Customizing SharePoint to Build a Powerful Intranet Portal for your Users
March 8, 2012
An organization’s intranet is the company home for news and collaboration. A successful intranet also needs to be powerful, yet user-friendly. Can SharePoint accomplish all of this out of the box? The topic is addressed in HR Communication’s publication, “Just How Much Customization Does SharePoint Need?”
The answer is not black and white. Amy Schade, Director of User Experience for the Nielsen Norman Group, says one big factor is getting the software to work for your company’s culture. The experts weigh-in:
Does that mean you have to load SharePoint down with third-party applications? It depends. IBF CEO and founder Paul Miller observed that Duke Energy was a winner last year, basically using SharePoint “out of the box.” Bert Sandie, director of technical excellence at Electronic Arts’ EA University, said a great intranet “should look like one thing,” even with third-party apps. It ought to look like tools people use at home, such as Facebook and Flickr. IBF Live co-host Paul Levy observed, ‘SharePoint out of the box doesn’t lend itself to that experience’.
An out of the box design that keeps users in mind may not be SharePoint’s strongest characteristic. But it doesn’t take much to customize your farm to work for the masses. Instead of bogging down your SharePoint system with third party applications, save time and money on implementations with one lean solution. We like the feedback from Fabasoft Mindbreeze customers. The Chamber of Commerce, Upper Austria had this to say:
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise provides our staff quickly and efficiently with all the information they need. The service center staff is able to respond to requests without delay, as all relevant information is found with only one query. This even further improves the quality of our customer services whilst simultaneously minimizing effort of our staff.
Look for quick results from an out of the box solution at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, March 8, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Big Data Excitement at the 2012 Strata Conference
March 8, 2012
Don’t get hit by a stray bullet at the big data corral. IT World examines “The Wild West of Big Data.” Fresh from this year’s Strata Conference in Santa Clara, journalist Brian Proffitt describes how the current hubbub around big data mirrors the open source environment of a decade ago (the sense of urgency around a rising technology) and how it doesn’t (the lack of a grass-roots community feel).
Excitement is understandable in this burgeoning field, and Proffit felt the anticipation of profit as a “zing” in the air. However, he seems to long for the atmosphere of yore, when excited hackers fueled the advance of innovation for innovation’s sake, rather than the current domination of cloud advances by corporate types looking to make a buck. While he admits companies acknowledge the open source contributions to their products, they usually do so by way of pointing out their own efforts to give back.
The article observes:
“Big data’s community is purely commercial and without the threat of a big competitor to stand in its way. In this sense, it is more of a gold rush than Linux ever was, because without the checks of the internal and external pressures that the early Linux community endured, there seems to be nothing that can get in big data’s way.
“Which may be why we are seeing, even now, signs from experts that are warning potential customers and the vendors willing to take their money to slow down and start really thinking about what they want to do.”
Excellent advice for any gold rush, we’d say. Proffit feels the same, but observes that such voices of caution were in the minority among the Conference’s speakers. No surprise there; who has time for the voice of reason during a stampede?
Cynthia Murrell, March 8, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Social Media Analytics: What Are Social Media Data?
March 8, 2012
We have been following Text Analytics News, along with Useful Social Media, in its recent series of interviews with experts in the field of Social Media Analytics. The third installment focuses on what exactly social media data is and where it comes from.
“Social Media Analytics Expert Interview Series: Part 3” is conducted by the Chief Editor of Text Analytics news, Ezra Steinberg. The interviews are published as a lead-up to the Social Media Analytics Summit. The interview panel for this installment includes: Tom H. C. Anderson CEO, OdinText – Anderson Analytics; Nathan Gilliatt Principal, Social Target; Chris Moody COO, Gnip; and Kami Watson Huyse CEO, Zoetica Media. The interview covers experts’ definitions and interpretations of social media data and attempts to resolve confusion about how to use these data. Some insights from the interview follow:
“USM: When you think of “Social Media Data,” what do you think of first? Second?
Kami (Zoetica Media): Social media data is at the heart of understanding your community. Far from being cold and impersonal, data can tell a story that intuition alone cannot deliver. As much as we like to believe that we fully understand our community, what people say and what people do are often very different. Data can help to guide intuition.
For that reason, the second thing I think of when I consider social media data is its importance as a tool to diagnose, prioritize and evaluate what you are doing as an organization and use it to make course corrections.
USM: Do you think there is currently a common understanding as to what constitutes social media data?
Chris (Gnip): Definitely not. For example, some think of social media data as Twitter data because Twitter has done a better job than some other companies of making their data available in a full coverage, reliable, scalable format. The reality is that social media data comes in lots of different forms from lots of different sources. We’re working hard to help companies understand how different types of social data can be useful for different types of analysis.”
The interview focuses on understanding social media data and getting the most out of the analytics that it provides. Focus is also given to social media monitoring vendors and analytical tools, with opinions from the experts on which ones are valuable and how they work. Businesses are learning that considering these opinions and implementing social media is valuable when attempting to learn and understand customers and potential customers. The full interview can be found here and can give insight on this marketing tool and how it works.
Andrea Hayden, March 8, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
SharePoint 2013: Speculation and Musings
March 7, 2012
With SharePoint 2013’s hotly anticipated release, Bjorn Furuknap weighs in, speculating on the various features that will be made available. His blog entry, “SharePoint Server 2013 Features,” provides details on some rumored 2013 additions.
SharePoint Server 2013 keeps many of the existing SharePoint 2010 features, such as: Excel Services, Access Services, InfoPath Forms Services, User Profile Service, Search Services, Business Connectivity Services, and PerformancePoint Services. In addition, however, there are new, or at least radically expanded services, such as: Content Management Service, Translation Services, Workflow Services, SharePoint Quiz Client-Side Object Model Protocol, Education Services, and Work Management Service.
While every edition of SharePoint gets better, increasing ease-of-use and efficiency, it sometimes seems that SharePoint is simply keeping up with third-party solutions that are much more agile and current in terms of new releases. One particular solution that does a great job of staying current with its suite of solutions is Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
With Fabasoft Mindbreeze, updates are not a belabored three-year overhaul, but an efficient revamp every quarter. Felt needs are met quickly and efficiently. Read more about actionable information, one of the latest additions to Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise Winter Release 2012:
With most search engines you can search and find. With Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise you don’t just find, you can instantly use the information without any intermediate step. The search query delivers an e-mail address, for example – click on this address directly within the preview to write an e-mail to the selected addressee.
So while SharePoint 2013 is greatly anticipated, consider if it is worth the wait or if the addition of a third-party solution can meet your organization’s information needs.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 7, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Librarian Solutions to SharePoint Problems
March 6, 2012
When time and money is spent on a SharePoint implementation, it makes sense that companies would require that their employees jump on board and start using the application. However, this has led to an epidemic of frightened and frustrated employees, and an overflowing of training and tips on the internet. Lorette S. J. Weldon addresses this issue and uses her library science training to craft a solution in, “Help with SharePoint is on the way in The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee© Animated Series.”
Weldon states her motivation for developing a unique training tool:
To maintain Weiser’s belief of being sufficiently trained in order to be free to use the technology, for example, SharePoint, for the job, I have created The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee Animated Series. Librarians and information professionals are free to suggest ideas for future episodes ‘anonymously’. This animated series is a free service trying to meet the business needs of setting up SharePoint to perform needed tasks from within the office environment . . . librarians have been increasingly asking me to find out how Microsoft SharePoint can help them. The Adventures of SharePoint Reading Bee will try to help break it down for the non-programmer in answers that do not require coding. The SharePoint versions to be covered will be 2007 and 2010.
We commend the innovative approach to SharePoint training. The key is the user focus, without the need for programming and coding. But the major drawback of SharePoint is a fundamental one, something that cannot be overcome with training, the obtrusiveness of the program. Weldon herself laments that SharePoint does not run seamlessly in the background. However, some third-party enterprise solutions do just that.
We like Fabasoft Mindbreeze and their suite of enterprise solutions.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or to be more precise, understands what the most important information is for you at any precise moment in time. It is the center of excellence for your knowledge and simultaneously your personal assistant for all questions. The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud data together.
If SharePoint is a struggle for your employees, explore training options such as those offered by Weldon or consider adding an intuitive third-party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Emily Rae Aldridge, March 6, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Increase SharePoint User Adoption with Mindbreeze
March 5, 2012
SharePoint 2010 is no doubt a ubiquitous content management platform, but not all employees jump on the bandwagon so quickly. Communication experts Sam Marshall and Camilla Herrmann weigh-in on the SharePoint user adoption debate in, “Are Employees Rejecting SharePoint?”
Marshall and Herrmann both point out that SharePoint is a powerful application, but Marshall brings the focus to a uSamp survey released last year that revealed 80 percent of organizations using SharePoint said employees continue to share documents as email attachments.
Harrmann offers this rebuttal:
Perhaps the most collaborative tool in the Swiss Army penknife that makes up SharePoint is the people search. Properly configured, updated and linked to My Site profiles, it’s the way to find the person that you need in a large organization. Once you have tracked them down, however you collaborate after that, SharePoint has done its job.
SharePoint success among your employees may be determined by how you define collaboration and your expectations for the software. Perhaps rating documents for usefulness, people search, and forum comments are all features that can serve as a gateway introduction to the social enterprise arena. But with the core list and library features, SharePoint can, and should, be doing much more for your employees. Marshall argues the user interface is particularly unpleasant and does not charm the lay-user employee that is inclined to modern Web sites that are increasingly informative, aesthetically pleasing, and functioning with real-time data.
To fill in the user-interface gaps in your SharePoint system, consider a third party application. We like the good reviews for the Fabasoft Mindbreeze suite of solutions. With clear navigation and a self-explanatory interface, Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise facilitates findability.
Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise finds every scrap of information within a very short time, whether document, contract, note, e-mail or calendar entry, in intranet or internet, person- or text-related. The software solution finds all required information, regardless of source, for its users. Get a comprehensive overview of corporate knowledge in seconds without redundancy or loss of data.
While debates abound about SharePoint user-adoption, Mindbreeze can save employees time by connecting them to the right information via a user-friendly interface. Navigate to www.mindbreeze.com to read more.
Philip West, March 5, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Big Data Bridges Diverse Fields
March 3, 2012
Solving the big data problem and what we are going to do with the immense amount of unstructured information that is just sitting in cyber space, is on the forefront of many minds.
The New York Times technology blog Bits recently reported on this issue in the article “IBM: Big Data, Bigger Patterns.”
According to the article, the recent explosion of information available on the Internet paired with inexpensive computer hardware has made it possible for enterprises to store huge amounts of unstructured data. Now that we know it is possible, the goal is to do it cost effectively.
In order to remain cost sensitive, many companies are trying to find overlapping interests and commonalities between different fields.
The article states:
“The trend of looking for commonalities and overlapping interests is emerging in many parts of both academia and business. At the ultra small nanoscale examination of a cell, researchers say, the disciplines of biology, chemistry and physics begin to collapse in on each other. In a broader search for patterns, students of the statistical computing language known as R have used methods of counting algae blooms to prove patterns of genocide against native peoples in Central America.”
While the cross pollination of various business interests is very exciting, we’re interested to see if it leads to complications down the road.
Jasmine Ashton, March 3, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Ontoprise GmbH: Multiple Issues Says Wikipedia
March 3, 2012
Now Wikipedia is a go-to resource for Google. I heard from one of my colleagues that Wikipedia turns up as the top hit on a surprising number of queries. I don’t trust Wikipedia, but I don’t trust any encyclopedia produced by volunteers including volunteers. Volunteers often participate in a spoofing fiesta.
Note: I will be using this symbol when I write about subjects which trigger associations in my mind about use of words, bound phrases, and links to affect how results may be returned from Exalead.com, Jike.com, and Yandex.ru, among other modern Web indexing services either supported by government entities or commercial organizations.
I was updating my list of Overflight companies. We have added five companies to a new Overflight service called, quite imaginatively, Taxonomy Overflight. We have added five firms and are going through the process of figuring out if the outfits are in business or putting on a vaudeville act for paying customers.
The first five companies are:
We will be adding to the Taxonomy Overflight another group of companies on March 4, 2012. I have not yet decided how to “score” each vendor. For enterprise search Overflight, I use a goose method. Click here for an example: Overflight about Autonomy. Three ducks. Darned good.
I wanted to mention one quite interesting finding. We came across a company doing business as Ontoprise. The firm’s Web site is www.ontoprise.de. We are checking to see which companies have legitimate Web sites, no matter how sparse.
We noted that the Wikipedia entry for Ontoprise carried this somewhat interesting “warning”:
The gist of this warning is to give me a sense of caution, if not wariness, with regard to this company which offers products which delivered “ontologies.” The company’s research is called “Ontorule”, which has a faintly ominous sound to me. If I look at the naming of products from such firms as Convera before it experienced financial stress, Convera’s product naming was like science fiction but less dogmatic than Ontoprise’s language choice. So I cannot correlate Convera and Ontoprise on other than my personal “semantic”baloney detector. But Convera went south in a rather unexpected business action.
SharePoint for your Public Facing Site: Key Points
March 2, 2012
Rapid changes in technology have also brought along changes in web expectations. Users more and more want informative, aesthetically pleasing sites that are consistently functioning with real-time data, which can be challenging to achieve. Eric Riz outlines four considerations to keep in mind before you begin building your external site in, “SharePoint: Should You Use it for Your Public Website?”
Some may be unaware that SharePoint can support a public facing site. Some SharePoint sites also integrate content with collaboration. All these features sound good, but Riz discusses four key points to keep in mind before jumping in headfirst. As with most complex information undertakings, a good plan cannot be underestimated.
Riz explains:
It’s important that you plan sufficiently for your site; don’t underestimate the amount of planning required getting your SharePoint website together. We recommend that companies realize the importance of putting their content online and plan accordingly. Begin by defining your branding strategy and the basic layout of your page template; this is where you’ll need to decide whether you want an “off-the-rack” look and feel, or something customized. The latter will require additional time and budget consideration.
Riz also covers considerations in licensing, ensuring the development team is well-versed in extending SharePoint capabilities to the Internet, and staging the deployment.
To give your Web site a powerful search feature with a user-friendly experience, consider a third party solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite. MindBreeze InSite understands that an attractive web site is a company’s digital business card – your shop window.
InSite turns your website into a user-friendly knowledge portal for your customers. Fabasoft Mindbreeze InSite recognizes correlations and links through semantic and dynamic search processes. This delivers pinpoint accurate and precise ‘finding experiences’.
With no installation or configuration required, InSite can save you valuable resources that would otherwise be spent on development and training. Navigate to www.mindbreeze.com to read more about web site architect solutions from Mindbreeze.
Philip West, March 2, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Protected: Ikanow: Creating Pathways through Information
March 1, 2012
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
