http://blogs.msdn.com/joelo/archive/2007/03/16/information-architecture-and-the-information-architect.aspx

Though Joel’s post is essentially discussing the deployment of Microsoft Sharepoint in an Enterprise environment its essentially questioning the very core of what is an Intranet environment for any content management! Not only deloying technology but past/current Intranet structures too on whatever CMS!

Noted painfully is the central question missed time and time again of  “Who actually owns an Intranet?”. Large organisations inherently contain internal power struggles between various departments as a matter of course, but to miss the potential glue between these with a misconfigured and misunderstood “Intranet” is not only costly in technology itself, but also collaborative and  potential productivity that can be gained from having one in the first place. Siloed information architecture and strategy is the exact opposite of these key tenants.

Why do companies have an Intranet? Mostly because someone somewhere managed to convince those with the purse strings that it would increase these key tenants of collaboration and productivity or simply just in having a centralised communicative point. “Rhetorically” … why then are these points in their entirety lost and never fulfilled?

Why? I dunno … say you’re trying to make a tag cloud or something but it’s full of filler words!

Articles are “a”, “an” and “the” only for English. Verbs and adjectives, well that’ll be down to what you’re up to I guess?!

The JavaScript (in this case utilising Microsoft’s JScript) runs over the table displayed pulling out the relevant data and exporting into the instantiated copy of Excel. This is a working example based loosely on Microsoft’s http://support.microsoft.com/kb/234774 Knowledgebase Article “How to automate Excel from an HTML Web page by using JScript”.

Worth noting is that the garbage collection between the JScript and MS Excel doesn’t work too well and more often than not one can be left with the instantiated copy of MS Excel still in memory (see it in the Task Manager). One must manually remove these instances.

Perhaps dynamically inputting a module to clean up from within MS Excel on the workbook deactivating might clear this up – not tried this though!?

Organisations however, are not cohesive bodies with unified needs or interests; instead they are formed by individuals, each with their own intrinsic self-interest and motivations for working within the framework of an organisation. Organisational expectations when broadly defined conflict with the behaviour of users. Users’ expectations are practical, organisations expectations strategic ultimately providing an inherent tension between these different formulations of expectation.

The expectations then that organisations have of Intranets introduce inherent conflicts in their function. Intranets are expected to do several things simultaneously under the umbrella of a single resource: to merge the communicative function and the informative function; to do things cheaper and do things better; to disseminate new information and store old information.

Organisations often expect Intranets to take over existing functions, such as the dissemination of information without affecting the nature of those functions. For example, paper resources migrated to Intranets with little or no modification.

Ensuing Information Wasteland

Strategic expectations of organisations then create conflict in the implementation of Intranets from the tension between the qualities of information; a confusion between the communicative function and an informative function.

This single platform for all information needs becomes a confusing aggregate of differing types of information with different functions and different characteristics, all presented to the user as if they are of the same value – confusing end user expectations of information retrieval and in turn deflating the original assumption that an Intranet will “either save money, enhance efficiency or both”!

An examination of these “end-user” expectations are required to enable alignment with organisational expectations.

Through utlising ActiveX you can instantiate a copy of MS Excel in memory to add in your own custom headers etc. prior to exporting your MS Access dataset into the worksheet.

The below code example shows you how to add 5 custom headers to your sheet. Just add in your own SQL query where it is indicated.

Clocked this on Tuesday night and thought it was a mistake with my setup or someone at google had screwed something up and it’d flip back – but no! Here we are and I’ve either gone mad or the margin is here to stay! I find it quite disconcerting to behonest.

Nah! Here’s to progressive development. Change is a good thing. . .  even if it’s some whitespace!

Set WSHShell = WScript.CreateObject(”WScript.Shell”)
‘ home page URL
StartPage = “http://www.yaduk.co.uk”
WSHShell.RegWrite “HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page”, StartPage
WSHShell.RegWrite “HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Start Page”, StartPage

Stick in a text file with the extension .vbs

Intranet information retrieval requires more often than not implicit end-user understanding to the nature and location of information sought since architecturally information organically mirrors organisational layout rather than information ‘typing’. Semantic linkage and intelligible meta data unfortunately take a back seat. As a result it is commonplace for “Intranet” users to consider Intranets an unresponsive technology in respect to finding and utilising information in their day to day jobs. One of the tenants to having an organisational Intranet in the first place!

For the majority, Intranet information retrieval issues are born from how individuals have learned ‘web technology interaction’ from the Internet. Bringing learned behaviours with them, end-users directly influence the effectiveness of organisational Intranets. For developers, Intranets should then be considered essentially as “socio-technical” devices requiring understanding of end-user interaction in the dissemination and retrieval of information.

It must be said that Internet users have a humungous resource from which they can narrow down something of interest or a link to a site of value in their quest. Within an Intranet environment this same search strategy fails due to the need for a defined information nugget rather as a rough guestimate.

Intranet Strategy – An holistic approach

Varying academic studies detail the extent of which Intranet implementation and use within individual organisations has significant implications for organisational performance. A key component in that performance is “technology adoption in the workplace [and its acceptance being directly] influenced [...] individual differences, social influences, beliefs, attitudes, and situational influences.” (Lee, S., & Kim, B.).

Evidence that organisations are “cultures, tribes, political battlegrounds, networks, [...]” (Checkland & Scholes, 1990); non-deterministic open systems, directly refutes the traditional deterministic approach to information systems development.

Organisations generally are viewed as “unitary systems with coherent purposes and goals rather than collections of people with many (sometimes conflicting) concerns”, (Clarke & Lehaney, 1997), in turn influencing the traditional approach that systems are – “autonomous purpose-directed systems […] with predetermined goals or sets of goals”, (Introna, 1996). These “hard systems” define objectives, modelled and measured against declared criteria, in an attempt to fulfil information needs and organisational goals.

“Soft systems” thinking, in comparison, gives credence to user perceptions and interaction, allowing us to understand underlying causal factors in Intranet complexity and their use. Examining and understanding these factors and their impact assists movement towards effective distribution and retrieval of information.

The intrinsic qualities of organisations generate a complex relationship between information creation, dissemination and use by end users – expectations of success of business strategies, information systems and people themselves disseminating and retrieving information impact on the implementation and use of an Intranet.

Important Intranet Considerations

Information systems are socio-technical systems requiring an understanding not only of technical/information infrastructure, but in the case of an Intranet, the end-user and how they inherently interact with the interface that is an Intranet.

Taking a view of “human computer interaction” in not only technology but also the overlying information, the process of Intranet information systems development and their inherent issues can much more readily be appreciated.

The predominant influence on Intranet use is learnt a priori from “outside-of-organisation” use of the Internet. When users come to Intranets, they do not usually experience the whole resource, but sub-sections of it, the parts they frequent regularly. It is therefore, imperitive that Intranets be designed with these factors in mind, limiting the scope of the resource as it is presented to each individual user, yet bringing those parts to the fore that are required habitually.

Significantly, a causal factor of Intranet failure is a distinct lack of process governance in content handling with the accuracy and relevance of information often going unchecked. Consequently content structuring ends up disparate across sub-sections leading to contrasting navigation systems independent from content types which in turn compounds retrieval issues.

The inability then to find information directly impacts “carrying out tasks and activities” and ultimately reduces productivity around the use of information disseminated through an Intranet. Addressing user expectations in their use of an organisational Intranet will aid in their alignment with any overall organisational strategy.

What are these? Well … email to find out! Taking stock of HCI: Human Computer Interaction against human interfaces is key to any ‘application’! – Hmm? What’s an Intranet or Internet interface? …… Hmm..!!?

Checkland, P. & Scholes, J. (1990). “Soft systems methodology in action“. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons.

Clarke, S. & Lehaney, B. (1997). “Critical approaches to information systems development: Some practical implications“. In Stowell, F., Ison, R., Holloway, R., Jackson, S. & McRobb, S., (Eds.), “Systems for sustainability: People, organisations and environments“, 333–337. New York: Plenum.

Introna, L. D. (1996). “Notes on ateological information systems development“. Information Technology & People, 9, 20–39.

Lee, S., & Kim, B. (2009, January). “Factors affecting the usage of intranet: A confirmatory study. Computers in Human Behavior”, 25(1), 191-201. Retrieved January 13, 2009, doi:10.1016/j.chb.2008.08.007