Intranet Management Software Blog

Claromentis has been a fully localizable and multi-language system for a while now, but continuing my posts about incremental features in 5.6.5 it is great to see that the intranet news system, with all the channels and tagging features - is now also completely multi-lingual.

Multi Language Intranet News

In exactly the same way as the CMS system works in Claromentis, the identical URL will detect the users preferred language and if the news exists in that language display it for the user.

If news exists in more than one language the user can switch between them using the automatically generated flags.

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So I work for Claromentis and every so often I search in Google for that term.

To be honest this has been going on for a decade. Then this evening I get this :

The very top of the organic listing is dedicated to recent tweets. So is this just me? I had no idea this was about to arrive on the organic SEO scene.. and no I am not logged in!

Any comments?

Prod-Intranet

I want to focus a few blogs on the recent release of 5.6.5 – looking at some functionality that came with this monthly build, which will be fully available at the end of January with the production release of Claromentis 5.7

As the first of these today we are looking at the in browser cropping for images with Claromentis.

This functionality enhances the use of images in both News and People Profile. Previously any editing of images had to be done locally before selecting the image for use in these applications.

Intranet News Image Cropping

In both cases the user can now directly crop the image in the browser, before confirming the image for use.

Screen shots above show this is use for both the news application and the people profile.

While these images focus on News and People, the same cropping functionality is available wherever inner file images are used - in any application, including bespoke work developed using the APIs.

A good example of incremental increase in intranet functionality that helps users by making things easier to accomplish, with no dependency on other software or skill sets.

The next blog will look at the image sideshow which is also available in Claromentis 5.6.5

Prod-Intranet images, intranet software

The recent personal ordeals of Danah Boyd at Web2.0 Expo resulted in a Blog that is a real revelation about what it is like to present at an innovation based event with a public-facing twitter stream projected behind you that destroys your connection with the audience and in turn your own self-confidence.

http://www.zephoria.org/thoughts/archives/2009/11/24/spectacle_at_we.html

This blog of such an emotional experience fortunately links back to the excellent text that the actual presentation was attempting to deliver. Within that I just want to focus on one quote :

“Thus, the power is no longer in the hands of those who control the channels of distribution, but those who control the limited resource of attention”.

I continually explore this idea internally when we describe where Claromentis is heading and where intranets offer real value. I find the continual differential in the understanding of this message across different companies and cultures both puzzling and frustrating.

On the one sense of course this is just about push versus pull. In the wider world of the general internet, this is totally understandable - and indeed, almost verging on yesterdays news.

But in the world of the corporate intranet if we discuss these ideas it is as if we are promoting some brave new paradigm.

For many companies even creating a new intranet to ease the outward flow of communication feels like breaking some innovative ground - after all they are embracing a new, attractive, internet based platform to distribute their message.

They are just pushing.

Often they don’t measure value and engagement with their platform based on the fact that they offer such a broad choice of interactive communications that stakeholders are continually - actively - selecting which  information to pull from an ever widening choice of interactions, information streams and enriched media.

They just selectively push information to staff

As Claromentis starts the delivery process for Innovate - the central application of the Claromentis 6.0 platform - we are really optimistic that we are delivering tools that will promote corporate innovation through individuals proactively allocating their attention within a truly rich information stream that is a mile away from simply pushing corporate information.

Lets see if we are right, or like Danah our important message risks getting lost in the delivery.

Home, Prod-Intranet intranet, pull, push

As Claromentis continues to grow in the scope and range of products and applications, the framework is being actively developed and enhanced by the use of components to provide flexible, configurable functionality for clients wishing to use them.

Just in the last week the following very useful components have been added :

Anniversary Intranet Component

The Anniversary component gives you the ability to summarily compare dates attached to users profiles within Claromentis through the use of metadata.

Once configured, not only can you change how far in the future you’d like to list events – up to one whole year from today, but also how many user anniversaries you’d like shown.

This anniversary component could be useful for anything from showing birthday information for employees, to listing anniversaries of employment with your company - there are lots of opportunities for configuration of this component.
 
File Review Intranet Component

The File Review component also through the use of custom metadata allows you to configure multiple options for ensuring that you always know what review dates are coming for your files.

This component allows you to change how files are listed and also what scope of listing to give. For example: you can also attach a reviewer to the component, and it’ll list also for the reviewer of the file; you can show review dates to everyone – ideal for a departmental vi.  The major advantage of this component is how configurable it is, you can show due dates to all, or just the reviewer, or just the owner, or even both the owner and the reviewer; on top of which you can change how far ahead it is looking for document review dates, and it will make it really clear to the viewers when something is overdue for review!

 
RSS Reader Intranet Component

The RSS Reader component makes reading news or events easy, be it from an external source such as the BBC or using your own internal RSS feed.

The component allows two modes of reading, one is a fixed feed experience – designed for when you want a feed readable by all without them being able to customize where it is reading from; the second makes use of custom metadata, allowing your end user to configure where the news is coming from, so that the component is always personal to them.

Interested clients should contact us – we have these components available on our development WIKI and we are currently considering if they should be included in the core distributive.

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I was reading an article this week about an event back in the good old days when computers were brand new and we all got excited by a little blinking cursor that said c:/> or something similar.

This article was about a couple of guys who won a computer back then and had no idea what to do with it. A friend duly showed up, and gave them a demo of the latest word processing – which at that time was not far short of all it was good for.

However the demo fell flat – the reason being these guys had never even used a typewriter – and so couldn’t see any use for such an easy to use, simple to correct, spell-checking replacement for a machine they didn’t own in the first place.

This got me thinking about our own situation with potential new clients. They seem to fall into some familiar camps:

1.    We don’t currently have any intranet at all ( unbelievably we still get a lot of these – really a lot ).

2.    Somebody wrote one themselves, but really it needs replacing – or – a slight variation – the person who wrote it has left and we have no idea how to maintain it.

3.    We have a product but we all hate it.

Of course we treat all of these with equal interest – but in reality there are some big differences in our engagements with these different types of new customers.

In general I would say that those in the first camp – Group 1 - will start off Googling away and come up with a list of what they expect we will be able to provide, because someone out there has written articles or summaries about what in their view is really essential from an intranet provider. I tend to refer to this as an “outward focussed” approach – in the sense that they look out to see what is possible, and then probably find a few suppliers and ask them to tender against this somewhat arbitrary list of ‘features’ that has little to do with the business they are in, improving their innovation or driving their business forwards.

Group 2 vary a lot – often they are not sure if what the employee created really is “an intranet” in the first place, or if it should be taken seriously – but at least they have some experience of using something.

Group 3 are interesting – their frustrations probably relate to legacy software that uses old approaches like i-frames, or isn’t being improved, or where the vendor has gone bust – but at least they have real ideas about “what a better solution should do for them”. Notice the “for them” – they do have real ideas about what their own company needs, not just a checklist of arbitrary functionality. I refer to this as an “inward focus”

Paradoxically “inward focus” in this sense sounds somewhat negative, as if they lack vision – but of course this is not the case at all, and in many business senses a company that is always spending some time looking to analyze itself and improve has a great  attitude.

The truth is that for us engaging with all of these types of new customers is interesting and varied. The world of intranet software is a large one and we do our best to explain it as honestly and professionally to all companies that ask about our products and services - whether they ever saw that blinking green cursor or not!

Prod-Intranet intranet software

I have seen articles recently that praise the fact that intranet 2.0 is starting to deliver value and becoming more mainstream.

Great! But then I read on and they are talking about the same old functionality : Forums, Wikis and blogs.

This is a shame - I think many corporate intranets and extranets are missing the true synergy of innovation and collaboration that a web 2.0 intranet should address - which at Claromentis means the progression of a concept from an idea, through to a collaboration space and then onto execution in a project - the “shout - collaborate - execute” mantra of Claromentis 6.0

Missing the point

Yes we do implement - and for certain company cultures see a lot of value - in the intranet equivalents of Twitter - our “what am I dong at work” concept for example - and certainly Blogs are really adding dynamism and freshness to many of our implementations - but in our view intranet 2.0 is a platform for collaboration, innovation and establishing connections in the workforce to break down silos and encourage lessons learned from best practice.

We need to unearth new ideas, bring them through to sharing with hitherto unknown colleagues from disparate experiences and then actually take that shout and make something different for the company that didn’t exist before – in summary we need innovation!

Many of the applications and approaches that others see as getting a tick in the box for intranet 2.0 we view as latest generation approaches to information management – a truly important piece of the puzzle – but not the answer.

Prod-Intranet intranet 2.0

As collaboration environments for employees intranets have moved forwards incredibly rapidly - from clunky attempts to put information on a web based platform to beautiful permission based systems with complete customisation and version control.

Recently the trend has noticeably moved from the information layer to execution. More clients are interested in Process and Project Manager – they assume the information layer can be effectively implemented and are looking for ways to leverage that up to date information in the execution plans of the business.

This is a trend that we are excited to play our own part in leading. Intranets should not just be about accurate information – they should be about an integrated platform where accurate and appropriate information is available to ensure that the business can move forwards with confidence.

Prod-Intranet collaboration, intranet software

The vast majority of our clients are using Claromentis primarily as an Intranet, not as an Extranet. Why?

Lets take it as a temporary assumption that our clients are indeed moving forwards from the old fashioned and well established agenda of “accurate content and an appropriate information layer for every user”, towards looking for additional value creation through increased innovation.

I still have my concerns that fundamentally our clients are missing the innovation agenda. If they are embracing it – as I have commented before for example “Extranet Based Supply Chain Innovation” – they are really only going to find it by collaborating across business silos – an intranet is of course ideal for this - or by reaching out to partners with expertise that can help to create improved products or service and delivery.

External collaboration

Using information frameworks like ours you would to use our extranet areas if collaborating with partners is of interest to you.

The fact that so few currently do enable extranet access would seem to me to tell us that many UK SME companies are not actually focussed on innovation – or if they are - they are not using collaboration software to achieve it.

My worry is that our assumption is wrong – most clients are actually still looking for an accurate, permissioned information layer, accessible anywhere, and not yet trying to use our software to encourage supply or customer side joint ventures to truly innovate.

My hope is that with the upcoming web 2.0 intranet that is Claromentis 6.0, and the ongoing developments of our Project Manager product to help project execution – we can finally help to change this. Collaborative ventures with partners must surely hold at least as much value creation potential through innovation as sharing best practices and talent between internal departments.

Prod-Intranet collaboration, extranet, ROI, value

An Intranet specialist Toby Ward has recently published his webinar about the future of Intranet (so called Intranet 2.0), highlighting how web 2.0 and social media is changing the corporate intranet. Interesting…

Prod-Intranet intranet, intranet 2.0, intranet software, intranets, web 2.0