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I've seen a lot of hype about SharePoint, Microsoft's solution for, well, just about anything related to online.
The product has been promoted as a Information Management system, as a Web Content Management system (Web CMS), as a replacement for shared drives and file systems, as an enterprise search tool and even as a platform for enterprise applications.
Amazingly enough it can fulfil all of these roles. However like other jack-of-all trades, it's not necessarily the best product for any one of them as detailed in this post, Advice for (prospective) SharePoint customers.
I've particularly been seeing a lot of push for SharePoint in the public sector.
Where agencies have selected a Microsoft technology path there's many good reasons to consider SharePoint as well - less complex environments to maintain, easier to train and recruit staff, there's plenty of synergies that can be leveraged with other Microsoft products.
However when considering any product for a role as important as being the engine of your online channel it's valuable to understand your options and undertake appropriate due diligence before investing public funds.
For instance, the initial purchase price of a Web CMS solution is a very small part of the picture, there's the lifetime cost to consider as well.
Generally I'd expect to use the same platform over a 3-5 year window at least, with substantial ongoing development to meet changing organisational needs. The cost of this development can be substantial.
Another major consideration is the staff costs related to content authoring and publishing. This is the real cost to staff in terms of the time required to use a system in the workplace. While a Web CMS might be cheap to purchase, if it is difficult or time-intensive to use that will seriously compromise the success and the viability of your online channel.
Other factors to consider include content migration, the split of responsibilities between IT and business areas, the cost of extensions to the system and the overall network and hardware costs of the system.
So while SharePoint is one options - and I've seen excellent implementations of the technology in agencies (such as in DEWR) - there are over 140 Web Content Management Systems available for purchase in Australia.
Many of them work very well within a Microsoft environment.
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Considering using Microsoft SharePoint for government websites and intranets? Consider your options carefully | Tweet |
Google to release a web measurement tool to track target audiences | Tweet |
Google looks to be entering the market Hitwise and Neilsen are already competing in - audience tracking online, as reported in the Wall Street Journal, Google to Offer a Tool To Measure Web Hits.
This differs from web log reporting in that it tracks website visitors across different websites to provide a behavioural picture of audiences by demographics.
I've used the Mosaic audience profiling tool within Hitwise to gain a good idea of whether my agency's site was effectively targeting the correct audience (it is) and to look at other websites with which we shared our audience.
This benchmarking has allowed us to identify appropriate press and magazine channels to target for communications activities, to identify websites that we may consider partnering with and to get a clearer picture of what our customers want and do to improve our publications and services.
It will be interesting to see how effective Google's service will be in the same area. With over 130 million unique visitors per day the organisation already has a wealth of data on what people do online and where they go.
OpenGovernment now in Australia - something all public servants should be aware of | Tweet |
Regardless of how egovernment progresses, Australian citizens are moving forward to create the tools they want online.
The latest example is is a site named Open Australia.
Built based on the UK site They Work For You and the New Zealand site of the same name - TheyWorkForYou.co.nz, Open Australia feaures a fully searchable record of Hansard, provides MP voting records and details of their appearances in parliament and allows people to receive a notification whenever their MP speaks.
Crikey.com.au has rated this as "Quite possibly the best thing to happen online for democracy in Australia this year"
At the moment the site is focused on the House of Representatives, which means I cannot get a notification on all speeches by my Department's Minister, who is a Senator.
However I can track all mentions of him in speeches with a simple search (to the extent of being able to see which other parliamentarians named him) and have these delivered to my newsreader via RSS.
This type of site significantly lowers the barriers to accessing information on the activities and decisions of parliamentarians, which also impacts on the public servants in their departments, particularly those formulating policy.
The volunteers who built and manage the site are working towards including the Senate, Committees and voting records as well.
This type of site is designed to foster greater participation and accountability amongst politicians and it will be interesting to see what impact it has over time.
Australian use of social media skyrocketing | Tweet |
Universal McCann have completed some excellent research on social media use based on a sample of 17,000 users across 29 countries.
The latest wave was completed in March 2008.
The key findings were that blogs and online videos have gone mainstream and are tools that organisations need to consider within their marketing and communications mix.
Social networks had reached critical mass. Note that since this research was completed, Facebook has overtaken MySpace as the market leader.
I've embedded the slideshow below, or it is viewable at slide share as Universal Mccann International Social Media Research Wave 3
The highlights for Australia:
Blogs
62% of Australians online read blogs (up from 21% in Sep 2006)
29% of Australians online have started blogs (up from 18% in Sep 2006)
36% of people online (globally) think more positively of organisations that blog
32% of people online (globally) trust blogger's opinions on products and services
Social networks
50% of Australians online have created a profile on a social network (21% of the Australian population)
Shared videos online
77% of Australians online have watched online videos (up from 25% in Sep 2006)
28% of Australians online have shared videos (12% of the Australian population)
Listened to Podcasts
40% of Australians online have listened to a Podcast (up from 14% in Sep 2006)
Subscribed to RSS feed
24% of Australians online have subscribed to an RSS feed
The slideshow
Tuesday, June 24, 2008
Usability testing - doing it like Google | Tweet |
Techcrunch has provided A Peak Inside Google’s Gmail Usability Lab.
It's an interesting look at how one of the most web-savvy companies in the world conducts usability testing.
It is not much more sophisticated than Centrelink's usability lab in Adelaide or Immigration's lab in Canberra.
