SharePoint Influencer50

Recently, Global360 and KnowledgeLake sponsored a study by Influencer50 to identify the 50 most influential folks in the SharePoint space.  If you follow SharePoint and the people who often blog, tweet or otherwise consult, you’ll know that trying to identify the 50 most “influential” individuals is no trivial task.   However, that’s exactly what the Influencer50 study aimed to accomplish.

When the study was released, I was slightly surprised to be see my name among the 50.  Though thrilled to be included with folks like Andrew Connell (Critical Path Training), Tony Byrne (Real Story Group), Tyson Hartman (Avanade) and Sue Hanley (Susan Hanley, LLC), the study got me thinking about what it means to be an influencer and how much weight to give to the study.

Rob Bogue was the first public critic of the SharePoint Influencer50 study that I’ve seen so far.  In his post, he makes his argument along a few dimensions:

1. It’s challenging to measure influence
2. Difficult to gauge how a potential buyer will react to any influence given the sheer number of variables involved
3. Influence changes depending on the situation and, to point #2, there may be influencers that are “hidden”
4. You can’t be an influencer if you aren’t directly involved in the space
5. [Implied] Vendors sponsored the study (credibility issue)
6. [Implied] The firm conducting the study is using a potentially unsubstantiated methodology

Some of Rob’s arguments are compelling.  I would wholeheartedly agree with items 1, 2 and 3.   As Rob points out, it’s difficult to “predict the weather,” due to the sheer number of variables involved.  The same is true of buying decisions; you just never know what factors are involved in getting someone to purchase software.  Further, the influencers for a given buying decision will change; in the SharePoint space, I’d rely on an infrastructure focused consultant for Farm configuration best practice more than I would someone like me who tends to be more focused on development.

That said, I’m not sure all criticisms he raises are valid.   I found the Amazon discussion regarding book sales a bit of a red herring; sales popularity does not imply fitness or validity.  I also disagree that someone like Jon Powell from Alfresco can’t be influential.  It doesn’t make sense that one would be influenced only by those folks who only support one position or another.  I think it’s reasonable that potential buyers listen to Mr. Powell as much as a SharePoint MVP; his criticisms are at least as telling as positive statements from SharePoint pundits.  Finally, while the study was sponsored by vendors, it shouldn’t be dismissed on that fact alone.  While Rob is critical of the Influencer50 list (and “top” lists in general), he is a part an “elite” list – the list of SharePoint MVPs; a fact he promotes on his blog.  Like the Influencer50, the SharePoint MVPs represent a group of individuals named by Microsoft and must fit a specific criteria.

Ultimately, any study or list should represent just a single data point in a collection of research.  SharePoint is a very broad product with lots of capabilities and it’s unlikely that any singular list, whitepaper or study could cover everything.  The SharePoint Influencer50 study is one way to discover potential sources of intelligence on SharePoint, but it’s not exclusive.  I’d recommend using a few sources of information and draw your own conclusions.

The Wisdom of letting Users “Figure it Out”

Back in July of this year, Computerworld, Networkworld and CIO all ran an the article “Telecom Giant Takes to Web 2.0.”  It was about Alcatel-Lucent’s use of social media tools.   The article opens with a quote from Greg Lowe, Social Media Strategist and Global Infrastructure Architect.  Lowe stated that the CEO told the organization to be more “collaborative.”  What immediately struck me was the response: go buy/implement a technology.

Based entirely on Lowe’s title, it appears that he is a member of Alcatel-Lucent’s Information Technology group.  Unsurprisingly, it appears as if the first reaction to the CEO’s statement was to find a tool to “fix” the problem; based on the content of the article, it wasn’t clear exactly what the CEO meant and whether another tool would be a solution foundation.  However, the approach described was a typical pattern:

1. Find a tool that seems to enable individuals to solve a problem
2. Make the tool available
3. Let the user community figure out how to make the organizational changes necessary to actually solve the problem

The trouble with this general approach is that it is often a recipe for disaster. 

Much to the credit of Alcatel-Lucent, they seem to be successful in at least getting folks to use the new tool.  What wasn’t immediately obvious, however, was whether the tool solved the problem the CEO identified.  To be blunt, does tool usage indicate the problem was solved or just that people were using the tool?  In using the tool, does it mean that quality collaboration, that fundamentally improved an individual’s ability to complete their job tasks, occurred regularly?

To CIO magazine’s credit, they did link to an article that presented a similar situation at Phillips, called “My Enterprise 2.0 Rollout: 4 Keys to Success.”  Fortunately, this article presented a far more thought out and methodical approach to using the “2.0” technologies.  The difference between the two approaches boiled down to the following (even identified as “keys to success”):

1. Develop a good strategy
   Phillips spent time trying to understand what they wanted to accomplish – not just “we need to collaborate better.”  Specifically, what will truly make a difference in our business?  If a business can’t improve productivity, reduce expenses or improve revenue, why implement technology solutions at all?
2. Lead by example
   At Phillips, the executives lead by example and leveraged the tools in their own work.  This approach provides a fantastic benchmark for the rest of the organization.  As the article points out, it’s not about an edict from above, but rather a way for the leaders in the firm to demonstrate usage and, in a way, also publicly learn from those lower in the organization.  Frankly, if an enterprise wants to make any initiative successful, employees need to understand that management supports their efforts and their work won’t be wasted.
3. Work with the user community
   Unlike the Alcatel-Lucent example, Phillips actively worked with the user community to ensure success.  The work involved in and the problems solved by the tool aligned directly to challenges within the organization; there were clear metrics for success. 
4. Allow a bit of “organic” evolution
   The article calls this concept “loosening the reins.”  Phillips didn’t explicitly create policies to govern the use of the tool.  While it’s generally a good idea to incorporate governance into the use of these kinds of tools, the idea of allowing a bit of usage flexibility is critical.  In many cases, there is insufficient data to truly understand what might or might not work in the enterprise.  Further, a certain trust needs to develop between the firm and employees – the firm needs to trust employees will use good judgment and employees need to trust the firm is making the tool available to improve productivity.  Ultimately, to be successful, there needs to be a good mix of established, general guidelines for appropriate use, as well as flexibility to enable “out of the box” usage scenarios.

When contemplating how to approach implementing these collaborative technologies in your organization, consider the four points above. The "build it and they will come" approach to technology doesn't work. However, it is a pattern that many in IT use to mostly their detriment. It's time to change the approach.

User Surveys for Intranets

Dorthe Raakjaer Jespersen (sorry for the English spelling) at J. Boye recently posted a blog entry “New Intranet: do we really need user surveys?”  It was a good read about how user-centric research is an excellent foundation for a new intranet. 

Early in the article, she points to somewhat typical exchanges between intranet managers and company management; the archetypical intranet manager management thinks surveys will help the intranet team better understand the needs of the users.  The equally archetypical manager thinks they need to start building immediately – surveys will take far to long to complete.  Dorthe goes on to provide an excellent set of talking points intranet managers can use to encourage management to agree to use surveys and highlights some of the potential risks in forging ahead without the user data.

However, once you’ve gotten approval, what’s next?  What questions do you ask?  What sort of feedback should you expect to get from your end users?  How many individuals should be included?  The answers to all of these questions do depend on what you need from your user community, the size of your organization and the scope of your intranet.  To help you get started, here are a set of basic questions we would recommend you include in your survey:

1. In what department do you work?
   This question provides context to the answers.  Expect every department to have different needs and desires.  The question may also give you a picture of future departmental participation and support, as well as an early indicator of departmental adoption.
2. What is your age range?
   This sounds like a question you’d want to avoid.  However, the answer will help you evaluate responses.  Many organizations we’ve worked with recently have somewhat older populations.  The age of an employee tends to affect what features of an intranet are compelling.  Your Intranet should reflect the population age average.  If you have a somewhat younger workforce, social features like status updates or blogs may be more compelling.  Older workforces will likely be drawn to a more “traditional” informational Intranet.  Keep in mind that you cannot and should not over generalize; age, in and of itself won’t tell you a lot.  However, the data will provide another useful dimension to the analysis.
3. How often do you use the Internet to support your work?
   In some organizations, the existing Intranet is little used or there’s no Intranet at all.  In its place, many employees will turn to public sources of content and information.  This specific question will help you gauge how much external vs. internal sources of information help people get their work done.  In fact, the answers to this question should be a limited list of options like: no access, my work is paper-based, I know the right person to ask, not interested, etc.   A side benefit of this question may be the discovery  of what services to offer through a newly designed intranet (assuming you follow-up this question with one that asks about their specific usage).
4. How often do you use the existing Intranet?
   It’s likely if you’re checking your server logs, you already know the answer to this question.  However, getting direct feedback is helpful is validating your objective data.   Where possible, include a list of selectable ranges of time like: once a day, once to twice a week, monthly, etc.
5. What functionality, types of information or content is important to you?
   Provide your survey participants with a list of functionality (e.g. applications), content and information that you’re either considering or have surfaced through the Intranet.  Let them choose what’s most important to them.  Use the answers to help guide your development.  More than one of our clients has chosen features or content poorly without this data (leading to community dissatisfaction with the Intranet).  Further, the answers can help validate or invalidate the inevitable “nice to have” functionality that often is introduced during development; if it wasn’t important to your user community, it shouldn’t be important enough to get included in the Intranet.  You can also follow-up this question with a free-text question allow people to suggest items that weren’t included in the list.

The preceding five questions should really be the start of about a ten (10) question or less survey.  In all cases, try to make survey questions very specific to your organization.  For example, you could ask about the location of the employee (if you have multiple physical locations), ask a matrix question that allows the participant to agree or disagree with various statements regarding your intranet (or what they’d like to see) and ask about usage outside of work (e.g. at home or through a mobile device), if those access methods are important. 

The survey should be one of the first exercises you perform when gathering requirements and/or intelligence on a new or redesigned intranet.  They generally provide very valuable insight into user behavior and needs, plus has the added benefit of allowing you to validate features, functions and “requirements” against direct user feedback. 

In closing, here are some other tips:

• Surveys should be only one of a few data sets used to evaluate your needs.  While it’s a good foundational insight source, it can also be misleading; if someone doesn’t have a good answer for a specific question, they may simply make something up.  As a result, the size of the survey population has to be significant enough to counteract errant responses.
• When designing the survey, keep the overall survey length to no more than 4 to 5 “pages”
• The survey should take between 10 to 15 minutes to complete; longer surveys may work, but you’ll get lower response rates.
• As mentioned earlier, the surveyed population should be significant, but also representative.  If you 10,000 employees, interviewing 50 people is insufficient as it represents less than 1% of your population.  Further, if you have a mix of factory employees and corporate, desk-bound employees, be sure to get people from both communities to participate.
• Ask relevant follow-up questions.  For example, if you ask about access methods (e.g. from home, mobile devices, etc), ask if they access the Intranet from home, because they have no access in the workplace (e.g. many factory workers have restrictive work rules that may prevent access to PCs during their shifts).
• Offering incentives for participation will greatly improve participant involvement.  Some clients offer gift cards for all participants, while others use the “win an iPod” approach with a participant chosen at random.  What you choose should reflect your culture and drive the sort participatory behavior you desire.
• Follow-up this survey with a similar version post launch.  A follow-up survey will give you very clear measures of improvement and help to establish basic metrics for judging on-going success.  For a discussion of other Intranet metrics, see a great article by Toby Ward on Intranet Metrics.

Oracle Internet Directory Membership Provider (LDAP) for SharePoint

A while back, I posted an article on how to create a SharePoint membership provider for Oracle’s Internet Directory (LDAP).   The post continues to be a relatively popular post and more than a few folks have asked for the source directly.

While I’ve generally tried to e-mail the membership class directly to anyone who requests it, simply posting it to the Consejo blog is probably easier on everyone.

Here’s a TXT version of the C# class.  While I’ve refactored subsequent versions of this class a few times, this version is still pretty raw, but functional (read: it’s a good start if you have nothing).  In this version, I used Kellerman’s Encryption Library to handle the MD4/MD5 hash format used by my client’s directory; interestingly they used one method for their test environment and one for their production environment.   While the Kellerman library is quite affordable (and easy to use), there is an open source alternative on CodePlex called .NET Crypto (Devv.Core.Crypto) as well as Microsoft’s Enterprise library, which include cryptography functions.

Other notes on the code:

• If you have a MOSS implementation, you don’t need this class.  Microsoft provides an generic LDAP provider with the full server product.  This was written for those who only have WSS and need something custom.
• The original requirements for this class were for creating a single sign-on environment between an Oracle Portal and SharePoint (sign on to the Oracle portal and get straight in to SharePoint without authentication).  As such, I didn’t write any code to handle password changes, resets or other management functions, since those would all be handled by Oracle’s product interfaces.
• I’ve only overloaded the bare minimum necessary for the membership provider to work with SharePoint (see above bullet).
• The lookup function for users requires exact matches.  In hindsight, I could have implemented the query a bit better to improve operation with the People Picker component in SharePoint; I didn’t, but hopefully you will and share it with the rest of us…
• This was originally written for WSS v3.0, but there’s no reason, with potentially minor changes, it couldn’t work for SharePoint Foundation (2010).  If you get it to work in a 2010 environment, I’d love to see the implementation and hear your experiences.

 

Click HERE to get a copy of the provider class.

Mastering Workflow Reports in SharePoint 2010

One of the challenges for SharePoint administrators is getting insight into what’s actually happening within the farm.  One element of management is workflow.  It’s not easy to discover what workflow processes are running, are there exceptions for a given process and how often is a process being used.

In the August edition of the SharePoint eZine, I discuss how to leverage workflow reports in the new 2010 version.  The various reporting and management interfaces make it relatively easy for administrators to better understand what’s happening.  While there are shortcomings in the available data (e.g. no whole farm reporting), what Microsoft provides does immediately provide value.

Managing SharePoint SandBox (User) Solutions

In SharePoint 2010, Microsoft has provided new functionality called “Sandbox” or “User Solutions” that allow administrators and Site Collection owners to upload new functionality scoped to a single site collection. This means that site collection owners can host bespoke code or 3rd party add-ons that are useful to them without affecting others on the same farm. This functionality is incredibly useful in situations where organizations have shared SharePoint farms that serve the needs of various groups. It’s also very useful if organizations are looking to leverage services like SharePoint Online or Microsoft Business Productivity Online (both services offer a SaaS-based version of SharePoint), but have historically been prevented from including custom code.

In the May issue of SearchWinIT’s SharePoint E-Zine, I discuss the management controls and shortcomings of this new feature.

Can Search really solve Information “Findability?”

We’ve all heard the lament from end users and IT professionals alike: “I can’t find what I need in our … [fill in the blank here – network share, intranet, portal, etc].”  The reason, virtually universally, is that: 1) there’s an unintelligible organization to the content and 2) using the internal search tool never seems to return the results people need/want.  As a result, there’s a growing sentiment that “the solution” is to just get a Google appliance (or other inappropriately expensive search tool) and everything will be fine.  It’s worthy of note that this sentiment comes from all levels in the organization – from executive business management to senior IT management and all the way down to the average joe/jane employee (IT or not) - making the statement carry that much more weight.

Interestingly, there’s a certain logic to this statement (perverse though it may be to people who spend their professional careers mired in trying to solve the problem of findability).  When most people search for content on the web, they overwhelmingly use Google’s search technology.  In my own experience, if the content exists, it’s likely I can find it with Google search.  How Google makes is happen is a mix of complex mathematics, massive computing power and (seemingly to me) black magic, since even companies with vast resources invested in bettering search (like Microsoft) have yet to equal Google’s search success.  However, isn’t Google’s success also partly due to perception and, frankly, low expectations?

By and large, research suggests that most people “hope” to find content when searching the web.  If I execute a query using Google’s search site, I don’t actually know if the content I want exists.  I hope that it does and, when I find it,  I’m pleasantly surprised.  By contrast, when I search for content internally, it’s not a question of “if” the content exist, it’s a question of where.  I know that the content lives somewhere inside my … [again fill in the blank – file share, intranet, portal, etc], I just don’t know where. 

When I use my portal’s search engine to execute a query, I expect to find the content I want.  However, when the content I know exists doesn’t appear in the search results (or doesn’t seem to appear), I get very frustrated (can I get a Marine hoo-rah if you empathize??).  If I’m feeling particularly persistent, I may execute another query, perhaps using different keywords, to see if I can find my content in a different way.  This second attempt may or may not yield better results.  In the end though, my perception is I’ve just wasted a bunch of time and I’m no better off.  Worse yet, I have now come to two very harsh, though potentially inaccurate, conclusions: 1) Google rocks and I don’t understand why we don’t use it internally and 2) whatever search technology we are using internally stinks (I’ve heard clients use more colorful language, which I’ll spare you here).  Also, and not any less important, I’m very deeply disappointed that I will be spending more wasted energy duplicating an effort to either recreate the content I can’t find or, at least, doing duplicative research to support the work I actually have to complete.

If you’re still reading, I suspect you not only empathize, but are hoping I’ll give you “the solution.”  My honest response is that if I had a silver bullet solution, I would probably be very wealthy.  I would be cruising the Atlantic on a large yacht, with a drink in my hand and not searching for anything in particular except perhaps the elusive lime to add a little something extra to my libation.  Since my reality is that there is no silver bullet solution (and I don’t have a boat), I offer some truisms and suggestions about finding content in your organization and how to make that process better:

• Taxonomy is required (really) 
  If you want people to find content, in any repository, you must (I don’t use this work lightly) apply some sort of organizing  principle to that content (“organizing principle” is synonymous with taxonomy).  You don’t have to look much further than your physical file rooms (organized alphabetically), biology (order, genus, species, etc – you remember high school biology no?) or virtually any other repository of stuff to figure out that if it’s not organized you’ll have a slim chance of finding what you need.  To provide a very concrete example, look at Best Buy’s navigation for a technology category approach that helps you find the product you want; if you can’t find what you want, let it stand as an example of how poor taxonomy can confound someone.  That said, I recently had a CIO tell me that he didn’t “get” the value of taxonomy and that we all live in a “search-based world.”  Again, though I respect this particular CIO and I get the sentiment, it’s just not reality.  You must develop a way to organize your content and make that organization (taxonomy) infinitely clear to the people for whom it will be the path to finding content nirvana.   Frankly, not everyone will use search to find content and a poor taxonomy will impact your search tool’s ability to return relevant results.
• Google is good, but it’s not likely to work internally
  It’s true search technology has improved tremendously.  Google is clearly the leader.  However, their success is not actually magic and probably won’t translate to internal search success; public search and “enterprise” search are different beasts; Google is very good at public search, but haven’t fared any better than any other search company within the enterprise.  Also keep in mind that, Google’s dominance in general public web search stems from a number of factors, most of which do not exist inside of any singular company (a few of those key dimensions are listed here):
  • An overwhelming volume of content that can imply topic relevance through cross-linking (keywords in one document and/or site that are linked to other content and/or sites that imply authority for that keyword)
  • Massive computing power that can be used to execute complex algorithms (their specific “secret sauce”)
  • Search analytics that help create patterns of relevancy based on actual user click behavior (result select or re-query)
  • Legions of Google staffers that constantly improve Google’s algorithms over time (based on content data and analytics).  Despite what you may have heard about what Google does for a living, it’s all about search (not phones or collaboration software).  No other part of their business comes close to generating the amount of revenue (obviously through ads shown with search results) or has the same amount of resources devoted to it.
  • Like Microsoft had “help” from IBM becoming a dominant player in the PC operating system business, Google had a similar giant help them early on – Yahoo.  When Yahoo was the most popular site on the web, guess what search technology they used?  That deal made it much easier for Google to supplant their patron, in later years, as the leader in search.
• Search is not the exclusive answer to findability
  Even if someone could create the perfect search engine that returned very precise and relevant results, why do you want to force your user community to execute a search just to find content?  Doesn’t the mere act of search introduce yet another set of clicks and keystrokes?  Isn’t the goal to “get there in less than two clicks” and “provide answers quickly?”  Think about your own experiences with search.  How long does it take to formulate the appropriate query?  To review the results?  To find the right result, click on it and validate it’s actually what you want?  Wouldn’t it be easier to create a very clear path to the right content?  Better yet, don’t you already know a good deal about your employees and couldn’t you predict at least some of their content needs?  If so, why not just surface that content on the home page of your portal (or other appropriate location)?  Better yet, wrap those items in an RSS feed and deliver them through a desktop gadget (works on both MACs and PCs).  Do you think I’m crazy?  This technology surely couldn’t exist you say (or it’s too complicated to implement).  Have you ever visited your iGoogle page?  Have you ever ordered anything from Amazon?  These sites aren’t doing anything that revolutionary in the year 2010.  They’re simply using data they already know about you to automatically find what might be relevant (or asking you to choose topics for the taxonomy that you are interested in viewing).  Is it perfect?  No.  Does it save time in the long run?  Absolutely.  Does it provide you a somewhat “searchless” content findability experience?  You bet.  Could you still supplement this approach with a search tool?  Of course.
• Successful search experiences require constant work
  Just because you spun up a Google appliance, SharePoint search (or FAST) or implemented Autonomy, you’ve only just begun.  Like anything else in this world, success comes from discipline, dedication and an ongoing effort to ensure success.  Search is no different.  More than one of our clients has called and asked for our help in improving their search experience.  Unfortunately, virtually all of them have done next to nothing, beyond installing the software, to make search work properly.  Whether it’s not excluding common navigation items on a web site (the same navigation shown on every page messes with relevancy for those keywords), avoiding the application of metadata on documents (like no title or descriptions – not even counting the “fancy” stuff like author, department, main topic area) or leaving patently irrelevant content in the repository past it’s expiration (like the snow day policy from 2001 that for some crazy reason is the most relevant document when using “snow policy” as a query), clients frequently thwart their own best intentions.  To make search work, you must do a bare minimum, like excluding content that should never be a result (like a home page), apply metadata with appropriate values, perform periodic “gut check” searches that should yield consistently relevant results and monitor the behavior of your users by actually looking at analytic data (you’d be surprised how many queries return zero results or where no one clicks on a result).  If you just do this minimum, your search experience will dramatically improve.

If I’ve prattled on too long in this post and you’ve missed my point about findability, here’s the short version: search is not the exclusive answer to finding content; you must start with a taxonomy that everyone understands (and fits your content), implement search properly and monitor progress (making changes when necessary).  Anyone who says differently is either selling a search tool or has been sold a bridge in Brooklyn.