How intranet teams should spend their time

Intranet teams need to use their time wisely. It is very easy to fall into the trap of dealing with urgent requests and problems, never actually making any progress.

Effective intranet teams must plan up front how they will spend their time to deliver both short term and long term benefits to their organisations.

The rule of thumb for intranet resources is:

• 30% effort for day-to-day maintenance
• 40% effort for projects and new initiatives
• 30% effort managing relationships with staff and stakeholders

For a team of one this can mean devoting one day a week to managing relationships with staff and stakeholders. In a team of 5 these responsibilities can be split between different roles.

30% effort for day-to-day maintenance

Day-to-day maintenance can include:

• publishing and maintaining content
• providing support for publishers
• fixing technical problems
• assessing search logs
• maintaining the home page
• reviewing content areas with owners
• creating graphics

If day-to-day maintenance of the intranet absorbs excessive amounts of the team's time the intranet will never progress. This can lead to the the team becoming disengaged and experiencing a never ending workload.

[CM Briefing 2008-10 by Catherine Grenfell, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 04:12 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets

Should the intranet look sexy?

The design of public websites, particularly when they have a marketing or branding role, is vital. In these cases, a team of experienced graphic designers and front end developers work hard to create polished and beautiful designs.

When it comes to intranets, however, is their 'look and feel' so important? Fundamentally, should intranets look sexy?

Design of public sites

We are all exposed to the wide range of designs for public sites, from the very ugly to the very beautiful.

Major consumer brands have attractive and vibrant home pages, while even technology companies present polished designs.

These sites reflect the brands and images of the companies they belong to, making their design an important factor. The sites are also about marketing the businesses' products or services, and the design plays a role in engaging potential purchasers.

A whole industry has grown around delivering these highly polished and sexy sites, made up of specialists in branding, communication, marketing, visual design, web design and web development.

When it comes to intranets, do these same factors apply? Do intranets need to be sexy?

[CM Briefing 2008-09, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 04:10 AM | Permalink
Categories: Intranets, James' articles

Content migration: options and strategies

There is a lot of work involved in redeveloping and relaunching an intranet or website. The project management challenges start early, and it is easy to overlook the time (and effort) needed to migrate the content from the old to the new site.

Yet, for its lack of visibility, content migration is often the single biggest activity in a web redevelopment. Certainly it is the least interesting, and unfortunately unavoidable.

This article explores a number of options for the migrating content, and provides some practical suggestions that should help it to go smoothly.

Redeveloping a site

Two factors often drive the redevelopment of a website or intranet:

• Moving to a new technology platform, such as a new content management system (CMS) or portal package.
• Redesigning the site, either to address the weaknesses in the current site or to add significant functionality.

Often these two factors are bundled together, with a technology selection process combined with a redesign.

In either case, there is a need to migrate the content from the old site to the new site. This is not a simple process.

A change in technology platforms makes the migration challenging, as does a major restructure or redesign of the site.

Unfortunately, there is no option for avoiding the migration, and careful planning will be required to get the best outcome.

[July KM Column, read the full article]

Posted by jamesr at 04:08 AM | Permalink
Categories: Content management, Intranets, James' articles, Web development

Photo: Down the river to the Castle Tower

HDR: Down the river to the Castle Tower

Yesterday we drove from Prague down to Cesky Krumlov, in South Bohemia. This is a picture-perfect town, perching on rocky outcrops and hemmed in by the winding river.

This is a HDR (high dynamic range) image, with 9 images combined together to give a hyper-realistic effect.

Posted by jamesr at 10:16 PM
Categories: Photos

Photo: panorama - from the pews to the frescoes

Panorama: From the pews to the frescoes

I've now spent several days in Prague, in the Czech Republic, taking a holiday at long last. This is a tremendously beautiful city, even when it's packed with tourists.

This was the second major church we've been into, and it's a beauty! Seemed like the perfect opportunity to try out an experimental panorama technique, with six hand-held photographs stitched into a single image.

(You'll want to view this nice and large.)

Posted by jamesr at 07:03 AM
Categories: Photos