Technology in the Public Sector

MCMS MetaManager

cScape have released a factsheet of their MetaManager for Microsoft Content Management Server. The MetaManager has been rolled out for cScape customers in Local Government, but could be used by any organisation using MCMS that has a need for enhanced metadata management and utilisation. The product is particularly relevant to any public body looking to comply with e-Governement Metadata Standards.

Early hint at Cabinet Office digital transformation strategy

From eGov Monitor:

"The e-government minister has pointed to a greater focus on customer oriented e-government services, shared services and IT professionalism.

Speaking during a Westminster Hall debate last week, Cabinet Office minister Jim Murphy said there were four challenges in the implementation of the Cabinet Office's digital transformation strategy, due in November - ambition, efficiency, delivery and relevancy."

Full article: http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/3156

Speech from Jim Murphy: http://www.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/about_the_cabinet_office/speeches/murphy/html/customer_centric_gov.asp

IT impact on productivity: 'substantial and quantifiable'

Technology investment has a substantial and quantifiable impact on business productivity, according to a series of reports from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and the London School of Economics (LSE).

According to the ONS, manufacturing companies in the UK achieve an extra 2.2 per cent in productivity for each additional 10 per cent of employees using computers. In newer firms, this extra productivity effect rises to 4.4 per cent.

The effect associated with internet use is greater, with productivity rises of 2.9 per cent being achieved for each additional 10 per cent of employees using the Internet. Again, for newer firms the effect is larger.

Interestingly, one piece of research shows that US owned firms in the UK are more successful in exploiting Information Technology (IT) compared to all other firms, and IT accounts for much of their productivity advantage.

The title of the research report - 'It ain’t what you do, it’s the way that you do I.T.' - sums up pretty well the growing recognition within Government that you can't just throw IT at business problems and expect it to work.

The way IT is deployed within the business is vital to success and it appears that we've a lot to learn from the States about how this is done.

Intranets click into place

A short but interesting article on the rising profile of the corporate intranet (PDF -24Kb). Published by the FT, but made available on the Intranet Benchmarking Forum's website.

I particularly like the example of the BBC, who estimate they have saved £1.7M by putting taxi bookings through the intranet.

It shows that the benefits of an intranet can be as much about the small everyday issues of business as the high-minded ideals of knowledge management and collaboration. Small savings on frequently executed (and yes mundane) transactions like cab booking, or expense claims can also deliver ROI.

Search log analysis

A useful article on search log analysis from Lou Rosenfeld (known for his popular 'polar bear' O'reilly book on Information Architecture).

The queries that users type into the search box on your intranet or internet site are a valuable source of information - telling you what your users are looking for and what they find hard to locate by browsing.

Among other things, Rosenfeld's article discusses how search log analysis can be used to identify 'best bets' - a real quick win for improving search results (and an in-built feature of the SharePoint search).

If this technique is old news for you there is also an interesting discussion of the 'long tail' of lesser searched terms.

MondoSoft provide an application known as the BehaviourTracker, which analyses search logs for their own search product (MondoSearch). BehaviourTracker also works with products like SharePoint.

A slightly cruder approach for SharePoint owners is to analyse the IIS logs from a SharePoint Portal for page requests for the search page.

Full article: http://louisrosenfeld.com/home/bloug_archive/000382.html

Accessibility toolbar

I've been using the accessibility toolbar from Accessible Information Solutions for a while now and I've found it an invaluable little tool.

It's a browser add-on that allows you to quickly do all those tests on a web-page that are fiddly to do manually. The toolbar lets you perform technical accessibility tests on the current page in your browser. You can check the validity of mark-up, see what metadata the page has, what it looks like without stylesheets or when the browser is sized to 800 x 600  etc.

Automating IPSV

Search specialists Open Objects recently released a new web service that provides automatic IPSV classification when passed page content or a URL for a page.

We've tried integrating this service and a simmilar service from Cintra with our metadata component for MCMS and at first glimpse they look to be pretty useful.

Having struggled with the problem of how to get authors in a devolved content management to consistently categorise information when faced with 2,700 potential categories I've overcome my initial scepticism about automated approaches. Although not so much that I'd recommend automatically tagging your entire site!

Our approach in CMS was semi-manual. On the metadata screen, which appears after a page is submitted, we used these services to narrow the possible IPSV categories in the select-box down from 2,700 to a manageable few that the author could then pick from, or ignore and make their own choice from the full list.

Details on Open Object's IPSV recommender

Details on Cintra's Searchlight

Access to both services is available on a subscription basis.

Driving SharePoint user adoption

'4 Guidelines to drive SharePoint user adoption ' is a useful article from Gary Smith (Winapp Technology) on how to encourage users to adopt a SharePoint portal. I found it on Mark Harrison's ever-useful blog.

Getting users on your side is central to the success of a portal implementation. Nobody wants to end up with a 'SharePoint of the living dead'.

Garry argues that there are at least 2 natural disincentives for the information worker to centralise and share information:

• Indispensable users have developed considerable powerbases and positions of authority in the organization precisely because they have access to information that no-one knows or is able to find.
• It is simply a bother and takes too much time to keep submitting things to a portal, without even mentioning metadata etc. Most users are happier saving documents where ever and whenever they please.

So accordingly, the primary goal for every portal project should be to drive users to adopt SharePoint as the place to complete all their information work. And Gary provides 4 guidelines for achieving this.

1. Assimilate key users first.
2. Duplicate content is the enemy of the portal.
3. Authors don't care about consumers.
4. Productive users = successful portal

The four points are fairly solid and explained in detail in the article that leaves the reader with few questions.

Whether these 4 are the main issues in getting buy in is debatable. My Number 1 would be 'ensure your portal makes users more effective in their roles' – then its very difficult for them not to adopt it, unless they want to get left behind.

Survey shocker: public attitudes to ICT in public service are 'complex'

A new report from The Work Foundation - What ICT? Providing more customer-focused services (PDF 407kb) - examines attitudes to public services and the role of ICT in delivering them.

The report is based on a telephone survey of 1,000 adults and backed up by focus groups that compared the views of low and high income participants.

For me the report held few surprises. Who would be surprised that:

• People become more enthusiastic about using technology as the technology improves and they get familiar with how it works;
• People recognise that the introduction of technology is not always about raising the quality of service (the comment from one participant that: "Social services don’t do old ladies’ shopping any more – they say people can shop on the internet." doesn't need to be true to reflect many of our fears about where the efficiency agenda and eGovernment is leading us);
• People are more inclined to undertake simple transactions online, like paying council tax, than complex and potentially privacy-jeopardising tasks like getting a diagnosis from a doctor?

The findings may not be earth-shattering, but they still demand to be understood and addressed.

There is a lot of truth in the authors' observation that: "ICT is developing so rapidly that findings today about preferred methods of interaction may be out of date next year." In fact it's tempting to simply think that things will just change over time through a 'natural' process of technology evolution and assimilation.

Unfortunately it's unlikely to be that easy! A genuine sea change in the way public services are delivered (in a part enabled by ICT), requires leadership and innovation on the part of the people delivering them, as well as a genuine value proposition for the public. Otherwise, the rather dismal figure, cited in the report, of less than 20% uptake of online services is unlikely to change dramatically.

Office 12 - six benefits of the new open XML format

The next version of Microsoft Office will use an XML-based file format as the default format for saving Office documents.

The new file format will save pieces of a document, such as Word document or PowerPoint presentation in several XML files, which are then organised into a single ZIP-compressed package file.

Why is this such a good thing? Here are six likely advantages: 

1. Smaller file sizes - the use of the popular ZIP compression technologies to store documents should reduce their size making them easier to store and transport over email, web etc.
2. Better recovery - because of the number of data recovery technologies already targetting the ZIP format, corrupted files should be easier to recover.
3. Easier to check for malware - the new format should be easier to scan for viruses and other security hazards.
4. Better re-use - an open, documented XML schema will be easier to convert to other formats, such as compliant XHTML for access via a web browser.
5. Machine-readable business documents - the new format will make it easier to develop templates that effectively allow users to create XML documents using familiar tools like Word. These documents may be invoices, order forms etc., which can be read by business applications as well as being human-readable.
6. Improved searchability - the open standards will make it easier for search engine vendors to create effective search technologies to help your business manage and retrieve documents.

Office 12 will continue to support the old Office file formats and over time there are likely to be patches to allow earlier versions of Office to work with the new format.

Links:

A viewpoint from CMS Watch

InfoWorld article (includes explanation of file format from MS's senior XML architect Jean Paoli)