DorjeM

Working as I do at a University I sometimes get the chance to see speakers I'd otherwise only find in the virtual world. An hour ago I was able to see Sir Paul Callaghan ( New Zealander of the year 2011 ) speak on his vision for how New Zealand could have it's cake and eat it too by looking at where we as a nation want to be "as rich as the Aussies" and then thinking smart about how that can be achieved within the constraints that we have as New Zealanders. But what does it have to do with intranets ? To me Sir Paul's talk, which was very similar to the one I've included above, reminded me that the key to success for any venture requires: Having a vision Providing leadership Knowing your landscape An ability to take the road of the statesman rather than that of the politician Intranets as we all know are tricky beasts to do well. We can any one of us throw up a few pages of how to, and move the refernce documents from the file server onto the in...

Well here we are then , long time no see. Yep back in the saddle after ten months, two earthquakes, my boy starting school and just the hint of work. Nothing big really. Are you keen on getting your intranet videos to go viral ? Surely you jest I hear readers from intranet land ask. But no I'm serious. I've been listening to a pod cast since starting my new job at a local university, the 45 minute commute each way pushed me over the edge. IT conversations has a terrible website, so don't bother thinking it might lead the way to cool intranet innovation, which does exist . What IT conversations has in spades is serendipity and liberal interpretation of what IT is. If any of you have read Carmine Gallo's the innovation secrets of Steve Jobs, or heard his interview on IT conversations, you'll know why serendipity and broadening your horizon's can be valuable. Suffice to say looking over the fence into other IT areas, or out the window and into another per...

I've just been got on to the IBF24 intranets live event and the very first thing I find is David Sachs - Yammer founder - citing my old stomping ground SunGard and how Cris Conde appreciated the organisation flattening value in Yammer. I am lucky enough to have benefited directly from Yammer putting me directly in touch with Chris despite being about 10 managers seperated from him in the Org structure when I was working for SunGard. His comments directly to staff made a huge difference to the culture of the organisation - one of the really very valuable aspects of tools like Yammer. Who says serendipity doesn't play a part in the world ? :-) More on the benefits of Yammer I've previously posted

I've been asked to present a Live Intranet tour for the Intranet Benchmarking Forum's 24 hour event in a couple of days. I've blogged about the IBF intranet's live online meetings previsously, this time I'll be presenting for their second (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) Intranets 24 hour event. Over the span of 24 hours the IBF team will be hosting a huge number of world leading intranet live tours and a large number of intranet thought leaders. Interestingly they've adopted the "digital workplace" as a sub title for the event. This is a theme of web workplace or digital workplace was originally raised by Jane McConnell on her blog Globally Local and Locally Global. It is great to see because the term intranet is so far from the reality for many organisations in this day and age. Attendance is FREE and I'd highly recommend anyone with an interest in intranets attend. It is on 2nd and 3rd of June so SOON. For your free ticket to attend you...

IMSNZ10 Chair outlining summary of day 1 After two great days in Wellington, thanks Brightstar and Julian Carver , here are the key points from my presentation. Key points of my presentation about "Social computing - organisational collaboration and engagement" Don't jump in boots and all Have a strategy Ensure the strategy has goals, actions, measures [I really like how Carmine Porco of Prescient Digital Media puts this] Ask the hard question "In spending time and $$ on this social computing tool what aspect of our organisation's goals are we helping to achieve ? and how will we know it's working?" I've created a list of resources I used to come up with my presentation tagged on Delicious with IMSNZ10 . I'd like to thank the large number of people who asked questions during the summit, and particularly those who queried my presentation. One of the interesting questions asked that struck a cord with me was "How do we be...

Tim Bernes-Lee gives birth to Social Media [while trying to resolve Knowledge management at CERN] Next week is the 8th annual New Zealand Information Management summit (hash tag #imsnz10) and I'm stepping into the lions den with my social media hat on. Until I started preparing for this event I'd not realised the degree of rivalry that exists between some sectors of the Knowledge Management world and the Social Media world. Outlined particularly by Venkatesh Roa and Robert Swanwick but also reinforced by the extensive articles on the development of KM by Nancy Dixon. With this forewarning I’ve been collating what I can , in expectation of a number of curly questions from the audience, using delicious . These links and an interesting article in the Harvard Business Review I came across about the benefits of giving up control will I hope see me right. Together with some useful lessons from social media usage where I’m working now I’m looking forward to IMSNZ10 . Wha...

Recently I've been thinking about Governance for intranet sites, SharePoint and intranets as a whole. Earlier this year I was lucky enough to present alongside some great folks from Telcom NZ, The department of Transport NZ, and NZ Parliament. The team from NZ Parliament have come up with a governance structure that works really well for them in a very technically, politically and legally complex environment. I talked to Tracy Parsons from NZ Parliament recently and she outlined what the force was that drove the move to this structure and the benefits they derive from it. Originally the governance structure was setup quite differently. Large web site and intranet development projects were initiated and resulted in very project - focused governance structures being put in place. The projects transitioned form implementation to work as usual, this highlighted how project focused governance structures don’t suit work as usual operations. The two senior business owners, who had...