep track of reviews and sign-offs. Workflow features should be able to help us with this, allowing all content to be reviewed by the appropriate content owners, managers, and if necessary, legal and the web team.

Me:That's certainly great in theory, but in practice, you won't make use of anything beyond the simplest of workflows. Workflow can be used for a final "quality control" step, but it doesn't work for editorial review.

[A long discussion then commences...]

This has become a sufficiently frequent topic of conversation for me to coin the following expression:

One of two widely known CMS secrets: workflow doesn't work.

This is something that I addressed in the article Is workflow the wrong metaphor?, and I'm not alone in saying that the fundamental model behind workflow rules doesn't match the reality of content writing and editorial review processes.

The real problem is this: nothing is changing. Few organisations realise that workflow is not going to do what they want, and vendors don't seem to be in a hurry to offer any alternative approaches (with a few notable exceptions).

It is worth looking at how the marketplace operates to understand why this is the case:

• Organisations looking for a CMS read vendor marketing materials, and all offer extensive and powerful workflow features. These same features are discussed in many of the industry reports, and included on standard lists of CMS features.
• Organisations naturally assume that this functionality works in practice, and seeing the potential benefits, ask for it in their tenders and requirements lists.
• Vendors see that organisations consistently ask for workflow features, and often very powerful features at that. This forces them to promote their workflow functionality in their marketing materials, and to develop ever more sophisticated workflow features.
• Vendors know very well that workflow isn't used in practice, having only 1 in 50 clients ever making real use of it. The problem is that customers don't believe them, instead responding: "you're just saying that because your workflow features are weak!".
• At so it goes on, in this self-reinforcing cycle, with no opportunity to have a real discussion about best-practice (or even just practical) approaches.

Somehow we need to spread the word that the "accepted wisdom" around workflow is wrong, and that new approaches must be innovated. The challenge is that there's a lot of customers and a lot of vendors to reach...

Footnote: workflow does, of course, work in certain circumstances. Where there is a well-defined, consistent and repeatable business processes, workflow rules can be used to automate them. This is the exception, however, with few (if any) editorial processes working this way for general web content.

Posted by jamesr at 07:42 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Arrived in Vancouver, BC

Well, after 20+ hours of travel, I've finally arrived in Vancouver for the IA Summit.

At first impressions, the city is every bit as beautiful as I was led to expect (even if it is lightly raining). There can't be too many major cities where a 5 minute walk from the hotel brings you to seaplanes moored in front of a view that stretches out to the mountains:

This photo was taken at dusk, thus the muted tones. Now, out for a full day's sightseeing before the conference starts...

Posted by jamesr at 02:13 AM | Permalink
Categories:

Does search need to be in the upper right?

Jared Spool has written an article that asks: does search need to be in the upper right? To quote:

Under the brilliant guidance of Barbara Chaparro, the students at Wichita State’s SURL are one of the top web research teams in the country. Recently, in a paper entitled Where's the Search? Re-examining User Expectations of Web Objects, A. Dawn Shaikh and Kelsi Lenz revisit a previous study where they looked at user's expectations for certain standard features of a web site, such as the "Back to home" link, the search box, the "About this site" link, and advertisements.

Posted by jamesr at 01:53 AM | Permalink
Categories: Search tools

Sex, lies, and CMS vendors

Tony Byrne has written an article on common myths told by CMS vendors. To quote:

Despite an 11+ year history in the marketplace, CMS technology remains poorly understood by many prospective buyers. In the meantime, the field of available suppliers has never been broader or noisier. Most CMS salespeople I know are good educators, but they also have quotas to meet. Under these circumstances, vendors will sometimes short-cut important discussions about functionality and pricing with simple -- but not always completely truthful -- answers.

So here's a list of 10 common myths you might hear during the sales process. As my grandmother used to say, forewarned is forearmed.

Posted by jamesr at 01:49 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

Launch of IntranetReviewToolkit.org

Coinsiding with the release of version 1.1, today marks the launch of IntranetReviewToolkit.org as the new home for the Intranet Review Toolkit. This site will provide a central clearinghouse for resources related to intranets, including:

• The latest version of the Intranet Review Toolkit (now 1.1)
• A commentary on the heuristics in the Toolkit, along with links to supporting resources, reports and books
• A simple mechanism for providing feedback, comments or suggestions

Of particular note is the commentary, which provides an increasingly comprehensive set of additional resources, discussions and other materials to support the heuristics in the Intranet Review Toolkit. This information helps to explain the reasoning behind the heuristics, as well as providing concrete suggestions for improvements.

Please browse the new version of the Review Toolkit and the supporting commentary, and provide your feedback...

Posted by jamesr at 09:39 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Four modes of seeking information and how to design for them

Donna Maurer has written an article outlining four modes of seeking information. To quote:

In my work on intranets and complex websites, I noticed a range of situations where people didn't necessarily know what they needed to know. Additionally, when I opened my browser history to look for examples from recently-visited sites, I noticed that the majority of my own time was spent trying to find things that I had already discovered. These two modes didn't fit into the concepts of known-item and exploratory information seeking. I call these "don't know what you need to know" and re-finding.

Posted by jamesr at 06:20 PM | Permalink
Categories:

When you need to localize and categorize

Christian Donner has written an article on internationalisation and localisation of content. To quote:

Internationalization -- or "I18N", a very geeky abbreviation referring to the number of letters left out -- is commonly defined as a set of practices intended to make software more "localizable" by introducing layers of abstraction in the code and the data of an application. That way, it is easier to later modify the language, currency, date, and number format according to the requirements of a specific locale.

Localization -- or "L10N" -- describes a set of complementary practices used to create the translations and other things specific to a locale, so that information is presented to the user in a format that he can understand.

Posted by jamesr at 06:44 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information architecture

Abolish the intranet steering committee?

Jane McConnell has written a blog entry looking at the role of the intranet steering committee. To quote:

I met a company last week who told me that had abolished their senior management intranet steering committee. They said their intranet was mature now, was an accepted way of working, and that the committee no longer had reasons to meet. I understand this reasoning but fear it is short-sighted.

Posted by jamesr at 07:49 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Process, process - ongoing and organic

Stephen Abram has written a blog entry about the ongoing and organic nature of intranets and portals. To quote:

Portals are a process
Portals are reactive and proactive
Portals are driven by the community through the insights of their developers
Portals evolve like the climate not in phases like the seasons

[Thanks to Jane McConnell]

Posted by jamesr at 07:55 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

The value of user-generated content (part 1)

Paul Chin has written an article on user-generated content on intranets. To quote:

The increased prevalence of user-generated content (UGC) --- discussion groups, blogs, wikis --- on the Internet has caused these media to seep into enterprise environments for uses in a more functional capacity (as opposed to the casual nature we've seen thus far). But does UGC have any place on a corporate intranet populated with content engineered by official intranet content providers? Can users and UGC create some kind of content Utopia where users selflessly share their expert knowledge without expecting any personal gain, or is it going to be a case of the inmates running the asylum?

Posted by jamesr at 07:38 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Intranets

Evaluation of WYSIWYG-editors

Peter Krantz has written an article that evaluates WYSIWYG editors for standards compliance. To quote:

Web based editing tools are becoming standard issue in modern content managment systems. As more and more organizations discover the advantages of using strucured markup it is important that these editing tools allow editors to markup content without knowledge of HTML. Unfortunately, many of the WYSIWYG-editing tools in use today create invalid markup or do not have the functionality required. Therefore I have selected some web based editing tools and tried to create a sample document in each of them.

While only a handful of editors are evaluated (there are plenty of others), this is a very useful article for anyone in the CMS or web development space.

[Thanks to elearningpost.]

Posted by jamesr at 07:45 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management

The Importance of User Experience (diagram)

Bryce Glass has created an excellent diagram on user experience. To quote:

The idea was to emphasize the readability and approachability of the subject matter (keep it fun!) and not overload the map with too many concepts. Hence, this piece: "The Importance of User Experience." (Used here with permission.)

[Thanks to Dan Brown.]

Posted by jamesr at 02:08 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

National Library of Australia teaming with Flickr

Patrick Cormier wrote a blog entry on the interesting news that National Library of Australia teaming with Flickr. To quote:

What a great concept: a public institution, namely, the National Library of Australia (NLA), is teaming up with flickr.com in order to increase the number of contemporary images in PictureAustralia. Thanks to LibrarianInBlack for reporting this interesting "web 2.0 Public Service / private sector partnership".

I think this is great, if nothing else, to demonstrate that libraries can connect with the broader happenings in the world...

Posted by jamesr at 08:38 AM | Permalink
Categories:

Taming the monster: creating an effective government intranet

Julian Mills & Tom Marciniak have written an article on taming the intranet monster. To quote:

All organizations that disseminate information start with a dream: multiple websites integrating seamlessly into an intranet that minimizes the effort of managing content and maximizes stakeholder satisfaction. But for too many operations, the dream has become a nightmare, a Frankenstein's monster of mismatched components that lurch onto monitors, terrifying audiences and causing managers' sleepless nights.

Posted by jamesr at 07:28 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Tips for enterprise content management project success

Brian Buehling has written an article discussing tips for ECM project success. To quote:

In recent years, there has been much debate on various approaches to solve the enterprise content management (ECM) and publishing problem. Initially, most of the discussion revolved around technical issues ranging from the selecting the best authoring tool to designing the optimal database schema to support workflow and versioning. However, as the set of content authoring, management and publishing tools has matured, the focus of discussion has shifted from what technical components are best for a project to how best to implement any given set of components. Further, looking back on the myriad of failed content management initiatives across the industry, common themes begin to shape that help explain the reasons for so many is guided projects.

Posted by jamesr at 10:42 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information management

Introduction to web accessibility

One of the hot topics of recent years has been 'web accessibility.' And for good reason. The industry is finally accepting responsibility for providing access to information for anyone using a website, or indeed an intranet.

Despite this trend, a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding continues to surround the subject, and this may be stopping many from taking the necessary action. This paper is not a step by step guide to making an accessible website, but rather a quick overview to point readers in the right direction.

It's not just for the disabled

Accessibility is all about people. An accessible website or intranet is one which allows visitors to make effective use of it’s content.

A common misconception is that "it's only for disabled people". Aside from being quite unfair, this statement is simply not true. Many conditions may cause a website to be inaccessible for users, including:

• age (particularly the elderly)
• blindness and other vision impairments (including colour-blindness)
• cognitive and learning impairments
• epilepsy and other neurological disorders
• motor skill impairments
• deafness and other hearing impairments

Most would not consider themselves 'disabled'.

[CM Briefing 2006-04 written by Patrick Kennedy, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 03:02 PM | Permalink
Categories: Usability & user-centered design

Intranet authoring: a hobby?

The goal of many intranets is to deliver high quality, up-to-date, accurate and useful information to staff. In practice, however, this can be challenging to achieve. Much is expected of intranet authors, and they are vital to delivering an intranet that is useful (and used). Yet, in many cases, intranet authoring is treated as a hobby within organisations.

This briefing looks at the role of intranet authors, and challenges organisations to either take intranet authoring seriously, or to let go of unrealistic expectations regarding content quality and timeliness.

Is intranet authoring a hobby?

There are a number of clear signs that intranet authoring is treated as a hobby by organisations:

• intranet authors are not selected based on a required skill set, instead they are 'volunteered' by their managers
• intranet authoring is often done by junior staff within a business area, such as administrative staff
• staff are not provided with extra time to author intranet content, but are expected to do it on top of their existing responsibilities
• intranet authoring doesn't appear in formal job roles
• new intranet authors are provided little (if any) training
• ongoing support for intranet authors is minimal or non-existent

[CM Briefing 2006-03, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 02:55 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Intranets, James' articles

Leadership tips for intranet teams

Intranets require strong leaders if they are to be more than just publishing platforms for occasionally-used information. The intranet team must take on this leadership role, and drive the evolution and enhancement of the site.

This is not an easy role for some intranet teams to play, but ultimately it is one that is satisfying for the team, and greatly beneficial for the site itself. This article outlines a range of practical tips that can be applied to help intranet teams operate more effectively in this leadership role. These are all small (but important) steps that can be taken immediately by any intranet team.

Importance of a leadership role

Someone must 'own' the intranet, and take on responsibility for driving the site's evolution. As discussed in the earlier article Intranet teams: a leadership and coaching role, the centralised intranet team should play this leadership role.

This means more than just passively publishing information, or meeting the immediate needs of individual site owners. Beyond this, intranet teams can (and should) play a dynamic role in shaping the direction of intranets, as well as guiding their design and management.

Taking this leadership role may require a different set of skills, and a new perspective on the position of the intranet team in the organisation. This article therefore provides some practical tips on how to make these changes on a day-to-day basis.

[March KM Column, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 02:49 PM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, James' articles

Sorry for no commenting

It's been a while since I last apologised for the lack of commenting on my blog, so it seemed like a good time to make mention of it...

A while back, my blog was overwhelmed by comment and trackback spam, to the extent that I was receiving 100+ spam entries every single day. I've currently got an old copy of Movable Type installed, and it was completely unable to cope. I was therefore forced to turn comments off entirely.

Unfortunately, we're also having some problems with our current web hosting organisation, so I have to wait until our overall site redesign before I can fix the blog. (We are working on our site, but client work has meant that it is taking a lot longer than hoped.)

Anyway, in summary: I would love to receive comments, and to engage in a conversation. So to my regular readers: sorry for the lack of blog comments, but hopefully they'll be back in the next few months...

Posted by jamesr at 02:32 PM | Permalink
Categories:

ECM is dead - long live ECM!

Alan Pelz-Sharpe has written an article about the future of ECM. To quote:

As of today most firms spend little or no time studying content flows within their organization. They look instead to existing ECM vendors to offer solutions for their enterprise. Yet these ECM projects seldom ever scale out in the way envisioned due to excessive complexity and cost. Tired of waiting for solutions, regular information workers then end up finding their own solutions, and in the process rapidly, if inadvertently, add to the corporate compliance problem.

Posted by jamesr at 02:19 PM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Information management

Intranets in "no-where land"

Jane McConnell has written a blog entry highlighting the competing priorities that existing in organisations when it comes to the intranet. To quote:

An international company decides to delegate reponsibility for deciding how much bandwidth should be bought by a country and of course, asks the countries to pay for it from their local budgets. (The company has imposed significant cost reduction goals for everyone.)

Posted by jamesr at 08:53 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets