• Global Intranet Trends Report / Jane McConnell
• Better connected intranets / Soictm
• Intranet Usability Guidelines 2nd edition / Nielsen Norman Group
• Enterprise Search Report 2008 / CMS Watch
• Beyond Search
• Ambient Findability / Peter Morville
• Portals - People, processes and technology / Andrew Cox
• Improving Intranet Search / James Robertson
• Content Management Bible / Bob Boiko
• Enterprise Content Management: Taming Content Chaos
• Intergrative Document and Content Management / Len Asprey and Michael Middleton
• Information Architecture for the World Wide Web / Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville
• Content Management Requirements Toolkit / James Robertson
• The CMS Report / Tony Byrne

Global Intranet Trends Report Jane McConnell

Jane McConnell is an intranet consultant of international repute, as you can tell from her web site and blogs. A couple of years ago she had the vision to embark on a survey of intranet management trends, and in the 2006 report presented an analysis of just over 100 companies. A year on and the number of companies has risen to 176 and the scope and depth of analysis has increased by an order of magnitude. This is no 'market survey' report, as the questions could only have been framed and analysed by someone who really can see the trends from the background noise. This is not just a collection of charts and graphs but professional insight into the implications for intranet managers as they go through yet another round of gaining financial and managerial support for what in most companies is now regarded as an essential business tool, such that 75% of respondents would be seriously affected if the intranet was unavailable for 24 hours.

Among the topic areas are globalization, customization, collaboration, the adoption of Web 2.0 applications, search implementation, measurement and evaluation. Jane has also come up with an informed guess about a typical level of intranet support as a function of the number of employees, but you'll have to buy the report to find out the answer.

This report provides all the evidence you are ever going to need to make a business case for intranet enhancement, and as each year goes by this report will become even more valuable as the scope and level of contribution continues to increase. The base report runs to 95 pages and is priced at $525 but any global intranet manager will benefit considerably from purchasing the Analysis Report, which is twice the length, priced at $1175 and sets a new standard in intranet insight. Jane's commitment to the intranet business is amazing - reward her by buying the report.

Better connected intranets Socitm

The Society of Information Technology Management (Socitm) was founded in 1986 as the professional association for ICT managers working in and for the UK public sector.It has 1900 members from 550 different organisations, including local authorities and police and fire services. Many of the Socitm reports are available only to members, but others are publicly available. As far as I am aware this is the only intranet handbook that specifically targets public sector users, where the business case justification may not be so easy to make as in the corporate sector. This well-produced 96 page report takes a very user-centric approach to intranet development. "The measure of success is that an intranet is used regularly and is trusted by all employees as the essential source of information about an organisation". That is an excellent objective, and much of the report provides excellent guidance on how to develop a sustainable intranet.

There is also a good section on usability and advice is offered on issues ranging from naming and branding to how to promote a new version of an intranet. The final section of the report sets out case studies of intranets developed by four quite different UK local authorities, with a strong emphasis on governance and business case development.

My reservations about the report is that there are no suggestions of resources that managers could use to gain more information about intranet development, such as those from Nielsen Norman, and no advice on CMS and search implementation. At £110 for non-members it is a little expensive for what it provides, but in the absence of any thing better for this sector I give it a qualified recommendation.

Intranet Usability Guidelines 2nd edition Nielsen Norman Group

Over the last few years the Nielsen Norman Group has increasingly focused on intranet usability. The Intranet Design Annuals are a valuable insight into ten quality intranets, and now NNg have released the 2nd Edition of their 2002 study on intranet usability. The set of ten reports are based on laboratory tests and field tests of 27 intranets. Out of the 18 common intranet tasks using in the 2002 study 11 were repeated for this 2nd Edition and that has enabled NNg to estimate the change in user productivity across the studies.

Each volume is typically around 100 pages in length and reports a specific element of intranet usability, including home page design, search, news and newsletters, forms, policies and procedures, corporate information and managing the intranet. There are around 700 screen shots of the intranets and in total over 600 recommendations regarding intranet usability best practice. Most of the intranets are from US organisations, though many of these are global companies.

The quality of the analysis is very good, and even though I might disagree with some of the observations I can also appreciate the NNg view. Individual reports are sold as downloads but the real value of the study is best gained through purchasing the CD-ROM of the entire set. There is a good account of the study by Jakob Nielsen on his web site at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/intranet-usability.html which may help you make up your mind.

Enterprise Search Report 2008 CMS Watch

It has taken some time for CMSWatch to tackle a major revision of its Enterprise Search Report but the 2008 Edition shows that the wait has been worthwhile. The format is the well-established CMSWatch approach to product evaluation, with 10-15 page reviews of each search engine which provide a valuable independent assessment of the strengths and weaknesses of each of the 18 products covered in the report. This is much more difficult to do than might be imagined because the performance of a search engine is far more dependent on content characteristics than is the case for a CMS. In addition there is a business analysis of each vendor which gives some sense of the long term goals and existence of the vendor. This does not excuse you from doing your own due diligence!

Compared to previous versions of the report the number of vendors is smaller but that is largely a result of mergers, acquisitions and business calamities. If you can't find a solution amongst the 18 vendors listed then you are going to have to put your faith in one of the many newcomers to the market sector who have yet to establish a significant user-base outside of the country of origin.

In addition the report addresses several essential issues for an enterprise investigating search solutions, including practical product selection roadmaps for large and small enterprises and sample ROI analyses including a detailed examination of total costs of ownership and sample search project budgets. The entry-level price is $1925 which is probably less than a day of consultancy time. Using this report to assess the market could save you many such days.

Beyond Search http://gilbane.com and http://arnold.com/wordpress

Over the last couple of years some well-researched studies have indicated that at best 50% of employees are satisfied with the enterprise search provided by their organisation, and the indications are that in fact the situation is worse than even this appalling figure. In general organisations have little idea of how to specify a search engine, and even less about what it takes in terms of staff expertise to get the best of whatever has been selected. Of course if the selection itself is flawed then there is little that can be done in terms of post-installation tuning.

Stephen Arnold has been involved in the search business for all of his professional career, and a few years ago wrote the initial editions of the Enterprise Search Report for CMSWatch. These were notable not only for the insights into the strengths and weaknesses of commercial search software but also for the guidance provided on the selection and implementation of search. Stephen then went on to write two superb books on Google for Infonortics, both of which are essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the technology and vision of Google.

Now Stephen has returned to enterprise search with his new report Beyond Search - What to do when your Enterprise Search System doesn't Work, published by Gilbane. He sets out his objectives very clearly in the Preface to the book as providing information to a professional involved in procuring a search system or search system enhancement, a system administrator working to improve an existing search system, an entrepreneur looking for an overview of what?s on offer from companies around the world, and investors determined to find a way to capitalize on the opportunities in this market sector. The report succeeds brilliantly in meeting all these objectives.

The first 80 page section of the book sets the scene, with recommendations on how to improve legacy implementations, getting beyond keywords, and some valuable insights into Google. The next 200 pages provide structured and insightful profiles of 24 search and text mining vendors, many of which have never been profiled in this way before. Not all the market leaders are included, and for these, and for more extended descriptions of some of the products included in Stephen's report the CMS Watch Enterprise Search Report remains an essential complementary purchase.

When I was writing my own book on search I thought about taking a similar approach but the effort that would be involved was just too daunting for me to undertake, so I have a very good sense of how much time and effort it took to write this report. Stephen Arnold has risen to the challenge of communicating the benefits and challenges of enterprise search quite superbly, bringing to the book a unique combination of technical expertise, information science and business acumen. The report is a download from the Gilbane site and currently a Group License is priced at $795. A site license is also available. Stephen also writes an excellent blog on the subject of enterprise search, which includes extended interviews with many of the vendors profiled in the report.

Ambient Findability. Peter Morville O'Reilly Publishing $29.95

According to the author ambient findability describes a fast emerging world where we can find anyone or anything from anywhere at anytime. But there is a dark side to this. Later in this remarkable book Morville goes on to comment that findability is at the center of a quiet revolution in how we define authority, allocate trust and make decisions. That presents all who seek to find with some challenges.

I am renowned as a speed reader, to the annoyance of colleagues. This book is not only impossible to speed read, but it would be dangerous to do so. The reason for this is that the insights that Morville offers into the processes, outcomes and impacts of information discovery are such that at almost every paragraph I needed to take time out to reflect.

For once the chapter headings do nothing to help me explain what this book is about. They include A Brief History of Wayfinding, Intertwingled and Inspired Decisions. In the chapter on wayfinding there is the observation that because of poor wayfaring design (such as poorly labeled fire exits) people die. There are many other examples of how the process of information discovery can change people's lives, several of them from the author's personal experience.

This is a very personal book. You feel that the author is sitting in the room with you, talking you through his discoveries. The publishers have done a superb job on the design of this book, almost as an example of how good book design is an exemplar of findability. The index, paradoxically, is poor. Don't let that put you off reading one of the most original and thoughtful books on information that I have ever come across. Brilliant!

Portals - People, processes and technology, Andrew Cox (Editor)
2006 Facet Publishing 246 pages GBP39.95

Wherever two or three intranet managers gather together the talk often turns to portals. Opinions are usually divided, and there is still much to learn about how the technology is best used. This book is a well-assembled collection of 17 papers that seeks to set out the benefits and issues in a very considered way, with the aim of informing the reader rather than shouting. The term 'portals' is used in its widest sense and covers everything from enterprise information portals to consumer and public portals, and is all the most useful for doing so. Indeed one of the best papers is by the editor himself on the issue of definitions. There are five sections to the book; Core themes, The library and the portal, The portal in the corporate sector, Portals in the public sector, and The future. This is, I think, the first book on portals from a European perspective, and many of the authors come from academic institutions, mainly from the UK. There is in fact a high degree of interest and considerable experience in portal technology in UK universities so this book is a valuable status report. The problem with all multi-author works is the way that the delays in submission are reflected in the timeliness of the references, but in general this is not a problem with this book. As a set of case studies and reflections it is admirable, but it is not, nor does it pretend to be, an instruction manual in portal technology.

Improving Intranet Search, James Robertson StepTwo

Search is now being seen as a crucial success factor in intranet implementation, helped by the vigorous marketing of the Google Search Appliance. This excellent report is therefore very timely, and as with all of the author's reports it is full of very practical guidance and the presentation is faultless. The approach taken is to set out two personas, one for a specialist searcher and one for someone with little search expertise, and then compare the value of various elements of a search engine, especially the way that hits are displayed on the screen. This works well, and shows the benefits of personas at the same time.

The report opens with a section on evaluating search engines, and the process of selecting a new search engine. However most of the report is taken up with advice on refining the search interface (12 pages), refining the search results (24 pages) and search engine tuning/usage logs (25 pages). The report concludes with sections on usability testing and the importance of allocating adequate staff resources to search engine optimization. I would also like to have seen more discussion about metadata issues, especially synonym management, and the problems of intranets that contain content in more than one language.

Overall though this is a report that every intranet manager should have in their document collection. It is readable, authoritative, and encapsulates search best practice. It should also be required reading by search engine vendors, most of whose public web sites demonstrate a depressing lack of commitment to search excellence

Content Management Bible . Bob Boiko. Hungry Minds, New York. Second Edition 2004. ISBN 0-7645-4862-X
This massive 1000+ page book was one of the first books to be published on content management, and remains the definitive textbook. It covers both the principles of content management and how to implement a content management system, based on the author’s ten years of experience in this area. There is a companion web site at http://www.metatorial.com . Bob Boiko and Rita Warren have also developed a CMS Metatorial Planner as a companion to the book. This 168 page guide is designed to provide a way for organisations to cope with the complexities of the analysis and planning phases of the project. The Planner itself is in a pdf format, but with it come a number of Word templates. These enables the team to work through the sections of the Planner, and then paste the outcomes of the analysis work into the templates for review and subsequent incorporation into a Request for Proposal from vendors.

Enterprise Content Management: Taming Content Chaos Anne Rockley, with Pamela Kostur and Steve Manning. New Riders, http://www.newriders.com . ISBN 0-7357-1306-5.
The focus of this 565page book is, as the title indicates, on the development and implementation of an enterprise content management strategy. There is a very good section on tools and technologies which sets out very clearly the questions that need to be asked of any commercial content management software vendor. The human aspects of implementing a content management strategy are not overlooked either, with good chapters on implementation and managing change. The book concludes with appendices which provide a checklist for implementing a unified content strategy, writing for multiple media, content management vendors, a tools checklist, and an introduction to content relationships.

Information Architecture for the World Wide Web. Louis Rosenfeld and Peter Morville. O'Reilly and Associates Inc. Third Edition 2006 ISBN 0-596-00035-9
Although not strictly about content management systems this book is essential reading on the subjects of information architecture, navigation design, search systems, thesauri and metadata. The book is illustrated with many examples of good practice and as with all the other books in this section is written by experts who have substantial practical experience in information architecture. http://www.oreilly.com/

Content Management Requirements Toolkit. James Robertson, Step Two Designs, Sydney, Australia. http://www.steptwo.com.au/
James Robertson has been involved in content management projects for some time, and writes from practical experience. This toolkit is designed to assist organizations prepare a Statement of Requirements for a content management system. Like the Metatorial Planner the 64 page Toolkit comes as a pdf file and also as a set of Word templates. The sections of the Toolkit deal with Content Creation, Content Management, Publishing, Presentation, and Contract and Business.

The CMS Report. Tony Byrne. CMS Watch http://www.cmswatch.com/
The CMS Report is compiled by Tony Byrne and Janus Boye of CMS Watch and sets out the main features of the leading CMS packages in a format that makes feature comparison much easier than spreading out product brochures on a table. The report describes and evaluates 25 of the leading web content management packages. In addition to the very good product reviews the opening section of the report provides an in-depth analysis of the main components of a CMS software suite, and highlights the main pitfalls in specifying and implementing a CMS. The cost of the report is $895 and it can be downloaded from the CMS Watch site.