infoarch

Intranets have been around a long time, but not necessarily well loved. SharePoint brings huge opportunities for intranets. But new technology does not make problems go away. So, how do we deliver SharePoint intranets that are really great? This is the question that James Robertson will answer in the 1st masterclass at the SharePoint conference 2013 . Great intranets in words We start out with the question: what words describe great intranets? The audience says: connected, collaborative, accessible, social, information value, support daily work routines, usable, fast, mobile, task-based, updated, interactive, single-point of trust, attractive, innovative, easy to maintain and affordable. Purposes James goes into five purposes of intranet: content, communication, collaboration, culture and activity. James shows many examples of intranets that fulfill these purposes. Content We need to deliver usable and valuable information. We quite ‘good’ at this and we have way too ...

I find Mary Meeker's reports on internet trends very interesting. They're packed with interesting data and insights. I've been following her work closely. She recently published an updated overview of 2012 and I thought I'd share my highlights with you at the end of this year. sheet 9: stunning slide showing shipment of iPads, iPhones and iPods over 10 years compared. This slides is old(er), but it just underlines the interesting times we live in sheet 10: You thought the ramp up of Apple products is huge, well Android ramp up is 6 times that of iPhone sheet 12: 30% of US adults own a tablet, less than 3 years ago that was 3% sheet 17: mobile advertising is growing rapidly; $0.7 billion in 2008, $19 billion in 2012 sheet 18: 24% of online shopping was done via tablets on Black Saturday, versus 6% 2 years ago sheet 20: we are in the midst of a huge change powered by new devices + connectivity + UI + beauty . Meeker highlights the effects for the pc, photography, ...

Most people know the history of the intranet . And if you’re older you will have experienced its history. Many organization that have had an intranet for years are looking for ways towards a modern and future-ready intranet. But what is the future of the intranet? Many intranet experts and organizations are thinking about this question. Are we eventually going to be apply to wear the intranet? From intranet to social intranet  There’s lots of talk about using social media within organizations. In short this is also called the ‘social intranet’. The intention is to have an intranet that is more than most are used to: news, procedures, who-is-who and the restaurant menu. A ‘social intranet’ should make us forget the old intranet. The old intranet that often hardly supports the way employees do their daily work.  From intranet to digital workplace  For this reason the new intranet is also called the ‘digital workplace’ more and more. A new name to help us forg...

What’s it like in the digital workplace? James Robertson recently published a report to answer this question . He took a storytelling approach and gave us insight in what working in a digital workplace looks like. In this way he hopes to make the digital workplace more concrete. This is necessary because James there's lots theoretical and abstract talk about it. James’ report wants to bring the digital workplace closer to us. I enjoyed reading the report. In several steps James takes us through the digital workplace. He shows how a new employee would use the workplace during the week using all kinds of concrete examples. Like a personal welcome message, a pre-populated tasklist, information about working methods, mobile intranet, accessing operational information about e.g. hotel bookings, an overview of company numbers and real-time performance data. James rounds up his report by listing 6 keys to the digital workplace (Identity, Awareness, Trust, etc) and also poi...

In my last post  I shared some of my highlights from Jane McConnell 's Global Digital Workplace Trends 2012 report. We left off describing how some organizations used their intranet to support employees in the field. This brings us to the mobile intranet. Mobiel intranet Delivering the intranet and digital workplace to mobile was seen as important by 7% of the respondents in 2011. In 2012 30% thinks mobile is important and is investing. I'm disappointed to see that IT is defining the strategy in this area, according to the report. The goal of mobile is to improve communication and productivity. Corporate news and the people finder are the most important mobile intranet features. I would hope mobile is a business initiative with business in the lead and that the mobile features would be more closely related to the core business processes. I'm curious what we'll see in next year's report with respect to mobile. A special finding from the report was that or...

There's one great place to go if you want an overall update on the intranet and digital workplace state-of-the-art and that's Jane McConnell 's yearly Digital Workplace Trends Report . Just like in previous years I read the report and would like to highlight parts of the report for you in two posts. In another post I'll reflect a bit on this year's findings . I hope this will trigger you to buy and read the report for yourself. There's much more in the report than I can write about here. From intranet to digital workplace This year more than 400 organizations participated in Jane's 6th survey. The title of the report shows how much development there is in the intranet landscape. We are moving from intranet to digital workplace. And Jane has been documenting this trend for several years. I think this year is the first year I hear more people talk about the digital workplace than intranet. Of course this broadening of the scope of Jane's surve...

I'm really looking forward to the Enterprise 2.0 Summit ! Are you coming? If so, I hope to meet you there! Recently the organizers shared a pie chart of the participants per country. To my surprise hardly any people from The Netherlands are coming! I was wondering why hardly any Dutch people attend this conference. Last year I was there with one other Dutch guy. I know of many people in Holland who are interested in Enterprise 2.0 and social business. So that can't be a reason. Is the conference not well-known? I don't think that's the reason either. The location can't be a problem either. So, what is? Let me if you have any thoughts on this. My goal is to get more people in Holland interested in the summit and hopefully many more fellow Dutchies will be at next year's Summit. And for this reason I won't just be blogging in English but also in Dutch about my conference learnings. What are my expectations for this year's Summit? Last year we had...

How is the blogosphere doing? Several post have been written in 2011 about it being dead . At the beginning of the social media revolution everyone was told to start blogging. Now, most think microblogging is enough, it seems. Twitter has become a popular why to (micro)blog. And other types of blogging are showing up, like Posterous and Tumblr . As well as photo blogs, like Instagram . Since 2004 Technorati publishes an overview of the State of the Blogosphere. Recently ‘The State of the Blogosphere 2011’ was published. I’d like to share a summary of this interesting report with you (as I’ve done in previous years). Who are the bloggers?  4114 bloggers were surveyed for this report (about 3000 less than in 2010). According to the research 75% of the bloggers are 25-44 years old. The level of education of blogger is high, mostly college and university level. Technorati distinguishes four types of bloggers: hobbyists (60% of the respondents), part-time and full-time prof...

There is one presentation I love watching every year. It's loaded with data and just sets the agenda for the coming year. It's Mary Meeker's talk at the Web 2.0 Summit . You can watch it here:  And find the slides here . As I said, it loaded with data and insights. I'll highlight just a few. Striking is the international growth of the internet. It's definitely not the US-only in the internet. And Africa and South-America are continents to pay attention to. Another thing is the speed of adoption of new communication technology is increasing, even in recession. The speed of adoption of the iPhone was fast compared to the iPod, but just look at how quickly the iPad took over the market. The next big thing according to Meeker? Everything that has to do with our ears; Sound/audio. And, of course, the continuing growth of mobile.

I love my iPad ! What a wonderful gadget it is! When we got it (with a newspaper subscription) I was wondering: Is it really worth it? I have an iPhone and a laptop, what do I need an iPad for then? But, again I experienced that using is believing .The iPad (- I have the iPad1) fits perfectly between the iPhone and laptop. In lots of cases it takes over usage time from the iPhone and laptop. For instance, reading email is great on the iPhone and the iPad. Instant-on is a killer. Even my wife hardly fires up the (Windows) laptop to process email. Although typing longer emails is still done on the iPad, most emails can be processed by a quick and short reply using the iPad. Reading news and feeds is wonderful on the iPad as well. Apps like Flipboard are mindblowing. I'm amazed by how quickly I can go through feeds, tweets, etc. using Flipboard, compared to Google Reader or Twitter itself. And I love the way news is presented. It feels and looks right. And I'm sure we haven...

Mobile and the mobile web is huge . Lots of the discussion about mobile and the mobile web is about mobile and the Internet. Until recently not much attention was paid to the implications of mobile for the intranet. But this is changing rapidly . More and more interesting posts and reports are being written about mobile intranet. One of them was published not to long ago. It is written by Martin White and is titled 'Focus on Enterprise Information Mobility' . This is a first paper giving an overview of what's happening in this place. It summarizes and structures lots of information about mobile enterprise. So, if you want to get up to speed on this topic, I encourage you to read it. But let me give you some highlights from the report: The GMSA Mobile Congress has a Mobile Enterprise track for the first time this year (March). "Enterprise mobiliy" usually refered to some employees using their cell phone and/or connected devices remotely. This has changed. En...

I still have one more post from the Intranet Conference ( Congres Intranet ) for you! Martin White closed the conference with a talk about The 2015 Intranet - Anywhen, Anywhere. White's talk can be easily summarized: Mobile First. The internet is moving to mobile, the intranet is as well. White has been researching this topic and has interesting (upcoming) reports about this topic. The number of users with mobile web access is astounding (refer to picture). White also doesn't not believe in a future for mobile apps. He says develop for the mobile web, not apps. It's way too expensive to develop apps for all the different platforms. The real value of mobile intranet will be in the area of business intelligence, says White. Mobile intranet supports the real-time enterprise. IT needs to address this trend. Also with respect to security (lots of devices are left behind/lost). Usability and mobile: speech, typing. Don't push you're whole intranet through the mobile. Yo...

What is the future of intranet technology? Looking at the cheap social tools, what should intranet teams invest in? And what does mobile mean for the intranet? These were just some of the questions Tony Byrne addressed in his keynote at the Intranet Conference ( Congres Intranet ). Byrne advised the audience to focus on a light-weight application architecture for the intranet. Lots will change in the coming years and is changing. Making the architecture lighter will give room to respond to new technology, changing business and user needs. One central intranet platform is not (going to be) enough. Make sure the elements and functionality of the intranet can be clicked together and mixed. Organize for mashups. Another theme in Byrne’s talk is the social layer. We should add a social layer to the intranet. Make the technology more human through social. Integrate the elements of social everywhere in your intranet, like tagging, commenting, social networking, location, etc. Byrne als...

For some time now I've been following the mobile web with fascination. How quickly this market has grown and is still growing! I can remember getting my first (Prepaid!) mobile phone about 9 years ago. Even then a mobile phone was something not everyone had. Some people were even very irritated by "all the people calling in public (on the street) and sitting in the train". I don't hear that complaint very often anymore... Then slowly but steadily the mobile web popped up. Actually it was already there but just way too expensive for mainstream use. I don't think the mobile web is mainstream now, but it definitely is getting there. Recently I bought an iPhone 3GS (I know I'm slow...) and now have my own real experiences with it. And I must say I was impressed without having a smartphone. But I'm even more surprised and fascinated by it now. Like with many technologies, after you start using it, you really feel it. You suddenly actually experience the ...