DorjeM

When trying to use PNP to create SharePoint online pages I ran into this error. Add-PnPClientSideText -Page "Offices" -Text " City office Free phone: 12345 " -Column 2 -Section 5 -Order 5 Add-PnPClientSideText : Object reference not set to an instance of an object. At line:1 char:1 + Add-PnPClientSideText -Page "Offices" -Text " City office < ... + ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~     + CategoryInfo          : WriteError: (:) [Add-PnPClientSideText], NullReferenceException     + FullyQualifiedErrorId : EXCEPTION,SharePointPnP.PowerShell.Commands.ClientSidePages.AddClientSideText The error is caused by having the page open in a browser window in Edit mode. Once you click Publish on the page in the browser the code runs fine.

Just logged into O365 with a new account and got the following error using Google Chrome When I logged in using Microsoft Edge I got the change password screen. The server can't sign you in right now. Please try again later. MSSPError=(-2147217382)loginpost(778) X-ClientId: D9E0727DA9D04C63BD20E32C7EE40260 request-id 6d1cc7a0-5615-4fea-9b6c-2d9ac7690844 X-Auth-Error MSSPErrorException X-OWA-Version 15.20.56.14 X-FEServer SYXPR01CA0061 X-BEServer MEXPR01MB1048 Date:9/24/2017 7:47:30 PM

In 2009 and again in 2010 I ran two day workshops for intranet managers in Wellington New Zealand. My goal was to try and provide some professional development for people who do what I do, and some extension for myself. The events were organised by Bright*Star training with me providing the content and them providing the logistical support. The intranet folks who attended gave me great feedback and I hope got a lot out of the experience. Curriculum Intranet assessment : providing a platform from which to grow Decisions : taking us to and from the future Square pegs and round holes : the right tool for the job Fundamentalist leanings : identifying and delivering the pillars on which your organisation’s intranet will flourish Putting yourself in their shoes : understanding what staff really need Reaching in and out : making an intranet work for staff Useful, usable and used How do we know we’ve got to the future What I found wonderful was that because the groups wer...

For my CV I just tried to document when I started the Kiwi Intranets group. It was a little harder than I thought but thanks to the Way Back Machine I found out the date. http://web.archive.org/web/20050623011812/http://www.brightstar.co.nz/calendar_conferences.htm For 5 years I'd been slaving away working on an intranet and then I suddenly discovered there was a conference about the topic! Eureka. And even better it was in Auckland rather than overseas. Yeah! And even better my boss at the time had enough training money for me to be able to go, as long as I stayed with my sister. So on August 15th 2005 I turned up at the venue in down town Auckland, tried the coffee and ran round the block to get something was coffee rather than just having a coffee label. The day blew me away, literally. I remember seeing Dan Randow and Mia Morrish speak about their respective recent activities. By the end of the day I was really buzzing and so when I left the after event drinks, I walke...

From :  https://flic.kr/p/inW8ZS I ran a team of application developers at a New Zealand University for over a year. One of the aspects of that role which I really enjoyed was working with each team member on their personal development. With the people I was working with we found that individual mentoring was very effective. Traditionally organisations have training budgets. The training budget is often used to send technical folks on a one, two or more day training course. In some cases the money is used to send people to a vendor or practitioner focused conference. In my experience the training courses are given by either the technically gifted or those new to the field. Neither tend to be good trainers or teachers. In my own experience and from the results I saw within my team there is a better way. We agreed as a group that where possible we would forgo the poor quality training and the questionable conferences and use the money to get a specialist / consultant in...

Photo by mbiebusch Do you have the option for your staff to receive notifications via email from the intranet ? If you do these notifications may be stopping your staff from getting a good nights sleep and working at their best the next day. Christopher Barnes on the Harvard Business Review blog, in his article "workers disengaged" ,  provides evidence of how damaging late night phone/device checking can be on performance the next day. So if you're running an intranet and you allow staff to sign up for notifications or updates when changes are made have you optimised the scheduled tasks and cron jobs so that they don't send the notifications out in the middle of the night ? Sharepoint has this feature allowing people to setup notifications when changes are made to libraries folders and lists they are interested in. Do you modify the jobs so that emails don't go out and disturb everyone's sleep ? How else do the systems you have setup, which run w...

SA Hotel Trat, Thailand Online services for those who are travelling tend to be all about the supplier, or middle man, and not really for the person who will actually use the service. For 8 months now my family and I have been travelling from the UK back across the world to New Zealand. Every few days we have been looking for a new hotel. And the hotel sites , and the cheap room sites all have their flaws. So when we found the website for the SA Hotel in Trat Thailand we exclaimed loud and long how good it was. http://www.sahotel.in.th/ I'll warn you now it isn't pretty - but if like us you've looked at a lot of pretty hotel websites and still not really been able to make up your mind if it is the right place to stay I feel for you. The best online presences for hotels are invariably those run by people who own and live at their own properties, and who are doing something different. A case in point is Les Manguiers  http://www.mangokampot.com/  which again isn...

After three years and six months at Lincoln University I am now officially unemployed and heading away on a gap year for grown ups with my family. I started at Lincoln University in the position of Online Services Manager in October 2009. In April 2012 I became the Applications group manager as well as the online services manager. A friend in the US said “a Mexican promotion – two jobs, one salary”, which it was but it was more than that as well. I became responsible for a team of six people who helped me and whom I hope I helped. It is them and the other people I worked with at Lincoln University that I really tried to express my thanks to in my leaving speech. I’m blogging my speech because my dad asked for a copy and several people were unable to attend. It starts using the Maori language and ends using the Tibetan language. ---------------- Te whare tipuna e tu nei Te University e takoto nei Tena korua Nga hau e wha Nga iwi e tau nei Tena koutou katoa Thank you...

Wow - it's rolled around again. Intranets 2013 registrations are about to open and this year you can bring the intranet / digital workplace love into your personal life [which I'm sure you all do because you live and breathe intranets 24/7] via the Intranets2013 FaceBook page https://www.facebook.com/Intranets2013 15th - 17th of May in Sydney you'll be able to experience the best Intranet conference in Australia, Austral asia, the world - that I've ever been too. http://www.steptwo.com.au/conference This year Sam Marshall (Clearbox consulting) , Matthew Phillips (Intranetizen) and Kim Sbarcea are presenting. Looking forward to it.

Just one of the many great slides used during the team presentations. Today each team presented their case studies to the Faculty members (those running and presenting the conference) and to the other attendees. Five teams with five very different approaches to presenting the same material. Each of the teams during the week had perceived different aspects of the material we have had presented to us. And so Carrie's presentation, which went into Rashomon effect , played out in large. The material that resonated with each group, they reflected back through their presentations. So we ended up with five different views of the past five days, through the presentations. All were funny, some were inspired and a couple were wonderful. Prior to lunch and heading home, the summing up included a couple of great end of event exercises. The first provided the opportunity to set goals and have them followed up on. The later one gave every person a chance to express themselves in the cont...

Hot damn I finally got a swim. By the end of the day to day my team, team sky, was pretty burnt out so Andrew, Abbey, Yasna and I plus a couple of others did the pools. There are three. We should all probably have been working but we probably aren't ever going to get the chance to talk and swim at the same time again. Three very interesting (for me) and different sessions today Carrie Regenstein of Carnegie Mellon - took us through successful influencing. Marnie Hughes-Warrington of ANU - gave us a tour de-force of what a great presentation can be. Passionate, direct and inspiring. It covered a Deuputy Vice-Chancellor's view of senior managers issues and design principles for a modern university. She also answered some curly questions from the attendees. Judy Stokker provided a building block for all attendees - how to actively manage your career. The Caudit cocktail - thanks to Nimrod / Karina and team green Active and Reflect have been two common themes ...

A wonderful stow away in my luggage - family support. Something interesting happened to us today, we became productive teams. At the start of the week we were put into (mostly random) groups that by the end of the week are expected to work up and present on a case study. The team I'm part of, team sky, has dipped its toes into the case study prior to today but this morning most of us were reading it after breakfast. Throughout the day it became a pivot, so much so that we ended up working on it for three hours, from the end of formal events until after the bar opened [Doh!]. A lot of what we covered this morning, and our Belbin team roles work yesterday came into play. This morning Liz Gosling had yet another stand out activity which really got everyone in the room, and each of the teams we're members of thinking pretty hard. What was great was that David in our team came up with a left field suggestion, which it turns out has only happened once before in the past 5 ye...

Today's focus was on leadership. Dinner Tuesday with the CAUDIT Leadership Institute team We covered leadership for and of change with Nick Tate first off. This was followed by Peter Nikoletatos on the Situational Leadership framework, what being a CIO is about and how to manage challenging staff. Willie Pritchard followed lunch with Interpersonal communication, a look into preferred styles and those of your coworkers. Liz Gosling rounded out the day with a big session on Effective Teams and our own Belbin team traits. Beach cricket and a meal out in Kingscliff finished everyone off. Due to some technical challenges I missed the beach cricket, but that did mean I had time to fill in session feedback surveys and have a brief look at our homework case study. Nick's talk on change management I appreciated as it was done using slides like those I prefer, lots of bold images. Nick has a dry and very wry wit which he used to great effect in his talk by setting the audienc...

Team building with team sky. Well day one almost complete, and my head is fit to split. When I got to the venue I had 45 minutes to get myself sorted out prior to kick off so I opened my room ranch sliders and could hear; nail gun, minor birds and children in the pool. I'm not sure what worried me more the thought of minor birds with nail guys or children in a pool with them :-). That was about the last simple thought I've had since lunchtime. Apart from my splitting head when the conversation swung around to Microsoft "surface" and the difficulties of "apple" products again I knew it was time to go to bed. Arriving on Kiwi time I was starving by lunchtime and I hadn't had time to go out to the shops (if there are some, I still haven't got a sim card for my phone). Tip 1 - Beg borrow or steal a Sim card, there were only Vodofone ones available in Brisbane airport at rather steep prices. Lucky for me I'd sorted out getti...

VicRoads Intranet mouse mat - from Oyster Design In a couple of days I'll be attending the CAUDIT Leadership Institute. My background is in the intranet or online workspace, and one of the issues that I've seen coming through in the discussions I've had with other intranet and online workplace managers over the past five years or so is the need for professional development. Increasingly there are opportunities for development within the Intranet / Online workplace domain e.g. StepTwo's AsiaPacific Intranets conference Intranet Leadership forum - also by StepTwo Intranet benchmarking forum - in Europe But there are few opportunities that provide for the development of skills essential to effective intranets but not specific to them e.g. Project management Team work and oversight Managing your manager/organisation Career planning and development These are the types of skills the CAUDIT Leadership Institute outline in the programme , during their ye...

Happy to put my head, and those of others, into the crocodile's mouth. Most of you reading this blog will know that in the past two and a half years or so I've been working for a University here in Canterbury New Zealand as their Online Services manager. We've had some great wins, particularly with our intranet for those who "don't want to learn anything new" . In the past few months I've received a promotion and, thanks to the willingness of the team I work with to also take on more responsibility, I am now the Applications manager / Online services manager. As part of this move into a managerial role, though I have seen a lot of CSS and javascript lately, It was suggested that I attend the CAUDIT Leadership Institute (previously the CAUDIT-EDUCAUSE Institute). This course is designed as a professional development program for those who manage some aspect of information technology and resources in higher education, whether within their depa...

This post will appear as I'm giving the talk that it relates to in Sydney at Intranets 2012 . The title for the talk was The "I don’t want to learn anything new" intranet — a SharePoint intranet for 21 to 75 year olds I'm sad that one quote I really wanted to get into the talk was from James Robertson who when I got my job said James: Congratulations. I'll be really surprised if you can achieve anything. Dorje: Thanks, but why ? James: You got a job at a university. But you do have one thing going for you . . . . . it's a small university. Now in large part I got the job I have thanks to James and his then team Catherine and Cairo. So this post is a thanks to them, and an a little dig at James in that I did achieve something. I'll share the slides via SlideShare. The blog is to provide some background to some of the slides and provide a way for those in the session to ask questions when it suits them. So please post your questions.  ...

because twitter have blocked me I'm blogging Dean's talk Employees publish - senior managers "NO WAY!" Where is fear coming from of social intranets for C level managers ? Came up with mock screen capture deck. Modified each one with more and more social features. Successive ones moved from third to first person. Then added microblog to the screen capture. Then changed top microblog item to be more and more inflammatory. Planned trigger points - non-related information / personal opinions / information mildly inflamatory used microblog posts to introduce the trigger points. Then went through captures with WHY they bothered C level managers in during interviews. Were looking for "reach for the phone moment" Eight major concerns, 3 were US business law related Top 5  (may or may not be legitimate concerns, these are fears) lack of social filters, some things JUST don't get talked about at work e.g. bald ceo comes back from holiday wit...

I've at Intranets2012 and Twitter have just stopped me tweeting #intranets2012 damn!!! I've hit my twitter daily limit of 1000 tweets 11:42 am Syd time https://support.twitter.com/articles/15364# anyone know how to get around this ?!!

Photo adapted from Magnus_d For those of you who know Gerry McGovern you'll be used to his "shock and awe" tactics. I was glad to see that he knows about Jame's little get together in Sydney next week and as such shot a broadside across the bows of this upcoming soirée. Gerry's article was titled THE REAL REASON WHY INTRANETS AREN’T WORKING ! Just about enough to get some goats going. I agree with Gerry that most intranets, would you believe even the ones I've worked on, are indeed "a swamp of gross inefficiencies". I'm picking that the great and good of the Intranet world in Asia Pacific, present at Intranets 2012 will provide some insights into how to begin draining the swamp and providing "digital workplaces" where the staff are moved out of the "suck zone" faster and more quickly become "minimum badass users" [as per Kathy Sierra's presentation at Webstock 2012]. Several of the responses to Ge...