http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/ Martin's perspectives on developments in intranets, extranets, content management, enterprise search and the information management industry en-gb Intranet Focus Ltd 2006 martin.white@intranetfocus.com Wed, 14 May 2008 08:24:13 +0100 PHP5 Over the last couple of years some well-researched studies have indicated that at best 50% of employees are satisfied with the enterprise search provided by their organisation, and the indications are that in fact the situation is worse than even this appalling figure. In general organisations have little idea of how to specify a search engine, and even less about what it takes in terms of staff expertise to get the best of whatever has been selected. Of course if the selection itself is flawed then there is little that can be done in terms of post-installation tuning Fri, 25 Apr 2008 10:41:47 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=35 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=35 In March this year Capgemini released The Information Opportunity Report. This report provides all the evidence you are ever going to need to convince senior executives that just investing in information technology without thinking strategically about information management is not going to have the expected impact on business performance. The report highlights the fact that organisations are generating increasing volumes of information but this simply is not reaching decision makers on time Wed, 2 Apr 2008 16:07:27 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=34 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=34 There is no doubt that Microsoft SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS07) is the fastest-growing information platform of all time, with already over 100 million seats licensed, even if not all being used. The publishing industry also sees considerable revenues in MOSS07 and the shelves at even your local Borders are groaning under the weight of books on how to develop MOSS07 applications. However at every event I attend, and from many of my clients, I find that IT departments are promoting the view that MOSS07 will meet every conceivable information platform requirement, especially intranet content management Wed, 26 Mar 2008 19:51:19 +0000 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=33 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=33 James Robertson has announced that entries are now open for this year's Intranet Innovation Awards, with a closing date of 16 May 2008. All intranet teams are encouraged to enter their innovative approaches to the design or delivery intranets. This may be may be an entirely new piece of intranet functionality, or a good idea implemented particularly well. This is a very different approach than that taken by the Nielsen Norman Group in its Intranet Design Annual, where an organisation's entire intranet is assessed Sat, 8 Mar 2008 18:40:01 +0000 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=32 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=32 The number of intranet-related conferences is starting to increase, which is very welcome. The events that I am aware of at present are listed below. If you have a good travel budget there is almost one per month you can attend. Please let me know if there are any important events that are missing. Intrateam Intranet Conference, Copenhagen, 5-6 March Intranet Usability, Melbourne, 5-7 March Thu, 28 Feb 2008 16:07:46 +0000 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=31 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=31 I've been invited to speak at the IntraTeam Intranet Conference which will be taking place in Copenhagen on 5-6 March 2008. The theme of the conference is Creating Value with an Intranet. Kurt Kragh Sorensen and his team have assembled an impressive roster of speakers, including James Robertson (StepTwo Designs, Australia), Jane McConnell (NetStrategyJMC, France) and Kara Pernice (Nielsen Norman Group, USA) as keynote speakers. In addition there will be case study presentations Thu, 31 Jan 2008 10:46:03 +0000 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=30 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=30 James Robertson, Managing Director, Step Two Designs is giving an Intranet Masterclass in London on 7 March 2008. During the course of the day James will share the experience he has gained in corporate, public and academic intranet projects, and through the Intranet Leadership Forum that has been very successfully established by his company Fri, 11 Jan 2008 16:19:26 +0000 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=29 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=29 An interesting start to 2008! Microsoft are paying a considerable premium for FAST Search, acquiring the company just before the FAST Search Annual User Conference. Nice timing. The FAST technology has always been good, but the company has had some problems in really gaining market share, and in 2007 had to do a revenue restatement leading to a reduction in employee numbers. It's worth remembering that FAST itself was the acquirer of the Convera technology in 2007, so Microsoft are certainly getting a lot of enterprise search technology for $1.2bn Tue, 8 Jan 2008 23:35:02 +0000 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=28 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=28 Jane McConnell is an intranet consultant based in France but of international repute, as you can tell from the coverage and insights of her web site and blogs. A couple of years ago Jane had the vision to embark on a survey of intranet management trends, and in the 2006 report presented an analysis of just over 100 companies. A year on and the number of companies has risen to 176 and the scope and depth of analysis in the 2007 edition, pubished in late 2007, has increased by an order of magnitude Mon, 31 Dec 2007 15:01:51 +0000 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=27 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=27 For me there is no doubt that the only person who gets close to being able to understand Google and to suggest the way in which the company will develop is Steve Arnold. A couple of years ago Steve wrote a brilliant book on Google entitled The Google Legacy. In it Steve started to use information gleaned from the many patents filed by (and on behalf of) Google, and has further developed this analysis in his new book, just released by Infornortics as a pdf download Sun, 21 Oct 2007 11:17:06 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=26 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=26