Presenting at Web Directions Government

After receiving some encouragement from John Allsopp, I’m presenting at Web Directions this year on the topic of knowledge management and social computing.

For many people, knowledge management is an IT system that sits somewhere and gobbles up documents. Some vendors claim that their Records Management System or their Document Management System will do all your knowledge management, and for us KM practitioners this focus away from people and to systems has led to nothing but trouble for a decade.

Knowledge management is, first and foremost, about people. It’s not about software. It’s about storytelling, having a coffee and sharing war stories, about getting together after a difficult project and doing “lessons learned”, and even about watching a video to learn techniques from other sporting teams. If you can get your people together to share the important bits inside their heads then you can ensure you’ve got ways to equip people with the information they need do successfully do their jobs in an information-demanding world.

The people-centric part is why the boom in social computing tools out of the Web 2.0-sphere is so exciting. In the modern world, people just don’t have lots of time to get together and chat, so a system that supports the way people tend to share information, that is, in a social-way, is vital.

Want to learn more? Come see me at Web Directions Government on 19-20 May at Old Parliament House, Canberra Australia.
M

Hands up if you’ve heard of IA?

A few years ago I would have been surprised if anyone in government knew what on earth IA was. At my recent “Intranets in Government” seminar, nearly all those attending knew what information architecture was, what it was for, and knew you needed it.

Bad information architecture is one of the core reasons intranets (or any other website for that matter) don’t work. When your staff throw up their hands like the robot from Lost in Space and say “I can’t find anything” it’s usually because the information architecture just isn’t a good fit for the information you’ve got, or for the users who want to consume it.

Intranets don’t meet our expectations because many sites are structurally poorly designed and just plain hard to use [1].

One of the tricks to getting intranets to work, as we discussed in the seminar, is to have an effective information architecture — that is (amongst other things) a good:

• classification scheme for your content – one that works for content producers as well as for those who are going to want to find the information
• site structure — one that allows users to quickly find information
• page skeleton – with good visual flow of information and consistent placing of widgets, like navigation, breadcrumbs, branding, etc, on each of the pages throughout the entire site

As the AGIMO Better Practice Guidelines say:

IA is the foundation of good website design. It is about planning where information and services will be located on the site in the most convenient and logical way for users. Effective IA helps ensure that sites meet [both] business and user needs.

If you’re intranet isn’t working for you, then it’s time to get thee to an IA!

M

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[1]. Head, A.J (2003) Why research intranets fail. Business & Finance Division Bulletin • Number 123. Spring 2003

The reading room

I’ve been fortunate enough to have been involved in a few publishing projects throughout my career. I’ve created a new page that lists these publications to give you the opportunity to purchase a copy for yourself and read and learn about things from the psychological to the webby.