New intranet resources

Some Intranet resources that have caught my eye recently which I'd thought I'd share with you all.

• The Intranet Lounge - "Intranet lounge is a non-commercial initiative to promote intranet knowledge across intranet profesionals" This looks like it's becoming a
  fantastic resource for Intranet Managers in any organisation.
• 50 Useful Tools and Resources For Web Designers - This does exactly what it says on the tin Typograph, Bookmarklets, CSS, HTML and JavaScript Tools it has pretty much everything!
• 10 Free Wireframing Tools - If you need to resdesign your website and don't have a commercial product look no further then this great list of tools.

Who do you think you are!?

Sadly this blog post isn't going to be about the BBC television programme of the same name but about something close to my heart which is the role of an "Intranet manager"

Two "recently" published blog posts have made me read around the subject and it's quite interesting to see what other people think. The first blog post was Intranet Manager role: evolve or devolve? this looks at the results of a Global Intranet Strategies Survey which specifically looks at the Intranet Manager role.

The second blog post was "So you think you're an Intranet manager" this is perhaps the more interesting article as it asks "...what does the title of Intranet Manager actually mean: does the job focus on communications, or tech, or are you taking care of both?" The article then asks some Intranet Managers what they think they do. There are some interesting quotes and examples from Intranet Managers about what they do, although my favourite has to be Intranet Managers "...solve communications problems and needs with technology" That pretty much sums up the challenge we face!

Making SharePoint successful!

Just in case you hadn't seen or heard enough about SharePoint, the following are blog posts or articles I've read recently about SharePoint which I found useful.

• The SharePoint puzzle - Confused about how SharePoint is being used, you're not alone Mary Abraham at the Above and Beyond KM Blog explains all!
• How to make SharePoint 2010 a success - A blog post from Mark Morrell of BT which asks how do you "harness" the power of SharePoint. The comments contain some very interesting replies and links.
• Mark also asked for people's opinions on SharePoint in his post "What's your view on SharePoint 2010"
• Finally Lorette S J Weddon asks Are you SharePoint ready? in her article published in the May 2010 edition of LLRX.com.

Some great links here which I thoroughly recommend reading.

How is SharePoint used in Libraries?

Fumsi have published a very interesting article on the use of SharePoint within Libraries, called originally "How is SharePoint used in Libraries" the article detail the results of a survey undertaken in March 2010 which asked about the usage of SharePoint in Libraries. The focus of the article appears to be on using SharePoint as a Library Management system or at the very least integrating an existing Library Management system with SharePoint.

There are some very interesting points made in this survey which will be of interest to any library/librarian considering using SharePoint for this purpose.

• The majority of the survey participants used SharePoint from within an Intranet
• The majority of the Librarians who responsed stated they would not be able to find enough time to learn which web parts could help them with their Library management tasks.
• All of the participants would prefer a ready-made integrated library system.

So some good and bad points here, SharePoint as we know does require some customisation and coding (not necessarily by a Librarian) which means it can be quite hard to start using it straight away.

Sue Hill Networking Breakfast

A couple of weeks ago I attended my first Sue Hill Networking Breakfast at Roast Restaurant in Borough Market. My train passes Roast every day on the way into Cannon Street so I was excited about the prospect of being one of the people enjoying a hearty breakfast rather then the other way around. I'm going to say this now so I wont have to say it again the breakfast was fantastic and it was almost, almost too difficult to make a choice from the large selection. Finally I chose the "Full Borough" essentially a full English breakfast, but without black pudding :(

Once Breakfast was ordered the group settled down into a very interesting discussion. The group was comprised of individuals from different sectors, which was great as it meant we got to hear about how we're sharing the same challenges but also about some of the different issues affecting colleagues in the Medical, Scientific and Special library sectors.

Initially the group was asked to list 3 words which we felt were the biggest issues affecting our work. Unsurprisingly change was mentioned a number of times by the group, challenge and challenges were also mentioned. Sadly I cant for the life of me remember what my 3 words were but change is certainly something I have to deal with on a regular basis. One of the points that was raised at the meeting was that it's important to fight the battles that you think you can win. There's no point wasting huge amounts of energy on a fight you're not going to win or which is a hollow victory and does little to prove the value or worth of the service you're responsible for. This was a really interesting meeting and before anyone knew it our breakfast meeting was over and we all had to go and face the challenges we'd just been discussing.

You can read another (less food orientated) review of the Breakfast meeting in the blog post "Engage in change" on the View from the Hill blog.

You get what you pay for - Mid-Kent 5 Miler

Yesterday I took part in the Mid Kent 5 miler this event, which was hosted by Velocity Events took place in the very scenic village of Staplehurst, in well Mid Kent. The course was described as fast and flat and a potential 5 mile PB was on the cards. Sadly I'm still not fully fit and lumbered round in time of 39:15 which put me 67th out of 122 starters.

Overall I felt better about this result then the 10k at Deal and my pace had I continued on for another 1.2 miles would have seen me complete 10k in approximately 48:31 which is 4 minutes faster then my time at Deal and getting back towards times I would expect to be running.

Now the reason I've put "You get what you pay" is because this was a "cheap as chips" race and it showed. The start was at the top of a road which wasn't closed so had traffic coming up it as we started. There were no signs on the road indicating there were going to be runners so cars were speeding around without a care in the world. As far as I can see there was no first aid provision but they might have made this clear in the application form and finally and perhaps the funniest thing about the race the finish was in a lay-by opposite an Esso Garage!

Having said all of that I'll probably run the race next year to see if I can better my time!

Understanding new solutions

Understanding and investigating new solutions is an important part of any Intranet Mangers role, which is why Catherine Grenfell's article "Understanding new solutions" on the Step Two Designs blog caught my eye.

From the introduction to the blog post:

"In today’s world new solutions and applications appear every day, and some are more useful and interesting than others. It’s part of an intranet team’s role to know what’s around and be able to make recommendations about suggested improvements. However some teams are reluctant to explore new areas such as social media, mobile devices or online hosted solutions"

Catherine then outlines some of the options (new solutions) available to Intranet Managers and some of the constraints and issues that Intranet managers need to be aware of. This is an excellent post which is well worth a quick read.