1. Sebastian Crump Bronze

    IT at Central Office of Information

    19 September 2007 10:55am

    avatar We are starting a procurement process and planning to introduce a new CMS for our Intranet. Does anyone have any useful lessons we could learn from? We're looking for something platform neutral, so Sharepoint has been discounted/excluded.

    Also, we are keen to introduce some web 2.0 technologies. Does anyone have any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) about the benefits and/or difficulties of doing this, particularly in an internal context.

    Finally, we are looking for how to explain the concepts and benefits of CMS to non-technical stakeholders. I'm just starting the research into and writing of this so pointers and links would be useful.

    Thanks in advance if anyone can help.
  2. Robin Smith

    Business Development Manager at Auros

    20 September 2007 09:15am

    avatar

    Hi Sebastian

    The first thing to consider is what tier you are looking to procure from.  In essence there are three tiers:

    1) Enterprise - Interwoven, Fat Wite, Morello, Vignette etc

    2) Middle Tier - Immediacy, Contensis, EasySite, RedDot (pricing more tier 1)

    3) In-house solutions - Agency organic builds, Pepperio etc

    We have a requirements document that we have compiled over the last few years which may be of interest.  It lists 100+ questions we are frequently asked, when tendering for the provision of a new CMS.

    If you would like to chat further, drop me a line.

    Regards
    Robin Smith

    Business Development Manager

    www.auros.co.uk

     


    On 10:55:08 19 September 2007 SebastianCrump wrote:

     

    We are starting a procurement process and planning to introduce a new CMS for our Intranet. Does anyone have any useful lessons we could learn from? We're looking for something platform neutral, so Sharepoint has been discounted/excluded.

    Also, we are keen to introduce some web 2.0 technologies. Does anyone have any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) about the benefits and/or difficulties of doing this, particularly in an internal context.

    Finally, we are looking for how to explain the concepts and benefits of CMS to non-technical stakeholders. I'm just starting the research into and writing of this so pointers and links would be useful.

    Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

     

  3. Dan Frydman Bronze

    Managing Director at Inigo Media Ltd

    21 September 2007 10:43am

    avatar

    Hi Sebastian, we managed a deployment for a small public sector organisaton with our own content management solution which they were already familiar with, as they had used it for their main website.

    We then integrated WordPress into the overall look of the intranet to give it that web 2.0 community content feel.

    The main content providers (heads of departments and outreach) within the organisation use the CMS, while everyone else has access to put up their own blog news postings. This can range from internal news about the way they do business to which pub they're all going to after work on Friday.

    We were a little skeptical about the take up of the blog element, but it seems that there's a posting every couple of days and it really is the homepage for everyone within the organisation.

    The development from here is to give everyone within the organisation space to say something about themselves and list any of their blog postings. We're looking at Elgg to enable this, as it's important for us to stay within the PHP/MySQL environment to transfer data.

    Hope that's on the right track.

    Dan Frydman
    Managing Director
    Inigo Media | http://www.inigo.net

  4. Sebastian Crump Bronze

    IT at Central Office of Information

    21 September 2007 10:56am

    avatar

    Thanks, very useful Dan.

  5. Kelvin Jones Bronze

    CEO at Adaptive Works Ltd

    21 September 2007 14:07pm

    avatar Hi Sebastien,

    From my experience, Intranets work best when they are kept as simple as possible.

    5 years ago a former employer of mine did an intranet for a large UK charity. Every department wanted a section, and all the people in all the departments wanted their own page to explain what they did. In theory, it could have been an interesting place to get information, but in reality it turned into a monotlithic mess which nobody used.

    For an intranet to be successful it must be used by people on (roughly) a day-to-day basis. Putting information up there that can be used everyday, e.g. a phone book or a blog (as Dan suggested), will give you a greater chance of implementing a successful intranet.

    Sorry, no suggestions for any CMS's, as (a techies favourite answer coming up) it depends.

    Bon chance.

    Kelv.

    On 10:55:08 19 September 2007 SebastianCrump wrote:

     

    We are starting a procurement process and planning to introduce a new CMS for our Intranet. Does anyone have any useful lessons we could learn from? We're looking for something platform neutral, so Sharepoint has been discounted/excluded.

    Also, we are keen to introduce some web 2.0 technologies. Does anyone have any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) about the benefits and/or difficulties of doing this, particularly in an internal context.

    Finally, we are looking for how to explain the concepts and benefits of CMS to non-technical stakeholders. I'm just starting the research into and writing of this so pointers and links would be useful.

    Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

     

  6. Uta Niendorf Bronze

    Organisational Design Architect at Skandia

    19 November 2007 17:45pm

    avatar

    Hi Robin

    as we are just going through the same process of vendor selection I would be very interested in your requirements document.

    Thanks,

    Uta

    On 09:15:16 20 September 2007 robinsmith wrote:

     

    Hi Sebastian

    The first thing to consider is what tier you are looking to procure from.  In essence there are three tiers:

    1) Enterprise - Interwoven, Fat Wite, Morello, Vignette etc

    2) Middle Tier - Immediacy, Contensis, EasySite, RedDot (pricing more tier 1)

    3) In-house solutions - Agency organic builds, Pepperio etc

    We have a requirements document that we have compiled over the last few years which may be of interest.  It lists 100+ questions we are frequently asked, when tendering for the provision of a new CMS.

    If you would like to chat further, drop me a line.

    Regards
    Robin Smith

    Business Development Manager

    www.auros.co.uk

     


    On 10:55:08 19 September 2007 SebastianCrump wrote:

     

    We are starting a procurement process and planning to introduce a new CMS for our Intranet. Does anyone have any useful lessons we could learn from? We're looking for something platform neutral, so Sharepoint has been discounted/excluded.

    Also, we are keen to introduce some web 2.0 technologies. Does anyone have any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) about the benefits and/or difficulties of doing this, particularly in an internal context.

    Finally, we are looking for how to explain the concepts and benefits of CMS to non-technical stakeholders. I'm just starting the research into and writing of this so pointers and links would be useful.

    Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

     

     

  7. Robin Smith

    Business Development Manager at Auros

    19 November 2007 17:48pm

    avatar

    Hi Uta

     

    If you drop me an email, I will send it across.

     

    robin.smith<at sign>auros.co.uk

    Reobin

    On 17:45:00 19 November 2007 utaniendorf wrote:

     

    Hi Robin

    as we are just going through the same process of vendor selection I would be very interested in your requirements document.

    Thanks,

    Uta

    On 09:15:16 20 September 2007 robinsmith wrote:

     

    Hi Sebastian

    The first thing to consider is what tier you are looking to procure from.  In essence there are three tiers:

    1) Enterprise - Interwoven, Fat Wite, Morello, Vignette etc

    2) Middle Tier - Immediacy, Contensis, EasySite, RedDot (pricing more tier 1)

    3) In-house solutions - Agency organic builds, Pepperio etc

    We have a requirements document that we have compiled over the last few years which may be of interest.  It lists 100+ questions we are frequently asked, when tendering for the provision of a new CMS.

    If you would like to chat further, drop me a line.

    Regards
    Robin Smith

    Business Development Manager

    www.auros.co.uk

     


    On 10:55:08 19 September 2007 SebastianCrump wrote:

     

    We are starting a procurement process and planning to introduce a new CMS for our Intranet. Does anyone have any useful lessons we could learn from? We're looking for something platform neutral, so Sharepoint has been discounted/excluded.

    Also, we are keen to introduce some web 2.0 technologies. Does anyone have any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) about the benefits and/or difficulties of doing this, particularly in an internal context.

    Finally, we are looking for how to explain the concepts and benefits of CMS to non-technical stakeholders. I'm just starting the research into and writing of this so pointers and links would be useful.

    Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

     

     

     

  8. James Lewis Bronze

    Project Manager at Project Partnerships

    18 January 2008 15:07pm

    avatar

    Seb,

    It's been too long.  We must meet for lunch soon!   Clearly I'm probably too late  but I wanted to suggest that you don't exclude open source.  I'm just about to start building an intranet and website using Umbraco (http://www.umbraco.org/).  This is a .net solution (your AJAX down at Hercules if I remember)  but I'm sure the principle that you don't have to shell out a lot of cash holds for that framework too.  You just need some talented developers!

    Al the best,

    James

     

     


    On 10:55:08 19 September 2007 SebastianCrump wrote:

     

    We are starting a procurement process and planning to introduce a new CMS for our Intranet. Does anyone have any useful lessons we could learn from? We're looking for something platform neutral, so Sharepoint has been discounted/excluded.

    Also, we are keen to introduce some web 2.0 technologies. Does anyone have any evidence (anecdotal or otherwise) about the benefits and/or difficulties of doing this, particularly in an internal context.

    Finally, we are looking for how to explain the concepts and benefits of CMS to non-technical stakeholders. I'm just starting the research into and writing of this so pointers and links would be useful.

    Thanks in advance if anyone can help.

     

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