Thinking Social? Get Back to Basics...

Often times I talk to organizations that have no idea what their goals are or what they want to do with the latest and greatest social tools on the market.   They focus too much on the technology a... read more

Social and the Information Lifecycle

Often times I find myself trying to explain to people what social is, why it's important, and why everyone needs to be part of a social network and every organization needs social technology for th... read more

Is SharePoint an Obstacle in Your Organization?

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With all the hype around everything "social" today, SharePoint is sometimes portrayed in a negative light and an obstacle to enabling collaboration.  Competitive pure play social vendors want to bl... read more

Social, it's in Microsoft's DNA...

Anyone who's looked at Microsoft’s business model will begin to realize that Microsoft understands "social" better than anyone.  The economics of Microsoft's ecosystem add up for everyone involved ... read more

Is There Privacy in an Online Social World?

With the recent introduction of Google+, the big hype was around "Circles".   Facebook's response was to improve the friends lists.   Either way, these features raise the question of whether or not... read more

HP acquiring Autonomy Raises Visibility for Information Management

Hearing the news of HP acquiring Autonomy for $10 billion is definitely an indication of the importance of information management.  HP CEO Leo Apotheker said in an earnings call that he plans to “t... read more

The Social Organization: Part II

In my last post, I raised the question that's on all our minds:  why are our professional lives socially challenged?   Having a Facebook business page or Twitter account does not mean you are a soc... read more

The Social Organization: Part I

Why can't our professional lives be as enriched and connected as Facebook makes our personal lives?    Facebook allows us to develop and foster personal relationships, have conversations with those... read more

The Social 7: Considerations for Investing in Social Technology

Social technology is a trending priority among IT organizations who are beginning to test drive multiple tools both in the cloud and internally.  This is primarily driven by the hype of all things ... read more

When is the right time to get social on SharePoint?

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I hear from a number of organizations who all seem to say they want to roll out and promote the social and collaborative capabilities of SharePoint.   And I hear a lot of talk, little action, and a... read more

SharePoint Journey Results Are In...

One of the most important aspects of deploying SharePoint successfully is simply knowing what's possible.   What have other organizations done?  What solutions have they built?     And recently Mic... read more

Collaboration "In Context"

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I rarely if ever have used this forum to rant but let's face it....collaboration continues to happen via email.  And one of my pet peeves with SharePoint is that it lacks what I call  "collaboratio... read more

It's Deja Vu All Over Again...

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For those who've have been around the world of technology the last 2 decades, there are times SharePoint seems like déjà vu all over again.   The other day, I came across a Fortune article entitled... read more

Using the CMM to Benchmark Your SharePoint Investment?

How do you know if or when you truly are optimizing the investment you've made in the Microsoft SharePoint platform?  You've spent last year creating your SharePoint roadmaps and have grand plans f... read more

Share Your Journey...

Changing the way people work, share information, manage knowledge, and communicate with each other is very much a challenge of organizational cultural.   Let's face it -- implementing technology li... read more

New Year's Resolution: 3 Keys to Clean up the SharePoint Clutter...

In my last post I talked about the information mess that many organizations have gotten themselves into and asked what is your New Year’s Resolution and strategy for 2011 to clean up this mess.   N... read more

What’s your New Year’s Resolution for cleaning up the information mess?

I work with many organizations with SharePoint intranet sites that are simply a MESS!   Yes, that's you and your intranet!   Admit it -- your intranet sites look like they were built in 1999 with b... read more

Demystifying SharePoint Business Intelligence

One of the more confusing aspects of SharePoint is its Business Intelligence (BI) capabilities.  Why is it confusing (at least for me)?  Well, this is AIIM and we spend most of our time discussing ... read more

Gobble Gobble....BPOS is no Turkey!

It's Thanksgiving 2010 and it’s the time of year that many IT organizations are finalizing their 2011 budgets and strategy.   One of the things on the radar screen for many organizations is Microso... read more

How Facebook Messages Will Influence SharePoint...

Earlier this week Facebook announced a new capability called Facebook Messages -- their new email/SMS/chat functionality that doesn't care what technology you use to reach your friends.  Mark Zucke... read more

Think Communities, Not Portals!

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If you are planning your SharePoint 2010 upgrade and looking at redesigning the hundreds of intranet sites --- stop right there!   Don't redesign, rethink your corporate intranet.  I spend a ... read more

How do you deal with the critics and skeptics in your organization?

I recently came across this interesting video of a Harvard Professor discussing selling ideas within an organization (link available at the end of this post).  And it's no secret that SharePoint re... read more

What is information architecture and why is it important?

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In many organizations, SharePoint has emerged as a multi-purpose platform to manage information and automate business processes and activities.  It's often times easy to rush into building a soluti... read more

Project Information Management on SharePoint

Just about everything we do can be thought of as a project or series of projects.  In our professional lives, companies create their strategic plans and budgets based on a series of initiatives, pr... read more

A Vendor & Resource Management Solution - ROI cont'd

In my post last week, I talk about a specific problem many organizations have a around managing contracted vendors and resources.  I left off discussing soft costs one might see within this set of ... read more

iPads in Business...Scenarios, Use Cases, and SharePoint

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A brief tangent from my previous posts on ROI.....as I wanted to capture some recent discussions I had with a few people on the use of iPads in the business world.  Generally, there are a few u... read more

A Vendor & Resource Management Solution

Many IT organizations both large and small utilize contractors and consultants. In many global enterprises, you might have several thousand contractors in and out of your organization over a calend... read more

Why is measuring a hard ROI for SharePoint just so hard?

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Traditionally when it comes to implementing technology, the financial bean counters and decision makers have looked for hard dollars for the ROI of a technology investment.   However, when it comes... read more

Now that I have SharePoint - What Do I Do with It?

It continues to amaze me how many organizations have SharePoint or go out and purchase it but still aren't sure what to do with it.  While you could easily show them the SharePoint wheel or talk ab... read more

Don't Forget the Change in Your SharePoint Investment ....

We have seen SharePoint sites pop up and virally explode.  We have seen SharePoint used in many cases as a basic document repository.  In some organizations, we've also seen SharePoint used for col... read more

Why I'm interested in SharePoint...

I’m interested in SharePoint because it's a technology that enables organizations to transform how they connect and communicate, work and work together, and manage process, projects, and informatio... read more

Is it Knowledge Management or Business Intelligence?

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I was recently speaking with someone whose background was all in business intelligence and data.   They had years of experience building data warehouses and datamarts.  They knew how to create cube... read more

Is social media making us dumb?

The following post I wrote is also featured on SocialMediaToday.com: http://socialmediatoday.com/richblank/154394/social-media-making-us-dumb The explosion of social media has been nothing ... read more

What is more important: people? process? or technology?

I often see executives and project managers take charge of projects and focus on process first, people second, and technology last when it comes to change...   While I understand the thinking behin... read more

What is Knowledge Management 2.0?

Knowledge Management seems to be making a come back.  Like E2.0 or Web 2.0, KM 2.0 seems to be more about aggregating unstructured information with structured data (perhaps in a community, portal, ... read more

Does SharePoint Cause Information Management Problems?

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I recently read an interesting discussion on this subject and wanted to share some thoughts.   SharePoint as an application should provide better capabilities around administration AND information ... read more

Coffee, KM, and Information Overload

The Starbucks Example Imagine for a moment you walked into a Starbucks and the barista didn’t know how to make a cappuccino or latte! It’s well documented that Starbucks spends more on the educ... read more

3 Keys to Develop a Collaboration Strategy around SharePoint

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If you are thinking about your overall collaboration strategy and how to best leverage SharePoint, there are 3 things you need to understand before you develop your approach:  1. Type of Collab... read more