Category Archives: SharePoint

Intranet governance book – print edition

Posted on September 21, 2015 | Leave a comment

When I first started as an intranet manager, many years ago, I didn’t know where to find good practices or guidance. Blogs came along that shared people’s experiences and, over time, accepted approaches used. Social media has brought many intranet managers together in a loosely coupled network, which is different to a decade ago when organisations had a vacuum around them, denying external conversation.

This networking is good and valuable, because you don’t always want to search and wade through off-topic pages. Just like in the workplace, you often want to ask someone. Your personal network extends the knowledge available to you, even more so than Google.

But still, people wonder where to start, how to learn about the different ways of approaching intranet management and improvement. There are only so many questions you can ask on LinkedIn and only so many slightly irrelevant blog posts you can tolerate!

When I was an intranet manager, I felt I needed a practical guide to intranets that I could always have by my side to help me. Something that was based on first-hand experience so I could easily learn from it and how it related to my intranet.

It’s here that I trust my book on intranet (and website) governance fills a need; ‘Digital success or digital disaster?’ is now available in print (paperback) for delivery worldwide. When you order the printed book, the ebook is sent to you immediately. So there’s virtually no waiting.

As I’ve written my book from my hands-on experience within large organisations, and from my recent work with a wide variety of companies, I hope ‘Digital success’ will stand the test of time and be a valuable reference for you. It’s a ‘business book’ that should help organisations of every size, but I also hope it’s of interest to individual practitioners and ‘lone intranet managers’.

Following the guidance given in this book, based on best-practice examples, you can make the right decisions more easily. You will be more confident the decision you make will achieve the improvements you want. Make your life easier and your intranet better by keeping this book with you to help lead the way!

“A practical, systematic, approach to intranet governance. Every intranet manager would find value in going through this with their team.”
Sam Marshall, ClearBox Consulting

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Posted in best practice, digital success or digital disaster, digital workplace, governance, intranet, mobile, publishing, SharePoint, standards, strategy

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I wrote a book about governance: ‘Digital success or digital disaster?’

Posted on May 11, 2015 | Leave a comment

Book cover - Digital success or digital disastersWhen an intranet loses its usefulness over time, and people become disengaged and end up working around it rather than through it, I often find that the strategy and governance have been neglected.

Even a strong and appropriate strategy will founder if the governance isn’t in place to execute it.

I see governance as the foundation of a great intranet, and by ‘great’ I mean an intranet that is useful, useable, and supports the organisation’s goals and people’s needs.

I often blog about intranet governance, but my brand new book offers a lot more than I could ever drip-feed via short posts.  Writing a book has helped crystallise my thinking around governance, and delve deep into my past experience as an intranet manager, and as a consultant.

Take a look at my book now – it’s called ‘Digital success or digital disaster?’ and I mean for it to be relevant to intranets, collaboration, digital workplace and mobile workspace governance, while focussing on intranets.

I’m so pleased to have it published through Intranätverk, it’s been great to work with Kristian Norling and his team.  Seeing the final book on my tablet has made the months of writing all worth the effort.  I’m thrilled to be able to offer you my experience, guidance, and tips and hope you’ll consider my book a toolkit to better governance and a better intranet.

Please take a look at what the book offers you and your organisation – this is a ‘business book’ that should help organisations of every size, but I also hope it’s of interest to individual practitioners and ‘lone intranet managers’. I think this book can support you.

* Digital success or digital disaster? – Book available now.

* Follow me on – let me know what you think!

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Posted in application, benchmark, benefit, best practice, beta testing, blog, career, collaboration, communication, community, content management, digital success or digital disaster, digital workplace, engagement, governance, help, homepage, intranet, mark morrell ltd, mobile, mybook, navigation, news, Office 365, plan, podcast, publishing, research, , search, SharePoint, social media, standards, strategy, training, usability, user testing, value, web accessibility, wiki

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For new intranets it is day 100, not day 1, that is important

Posted on April 28, 2015 | Leave a comment

With every intranet I have helped to create, encouraging people to be more effective and improve their productivity, two things have been at the forefront of my mind.  You need to:

  1. Be clear who is responsible for the content, design and structure of it.
  2. Have a governance framework that supports stakeholders, partners and publishers.

While it is vital you have a big impact when you launch a new intranet, it is not just about creating a great design on day 1.  It is the ongoing need to appeal to people to continue using it.  Content and applications that people need are, of course, helpful but having good governance is the only way to make sure the benefits of day 1 continue consistently through to day 100 and onwards during the lifetime of your intranet.

After nearly 20 years working with intranets, I appreciate how important it is to have a governance framework that:

  1. Keeps your strategy moving in the right direction
  2. Sets out who is responsible for managing it
  3. Matches publishing standards with business requirements
  4. Supports content owners and editors

These can be the crucial factors that help your new intranet.  Quicker adoption, increased usage and higher satisfaction are all achieveable if you take the right approach with governance.

I find these factors encourage people using your intranet to be more effective and improve their productivity, bringing greater benefits to your organisation.  It helps your stakeholders to see how your intranet can be a critical business tool that supports their key priorities!

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Posted in benefit, best practice, governance, intranet, SharePoint, standards

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It’s time for a change

Posted on November 17, 2014 | Leave a comment

I have been fortunate to work with and view many sites, intranets, digital workplaces, mobile and collaborative spaces since 1996.  Many technology features and fads aimed at helping people have a good experience have come and gone. However, throughout this time, having a clear strategy with good governance to support your intranet, has consistently been shown to help meet your organisation’s key priorities and add measurable value.

Your strategy sets the direction you need to move in with a clear scope and set of aims to be achieved, aligned with other related strategies and overall strategy for your organisation.

Your governance framework helps your strategy continue in the right direction.  It will show how you manage everything and how everyone can work together. It will cover scope, purpose, roles and responsibilities, publishing standards and support, and resources needed.

The main reason for a strategy and governance framework is the benefits to be gained from applying it well. The time and effort are the same but the impact can vary so you don’t always achieve a consistently good experience.

Measuring all the benefits and showing the value to your organisation of a critical business tool will improve your credibility and help to justify future investment.

With that in mind I have re-designed my site to focus on Strategy; Governance; and Measuring Value.

Please contact me if you want to find out more.

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Posted in benefit, best practice, collaboration, communication, digital workplace, governance, intranet, mobile, Office 365, SharePoint, strategy, value

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Are you moving to the Cloud?

Posted on November 13, 2014 | Leave a comment

I recently posted about the challenges organisations face as they move from having online content and tools hosted firmly on their estate to renting space in the cloud.

I believe the way forward is to have a governance framework and information architecture with the same scope to avoid gaps in content being managed or not being found.  Both need to be in harmony and included in any digital strategy.

If you want to join the live breakfast talk in Gothenburg, or online seminar and discussion and Q&A using G+ Hangout, it is on 20 November 8.00AM – 10AM Central European Time.

You can also read these posts about how to move to the Cloud:

  1. Wagon Trains to the Cloud: The most common challenges you are likely to face and how you may overcome these
  2. Pace-Layering the Building Blocks in the Cloud: How Office 365 and SharePoint can play a part in moving to the Cloud
  3. Housekeeping rules within the Habitat: How they can help join up your organisation online using their collaboration tools and features
  4. The Curator – how to cultivate the habitat: Engagement and how sorting and categorisation of artifacts form the curation and cultivation process
  5. Content Governance – life cycle and reach: Governance and how content should be managed in the Cloud

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Posted in content management, digital workplace, engagement, governance, intranet, Office 365, plan, search, SharePoint, standards, strategy

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SharePoint, Office 365 and moving to the Cloud

Posted on November 4, 2014 | Leave a comment

I was asked by Fredric Landqvist, my good friend and Information Architecture genius, to contribute to a series of posts on the challenges organisations face as they move from having online content and tools hosted firmly on their estate to renting space in the cloud.

We believe the way forward is to have a governance framework and information architecture with the same scope to avoid gaps in content being managed or not being found.  Both need to be in harmony and included in any digital strategy.

We will help you to consider the options and guide on the following steps:

  1. Strategy: Goals you are aiming for
  2. Plan: Moving content to the cloud
  3. Information Architecture: Structuring your content
  4. Governance Framework: Managing your content

You can also join our live breakfast talk in Gothenburg, or online seminar and discussion and Q&A using G+ Hangout, the 20th November 8.00AM – 10AM Central European Time

I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed contributing to them. :)

 

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Posted in content management, digital workplace, governance, intranet, SharePoint, standards, strategy

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Accessible content for everyone and every device

Posted on October 21, 2014 | Leave a comment

Everyone whether they have a disability or not needs to have the same experience when using any intranet information or applications. Employees with a disability may use devices to help them. Your intranet needs to be compatible with these to avoid risking breaking the guidelines and any law that applies in the country where the person works.

Accessible content is also easier to adapt to use with mobile devices e.g. smartphones, tablets, and laptops with their different screen sizes. Try thinking of accessible content as being a step further on from it meeting your usable standard.

If your intranet has information or applications that are not accessible to all employees, you will be breaking the web accessibility guidelines. Legislation and codes of practice based on the latest World Wide Web, Web Accessibility Initiative (W3C Accessible content WCAG 2.0 AA) guidelines will apply in most countries. US Section 508 and UK DDA 1995 are two examples. These guidelines are at three levels, A, AA, and AAA covering the most basic problems to the most advanced problems experienced by people with a disability when using your intranet.

Many organisations find it difficult to see the benefits from publishing standards.  I remove the barriers to show the benefits from each publishing standard in this series of posts.  Publishing standards aim to:

  • Reduce the risk of sensitive information leaks
  • Improve the overall user experience
  • Make people using your intranet more satisfied with it
  • Improve people’s productivity
  • Improve people’s quality of work

Benefits

Knowing that you are helping people with disabilities to use your intranet gives three main benefits:

  1. People with disabilities using your intranet will have the same or similar experience to anyone else. This will encourage more frequent and extensive use because the intranet is accessible and usable and meets the needs for everyone.
  2. You can encourage your publishers to make their content and applications accessible to meet their legal requirements. There is the added, sometimes overlooked, benefit that accessible content also displays well in other devices such as tablets and smartphones if it meets accessibility standards.
  3. Your organisation complies with a legal requirement. It can also see investment made in your intranet has the benefit of being available in other devices that help with new ways of working and while mobile.

My next post on navigation will be the last in this series.  I hope you have found them helpful.

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Posted in benefit, best practice, digital workplace, governance, intranet, SharePoint, standards, value

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