tfpl blog

SharePoint 2010: what it means for information professionals and their organisations

I recently made a trip to Microsoft for a workshop on SharePoint 2010 at their campus in Reading.  The picture I took away is of a shift in focus away from development to configuration (and there's a hell of a lot more to configure), illustrated by the following:   

• Complex (or simple) records and document management policies (compliant with DoD 5015.02, amongst other things) can now be configured into the system at and across every level and site location, or simply determined ad hoc.  It looks like a complete EDRMS is on the cards with hierarchical (file-plan like) structuring, automatic document ID numbers and-all with a highly intuitive and attractive browser (any browser) based user interface. 
• Developers will no longer be needed to come in and hack into your SharePoint in order for it to communicate with other databases and systems.  All of this can be configured out of the box without any knowledge of or ostensible use of code.
• As a result of the above and because the development engine, Visual Studio 2010 (sold separately of course), is integrated into the Central Admin area I think that significant investment on bespoke coding is a thing of the past. For example, .NET coding can as easily be published to SharePoint 2010 as a document might be through a standard CMS. In addition to this, the .NET coding language is relatively easy to pick up for quick learners, which systems admins usually are.
• My opinion is that outlay in development will revolve around (app by app) bespoke applications development which has been readily facilitated through the provision of APIs meaning that apps can be built and rolled out through the Central Admin (or the ‘back office’) development tool-kit.

On cost, for organisations that have made a sizable resource commitment to MOSS 2007 already, the prospect of further investment in SharePoint 2010 might initially be a turn off[*].  If however they are persuaded by the additional functionality (particularly in what was formerly business intelligence, the records centre and mySite) then they still face the requirement to upgrade their hardware to x64 (currently it is x32). This x64 backroom hardware is needed to effectively accommodate technologies such as ajax which make for seamless and smooth user operability on the client side but demand significant resources from the servers to that end. This demand scales up with increases in user numbers and user activity, which will be a significant consideration if organisations start adopting SharePoint as a “full featured business platform”, as Microsoft is touting it.

Additionally, upgrade/migration from MOSS 2007 to SharePoint was not something that was readily covered and I suspect 2007 users may be in for a rougher ride, price-wise and technically, than they might otherwise have expected.  This may be a particular issue to those organisations that invested heavily in 3rd party bespoke development of the product.

So, how significant is the advent of SharePoint 2010 to the information professional? Well, we have always known that information architecture, information governance (inclusive of its pillars such as policies, rules etc) and sound information management in general are critical to the success of any electronic information system deployment.  And, with the removal of significant functionality barriers in SharePoint 2010, the continued importance of this cannot be stressed enough in giving systems administrators something to consider before bending to every whim of their users. 

It is therefore critical that the advice of the information professional is heeded at the highest levels of management and engendered into the IT psyche.  The blueprints of a successful implementation should be drawn up, highlighted, championed and followed from the very beginning, lest the onset of “SharePoint Sprawl”, a symptom of poor information architecture and a lack of information management forethought, generally; and one with which many, if not most, MOSS 2007 implementations contend.

If you have information management concerns around your deployment of SharePoint, or any other system, contact us for expert advice and solutions.

Authored by Shooresh Golzari, tfpl consultant.

[*] Recent conversations with clients and SharePoint integrators indicate that this is true.

TFPL Connect International 2009

On 30 November, a large group of information, knowledge and records professionals from UK, Europe and America came together at TFPL Connect International for a discussion with an international panel of KIM experts. The event, kindly sponsored by Alacra got got off to a good start with a glass of champagne and the chance to catch up with colleagues.

The main session had a BBC ‘Question Time’ theme with TFPL Consultant, John Davies, directing questions from the audience to Natalie Ceeney (CEO, The National Archives), Doris Springer (Global Information Services Manager, Bain & Co) , and Morten Nicholaisen (Vice President, Global Sales, Dialog).  The panel demonstrated their ability to handle a wide range of questions with wit, humour, a willingness to share valuable experience and knowledge, and a knack for stimulating discussion.

The first question threw the panel in at the deep end, pointing out the UK’s relative lowly position in the World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report and asking for the panel’s views on how KIM can help improve this positioning.  The panel advocated improving knowledge sharing at the organisational and national level, suggesting that UK had some way to go making public information readily accessible. Even within the UK, there are differences between England where ‘we make [information] available what is necessary’; whereas ‘the Welsh make everything available’.  Of course, this stimulated discussion about the need to educate people about what is available and the key issue of personal information and data security – the need to keep the private ‘private’.

The theme of demonstrating the impact and value of KIM was touched on several times during the evening – a topic that won’t go away!  The consensus was that the needs of the business must dictate the focus of KIM activity – the challenge is ensuring the KIM skills are used effectively.
 
In discussions that ranged across topics such as social networking, fee versus free information, the change needed for business models in regards to supplying information, reductions in resources and change in working patterns, a number of interesting points were made by panel members and  participants alike.

Natalie Ceeney suggested that the corporate sector, while at a low point in the recession, will soon start to make small steps in to recovery  The public sector, however, are at the starting point of their recession as they anticipate public spending cuts.  The immediate outlook for the public sector is bleak.   Natalie also argued that the new generations of workers will require more flexibility in the way that they work and are likely to have ‘portable careers’.

Morten Nicholaisen predicted that information vendors will need to review their business models to reflect an economy where money is tight and where people feel there are more choices ad more free information.  It will come back to issue of ensuring that  ‘quality and effectiveness’ are explicit; that the fact that ‘free’ may be costly in  resource, time spent and risk is well understood.

Unsurprisingly, social networking, with its advocates and detractors holding, many different opinions about its value and different thoughts about its future, stimulated a lively discussion.  Stephen Fry’s public withdrawal from Twitter, and equally visible rejoining 24 hours later, raised a question from the floor “was he a saint or a sinner?”  The reaction ranged from those who understood the concept but didn’t see the value to themselves, or where the time came from to interact with a variety of networks and communication tools, to others who felt that this is the future (and the present) of work and play.  Discussion around the potential business benefit of social networking tools and their use by individuals to support individual networking was concluded by Hazel Hall, a convinced Twitter user and advocate of its potential for the KIM community.  Hazel made contact via Twitter with someone she wanted to meet, discovered they were on the same train and exchanged seat numbers.  In a very short time she had gone from “I would like to meet this person” to working with him on the train.  

As the chair wrapped up the panel discussion it was clear that this session had only skimmed the surface of some of the key challenges and opportunities facing the KIM community. As we move in to 2010 we are sure that some of these topics will feature in more depth at future Connect events and the TFPL Connect Conference.

It was great to see so many professionals across sectors taking part in the networking that followed and the conversations carried on well into the night over drinks and canapés.

Lucy Frost

Key messages from Saatchi & Saatchi: not a dead sheep in sight

I was invited as a guest to attend the Marketers Annual City Lecture, an event organised by the Worshipful Company of Marketers, where the guest speaker was Kevin Roberts, Worldwide CEO of Saatchi & Saatchi. The Great Hall at Barts (St Bartholomew’s Hospital) was a splendid setting, the regalia of the livery officers fitting and the speaker gave a mesmerising overview, fitting to the current climate of recession, of why and how ‘it is up to the marketers to build the future’.

No longer would customers buy items they either didn’t want or couldn’t afford. Marketing initiatives had to change; ‘yesterday’s values do not apply today’ and we have to be ‘innovative’, ‘relate to the senses using mystery, sensuality, feelings, emotions and humour’.

Thinking about how this related to selling our own knowledge, information and library services, providing ‘priceless value’, ‘building loyalty’, ‘power is in listening and relating to the customer’ and ‘about finding the stories’ seemed to fit our agenda. Understanding that we could no longer live in the past and had to respond and adapt to change whilst at the same time recognising existing strengths and understanding what not to change, are all things we are striving to do to move the value of our services to an unassailable position within organisations.

Kevin illustrated his talk with some amazing adverts to show how novel and emotive approaches to advertising, laced with humour really hit the mark. Perhaps we should start using the odd joke?

Dr. Vivienne Winterman, Senior Consultant

Training Update – TFPL training supporting professional development

It was interesting to see some of the discussions a little while a go on the LIS Serves around continuing professional development.  Over the past few months TFPL has been working towards gaining external accreditation for our courses and have recently been awarded certified status with CPD UK.  This organisation is an independent accreditation body that provides a standard level of assessment on learning and development activity within the UK. 

For clients who are following a professional development unit scheme within their organisation, any learning achieved via attendance at one of our courses or events will count towards their continuous professional development plan and can be used in appraisals.

We have a brand new programme out for 2010 with lots of new additions plus refreshed content on some old favourites.  Key topics we think will be important for next year include – getting to grips with what advantages and challenges social media tools are going to provide us with from copyright issues to collaborative working and better presence and promotion of an organisation, SharePoint the continuing debate on records management and what SharePoint 2010 will bring and Digital Preservation, how to go about it and techniques to use.  As always we are keen to hear comments and suggestions for topic areas on courses do drop me a line if you have any thoughts.

What makes a good competitive intelligence (CI) department?

An interesting session held at Orange HQ and led by Safi Ghauri, Global Business Intelligence Analyst at consumer goods firm Reckitt Benckiser. The event was attended by a range of CI vendors as well as Practitioners from a range of sectors covering financial services, FMCG, aerospace, pharmaceuticals. Media and IT.

Safi talked through his experiences and the building blocks to constructing a CI team within a global organisation, highlighting 4 key lessons.

• Company culture
• Highlighting the benefits of CI
• Keep CI processes simple
• Feedback

Company culture

Safi highlighted the fact that CI teams are more successful the closer they are to decision makers. Safi if CI is promoted from the top down, the programme will embed properly and thus benefit the whole firm.

Highlighting the benefits of CI

CI touches all part of the organisation, for example marketing, sales, sourcing, finance, strategy – there are techniques to address detailed competitive product/service issues, such as pricing and large vista challenges, such as innovation and the strategic moves of whole organisations. Above all, a central CI hub listens, and encourages individuals to share and benefit from information and perspectives a single person cannot possibly collect on their own. A CI hub only thrives if it is seen to be useful to all, so generosity and a good social network is vital in energising the power of a corporate team and culture.

Generosity of time; Simple, effective ways to get success: “Must give else never can receive” 

One thing that Safi mentioned within some organisations is “black hole syndrome” – feeling that you are contributing to CI but getting nothing in return. Simple and quick channels for corporate CI include tools such as a central repository may be on Intranet where people can email CI, a voicemail where people can message CI. People on a day to day basis are busy and don’t have time to fill in reams of forms that then need to be processed. Simple an effective ways to communicate are easier to build in to a routine, and don’t require over engineered, expensive solutions – just a perceptive person to recognise information as useful intelligence, a channel to someone who can evaluate it and someone to act upon it if necessary.

Feedback

Keeping people in the loop with outputs as well as regular updating of your knowledge networks will in the long run be more productive and help people be recognised for their contribution and feel that they are all contributing and benefiting from the CI team.

Safi’s presentation stimulated a lively discussion and it was interesting in listening to the audience talk about what they had been doing with their CI functions, what had been successful or not, especially with the number of industries represented in the room. This was a fun evening when even the most worldly CI professionals left with their enthusiasm refreshed. Safi’s enthusiasm is infectious.

Ivan Radulovic
Consultant

TFPL Intelligent Resources

SCIP Summit Europe November 2009: Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals

This conference is recommended attendance for people with an interest in applied intelligence and strategy:

The conference was more than just a shelter from the actual storm (the weather was awful) and the perfect virtual storm of the credit crunch. There was a feeling of tranquility, arising from the client-side (large-co Pharma and industrial clients in the main), who are budget constrained but sheltered from eye of the credit crunch (so far).

There was also a feeling of optimism – Intelligence professionals are clearly benefitting from clients having to look at companies and markets on a case-by-case basis

Sentiment shows a perceived lack of reliable information in context.  I don’t know how this happened, as the first keynote speaker – Stephane Garelli (Professor at IMD and the University of Lausanne) painted a bleak picture, although punctuated with a lot of laughter, about the length and shape of the recession and its children - taxation, scarcity and vested sovereign interests in competition globally. Prof Garelli’s economic weather forecast mapped out a difficult environment for business, with the race to serve the emerging markets consumer.

For practitioners worrying about today’s markets rather than tomorrow’s, the key theme was “How to make intelligence actionable and effective through empowering the whole enterprise”

I heard evidence of executive demand for more intelligence in an uncertain world, providing more opportunities for practitioners entrepreneurial enough to grab a good chance. The common goal for corporate practitioners is to be able to understand “the size of your client’s wallet and what share you can win”. But how many practitioner’s can actually answer that sort of question today, and with accuracy?

Overall, I arrived at the SCIP Summit expecting weak attendance but was pleasantly surprised by a strong showing – attendees numbered fewer than in a glut year, but all with a sense of purpose. 

There was a strong sense of camaraderie, even amongst competitors. Surely this is against nature for CI professionals, but it made for some strong interactive sessions, and gave the conference a constructive spirit – something which has been lacking in years where the numbers of attendees have been higher but the climate inside the conference colder. 

In a nutshell – worth battling for budget for, for 2010.        

 

 

Julia Hordle
Director of Corporate Intelligence

TFPL Intelligent Resources

TFPL Training Discussion Corner... what has been happening since July

Since the end of the summer we have seen a marked increase in demand for our public access courses with an increasing interest in SharePoint training.  This has covered several areas from people wanting to get a general grounding in the basics of how to get the most from it as an information professional to the intricacies of how it fits with records management - or not as the case may be, a debate I see that is still on going!

October saw us looking at issues in promoting information literacy to end users looking at what approaches and techniques to use to work with end users in this area.  Those attending fed back that the course had highlighted areas that they had not considered.  They found work that they had done in the course to develop an action plan useful for providing a focus once they returned to work.

In November we have been looking closely at social media – how to take advantage of these tools for business use, the advantages and disadvantages of Google as a search engine.  We also covered what the other alternatives are to Google.  We looked at how communities of practice for knowledge workers can be developed both in the traditional sense and also taking advantage of new technologies and working practices in this digital age.  From comments on the research courses people found advice on alternative search engines and resources helpful, I also attended these courses and found the information a real insight realising there is life out there to find without Google!  To illustrate, on Karen Blakeman’s course we came up with a list of top 10 resources, these can be seen on her blog http://www.rba.co.uk/wordpress/2009/11/06/top-10-business-search-tips-3rd-november-2009/

 

The information opportunity: delivering in challenging times. 13 November 2009.

We were very pleased to be given the opportunity to exhibit at the first conference organised by the Knowledge Council for the Government Knowledge & Information Management (GKIM) Network.

We were also lucky enough to be able to attend the morning presentations, which included a fascinating paper by Sir Michael Bichard, the co-author of The Operational Efficiency Programme.  He pointed out that the sheer scale of government debt was such that a standard approach - looking for cost efficiencies, increasing productivity, cost reduction etc on a departmental/silo’d basis  - would be insufficient to deal with the problem, and emphasised that we will need to focus on how we can address the financial crisis by better use of data and information.

One interesting comment was that the public sector very rarely changes the way that services are delivered - but simply increases or decreases the number of people delivering these services according to the funding available.  I suspect that it’s not only the public sector that adopts this approach; although it is true that the private sector has taken a more innovative approach to delivering services (for example, outsourcing and offshoring) there is still a strong desire in many organisations (and within their customer bases) to maintain the status quo. 

Sir Michael had seven recommendations for ensuring the better use of data and information:

1.    Strong leadership to set direction and create and sustain a sense of purpose and high levels of motivation and energy.  He emphasised the need for honest communication and reminded us that increasing resources does not always equate to increasing quality.

2.    Reducing costs as set out in The Operational Efficiency Programme through better collaboration across the public sector and the development of better management information.  He cited procurement as a good example of where there are huge opportunities to reduce costs through the better use of management information and benchmarking data.

3.    Engage the front line - Front line staff often have the knowledge and experience to provide powerful solutions to problems but all too often their views are not sought.  He used the example of a joint Design Council, Department of Health and NHS initiative, ‘Design bugs out’, where input from nursing staff proved invaluable and constructive.

4.    Increased collaboration - the public sector is currently working in silos which leads to waste, inconsistent processes, and a failure to share information responsibly (Sir Michael chaired the Soham enquiry.)  However, there is also a recognition that the public mistrusts the government’s ability to handle data securely and needs to regain public confidence in order to gain acceptance of cross-departmental data and information sharing.

5.    Real time information - the evaluation of the impact of new policies and initiatives needs to be in real time in order to establish whether they are successful.  A process for collecting management information should be integrated into the design of new policies in order to allow for fast adjustments where necessary.

6.    Co-production - make better use of the resources available by working with the users of public services to develop and deliver better, more cost-effective services.

7.    Devolution - it is not possible to impose efficiency from the centre.  Local providers do need to accountable for the services they provide but without having to comply with unhelpful targets - good data and information management is needed to support the delivery of devolved services.

He also emphasised the need to get more widespread recognition of the value of good data and information at senior levels; the importance of generating data and information as a by product of normal business processes (rather than as a separate information-gathering activity); and the need to encourage public debate about the sharing of data in order to surface and address concerns over privacy and the lack of trust that currently exist.

Sir Michael closed with the following comment, which I would heartily endorse:

‘Data, information and knowledge has been a minority sport, and that needs to change’.

Melanie Goody

Senior Associate

Connecting KIM in the health arena

Last Wednesday TFPL launched, as part of the Connect network, a special interest group (SIG) for individuals concerned with knowledge and information management (KIM) in the diverse organisations that make up health and social care in the UK.  The aim of the SIG is to provide a forum where people from all the disciplines and functions that have an interest improving the impact of KIM can exchange ideas and experience, explore issues and generate innovative approaches.  The launch evening set out to explore this remit and to test the interest.  Hosted by the BMA and chaired by Jacky Berry, Librarian of the BMA, the launch was based around presentations from three speakers Helen Nellis, Principal at Perret Laver; Bob Gann, Strategy Commissioner for NHS Choices, DH; and Kate Arnold, Director of Patient Information at Cancer Research UK.  (Unfortunately Dianne Gywnne-Smith from SCIE had to withdraw at the last minute for health related reasons).  Each demonstrated that whatever their back grounds and organisations they saw clear themes and challenges that cut across the whole health sector.  It was a stimulating evening and indications are that the Health SIG could be an interesting and dynamic network.  

It was fascinating to see how the three speakers had developed very similar themes without any prior consultation. The key themes were:

• How much everyone, from very different organisations, had in common in terms of KIM challenges – especially resource pressures – achieving more with less.

• Organisational and political change being a constant influence on KIM strategies and implementation.

• Moving from information paucity – through information overload – to useable and actionable information.  Still a way to go on that one but the recently launched information standard may be part of the solution.

• Quality of data and information.  Essential for good decision making by heath and social care professionals and by patients, and for maintaining confidence in KIM systems.

• Tensions around ownership of information, the need to share information, knowledge and best practice but the barriers and problems of doing so.

• Creation, use and accessibility of information.  The shift in authority from the clinical specialist to ‘the expert patient’. 

• The crucial importance of partnerships in a very fragmented environment – crucial to the development of new services, bids for research money, making information widely available without the duplication of effort.

• Moving from information destinations to access to knowledge assets – the Total Place concept. 

A summary of the presentations will be available shortly. Meanwhile – a few highlights.

Helen, who has with a range of experience across different parts of the health scene started her presentation by saying she had no expertise in the KIM area but went on to give a clear and precise demonstration of why information, and the way it is handled, has a profound effect.  Drawing on her experiences of working in a Tsunami hit area and in a hospital trust which had suffered a major emergency, Helen illustrated graphically very familiar scenarios where the starting point is a total lack, or paucity, of information which moves rapidly to information deluge and overload.  Managing that flow is crucial if information is to be actionable – to contribute to corporate and individual knowledge.

Bob questioned the definition of ‘public health’ which is the umbrella phrase that TFPL had used in developing this event.  In Bob’s view, 'public health means the health of the population or nation, for example, managing swine flu’. In absolute terms this is really managing the health of people – 'personal health’.  This reflected the theme of who creates and owns information – how it is used – who has authority.  His experience with one of the largest web sites in Europe, and its aim to inform and empower patients and carers, caused him to question whether KIM specialists should be moving away from providing information destinations to facilitating access to knowledge assets.

Kate provided a view of the challenges of working in partnership with many organisations to provide an independent source of information on all aspects of cancer.  She thought that the recent launch of the information standard, which aims 'to improve user experience by certifying reliable producers of health and social care information', would go a long way to ensure quality and exchange of information.  However, the implications of enabling the diverse range of organisations providing information to achieve the Kitemark could be huge unless they found some mechanism of helping the smaller organisations. She also discussed the issues around syndication.

Some of these themes, and others identified at the event, are likely to be picked up at future Health SIG meetings.  Topics for TFPL Connect SIG events are selected by the members and suggestions via the blog or to lucy.frost@tfpl.com or vivienne.winterman @tfpl.com are welcomed.

Angela Abell

Senior Associate Consultant

Government information in the Google Age

An interesting seminar at the British Library on 2 November.  The event was co-organised by CILIP’s Government Libraries and Information Group, SCOOP and The British Library.  A number of good points were raised throughout the day, but the comments which really struck a chord with us were:

• An emphasis on the speed and frequency of change affecting those who produce and use government information - Natalie Ceeney reminded us of just how much change there has been at The National Archives over the last four years, much of it in response to the challenges (and the opportunities) posed by the Google Age.  Of course, it’s not just government information that is and has been changing, the rest of the information world has been equally affected.

• The World Wide Web is 15 years old in a week or so - on the one hand, 15 years has flown by, on the other, the scale of change is incredible in only 15 years.  The way we interact with each other, with our employers and employees, with business and with government has been completely transformed.  Many of us can easily remember the world before the Internet, but we just forget how far and how fast we have travelled.  I’d add mobile telecoms as another important driver for change (or perhaps it’s just another facet of the Google Age).

• The ‘Google Age’ is potentially a real challenge to the concept of information literacy.  How many people really understand the strengths and the weaknesses of Google?  The percentage of people who use only one or two keywords to search, and who never bother to use the Advanced Search functionality is scary - Google indexes only the first three levels of content so the many websites which require the user to drill down four or five levels contain vast amounts of content that will never be found by the average user.  In a world where people default to Google when searching for information there is a real risk that we will lose the skills to find and evaluate information effectively.

All in all, much food for thought and a real reminder of how much the information landscape has changed in a relatively short time.

Melanie Goody & Luisa Jefford