Category Archives: Web Content Management

Millennials in The Lab…

Those born between 1980 and 2000 now tend to be described as Millennials following a survey in which thousands of them chose this in preference to terms such as Generation Y.

kids_textingMy eldest daughter falls into this category and it is both interesting and daunting to see her embrace communication and web technologies. She is already extremely computer literate and not fazed by the processes of creating and communicating web based content via social networks.

In my professional life I am seeing clear generational divides. The Millennials take to the content management system and processes I have been introducing into the organisation like ducks to water and want to do more and more. The Generation Xer’s are a different matter and find the idea of being empowered to publish content on the web as a daunting prospect and struggle to adapt to the technology without plenty of hand holding.

 As the web became part of job role early in my career I guess I am closer to the Millennials in terms of experiences with the web than with a typical Generation Xer – however I’m sure my daughter would disagree.

When I was taking a surf down memory lane recently I came across the Alcatel-Lucent Lab. This is an interesting resource that researches a range of technology topics with a broad cross section of younger Millennials.

Some recent research that caught my eye was a study into the iPhone user experience amongst teenagers. Unsurprisingly it shows that there is a lot right about the user interface but also that the on-screen keyboard makes texting difficult as it provides no touch indication of input. As the article observes, and as I have witnessed in the past with my nephew, many teenagers can text without looking at the screen just by their familiarisation with a keypad layout and the number of clicks to the required letter. These are skills obviously learnt in many a boring lesson or lecture 🙂

Fighting the past…

As a hardened web veteran I tend to take the view that nothing is new. For example, all the core elements of today’s massively popular social networks were seen in the first generations of business collaboration solutions back in the mid to late 90s.

Having struggled at that time to get people actively interested and empowered to create and manage web content with early content management systems, I was impressed with the speed with which collaborative solutions such as eRoom (acquired by Documentum – now owned by EMC) and IBM Quickplace (now IBM Lotus Quickr) gained user adoption.

It was all about making online communication easy, productive and useful for non-technical people.

Solutions like eRoom found their way into organisations during the 90s dotcom boom as point solutions for helping to manage communication around projects. Because users had positive experiences with these solutions their usage spread quite rapidly from the ground up and by the time the IT managers got wind of them they were too established to stop or ignore.

sharepoint_areasThis was a great business model that Microsoft latched onto subsequently with SharePoint and although its first offering in 2001 was criticised for poor usability, the 2003 release of Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) 2.0 and Portal Server, where WSS was bundled in free with Windows Server, created just the effect Microsoft was looking for and SharePoint adoption spread rapidly within many organisations.

I liked the 2003 version of SharePoint for all the reasons I liked the products that were its inspiration. As a non-technical ‘power user’ it empowered me to capture information concerning projects, put some context around it and communicate that around the business in a way that encouraged and enabled feedback and engagement.

Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS) and WSS 3.0 improved on the usability issues of the second version, added in wiki and blog capabilities and, in essence provided the toolkit to create business orientated ‘social networks’ within organisations.

So, why then, having been a long term advocate of business collaboration and also the SharePoint offering in recent years did I find myself underwhelmed and quite disappointed with SharePoint when I revisted it again recently?

A couple of days ago I signed up for the new Microsoft BPOS European trial and set about creating a sample intranet site that showcased the key capabilities available in the SharePoint solution, from document management, image libraries and team workspaces to more complex functionality using the core ‘list/form building’ capabilities. (There is a great summary of BPOS pros and cons by a former colleague of mine here)

It was during this experience that the reason Microsoft invested in Facebook became all too apparent – besides any potential for being the next big online advertising platform, Facebook  is just so much easier and pleasurable to use for doing what are essentially the same processes of building a collaborative environment as SharePoint. Added to this is morphing of social network environments into what some commentators are describing as ‘the new e-mail’.

Once again I think this illustrates the continuing challenge Microsoft has in moving on from its heritage as primarily a desktop pc software provider.

The iPhone demonstrates quite starkly how wrong Windows Mobile is and likewise, the myriad of web native solutions spawned under the moniker of ‘web 2.0’ show just how awkward and cumbersome some of the most established software solutions are when the playing field is levelled to what can be done in a web browser alone.

Having spent some time in a software development role I have some insight into the challenges presented by trying to evolve a solution into something more current and relevant. For example, changing a product that was designed primarily for managing one website in one language or allowing content to be published without workflow or a deployment process are not straightforward or quick to do if those requirements were never conceived when the product was first designed.

Multiply that by the size and complexity of the Microsoft organisation and it is no surprise that its solutions sometimes feel restrained, tired and dated compared to those not weighed down by such baggage and designed with the current platform in mind as opposed to older device and network access.