Social Bookmarking - poll results

Hi there,

During the recent Intranets Live web conference (October 2008) I heard Shiv Singh talking about how Avenue A Razorfish had used a specific tag on Delicious to drag an RSS feed of useful links onto their intranet. He also mentioned a similar thing using a special tag on Flickr images, and using that to drag an appropriate photo roll onto the intranet.

I was intrigued so thought I'd do some rough research to see if such a thing was relatively easy to do.

Initially I thought I'd look at the technical requirements - from what I found it wasn't going to be too difficult to do with delicious and very easy to do with Flickr.

From there I progressed to some water cooler interviews to see what response might be, I picked staff I know are web savvy to ask my questions of. Their response was positive so as a final check of - was this a good use of my time and resources I did a quick poll of a sub set
of my users.

7% of intranet users were given the option of replying to the poll which was on the FrontPage of the intranet for two weeks. Of my total user population 3% responded

[NOTE - 3% is 40% of the 7% who actually saw the poll, which I was quite pleased with, especially because many people bothered to tell me they didn't use anything]

Del.icio.us 8%
Digg 8%
Furl 0%
Ma.gnolia 0%
Reddit 0%
Stumbleupon 2%
MSDN 8%
TechNet 4%
Other 6%
None 65%

Conclusion - at this stage this sort of development probably should be put aside in favour of projects with more immediate impact.

The reason I'm posting this now is that I've just read a Post by Step Two owner James Robertson about the three tiers of collaboration. In it he talks about the 'capacity' as being the key building block for making sure collaboration works.

http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/three-tiers-of-collaboration/

My brain brought James article and my recent work together providing me with the following conclusion

• my social bookmarking data may represent a real symptom of the long way we have to go as an organisation in fostering greater sharing and therefore collaboration

Other fitfully taken up collaboration projects support this hypothesis but obviously further work needs to be done to confirm or reject the idea.

I'd be interested in other people's experiences and comments on what James article gets you to think about.

DorjeM

Social Networking marketing examples

Huge list of examples where social networking tools / sites are being used to improve the image of companies globally

 

http://www.beingpeterkim.com/2008/09/ive-been-thinki.html

 

Thanks to James Dello for the link

Twitter - less twit more er

I'm slowly being moved from my "twit is an important aspect of the twitter name" point of view

 

http://davidallgroup.com/files/Twitter101Guide-DAG.pdf

 

has some interesting pointers and famous case studies.

 

DorjeM

Seamless Teamwork

Michael Sampson's book 'Seamless Teamwork' is now available from Amazon and should be hitting the book stores in New Zealand prior to Christmas.

Michael's book focuses on how to make the most of SharePoint once your organisation has decided to go down that path. Michael talks about how Seamless Teamwork is the How part of the equation while his Seven Pillars paper focuses on the What.

For intranet teams globally this will be a great book to get your hands on, to help ensure you are delivering the most effective solution you can.

DorjeM

IBF Intranets live

I've just been up from 4am until 6am and watched the sun touch the harbour out the window.

Yep yet another joy of living at the end of the earth - and why you ask ?

Well today was the first IBF (Intranet Benchmarking Forum) Intranets Live event.

I live blogged - thanks for the inspiration Michael Sampson - the event. A first for me so apologies to those who I was recording for any mistakes, they are mine alone.

Overall an interesting session - shame it will cost so much to attend following sessions.

• Kellogs walk through
• Talk with Shiv Singh about intranet wiki
• Talk with researcher about wikis
• Intranet doctor takes a look at BT and Corus intranet issues
• CapitalOne intranet manager interview
• Interview with Yammer CEO, enterprise twitter
  

200 attendees from more than 20 countries, including a few hardy souls from the south pacific.

There were several technical hitches that meant we couldn't see Shiv Singh's presentation and didn't get to hear Jane McConnell at all but otherwise the mix of live and recorded material went very well. Microsoft live meeting was used to get everyone onto the web version of the presentations, and a conference bridge to get everyone onto the audio side.

I need more time to process everything but I think the SunGard AvantGard intranet stacks up pretty well against the ones that we saw today - Kellogs / CaptialOne / BT

One thing I really didn't like was the 'interlude' pieces the IBF guys pre recorded, to take up time between speakers. One was a parody of the Queen talking to Prince Philip about the internet, and there was one other I can't remember.
I can sort of see where they're coming from, they need a filler to bridge the technical change from one presenter to another. And I have some appreciation for where the humour is coming from 'english lad', from my experience (which I have to admit is limited when it comes to the UK).
BUT really guys, the IBF is a very expensive club to belong to, only some of your customers are from the UK and all your jokes were UK focused. With more than 20 countries attending I believe it would have been better to keep the tone more professional and more global. This is only my two cents worth, and as I don't have the buget to attend future Intranets live events I'm not going to find out - unless the team at IBF are keen to have a dissenting voice in the house ;-)

Was it worth getting up at 4am - Yes sirrree bob!
I'll post more on my thoughts after I get to work today.

DorjeM

IBF Intranets live - Part 5 Yammer

Talking to Yammer CEO - David

IBF found that Yammar has helped glue IBF togeather


David was COO of PayPal
Then started Genie - family tree social networking site
Got more than 30 employees so wanted a way to solve email overload and keep everyone connected.

We liked twitter - but everyone sees your updates, very hard to limit to those with same email domain as you.

IBF use skype and email as well as Yammer, 40 in team globally.
Helps allow questions and feel a sense of community

Nic Price - feels like a little bit of intranet outside the intranet on the cloud

Q David what is the market for Yammer
A We want Yammer to spread virally, make money off yammer as an enterprise product.
Empower employees to communicate - free for users, enterprise can gain control by paying for admin tool access.

Q What is the payment model ? IBF pay nothing at present
A That is OK, effectivly it is a free trial period $1/user/month is what you pay for admin tools

Q Some companies felt annoyed by users signing up without OK of the IT team
A We haven't heard that directly
Admin tools allow company to ensure Yammer security conforms to the security policies of the business.
Another business benefit of paying is that you get ownership of the messages.

Increasingly twitter and yammer will diverge

IBF Intranets live - Part 5 CapitalOne

Catherine Murphy (intranet manager) from CapitalOne



Q How did you end up as intranet manager ?
A Fell into it, knew person implementing portal and he gave me the job. Over time fell into overall management of it.

Q CapitalOne intranet flavour
A More interactive, representative of our culture open and collaborative. We have blogs, wikipedia. Looking for better way to connect people.
Our portal helps support cultural integration

[screen shot]

Q Proud of ?
A Ease of getting to things from the home page, people find things quicker and easier, they use search less

Q Platform ?
A Oracle web logic

Q What bad things happen to Intranet managers ?
A Getting caught up in intranet content, rather than being able to keep focus on strategic goals. I prefer to spend time on future design, usability, productive functionality.
Part of the change where communication is opened up between staff an associates, means it's easy to loose focus.

Q Economic crisis ? Had an effect on your role ?
A In a warped way good for us. CapitalOne is always trying to be more competitive, that means we have an opportunity to reeducate our business case for the intranet. People currently are collaborating ineffectively - could be done better in another way, e.g. using intranet.

Q Ways to mitigate these collaboration issues ?
A We're trying to offer alternative to email reply all as one of our goals

I work in HR team so that helps with being able to shift behaviors in the organisation e.g. are we rewarding collaboration / make staff more productive.

Q Three tips for new intranet managers ?
A Make sure IT understands goals and strategy for the tool (intranet), took us a while when we started 4 yrs ago to get IT on board. We're well partnered with IT now.

Don't underestimate usability needs! We continually have to focus on this, even if it seems intuitive not all users won't see it the same. Itterative

Q Legacy of your managership at CapitalOne ?
A I hope intranet is a usable tool that helps folks get their work done.

IBF Intranets live - Part 4 intranet doctor

William Hudson of IBF shows intranet patients from Corus and BT

Talking to Chris from Corus
Working with consultants to turn portal into an intranet

news / tasks / favorites

Corus keen to get some expert advice from the Doctor


William - double level navigation
Problem with this type of navigation e.g. www.smart.com
Mouse movement from one big to small nav means that second tab is accidentally moused over and that changes the menu items in the second level
Problem is that people move mouse in straight line which causes the problem.


All done with javascript - this causes problems with speach recogntion packages e.g. Dragon
This means that Dragon doesn't work - so accessibility isn't good.
Architecture needs to take this into account assistive technologies.

Patient 2 - BT


Problem - too much colour and too many banner ads

BT Intranet manager - worried that banner blindness is an issue

Paper by Benway + Lane (10yrs old now) but a real issue


e.g. on BT page 'Yipee' and 'Simply' are just going to be ignored by most users.
People photos aren't quite the same as people want to look at people


There are so many groupings of information, this makes it very hard.
Some can be dismissed because they are very focused but others span may information types and these make things hard for users.
5 to 7 groups of navigation is better.

IBF Intranets live - Part 3 Wiki

Emma Trent interviewed by Paul Millar talks about what a wiki is and how they're useful.

Q why not a gimick ?
A users of wiki's engage much more than using a CMS

Q most successful wiki ?
A Software development firm using Twiki, problem is very hard to get into companies to see how they're being used

Q How do you get critical mass ?
A Users with high technical knowledge find it easier, companies with cultures of collaboration find it easier

Publish Post

Q How do you keep it safe ?
A You have to invest in management - many people have control of content so the work is shared

Q Interesting Wiki questions currently
A Getting users to participate and encourage collaboration - "Very very hard, and requires changes to culture"

IBF Intranets live - Part 2 Shiv Singh

Shiv Singh from Avenue A Razorfish

1.5 years ago redesigned Avenue A Razofish using mediaPedia

Lots of staff were blurring lines between personal and work lives, so we actively encouraged it.

Integrated Flikr into wiki - posting to Flikr with a specific tag means that the photo shows up on the work wiki page.

We also integrate delicious - tag with a specific tag and it automatically gets shared with the organisation

Anyone can edit any page - HR very concerned pages would get vandalised "none of that happened, if you trust your employees they will do the right things"
There were a lot of page edits - in any month pages are edited around 10,000 times
6000 visits / month
100,00 - 120,000 page views / month

We provide all the standard intranet functionality - plus flikr and delicious plus editing which all means the intranet is their own.

About 2500 staff, 7 countries, 20 cities

Question from Paul Millar (Host) - financial crisis causing you to question social aspect of intranet ?
No not really - in down economy companies spend more on operational efficiency, so social into the enterprise allows for spontainious collaboration

Question from audience - How do you sell social networking ?
Shiv - Lots of grass roots support, show the numbers, show what staff are doing, lots of outside validation by winning awards for their intranet

Gate keepers for Wiki edits ? - No page edits go live when edit is submitted. We do have Wiki gardners, passionate people who keep things looking good. User logon is recorded against edit so don't need gatekeepers.

[Technical problems prevented Shiv from demoing his intranet]

IBF Intranets live - Part 1 Kellogs Intranet demo

Host Paul Millar from IBF

First up Kelloggs intranet manager Stuard Cochrane
4 years as intranet developer 3 years as intranet manager

4 Intranets - by global region

Stuart in charge of European intranet

5 Business partners / 4 Developers

4000 users

ASP.NET CMS
SQL Server Database

Wikis blogs forums - possibly delivered by SharePoint 2009

Intranet sits within IT

Strong HR and Corporate comms steering group




NoticeBoard - fast moving changes (15 notices / week)
corporate NoticeBoard - articles 1 or 2 / week, from Corporate comms
Hot Links - Key strategic initatives / strategies - so staff are aware of these ideas everyday
Products Promotions - three key initatives


European Vacancies - so that staff can recommend their associates faster than via recruiters, very tangible return on investment
K Values - our key corporate values

Went live 1.5 weeks ago
Will then survey via intranet

Some usability via IBF

SEARCH - Ashley
Position was to design and develop new search



Search wasn't on every page
Users didn't know what search box to use



Users found difficult to differentiate document type
Only title displayed so lots of pogoing
Owner meta data was missing

Drop down list for type of search, same headings as the old multiple search boxes


Used IBM suggested results layout and data
Results grouped by type


Educated users to enter key meta data

Implemented best bets options for key words

Stuart - key is user education

OLD AND NEW - Jenny
Job has been to come up with a new design "more interactive and personal"



Favourite Links - requested by users
300 users (of 4000) have taken this up in the past week and a half
Simple and easy to use

Key Links - managed by intranet team



Self service section - tasks users can do on their on



"Most used page" - travel and expenses page



EU Departments - access to business areas, static links, managed by Intranet team



Deaprtments France - Customisable section used by French users, in their own language, menu items are also in French


......

Currently four regional intranets are using different technologies so this is EU only

>><<
Questions
Intranet authentication done by download from SAP to intranet, including logon id which is used by users to logon.

How do you communicate with users ? Email / Popups (sparsely) / Carosel forums

HR / Comms steering group - Intranet team responsible for style / technology content owners manage content

CMS - Episerver, modified for us

Looking to use sharepoint in 2009 to try to tie all four disparate regional intranets

Minimum reserve on trademe.co.nz

Recently I have been asked what sellers should set as their minimum reserve for listing an item on www.trademe.co.nz - New Zealand's version of Ebay.

So I thought I'd post how we worked through this - while not directly related to intranets 'all things are connected'.

Example - Toby is using TradeMe to test the market for a new kid's product he has developed, Do it yourself tree houses for the 3 to 7 year old age group, Toby's Tots Tree houses.

Tree House kit - cost to manufacture NZ$80
Profit per kit Toby would like - NZ$20

As at 3 Nov 2008 TradeMe will charge Toby 6.9% for a successful sale under NZ$150

Toby is keen to make the most of the options available to promote the TTThouses so he has decided to pay for the following per item listed

• Feature combo - NZ$3.95
• Subtitle - NZ$0.55
• One extra Photo - NZ$0.10
• Scheduled end time for the auction - NZ$0.25
• Reserve fee (so he can set the reserve) - NZ$0.25

Toby figures on the following being his labour time costs

• taking photos - 10min
• researching other listings - 10min
• answering questions - 10min
  
• arranging payment and pickup - 10min
• actual pickup of the TTThouse - 10min

Total of 50minutes.
Toby will charge his time for this costing exercise at NZ$40 per hour
Total required to pay for Toby's time NZ$33

So Toby needs to sell his tree houses for the following amount at least:

NZ$80 + NZ$20 + NZ$3.95 + NZ$0.55 + NZ$0.10 + NZ$0.25 + NZ$0.25 + NZ$33
=
NZ$138.10
* 1.069
=
NZ$147.63

If Toby wants to include free shipping in the price, NZ$20 anywhere in the country, his price will go over NZ$150 so he falls into a different pricing bracket $10.35 plus 4.5% of the amount greater than NZ$150 that is paid.

NZ$138.10
+NZ$20
+NZ$10.35
=
NZ$168.45
+ (($168.45 - 150)*1.045)
=
NZ$187.73

This price (NZ$187.73) will cover

• all of Toby's costs
• allow him to sell his Tree Houses with "Free shipping"
• cover his TradeMe expenses
• pay for his time listing and actually selling via TradeMe

In conclusion
Be very careful how you price products you make or purchase if listing them on auction sites.

If Toby had sold his Tree Houses for NZ$120, or put a reserve of NZ$120 he would have been out of pocket for each and every one that sold for less than NZ$187.73

Toby though he might sell two a week so in the worst case he would have lost NZ$7000 over the course of a year.

Finally
One of the reasons I've posted this is for those of you who are looking can poke holes in our logic, so please let me know what you think and what your experiences have been.

DorjeM