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Yes, some people really are that naïve (why you need to think about social media education and governance)

2010-03-07T17:59:53+11:00

There was an interesting debate recently around whether or not organisations need social media policies. Shel Holtz neatly summarised the argument saying, ‘Yes, you do need one, although it needn't be draconian’.

But just having a policy isn’t enough these days, and that’s why pro-active organisations are going further, introducing social media education and accreditation programs for employees.

Education as to the reasons for doing or not doing something, is usually more effective than a few written rules, and can also help avert supremely naïve events such as the one that came to light this weekend about an Israeli soldier posting his workload on Facebook. From Gizmodo:

"A raid on suspected militants in the West Bank was cancelled yesterday after an Israeli soldier updated his Facebook status to read “On Wednesday we clean up Qatanah, and on Thursday, god willing, we come home.” The solider has since, unsurprisingly, been relieved of combat duty for being a moron. He’ll also spend 10 days in prison for his update."

It beggars belief that anyone, especially someone who handles an assault rifle for work, can do something like that, but they have.

It's also oddly coincidental to see it happen a week after the US military's position on social media was redefined last week, and me saying:

"It sets an interesting example for businesses, i.e. 'Sure, use these tools if you see fit, it's about time we recognised their potential. But sure as hell don't tweet your mission location and target to the public'."

D'oh.

A few years ago when blogs were exploding in popularity, it used to be an interesting point in a workshop to ask people, ‘Is someone from your organisation blogging about your business without you knowing?’ After a search on Google and then Technorati (remember that site?), sometimes, if it was a relatively large organisation, the answer would be ‘Yes’, but it wasn’t the norm.

Now, with publishing to the web being so easy, so quick, and so frequent (50 million Tweets a day, 175 million people using Facebook per day, remember), it’s almost guaranteed that there’ll be employees attaching your organisation’s name to some kind of unoffical online content, whether it’s on a Linked In profile, a Facebook page, a status update, or even a good old fashioned blog.

Organisations don’t really have a choice in this matter, and usually it’s not a bad thing either; people can be proud of where they work, enjoy being part of a specific group or community at work, enjoy sharing their thoughts relating to their field of work, and lots more, and that’s all good.

But organisations must figure out what is and isn’t acceptable to them, and make those boundaries very clear to employees, for their sake and for the business’s. If your organisation hasn’t done this, it’s already behind a lot of others, and miles behind where it needs to be.

So, get thinking about a social media policy, and how to effectively communicate and educate on that policy (the Israeli Defence force is now using Facebook style posters (pictured right, read more here) - which isn't a bad idea given the cirumstances). If not, it’s just a matter of time until an employee broadcasts something and those 'fears of your senior executives' suddenly become an impenetrable barrier for your social media plans.

US military allows social sites again. Sort of.

2010-03-01T13:12:20+11:00

On Friday the US Department of Defense (DoD) issued a statement officialising the US military's policy to social networking services (SNS) such as Facebook. The memorandum, 'makes it policy that the DoD non-classified network be configured to provide access to Internet-based capabilities across all DoD components.'

But there will be many exceptions, and it's not clear if recent SNS bans by certain branches of the military, such as by the US Marine Corp in August 2009, will be affected:

Commanders at all levels and heads of DoD components will continue to defend against malicious activity on military information networks, deny access to prohibited content sites (e.g., gambling, pornography, hate-crime related activities), and take immediate and commensurate actions, as required, to safeguard missions (e.g., temporarily limiting access to the Internet to preserve operations security or to address bandwidth constraints).

This decision follows an in-depth review into the usefulness of social tools, also dating back to 2009:

“This directive recognizes the importance of balancing appropriate security measures while maximizing the capabilities afforded by 21st Century Internet tools,” said Deputy Secretary of Defense William J. Lynn III."

It sets an interesting example for businesses, i.e. "Sure, use these tools if you see fit, it's about time we recognised their potential. But sure as hell don't tweet your mission location and target to the public."

Perhaps this is a good starting sentence to adapt and paraphrase for your organisation's social media policy?

The full statement and terms is here, and for further reference, the US Air Force, Coast Guard and Navy social media policies can be found here.

William Amurgis joins the Intranet Innovation Awards judging panel

2010-03-01T09:22:40+11:00

For 2010 we're very pleased to have a new judge on the panel for the Intranet Innovation Awards.

William Amurgis, Manger - Internal communications, at American Electric Power (AEP), is our first practitioner judge, and represents the USA on the panel. He'll join myself, James Robertson, Catherine Grenfell, Martin White and Jane McConnell as judges.

Last year, William's team at AEP won a Gold Intranet Innovation Award for their fantastic 'Now Ideas' system, which helped the organisation identify US $8 million in savings. In 2007, the team also won a Nielsen Norman award for their overall site, which is called 'AEP Now'.

You can see a video interview discussing Now Ideas with William, and read more about the system in the Intranet Innovations 2009 report.

As a multi-award winner, William will bring a great additional perspective to the awards. Further information on all the judge can be found on the Judges page.

2010 Intranet Innovation Awards now live!

2010-03-01T08:33:42+11:00

We're pleased to announce today is opening day of the 2010 Intranet Innovation Awards – submissions are now officially open! Now in their fourth year, the Intranet Innovation Awards are the premier awards for intranet teams.

Drawing on the best of intranet work around the world, these awards are unique in their recognition of individual improvements, and not intranets as a whole. Winning teams obtain widespread visibility, a magnificant glass trophy, and more support within their own organisations.

How to enter
You can find out everything you need to know on the Awards, including how to enter, download the entry form, the annual reports from 2007-2009 showcasing all the outstanding winners, and advice on compiling your own entry, at the Intranet Innovation Awards pages on the Step Two Designs site.

Entries close on Friday 23 April 2010, giving eight weeks get your entry in. Good luck to all those who enter, and please help us spread the word to intranet teams across the globe!

The age of seamless intranet user experience

2010-02-26T09:40:21+11:00

I recently wrote a column for EContent Xtra Newsletter on the topic of seamless user experiences. Here's an excerpt:

In just a few weeks (Actually next week - 1 March) my colleagues and I will be launching the 2010 Intranet Innovation awards. What can we expect to see this year?
If 2009 was an indicator, we'll see some intranets that represent the very forefront and state-of-the-art in intranet design. State-of-the-art in this field increasingly means intranet design that's characterised by one thing: a seamless, super-rich user experience that's as good as anything you'll see on the Web.

You can read the full column and some other great pieces over on the Econtent website.

People-based intranets and the future of intranet design

2010-02-23T13:05:26+11:00

James has published his latest 'Future intranet principles' post, and this one focuses on 'putting people at the centre of intranets':

"Up to this point, the central focus of intranets has been content. How to write it, how to publish it, how to maintain it and keep it up to date. This matches the intranet’s role as a publishing platform, and an internal website.
Intranets in 2015 will put people at the centre, supported by content, tools and collaboration"

This concept, 'people at the centre' or, understanding that 'information is socially situated' as James Dellow describes it, has huge potential for intranets. Some organisations are starting to do this already, including some we're working with right now and one notable winner in the 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards (I hinted at this in a post just before we unveiled the winners, and some great points were left in the comments section).

On that point, below I've republished my editorial column from the 2009 Awards report, focusing on 'people-based intranets'. Several months on, I stand by everything in here, especially the last sentence. What do you think about this concept?

Like those in previous years, this year’s Award entries show that it’s possible to design a powerful, effective intranet that will do what’s expected of it, and do it well, while providing collaboration tools, conversational spaces, filtered and targeted communication, efficient, money-saving applications and more. This year we’ve even seen a number of intranets with striking visual designs that compare favourably with the latest trends on the Web. That’s some progress. But where are we heading?
Underpinning several entries this year is a sense of something significant happening at the leading edge of intranet design: people as the focus, and the very essence and foundation of the intranet.
This year’s entry from IDEO demonstrates just how important people are to an organisation. IDEO’s people are its intranet. Remove them from the equation and the site would be no more. That’s in contrast to the vast majority of intranets, where the ‘staff directory’ is just one, albeit usually the most popular, application.
Instead, and as the IDEO team suggest: ‘Build pointers to people. Rather than attempt to capture everything someone knows in a database with the hope that others will tap that database, we strive to identify the key bits of information that help one understand who someone is in terms of expertise and experience, so that person can best be leveraged.’
This is a compelling concept that has massive potential for intranets and intranet teams. When designing an intranet, don’t just make it user-centred, make it user-based: search for a product and you’re presented with the product owner(s) and their related contact details pages, blogs, feeds and FAQs and the latest processes specific to their products and services.
For the individual staff members, their information is drafted straight from the organisation’s HR systems and automatically kept up to date, while presented in the same rich interface and design as all other systems, actions and processes.
Staff directories, collaboration, social tools and personalisation feature throughout the 2009 Awards. But fundamentally changing the focus of intranets and starting with people, and building on social tools from the very beginning as opposed to adding them as features... that will be one of the most important intranet developments ever.

February's Step Two Designs articles

2010-02-17T12:01:20+11:00

Over on the Step Two Designs site, we've just published our three new articles for February. They are:

Eight intranet design mistakes by James Robertson
Intranet projects are challenging, and it's easy for teams to fall into common traps that can undo the good work being done.

Recommended reading for intranet teams by Catherine Grenfell
There are many good books that can help intranet teams to deliver great sites and overcome challenges.

Three views on intranet names by Alex Manchester
Three intranet teams describe how they chose the name for their intranets, and the impact it has had.

As ever, all articles are free to read on the web and download in PDF format.

We deserve the iPad disappointment

2010-01-29T20:21:59+11:00

It's true, there's no way it could have lived up to the hype, but yesterday when Steve Jobs and his crew finished demoing the new Apple iPad, I was left seriously disappointed. Not mad like this guy, but just seriously, seriously disappointed.

For all the reasons the world and his dog have posted, the iPad misses the mark. Just quickly, they are:

The name: Awful.

No multitasking: What? On a device with a near 10-inch screen I have to go 'home' and close apps all the time? I can't use streaming apps, or have Twitter pop up when I'm surfing the net. On a 10-inch screen. Really? Wow.

The big, wide, clumsy black bezel round the edge that screams 'cheap digital photo frame' or, worse, 'Fisher Price Toy' almost as badly as the one on the white polycarbonate MacBook does. Those iSlate concepts were so much sleeker. In the same way the 2G iPhone is far, far sleeker than the 3G/S, it seems to show Apple's once sleek design for such products is going backwards, big time.

The fact that, really, it doesn't do anything we haven't seen before. Except... OK I'll give Phil Schiller this one, 'a really fun new way to play with a spreadsheet'. Whoop whoop.

And viewing that last point from a slightly different direction, the fact that it's missing something really innovative. It is. There's just nothing genuinely innovative here.

Too much 'i': iPad, iBooks. Really? Why not just 'the BookStore on iTunes' (just like 'the App Store' - on iTunes).They even ripped off the iBooks app design from an Apple Award winning developer - after they'd poached all his staff. Real classy.

The rhetoric and acommpanying cheezy video: 'It's revolutionary'. 'It's magical'. No. No it's damn well not. It's a giant iPod Touch. Literally. It's a bigger screened version of a product you already sell. That's not revolutionary and I don't appreciate you trying to ram such rubbish into my ears. I won't agree with you, no matter how much you say it.

'It's so amazing - it's the internet in the palm of your hand!' Yep, we've heard that before, it's exactly what they said about the iPhone.

It's disappointing compared to things we've already seen from… Microsoft, believe it or not: Look at this Surface app from Shane Morris. That makes you go 'wow'. it makes anyone you show it to go 'wow' as well. What about Microsoft's Courier concept, leaked (previewed?) by someone late last year. Far more intriguing and seemingly innovative than the iPad.

The iPad also looks just like HP's slate device (pictured right) that Steve Ballmer showed for a few seconds at CES in early January. Big bezel, eBook capabilities and all. Thankfully the iPad didn't have the damn cover of 'Twilight' on it, but I digress.

Again, while it couldn't possibly live up to the hype, I was hoping, really hoping, for something that lived up to some of the potential that's out there for these tablet things. Something that did something special (just like they're trying to tell us it does), just like the iPhone really did when it was launched. Like the tablet and touch interfaces on this video, perhaps (the first video, not the parody).

But the iPhone launch was three years ago and I think Apple is a different company now. In hindsight, there was no way, no way in the world, that that 'wow' product was going to happen yesterday.

In fact, I'm beginning to think all of the endless Apple hype (that I myself have contributed to - and I do still think their other products are better than most), and the billions of dollars they're making, has told them one thing: They can now, more than ever, cripple their products, hold back on features that are common and relatively simple (yes, multitasking), lock down access to an unheard of degree, claim they're 'magical and revolutionary' when they're not, not even give us decent aesthetics, and still charge a fortune for them. And we'll buy them, in the millions.

The iPad is the result of us accepting what we should not have accepted, and the mountains of hype heaped on Apple. We deserve it. We've thrown so much money and praise at them it's gone to their collective, heads, and they're getting giddy with the idea of creaming more money from the likes of a million plus iPads and several million iBooks.

Truth be told I don't need an iPad (who does?), but sadly I don't actually want one, either. As first-gen products go I think they may have really jumped the shark with this one. There's nothing it can do that the phone I'm already paying $80 a month for cannot. A phone that is, by the way, really pretty amazing, although it's not as pretty as the one before it, still can't multitask properly, the 'Bluetooth A2DP' doesn't actually work with the majority of headphones that are bluetooth A2DP, that I charge pretty much consistently when I'm at a desk, that scratches unless it's sealed front and back in a nice protective blanket… You get the idea.

Conceivably, if the overall 'underwhelmed' sentiment on the web is anything to go by, Apple will not sell as many of these as it hopes and, hopefully, we'll see a much better second-gen product. But the first impression is gone and I bet the ugly betty bezel will stay for a while to remind us of that fact.

Let's not forget though, that the iPad will be put to innovative use by the army of third party developers who have already done some great work with the iPhone/iPod touch, despite the straightjacket constraints of the iPhone SDK.

iPad is not a bad product, it's just not great product. Not yet. Not even close. For me, and after weeks, months, years of anticipation around an Apple tablet (an Apple TABLET!), it needed to be seriously great. It needed to make me go 'wow', big time, but the best we got is an unconvincing 'bless my whiskers'.

Damn it.

Social media interviews from Melcrum and iPadio – Euan Semple first up

2010-01-25T17:50:35+11:00

In tune with the current research I'm working on with them looking into social media and internal communication, the Melcrum team are focusing on the topic in a number of ways this year, notably with a major social media conference taking place in London in a couple of weeks (9-10 February 2010).

Ahead of the event, Melcrum have teamed up with iPadio, a smart 'live phonecasting and social media service' to stream phone interviews with conference speakers.

The first set of interviews feature Euan Semple, Lee Bryant, Louise McGregor from ING and Helen Farrar from Virgin Media.

Euan's interview is below, and check out the others over at iPadio. For full details of the confernece, head over to the Melcrum site.

3D control for the 'iSlate'? [Interfaces]

2010-01-19T22:13:01+11:00

The Guardian is reporting on a new patent application from Apple that suggests the event next week to unveil its 'latest creation' - aka the iSlate - might see the unveiling of a brand new '3D interface'.

...The patent, originally filed under the names of three French inventors, is called "Touch Screen Device, Method, and Graphical User Interface for Manipulating Three-Dimensional Virtual Objects" and describes "a portable electronic device with a touch screen display" which displays what looks to the user like a 3D layout....

This isn't the first suggestion of such an idea, but according to the article, it could be the most well founded rumour so far. The iSlate has also been rumoured to have an interface with a 'steep learning curve' and a more 3D orientation would certainly be new for many people.

All will [hopefully] be revealed next Wednesday.