Cliffe Associates Ltd

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Constructive debate is an important component in healthy organizational dynamics. However, once a decision is made, the whole group needs to get on board and forge ahead. An organization can’t afford to have an IT group mired in its own political quagmire. The CIO must make clear the organization priorities and insist that the whole of the group move toward that goal. Benny Sisko shares with you one story of IT infighting gone bad.

A friend of mine recently took a break from his daily routine to do some consulting for a few days. Specifically, he helped another organization roll out a new email infrastructure based on Exchange. The company was running a different system and is in the process of moving toward a Microsoft stack. Prior to his onsite visit in early May, my friend helped the organization design the new Exchange-based infrastructure after which they asked him to help them in person.

What did he find upon his arrival? There is significant infighting internally in the IT group with one group initially refusing to support a particular need. This refusal would have doomed the project, but after some wrangling, the refusing individual eventually relented and the project could move ahead. At this organization, Active Directory is apparently supported as a part of the overall responsibilities of the network group, while the Exchange system is supported by the applications group – these are different units within IT. As you know Exchange is heavily dependent on AD, so high levels of cooperation between the two groups are essential.

A little background: The company moved toward Exchange at the specific behest of the CEO and with the full support of the CIO, who also made it a priority project. There are good reasons for the migration and the merits of the migration are not discussed in this posting.

Continues @ http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/tech-manager/?p=1661

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The come-ons are everywhere-social media experts urging you to sign up now to unlock the secrets of social media success.

A typical example:

“Want to launch a revolutionary, buzz-building social media-based marketing campaign? You’re in the right place. As blog strategists, we develop revolutionary blog-based marketing programs and high-yield blog advertising campaigns that make marketing fun, generate great buzz, build your brand, and make you a respected part of the social media community.”

Indeed, there is no shortage of social media experts promising to help companies create killer social media campaigns that will rake in riches. They have sprouted up like dandelions.

And there’s the rub. A backlash has erupted against social media experts by those who see them as a growing horde of hustlers, pretenders, imposters, and charlatans.

The following sampling of headlines from across the Web reflects the ire and contempt being unleashed upon social media experts:

• “Invasion of the Social Media Experts”
• “What’s it take to be a social media expert? Not much, apparently”
• “Is There Really Such a Thing as a Social Media Expert”
• “Here an expert, there an expert…everywhere an expert”
• “Could Your Social Media “Expert” be a Fake?”
• “Will the real social media expert please stand up?”
• “You’re NOT a social media expert, you idiot”
• ” Social Media ‘Experts’ are the Cancer of Twitter (and Must Be Stopped)”
• “7 ways to spot a social media snake oil salesperson”
• “Top 25 Ways to Tell if Your Social Media Expert Is a Carpetbagger”

Continues @ http://www.ciozone.com

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Politics, lack of planning, overlooked details, and poor prioritizing can compromise your Web design or redesign effort. Justin James offers a simple roadmap to lead your project to a successful conclusion.

Time and time again, I have seen companies struggle with Web site design projects. Initial Web site design and redesigns of existing sites may each face a few different challenges, but overall, they are similar. My experience has been that these problems are not technical issues, but project management and cultural issues. Often, no one follows a game plan — they just blindly rush off and attempt to re/design the Web site with little forethought. On the other hand, I have also been through a number ofsuccessful Web site re/design projects (measured by, “Did we get a good-looking, usable Web site deployed in a reasonable amount of time?”). Here are some of the things I’ve learned to do that will help make any Web site design project go smoothly.

Note: This information is also available as a PDF download.

#1: Politely keep those who lack a clue out of the process

#2: Prototype on paper before coding

#3: Build your site map before you start designing

#4: Don’t worry about the home page or link names

#5: Forget about the content, too, while you’re at it…

#6: …But don’t let others forget about the content

#7: Organize the site around the users, not the organization

#8: Don’t overlook SEO, usability, and accessibility

#9: The details make the difference

#10: Have a game plan!

Continues @ http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/10things/?p=377

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important notice: this is the unabridged version of a post first published onbnet.co.uk

After a decade and a half of evangelisation by the likes of Seth Godin (re his book entitled: Permission Marketing) and those who followed in his footsteps, Marketers are now finally waking up to the idea that pre-formatted communications aren’t the right way to engage with customers (re Forrester’s Laura Ramos’s report on why Marketers, even in B2B have to get to grips with a new communications paradigm). So now is the time to hone these story-telling skills in your Marketing department and write valuable content for the Web. But what do I mean by valuable content? I mean content that brings value to your visitors, which could possibly initiate discussions, questions and comments (I’m talking about articulate comments, not cyber-babble).

In this article, I have expressed my views about writing for the web (also summed up in a creative commons slideshare presentation per below), based on what I have been able to implement successfully in the field over the past 15 years, in order to

find out how that can be done:

Step 1: the idea that web text has to be terse is not a good idea

It is often said that people don’t read on screens and that as a consequence you shouldn’t write long pages and keep long stories short. There are several reasons why this is not relevant:

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• Two Talks By Seth Godin (artistshousemusic.org)
• Seth Godin: Why tribes will change the world (morethanadvertising.com)

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