Building online employee communities

Trevor Cook has posted a great summary of the benefits of online employee communities, as discussed in a presentation by Alexei Fey, Senior Manager eBusiness, Savings & Loans Credit Union at the Enterprise 2.0 for Information Professionals conference in Sydney on 14 August.

Entitled Building online employee communities, the post covers many different ways of engaging online, from a CEO blog to Facebook.

Read full post...

View summary...

US election goes Google

Reflecting and building on the approach taken for last year's Australian Federal Election, Google has developed a comprehensive election coverage site for the upcoming Presidential race between Barack Obama and John McCain.

Looking at how the site presents public interest information, I cannot help but wonder why this type of material is being provided by commercial entities - who could choose to push an agenda - and is not yet available from a public entity.

As a way to generate voter interest, support participation, provide supporting information and put candidates in front of the people, I hope that we see this approach continue to grow over time.

Given the influence the internet now has, and the impact of effective online use by political candidates, I can see any politicians that choose not to embrace online participation being as a severe disadvantage in future elections.

Turning that question back on public sector organisations - if your department or agency isn't adequately investing in the online channel there is also the risk of becoming increasingly less able to engage, be influenced by and influence your constituents.

My view is that online needs to begin to be treated as more of a customer service channel than as a media channel and be internally planned, managed, supported and funded accordingly.

Read full post...

View summary...

Google Chrome web browser beta now available for download

The Google Chrome beta is now available at www.google.com/chrome.

I'm taking a look, and will provide impressions, as I did for Internet Explorer 8, later today.

Other information is available from ZDNet, who liveblogged the Google press conference, and from the Google Chrome media kit, which includes screenshots and videos.

Read full post...

View summary...

First pic of Google Chrome

CNET has published what looks to be the first picture of the Google Chrome browser in an article, Google Chrome update: First screenshot, and live-blog alert.

The release looks to be scheduled for 11am US Pacific time.

Read full post...

View summary...

Ready for the Google Chrome web browser?

Google is releasing the beta of its first web browser on Tuesday 2 September - US time, and if the media information Google has released is accurate, the product could reshape the face of web browsing over the next few years.

Google Chrome is the company's first foray into the web browsing market - but represents a step to the left and a jump to the right of previous web browsing technologies.

The fully open source browser implements a range of new features to speed up browsing, reduce the impact of malware and prevent browser crashes - it's more of an operating platform for web applications than a window for viewing web pages.

Google's media release (shaped in the form of a comic) explains the features extremely well for a lay person, and has me quite excited as to the possibilities the browser opens for web developers.

The beta, set to be released on Tuesday - US time - appears to me and to others to be aimed squarely at Microsoft, taking the wind out of their build-up to Internet Explorer 8, which went into public beta last week.

Strategically, in my view, this is a great move for Google.

What does this mean for government web managers
More options requiring support
The first thing it means is that there are likely to be three major browsers to support over the next few years, Internet Explorer (in various versions), Firefox and Google Chrome - with some minor players including Safari and Opera.

Later note: Google Chrome is using the same (open source) rendering engine as Apple's Safari, which should simplify part of the process of supporting the browser.

Need to quickly review and align code to preserve user experience
Given Google's search dominance I expect a fast initial take-up rate, with up to 15 percent of website users trialing the product in the next few months (I'll reflect back on this in two months to see how accurate I was).

This means that website managers need to take a look at the rendering engine used by Google (WebKit) and ensure that their sites are compliant. Otherwise they may see falling traffic or increased help desk calls as users struggle to use forms and other functionality.

More ability to move functionality online
The new browser opens a number of new possibilities for website managers, with multi-threaded javascript allowing more complex and faster web applications. This opens the playing field for better web-based tools, allowing more functionality to move online.

It also, in part, ensures that Google's own stable, including Google Docs, Gmail, Blogger, Youtube and Gears, will run faster and more efficiently (sound familiar? Microsoft has a similar ecosystem with Windows and Microsoft applications).

Read full post...

View summary...