Intel and the Big Search Box

I was recently researching new ultrabooks and visited the Intel site for some insight on current processors.  When I arrived, I was  a bit shocked at what I saw…

Source: Intel.COM

Waiting for me  was not the typical corporate web site, with menu-based navigation (at least not immediately apparent).  Rather, Intel was presenting, dare I say, a very "Google" like approach – enter a keyword-based query to find what you want. 

I found the whole experience a bit off-putting.  I don't generally recommend our clients lead with a search-based content findability approach. In fact, I've argued against even making search a primary content findability technique.

If anyone has insight on this approach (e.g. real analytics supporting this experience strategy over more traditional IA), I'd love to hear about it.

Interesting cause for exception: System.InvalidOperationException: $metadata Web Service method name is not valid.

Interesting cause for exception: System.InvalidOperationException: $metadata Web Service method name is not valid.

While deploying a classic web service to a production server recently, we came across an issue when calling the service from a test web application.  We were able to add a web service reference to our test harness web application with no issues.  The web service would load with no issues in a standard web browser as well by url:

When calling the web method the response would come back with no errors.  We noticed the data was not being saved to the server as expected.  After checking the event viewer on the server we found this error that made no sense to us nor offered much detail:

 System.InvalidOperationException: $metadata Web Service method name is not valid.

After searching the web a bit, we learned this was more so a mask error that covered up the true issue.  After digging around for several days, I attempted to test the service directly in a debug state in the server's browser.

The service responded with:

Could not load file or assembly 'Telerik.OpenAccess, Version=2012.2.816.1, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=7ce17eeaf1d59342' or one of its dependencies. The system cannot find the file specified.

We somehow published a version of the telerik.OpenAccess dll that was different then what the service was looking for.

After re-publishing the service with the correct dll version, the issue completely resolved and the web method started saving data to disk.

Lesson learned, the meta data error that originally prompted our research had no relationship to the real exception.  If you come across this error in the future, debug the service straight against the problematic server's web browser to get the true exception.

Interesting Code Exception–UnwillingToPerform

I have recently been busy putting the finishing touches on a new web application for a client in Indiana.  During the course of the project, we discovered that we needed to write a custom membership provider that would use secure LDAP to authenticate users (the ActiveDirectoryMembershipProvider does not, surprisingly, support the client's environment setup). 

While developing the basic provider was relatively easy to complete (and used an Oracle LDAP provider we built previously), we ran into a series of challenges.  One challenge is now a support incident at Microsoft (more on that in a later blog).

However, during one of the debugging sessions, we noticed an "unspecified operation error occurred" exception being thrown.  Digging down, we discovered the reason code: "unwilling to perform"

I have never thought about putting that kind of reason in my code, but if Microsoft can do it, perhaps it's O.K.

Write Better

When I started working as a consultant in the latter half of the 90's, our firm had writers that specialized in writing for the web.  These folks constantly had to help clients refine and organize traditional print copy for the "new" medium.

Recently, Jason Fried over at 37Signals published a short blog post that referenced a post by Maria Popova at BrainPickings.org highlighting writing advice from David Ogilvy, the original "Mad Man."  What I found fascinating is that the advice that Ogilvy delivered in 1982 is much the same advice our writers gave clients more than a decade later (in the context of writing for the web).

Clearly, good advice never goes out of style.

Adoption: The forgotten key to Success

A solution is not just technology.  A solution is not just new features and functions.  In fact, a solution has many facets, including adoption.  While adoption is critical to the success of any solution, it is often ignored.

Organizations who are interested in successfully introducing a new technology or solution, need to spend as much time considering and developing an adoption plan as they did building the solution.  Here are a few keys to adoption success:

• Communicate early and often with the end user community 
  Start well in advance of any change.  Start with letting folks know that a change is coming and why it’s important to them.  Create a clear connection between a challenge you know they have and how the new solution seeks to address it.   Once you reach specific milestones in the solution’s development, send out additional communications with more specific information and dates (like when folks should expect to see the solution). 
• Introduce the new solution properly
  Spend time developing ways to acquaint your end user community with the new tool or function.  Simply sending an “informative” e-mail is insufficient; try something new.  For example, if you’re introducing a new Intranet, have a “scavenger hunt” to find specific information or content; the “winner” should get some prize for being the first to find the requested item (e.g. a gift card to a local restaurant or simple public recognition).  This helps introduce the new site, gets people to use the tool AND “tests” the new information architecture.  Feedback from the event can also help you avoid questions in the future.
• Create triggers for using the solution
  Dr. BJ Fogg runs a persuasion lab at Stanford university.  Dr. Fogg’s Behavior Model suggests that while motivation and ease-of-use are important, people still need to be “triggered” to exhibit a specific behavior.  This means that no matter how easy the solution is to use, nor how motivated your end user community happens to be, you’ll still need to “remind” them to use the tool until a habit of use is formed.  Dr. Fogg’s research involved how Facebook uses e-mail notifications to “trigger” people to return to the site.   Think of ways to trigger your end-user community to constantly use the tool (e.g. remind them of what problem the tool solves OR how they can save themselves time by using the tool).
• Gather feedback liberally
  Whether you’re speaking personally to people or using a more generic survey, always gather feedback.  Your solution might be fantastic, but there will always  be room for improvement.  Demonstrate you’re interested in your end user community by asking for feedback on what works, what doesn’t and how the solution can improve.  Clearly, you’ll get lots of opinions, but what’s important will be the trends you can discern; these trends will represent what’s important to the most number of users and where you should focus your attention.
• Constantly evolve
  Once you’re done with the initial implementation… you’re not done.  Any solution will need to evolve to stay relevant to the end user community it serves.  Use the feedback you’ve gathered, combined with what’s happening in the broader organization and/or marketplace.  Create a real “road map” for the solution’s improvement.  Once you have that road map in place, start communicating that roadmap to your end user community; this too could be a trigger, as well as building support for the next release.

You will spend a great deal of time developing the right solution for your organization.  You need to spend just as much time making sure everyone uses it and that it adds value to your firm.

Office and SharePoint 2013 Products Revealed

On 16 July 2012, Microsoft publicly announced the previews for latest versions of Office and SharePoint 2013.  For many of our clients, the announcement will be significant as these products may form the foundation of their information management and collaboration architectures for many years.
As a part of my continuing work with the Real Story Group, I just published a short blog post on our initial SharePoint 2013 advice for dealing with the avalanche of content that will be broadcast about the platform.

SharePoint in Geographically Disperse Organizations

As SharePoint 2010 continues to grow in popularity among larger organizations, the collaboration platform is likewise being used by an increasing number of geographically dispersed companies that see it as a tool to keep far-flung employees on the same page. Because of SharePoint’s architecture, however, such implementations can add new administrative burdens whether you’re trying to keep workers across North America or around the world connected and communicating with one another.

SearchContentManagement just published an article I wrote on how to manage SharePoint is these distributed organizations.