SharePoint strategy + implementation – ask a pioneer!
June 14, 2011 at 10:34 am | Posted in best practice, collaboration, content management, governance, intranet, mark morrell ltd, plan, SharePoint 2010, standards, strategy, value | 8 CommentsTags: best practice, content, governance, help, intranet, mark morrell ltd, search, sharepoint 2010, standards, strategy, value
Are you planning to start using SharePoint 2010?
Do you need help with your SP2010 implementation?
Are you unsure of your SP2010 governance, standards, strategy?
Are you unsure how to use SP2010 for collaboration, content management, document management or search?
Are you looking at alternatives to SP2010?
If you have answered yes, maybe just nodded your head slightly, then I can help and work with you.
I have first-hand SP2010 experience of planning right the way through to post-implementation……and have got the scars to prove it!
Whether you need a call, demonstration (online or face to face), workshop, training, consultancy or implemention, I can help.
So just let me know by a comment, email – markmorrell.ltd@gmail com, Skype (mark.morrell58), call +44 (0) 771 338 5309 or even visit me in Brighton! 
Why not use my first-hand experience and wider intranet knowledge for your benefit?
How to be better digital workplace professionals
May 25, 2011 at 9:28 am | Posted in career, community, intranet, training | 14 CommentsTags: help, intranet, value
Are you still buzzing from IBF 24 like me? I’m thinking about how to improve digital workplaces inspired by the great examples shown and discussed. I’m also thinking how digital workplace people are recognised more for the role we do.
On IBF 24 in 2010 I had a great discussion with Mark Tilbury, William Amurgis and Christy Season. A LinkedIn group, Intranet Career Path, was created to help digital workplace career progression especially within an organisation. I also acted on my own advice to become a digital workplace freelancer to widen my knowledge, skills and experience!
On this year’s IBF 24 I again discussed with Christy and Mark how we can improve career prospects for digital workplace people and continued this discussion on Twitter. My take on the discussions came down to three ideas. What are your thoughts on them?
Training for new digital workplace people
People become digital workplace professionals for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is a planned career move, a natural progression maybe from communications or you just stumble into this role by accident.
There is help out there: books by Martin White, Michael Sampson and James Robertson; training from Clearbox Consulting; wiki/book project I’m helping Kristian Norling and James Royal-Lawson with. But it isn’t easy to find out what learning exists or someone to help you unless your organisation belongs to the Intranet Benchmarking Forum, Step Two, IntraTeam or J Boye communities.
We need:
- More training on digital workplace principles, standards, skills, role and contribution to an organisation’s success
- It more easily available either online or provided by new or existing learning providers who understand the digital workplace.
- It to be consistent and transferable from one country to another.
Professional qualifications that are recognised widely
I am not aware of a professional qualification that covers the digital workplace. I know there are several discussions and plans for an academy or qualification but nothing exists yet.
We need:
- A recognised academic route to a professional qualification.
- Our individual knowledge and skills recognised in a collective way globally.
- The professional qualification to be accepted by businesses and seen to be of value by senior business executives.
Business qualifications cover digital workplace
Small businesses seem to ‘get it’ better about the value digital workplace professionals contribute. I’m sure the frequency of direct contact with CEOs and Directors helps greatly to achieve this. For larger organisations it is more difficult to achieve that visibility. It is also hard sometimes to show what a digital workplace professional brings to an organisation.
We need:
- Important business qualifications to include the contribution of the digital workplace.
- The value digital workplace professionals add.
- Acceptance by senior executives of the need for digital workplace prefessionals and succession planning.
So, is this the right approach? What are the next steps? Who can help?
Helping new BT Intranet users
September 2, 2010 at 9:26 am | Posted in best practice, help, homepage, intranet, publishing, training | 3 CommentsTags: best practice, bt intranet, help, training, users
What help do you give to anyone new to your intranet? How do they get to know what words used such as ’homepage’ mean?
In BT we have online guidance and training for new users. This includes a glossary of the most used terms which you may find helpful to use:
Address: Another name for a location or URL.
Bookmark/Favourite: A way for you to mark a web page you want to return to later, in the same way you would put a bookmark in a book. This is called Favourite in Internet Explorer or Bookmark in Firefox.
Browser: Software that allows you to look at Intranet/Internet pages.
Cache: To store on your computer’s hard disk a copy of a web page accessed via the internet/intranet. The browser compares the cached copy of the page to the original, and if there have been no changes, it will use the cached copy rather than reloading the page again, saving on download time.
Cookie: A unique string of letters and numbers that the web server stores in a file on your computer. This method is used to track users so that they do not have to enter the same information when they revisit a site.
Firewall: Computer hardware and/or software that limits access to a computer over a network or from an outside source. Used to prevent hackers from getting into company’s intranets.
Homepage: This is your start up page. The page that first appears when you open your browser.
Hyperlink: A connection that is found in web pages that, when clicked with a mouse, opens a web page in your browser. A hyperlink (or link) may be a word, icon or graphic.
Internet: The internet is a worldwide network of computers containing information that people can access and read or use on their own computers. This network is sometimes called the Information Super Highway or ‘web’.
Intranet: An intranet is a private network belonging to an organisation accessible only by the organisation’s members, employees, or others with authorisation. An intranet’s web sites look and act just like any other web sites, but the intranet is set up using what is called a firewall, which prevents unauthorised access from outsiders.
Location: Another name for an address, also known as URL.
Search engine: A programme that allows you to search and retrieve specific information from the internet/intranet. Generally, you type in the words that you need to find and the search engine produces a list of pages that contain those words. You can then click on any of the displayed pages to go to that page.
URL: This is a Universal Resource Location, the correct name for the location that you type into the location area. Also known as Address.
I would be interested in what help you give new intranet users. Please leave a comment for others to share and learn from.
An A-Z of BT’s Intranet
August 4, 2010 at 9:33 am | Posted in best practice, help, homepage, intranet, search, standards, usability | 5 CommentsTags: best practice, bt intranet, help, homepage, search, standards, usability, users
In my last post ‘Great intranets help make efficient people’ I talked briefly about the BT A-Z. BT Intranet users find this a very useful service helping them to quickly find a site.
Research of people in BT finds they navigate to what they need from the BT Homepage by using the search engine, deep linking from the many headings grouped functionally or use the BT A-Z.
People who use the BT A-Z have a reasonable idea they know the site exists and what its name could be. Cross-referencing of sites helps people to find it under more than one letter.
I’ve shown what the BT A-Z is in these examples.
The BT Homepage sets out the BT A-Z in one horizontal line with plenty of space between each letter to save users one click if there was just a BT A-Z heading and be able to easily get the letter they need (slide 1).
For each link in the BT A-Z, there is a heading followed by a simple explanation of what it points to so people know before they click on it if it is likely to be what they are looking for (slide 2).
On the left hand side of every page of the BT A-Z are icons which help to show to users what to expect when they click on the link (slides 2-4).
As well as giving people a full list of sites, if you know it is just information or a service you need for that letter you can choose that option from right hand menu to reduce what you need to check (slides 3 and 4).
If you have mobile/PDA access, you can still use the BT A-Z and see a list of sites to click on with (most important!) a mobile icon against those which will support that type of access (slide 5).
Improve findability for no extra cost
October 28, 2009 at 11:31 am | Posted in blog, content management, help, intranet, search, social media | 2 CommentsTags: blog, bt intranet, help, search, social media, users, wiki
BT’s intranet search engine, Search BT, is the biggest instance of Ultraseek run in Europe. It searches nearly 2 million different pieces of content. This includes what we call formal, verified, content as well as collaborative, user generated content.
Here’s an example of how a couple of minor changes to an intranet page had a major impact on its findability for no cost.
People wanting to review or change sharesave plans needed to download and complete a form from the BT intranet and email it to the right group.
When they searched for the form by typing in its name to Search BT the top result was a form called ‘Saveshare Changes’. So they filled it in and sent it off. But the top result was the wrong form! 
The form people needed to use was under a link on the same saveshare changes page as other forms including the wrong form. With no meta data or keywords on that page to help direct the search engine, it meant the top result took you to one of several saveshare changes forms, not the page for the right form.
Once the meta data was added in the page, it rose to the top result shown on Search BT for search queries on saveshare changes.
That minor tweak to one page saved people acting on the forms a lot of time and BT money in productivity savings. It also speeded up the time for changes people wanted made saving a lot of frustration.
3 ways to improve users’ intranet experience
March 4, 2009 at 4:02 pm | Posted in best practice, content management, governance, intranet, publishing, standards, Uncategorized | 4 CommentsTags: benefit, bt intranet, governance, help, publishing, standards, users, value
In my last post ‘A publishing cry for help’ I asked for your help in trying to find a cheaper, easier, content management tool for our intranet publishers. Thanks for your comments which I’m following up. Janus Boye who writes a very good blog asked me why my criteria had the 4th bullet point of ‘automated intranet management tools can check all content for compliance’.
I thought it was easier to post than to reply so I can explain why it is. The success of BT’s intranet has been based on users being confidence they can rely on the status of the information they use for their work. It builds on my post ‘Do your intranet standards work?‘ which covered briefly what our intranet management tools check.
We have bought a checker tool we have called Webchecker. It replaces existing home grown tools BT developed. It will improve the overall user experience. So what will it do?
Users need to know the content is current and owned so they can check for more information of clarify anything not easily understood: Webchecker makes sure every page of content has an owner and review date that is in the future in a given format. This means intranet information complies with BT’s information retention policy and reviewed at least once a year.
Users need to know any private or sensitive information is properly protected and needs the right permissions for anyone to be able to use it: Webchecker makes sure any ‘in confidence’ or ‘in strictest confidence’ phrases found in content is either exempted because it is guidance or protected. This means intranet information meets BT’s security and privacy policy and properly protected with the right permissions needed to use it.
Users need to know especially especially impaired users need to know information is accessible to everyone whatever device they use including mobile phones and PDAs: Webchecker checks all content meets WCAG 2.0 AA standard so no user is discriminated against. This means our content meets UK law with the 1995 Disability and Discrimination Act.
But how does Webchecker work I hear some of you say?
Webchecker checks each week every page of content to see if it has an owner; a review date at least 28 days in the future; web accessibility up to 2.0; no confidential content.
Webchecker automatically emails the owner of the page using records in a central database of all publishers and sites on our intranet. It explains what the problem is; how it can be fixed; when it needs to fixed by.
If no action is taken Webchecker will escalate the outstanding issues to the owner’s line manager. If no action is still taken the content is removed from the intranet and replaced by a page that says ‘Sorry, this content is unavailable because of (reasons why). Please contact the page owner (contact details given) to find out more.
This normally has the right impact of unhappy users contacting the page owner who quickly makes the improvement so content can be restored.
Failure still to take action will mean Webchecker will escalate this to the owner’s 2nd line manager and eventually remove the content permanently.
The main aim is achieved that users have confidence the content can be relied upon for their work.
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