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 Fri, 30 Jul 2010 16:55:52 +0100 PHP5 This is the title of a free 134pp report prepared for the Institute for Prospective Technology Studies of the European Commission by Pierre-Jean Benghozi and Cecile Chamaret. The Executive Summary states that the report looks at the demand and supply side of enterprise search, provides data about the market and presents an evolution of market dynamics over the last decade Mon, 26 Jul 2010 23:10:44 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=98 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=98 I remain mystified why companies try to solve intranet usability problems by implementing a new search application, and throw all sorts of technology (mainly SharePoint) at collaboration problems. Technology itself is rarely the answer to any problem, something that most IT directors have yet to appreciate. Over the least few years Michael Sampson has written a number of books on collaboration good practice. In doing so Michael has realised that the problem is not finding and engaging the early adopters (the First Wave) Tue, 13 Jul 2010 21:17:44 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=97 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=97 This is undoubtedly not a complete list of conferences that might be of interest to intranet managers, but currently these are the conferences I am aware of. If you know of any others please let me know and I'll update the calendar. 22 September, London Intranets at Work This is a new conference from the JBoye organisation, who have been running excellent conferences in Aarhus and Philadelphia for quite a while Mon, 05 Jul 2010 12:48:07 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=96 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=96 One of my more challenging assignments this year has been writing a report on the opportunities and challenges that SharePoint 2010 presents to intranet managers, especially those considering an upgrade from MOSS07. The report was commissioned by the Intranet Benchmark Forum as a follow-up to a report I wrote for the IBF in 2009 on MOSS07 Fri, 25 Jun 2010 11:40:28 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=95 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=95 Yesterday was an interesting day in the enterprise search space. Autonomy bought the information governance business of Computer Associates which provides records management and email management software and services. The terms were not disclosed. I leave it to others to analyse the impact of this acquisition and move on to the acquistion of Exalead by Dassault Systemes, which provides product life-cycle management and CAD software Thu, 10 Jun 2010 11:32:01 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=94 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=94 I've just completed the text of a report that assesses the benefits of upgrading from SharePoint 2007 to SharePoint 2010, which will be published by the Intranet Benchmark Forum in a month or so. There is a section in the report on intranets and collaboration, because I am increasingly concerned about organisations that take the view that there is not enough collaboration taking place and make this the justification to invest in SharePoint. Both Michael Sampson and Thu, 03 Jun 2010 11:14:35 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=93 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=93 There have been a number of posts recently from both the Real Story Group and JBoye about the use and abuse of spreadsheets in the process of selecting software products such as ECM, WCMS and search applications. The consensus view seems to be that they have little value and that in the end there is a strong tendency to manipulate the scores to end up with the product that intuition (usually the consultant's) suggests is the best fit Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:12:30 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=92 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=92 In the fifteen years I have been tracking intranet adoption there have been very little rigorous academic-style research into the perceived benefits of intranets. Around 2001 and 2002 Jan Karlsbjerg and Jan Damsgaard, both at Aalborg University, Denmark, wrote a number of papers on intranets, and in 2004 Dr. Hazel Hall (Edinburgh Napier University) completed a PhD thesis on intranets in knowledge sharing. There have also been a few intranet-related papers in the Wed, 26 May 2010 11:32:52 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=91 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=91 Google has released a new three-column version of web search user interface, with an extensive array of new features and an updated version of the Google logo.  The left-side column now offers a range of options and filters, including the ability to restrict a search by date.  As well as filtering results published in the 24 hours, or in stages up to the last year there is also a custom date range field Thu, 06 May 2010 12:09:22 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=90 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=90 Recently I was speaking to an organisation that had taken the decision that what they needed to power their intranet was an enterprise level search application that offered semantic search. They had narrowed the search down to two of the market leaders, and wanted my thoughts on which was the best technology. I'm not going to give away the names of the vendors because their identity is irrelevant. The point was that the organisation was going to proceed with the implementation without anything more than part-time support from the web manager and the project manager Tue, 04 May 2010 16:41:58 +0100 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=89 http://www.intranetfocus.com/blog/entry.php?entry=89