J. Boye Aarhus 12 News

Excited to learn

November 7, 2012 | going mobile, online communication | No Comments

As a student at Information Science, Aarhus University, the sudden opportunity to attend a conference as the J. Boye Aarhus 12, is just like Christmas coming early this year.

I’ve recently started my job as the webmaster at J. Boye, which  goes perfectly with my studies at Aarhus University and my interests in web communication and the opportunities the internet in general provides for us.

Having a busy day at the University on Tuesday I sadly only had little time to spare at the first day of the Aarhus 12 conference. I would have loved to attend Matt Mullen’s ” Social Media Monitoring; Best Practises and Avoiding Pitfalls in Selection and Implementation” because of the great relevance for both my job and one of the classes I am currently attending; Web communication.

I hope to be able to attend some of Wednesday’s many exciting events. I especially am looking forward to “Going Mobile – Marketing” to hear what Mona Hellmann and Ole Nørgaard has to offer when it comes to reaching the most possible mobile users in a world of devices always connected to the never-resting internet.

In addition to “Going Mobile”, I am also very much looking forward to attend Claus Stadel Petersen & Dan Lewis’ speaches on “User Experience – Responsive Web Design”.

Not many in my position is as fortunate to get the opportunity that my job at J. Boye has given me. To attend a conference of this caliber, meeting some of the most skilled when it comes to web and intranet, has got to be the best way to combine job, personal interests, mystudies and to form the base of my future work in the same communities.

Looking forward to the case studies

November 6, 2012 | collaboration, intranet | No Comments

As I make my final preparations to travel to Denmark for J.Boye’s Aarhus 12 conference, I’ve been perusing the agenda to work out which are my not-to-be-missed sessions over the three days.

This is my second visit to this event, my first having been back in 2010, when I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of organisations who were keen to share their experiences. And once again, it’s the case studies that are catching my eye this year, notably Martin Risgaard Rasmussen who will be talking about the incremental approach to intranet deployment they’ve taken at Grundfos, Sharon O’Dea’s presentation on Standard Chartered’s mobile intranet strategy, and Dennis Agusi from Philips and Rosemary Amato from Deloitte who are presenting on community management and knowledge sharing respectively in the early afternoon session on Thursday.

I’m also hoping I arrive in time to catch Neil Morgan from Richemont, whose tutorial on Tuesday focuses on rethinking employee adoption of the intranet. Given my focus on social collaboration, I think it’s safe to say I’ll be mostly lurking in the intranet and collaboration tracks (I am speaking on the collaboration track on Thursday morning). I will report back after the event, but all in all, it looks as though it’s going to be a lively and interesting few days. I, for one, can’t wait..

Building an intranet for higher education

November 6, 2012 | higher education, intranet | No Comments

One of the many challenges facing higher education is an organizational structure and culture that is not conducive for success in the 21st century.  From a user perspective, the organizational structure in higher education often creates an environment where it is difficult to find information and creates confusing and disjointed communications.

The number one purpose of an intranet is to connect users with the information that they need.  In many higher education institutions, students, researchers, and administrative staff have to find relevant information and services in the numerous web sites of departments, centers, administrative centers, self- service portals, etc.

Collaboration, networking and stupid systems

November 5, 2012 | collaboration, networking | No Comments

I think it’s safe for me to label myself as a veteran J. Boye conference participant as this year’s conference will be my fifth one and like the four previous ones, I once again find myself looking forward to meet old and new friends. Particularly the “meeting new friends” part is one of the things that sets this conference apart from many other events as the J. Boye team has always been doing a fantastic job as busy bees introducing delegates to one another, thus planting seeds for rapidly growing networks among fellow online professionals.

Apart from giving my own presentation as a part of the intranet conference track, I have also been given the opportunity to host a roundtable about social networking and the intranet. This provides an opportunity not only to share some of my own experiences but also to learn from others what works and what doesn’t – a great way to share in a more informal setting and hopefully get some ideas that can be used when you get back from the conference.

Thursday will be my day as a delegate and I will mainly be following the collaboration conference track where I’m particularly interested in hearing how Philips and Capgemini have succeeded in creating internal communities in a global organization. Usually I reserve time to attend one session that is a little outside my normal work area and with a lot of interesting topics to choose from this year I think my vote goes to “Stupid Bloody System”. Having read about the book (and tried in vain to track it down the last couple of times I’ve been in Sweden) this sounds like the perfect combination of work and fun!

Findwise: An enterprise search consultancy

November 2, 2012 | enterprise search, findability, search | No Comments

Where do you turn if you really need to get enterprise search to work? If you’ve read the analyst reports, the blogs and books on search, have heard the conference presentations and are ready to get started?

So far, the typical choice has been to turn to the many eager software vendors who will offer you the latest and greatest version of their search product. If you already had a search engine, well, you could go on and start over.

Alternative options have been limited and usually involved either agencies or system integrators, neither of which tend to have a particularly strong focus on enterprise search in their practice.

I’ll just go mobile then!

November 1, 2012 | going mobile, user experience, UX | No Comments

At the moment, it’s “All about mobiles, stupid” (a slight re-phrasing of Bill Clintons “It’s the economy, stupid”). Mobile is becoming an increasingly important competitive factor, which is why my conference participation is going to be almost all about mobile.

We are in the centre of The Mobile Revolution. Still, many haven’t discovered that it is hurting their business and annoying us – their costumers – when we cannot fulfil our top task on our mobile device. The Danish Broadcasting Corporation, DR went mobile a couple of weeks ago, and altered one of my top task: The TV guide. Now I can’t see what’s on tonight… I’ve found and alternative, and the main website, dr.dk lost a loyal visitor.

Ammunition for the UX fight

November 1, 2012 | user experience, UX | No Comments

In my role as Head of Web and Mobile Services at University College London, I am actively fighting the UX battle on a daily basis.

I’m fed up with people coming to me and saying they want a new design for their website because they don’t like the old one. No thought for what the users might think; in fact no thought even for who those users might be.  Add to that the fact that I sit in the IT department where use of words like ‘experience’ and ‘feelings’ are seen as being distinctly wishy-washy in comparison with good old tangible things like machines and cables.  So I’m really looking forward to being among people who don’t wonder if I’ve gone mad when I talk about ‘user experience’.

My first J. Boye conference

October 31, 2012 | digital workplace, going mobile | No Comments

When I first glanced through the programme of the J. Boye Aarhus 12 conference, my immediate reaction was excitement followed by just a hint of panic. Faced with a plethora of contributions from more than 60 world-class speakers, which tutorials should I choose and which conference tracks? Chances were that I might miss out on something.

Looking for social business answers

October 30, 2012 | digital workplace, enterprise social software, social business, social media | No Comments

Smörgåsbord 2.0 is the description that springs to mind when I’m looking forward to J. Boye Aarhus 12 as an Associate Professor, Ph. D student and Researcher at Aarhus University with a focus on social business and enterprise 2.0.

How to achieve a sustainable intranet development model?

October 29, 2012 | governance, intranet, intranet strategy | No Comments

The number of good ideas you could build and launch on the intranet is endless. Some are quick and easy to develop and even remove bottlenecks or solve real business problems. Other changes, whether it be design, navigation or something else might equally bring instant improvements in the user experience.

The trick is how do you determine in advance whether the idea is a winner or doomed to failure in your organization?

Make the most of J. Boye Aarhus 12

October 29, 2012 | learning, networking, sharing | No Comments

Conference Day #1, 6th November, marks the start of the formal conference programme. Conference participants will arrive in Aarhus from all over the World.

During the week, 60+ speakers will share their experiences in 10 tutorials and on 10 conference tracks. On top of that, the programme features 3 international keynotes, roundtables, panels, a vendor contest, social events and much more.

A week of learning, networking and sharing

Just like last year, we offer the kind of great facilities you’d expect: good catering, working wifi and we plan for record attendance. The Twitter conversation is already more active than usual. Stay tuned at #jboye12 and follow the speakers using this Twitter list.

For photos, we will be using the jboye12 tag on Flickr. At the moment most of the jboye12 photos are from the Philadelphia conference back in May, but hopefully you’ll add some of your photos – whether taken with a high-end camera or a smartphone

You can start the networking and see a listing of some of the participants on LinkedIn. The event is naturally also on Facebook. On both sites you can easily indicate your attendance.

Slides will be added throughout the event on the conference site. Some slides will be protected with a username and password for delegates only, while other speakers decide to upload their slides to SlideShare or simply make them freely available to all.

While in Aarhus, don’t miss the popular social events, which are excellent networking opportunities; delegates and speakers get together at some of Aarhus’ fine venues and the atmosphere is relaxed and informal.

Enjoy the outcomes of the event – whether you are attending in person or not!

PS: Thanks to Marianne Kay for the illustration!

Should the intranet be like an app store?

October 26, 2012 | collaboration, intranet | No Comments

You have worked hard and developed a number of useful features, cool applications and smart solutions for your intranet; an application for entering travel expenses, a personalized news-widget, a fantastic people-finder and many more. But do your colleagues around the organization know where on the intranet to go for what? Do they know which applications solve which tasks and how they use the various tools to work more effectively?

Most intranet managers are frustrated when they conduct user surveys and find that their colleagues simply don’t know which tools to use for what and where to find them. They spend endless hours trying to come up with the perfect navigation and the most logical menu structure. But it rarely works.

Splitter helps you go mobile

October 26, 2012 | can you fix it, going mobile, start-up | No Comments

Over the last couple of years, going mobile has crept to the top of the priority list in almost all organisations. Hardly a day goes by without some press coverage of a new smartphone or tablet device. The mobile possibilities are almost endless and the enterprise impact is tremendous.

Vendors of all types and sizes have been quick to spot this trend. Everyone from the most technical system integrators to the smartest design agencies and all the shapes and sizes in-between want to sell you their version of the mobile revolution. Unfortunately price and quality rarely go hand in hand, and it is easy to become dizzy with the myriad of services and products offered .

Social curation in action

October 25, 2012 | online communication, social media, storify | No Comments

For better or worse, social media is having a tremendous impact on the way news is distributed. Twitter in particular has become both the fast channel where news breaks and the easiest way of getting to the unfiltered voice of citizens. Coupled with photo sites such as Instagram, the way news casting (some would say journalism itself) works is once again changed by the Web.

Whether you work in media or elsewhere, the bigger trend that has recently surfaced is social curation. Basically this is about applying core journalistic skills to social media and using it as a new way of thinking and telling stories. All types of organisations that have a social media presence, whether a coffee chain, a windmill manufacturer, a local government body or something entirely different should be able to benefit from this.

The science of successful online collaboration

October 24, 2012 | collaboration, community management | No Comments

Successful online collaboration requires a deep understanding of your company’s culture and a lot of hard work on the ground. To really get it off the ground in a large organization takes much more than a decision and a bunch of new tools.

At Danish Biotech firm Novozymes, it was the R&D division under the ‘Innovation Office’ that took the lead, launched a collaborative online idea generation platform, and were quick to adopt and see results. At Philips the decision to go ahead, had the backing and buy-in at the very top of the organization, which meant that the project actually happened.

Share your intranet homepage

October 23, 2012 | intranet, user experience | No Comments

The intranet homepage is your single most important piece of intranet real estate. Changing it can be hard and feel like entering a minefield of potential problems. It can also be hard to find any useful inspiration as intranets remain locked behind the firewall.

If you would like to get some inspiration and feedback on how to improve your intranet homepage, please help us help you by sending us a screenshot of your intranet homepage. In return, we’ll feature some of the received entries on our blog as well as print them all and place them on an “intranet wall” at the intranet conference track.

Blogging for excitement, inspiration and learning

October 22, 2012 | blogging, higher education, online communication | No Comments

A major shift is gradually happening in online communication. The impact of the introduction of blogging might have been overhyped in the short-term, but it seems like we are only beginning to understand the changes and impact blogs are having overall.

In higher education, blogs are used for numerous things today: a modern alternative to press releases, collaboration on research and even doing strategy processes out in the open.

How to make a success of your CMS project

October 19, 2012 | analyst, CMS, wcm, web content management, web project management | No Comments

One of the common mistakes in CMS projects is to overinvest time and resources in the selection of the supposedly perfect system, while underinvesting in the actual usage of the CMS once implemented.

As content management systems have evolved into the platform behind most websites, an increasing number of the workforce are finding themselves having to work with the CMS on a daily basis. Unfortunately these tend to be undertrained and unprepared for the challenges and surprises that await them post-launch.

BBC News – now truly mobile

October 18, 2012 | going mobile, responsive design, user experience | No Comments

Although predictions vary as to when it will happen, at some point the number of people accessing the Web on mobile devices will overtake those on desktops.

The BBC News website has millions of weekly users worldwide and a rapidly growing percentage is accessing it on mobile devices. With an abundance of devices, and people’s increased online expectations, it has not become any easier or cheaper to deliver a good digital experience.

Sharing is caring in digital marketing

October 17, 2012 | blogging, digital marketing, sharing, social media | 1 Comment

According to the 2012 Edelman Trust Barometer, the credibility of CEO’s has experienced a serious drop in recent years. At the same time, most people have generally become less receptive to the usual corporate marketing messages, whether online or offline.

In the midst of this, a “person like me” trails only academics and technical experts as the most trustworthy credible spokespeople. What might this tell us about the future of digital marketing?

Does your organisation have “persons like me” or technical experts that are hidden away inside the organisation and could play a key external role in sharing useful and trustworthy information?

What's hot and what's not in enterprise social software?

October 16, 2012 | No Comments

In the last few years, social software has changed the face of the enterprise collaboration software market. But has it actually changed the way enterprise collaboration is conducted in organisations large and small?

Many organisations have dipped their toes in the water. Others have moved into the social collaborative space in a serious way and the verdict is out.

What’s hot and what’s not in enterprise social software?

October 16, 2012 | collaboration, enterprise social software, social business | No Comments

In the last few years, social software has changed the face of the enterprise collaboration software market. But has it actually changed the way enterprise collaboration is conducted in organisations large and small?

Many organisations have dipped their toes in the water. Others have moved into the social collaborative space in a serious way and the verdict is out.

Digital identities in higher education

October 15, 2012 | digital strategy, higher education, online communication, social media | No Comments

There has been a substantial change in the approach to online strategy over the past few years. Most notably with regards to the so-called social web, which has re-introduced the original Web concept of dialogue and read-write rather than broadcast and read-only, which had all but become the norm.

One of the industries that has felt this is higher education, where web professionals are struggling to develop digital identities for the many different stakeholders. As some have learned the hard way, if the digital presence is left unmanaged, it can potentially be damaging.

What is new at J. Boye Aarhus 12?

October 12, 2012 | sharing | No Comments

If you’ve participated in previous J. Boye conferences, you probably want to know what is new at J. Boye Aarhus 12?

While feedback from past conferences has been quite positive, we’ve actually implemented quite a few improvements this year.

How digital is changing government communication

October 11, 2012 | online communication, social media | No Comments

Digital is having a huge impact on how government works and how it interacts with citizens. Cost saving exercises such as creating self-serve solutions for everything from reporting taxes online to signing up for kindergarten are receiving the most attention, but digital is also causing more profound changes.

The increased usage of social media in particular is acting as a change agent leading to new demands on governmental organisations to respond to queries, crises and criticism in a live environment. Besides the technical challenges that comes with all these digital projects, new skills and new ways of working are required.

Multichannel marketing and analytics – an essential mix

October 10, 2012 | analytics, digital marketing, etailing | No Comments

In most sectors where the objective is “selling something”, whether electronics, clothes or travel, the traditional sellers are finding themselves squeezed by a multitude of “etailers” that move in as re-sellers of goods and services, but purely operate online. Competition becomes ever fiercer, margins squeezed and it becomes increasingly difficult to get the customer’s attention.

Touch-friendly top tasks

October 9, 2012 | going mobile, tutorial, user experience | No Comments

There is fundamental shift happening in terms of how people consume content and interact with and within the digital world. Using fingers on small screens challenges many of the user experience conventions that originates in the desktop world.

When it comes to mobil,e distinguishing between nice vs. need is crucial. First impressions matter even more, testing is vital and short is already too long.

Magus becomes ActiveStandards

October 8, 2012 | governance, partner, standards & technology | No Comments

As part of their continued growth plans, UK-based software company Magus rebranded in late September to ActiveStandards.

The company is known for their compliance and website standards offering and CEO and Founder Simon Lande is speaking at the J. Boye Aarhus 12 conference in November.

What is going on with enterprise search?

October 5, 2012 | enterprise search, findability, search, user experience, UX | No Comments

In recent years search has effectively disappeared off the radar. A global 2012 survey on enterprise search showed that when it comes to search, no strategy, no budget and no ressources is the norm.

Still, many complain that it is hard to find the right information and almost everybody expects that the amount of information will only continue to increase.

How do you avoid a 'knowledge sharing chaos'?

October 4, 2012 | No Comments

Internal knowledge sharing in the enterprise is being pushed and promoted as an area that can add great value to any organization. Facilitate, nurture and support a culture of sharing ideas and knowledge across departments, regions and other “silos”, and you are on to a winner!

How do you avoid a ‘knowledge sharing chaos’?

October 4, 2012 | digital workplace, intranet, intranet strategy, knowledge management, knowledge sharing, yammer | No Comments

Internal knowledge sharing in the enterprise is being pushed and promoted as an area that can add great value to any organization. Facilitate, nurture and support a culture of sharing ideas and knowledge across departments, regions and other “silos”, and you are on to a winner!

Intranet adoption failure

October 3, 2012 | adoption, digital workplace, intranet, tutorial | No Comments

Most intranets enjoy about the same level of popularity as inflight catering and supermarket shopping. Despite best efforts among intranet managers and most people involved, intranet adoption has failed.

Employees don’t exactly have a choice of intranets to pick from. There is only one intranet, it is typically not logically organised, nor beautifully designed, but they have to use it. To make matters worse, most staff is probably not even trained in using it.

Building a social alumni programme

October 2, 2012 | digital marketing, higher education | No Comments

Membership of an alumni association is an obvious choice for many former university students in many parts of the world. Typical and popular benefits include networking with other alumni, receiving interesting newsletters, going to events as well as having an easy a way to support and raise funds for the institution.

That has, however, not been the case in most of Continental Europe, where alumni associations are far from as common and well established as say in the US. Yet, with universities experiencing cuts in government funding and depending more on civic society for funding, alumni programmes are getting increased attention among managers in higher education.

Successful enterprise collaboration – what does it take?

October 1, 2012 | collaboration, digital workplace, knowledge sharing | 1 Comment

Knowledge sharing and collaboration within the enterprise are disciplines that most organizations aspire to do more of, and which vendors of sophisticated solutions (SharePoint and others) promise that their gear will enable and facilitate.

• “We must capture the ideas and tacit knowledge that make our business unique”
• “We should speed up innovative processes by allowing our creative minds to communicate across regions and divisions”.

The visions and hopes are great and numerous. Yet, even with all the right tools in place and a stated intention to “realize the enormous potential” in this area, many organizations struggle to get meaningful activities off the ground and hence fail to really see any tangible results.

Achieving real digital engagement

September 28, 2012 | digital marketing, higher education | No Comments

Digital marketing has rapidly become an indispensable piece of modern sales and marketing efforts. Having added social media to an already effective mix of digital campaigns, microsites, newsletters and other tools, organisations are now eager to reap the benefits.

Yet, digital marketing is able to do more than simply push up sales. Digital engagement is a new discipline and here the focus could be on much more than conversions. Higher education is one example of a sector that has jumped on the social media train mainly in order to recruit new students. Whilst this is naturally important, there are many more audiences and opportunities for branding the institution.

Struggling with free web based tools?

September 27, 2012 | higher education | No Comments

Free web-based services, such as WordPress, Google Docs (now Google Drive) and a myriad of other tools have become extremely popular in recent years.  In the busy working lifes of web and intranet professionals, it is attractive to use these tools and it has become standard practice to do so without involvement from the IT department.

In higher education in particular with their complex organisational structures, limited budgets and digitally savvy students, free web tools have taken off. Still, these external services pose a set of challenges that has received very little attention and remain unanswered in most projects.

Heard of social intelligence?

September 26, 2012 | social media, social media monitoring, strategy | No Comments

Are you perchance becoming a little cynical about the value of social media in the enterprise?

You wouldn’t be the only one. Many organisations have moved – or rather stumbled – into the social media space without any real sense of purpose. Marketing departments everywhere have launched Facebook pages and are obsessed with getting “liked” by millions, but are failing to achieve any level of real engagement with their “fans”. –Perhaps not surprising, when considering that the only activity is a stream of press releases and straight copies of online advertising campaigns being posted on the page.

Going mobile on SharePoint 2013

September 25, 2012 | case study, going mobile, responsive design, SharePoint | No Comments

SharePoint 2013 is not expected in its final release until later this year, but improved support for mobile as well as responsive design is near the top of the list of long-wanted improvements for many customers.

Several Microsoft customers have already had their hands on the new product as part of the beta programme. One of them is PostNord, the merger between the Swedish and Danish postal services. They use SharePoint 2013 to meet the demands for a faster solution delivery across all online channels.

Social media marketing in higher education

September 24, 2012 | case study, digital marketing, higher education, social media | 1 Comment

With students among the most active users of social media, the promise of social media marketing is great for higher education institutions, but unlocking the potential has proven far from easy. Most students are highly digitally literate, ignore much online marketing and are difficult to engage in an online conversation.

This has not held academic institutions around the world back. They have increasingly jumped on the social media band-wagon to promote their courses and attract new students. Many have launched Facebook campaigns, new apps and other initiatives and promoted them with varying degrees of success using online and offline advertising.

Use the right tools

September 20, 2012 | content strategy, digital marketing, online communication, strategy | No Comments

Working with digital, you will never be short of tools.

There are tools everywhere you look.  Tools to help with content strategy, SEO, governance, analytics, user testing, wireframing and the list goes on and on.

A digital manager has all the tools he could wish for to build the perfect digital platform.

Does this sound too easy? Well, there are a few things to consider

Get a grip on digital governance

September 19, 2012 | governance, tutorial | 2 Comments

Digital managers in organisations large and small are finding that their area(s) of responsibility are growing by the day. Being an intranet manager, for example, does not mean the same today as it did even 3 or 4 years ago. Before intranet managers were looking after electronic notice boards and news feeds. Now they are often taking care of an estate of tools and services: social tools, localized pages, collaboration and knowledge sharing solutions, self service applications all live under the intranet umbrella. And the scenario is similar for managers taking care of external facing websites.

How your organisation becomes digitally mature

September 18, 2012 | analytics, business case, expert presentation, organisation | No Comments

We hear it very often in all the J. Boye Groups. It is your very own organisation that is the biggest obstacle in succeeding digitally.

It is not the current CMS, the vendors or the constant lacking of time and money. Naturally they all play a substantial part as digital challengers every day, but at the end of the day it is the organisational inertia that makes your head hurt more than anything else.

It is your own organisation that lay out the major obstacles for your digital success. It should not be that way, but it is very often that simple.

5 questions to ask before selecting a Web CMS

September 17, 2012 | analyst, CMS, expert presentation, wcm | No Comments

As content management systems have become the de-facto digital platform for most large and complex organisations, selecting the right one for your organisation remains a critical decision. The new system should ideally last for several years to come, but how do you find the best one?

Analysts crown vendors as winners and losers in the Web CMS market, but it is still a crowded and confusing marketplace for buyers. Typically you are not just selecting a new tool, you also have to factor in important aspects such as references, community, roadmap and support.

Is responsive design right for you?

September 14, 2012 | expert presentation, responsive design, user experience | No Comments

You have no doubt seen some of the impressive examples of responsive designs. It is a much requested topic at many of the J. Boye knowledge sharing group meetings. There are many tempting advantages: a screed that fluidly adapts to any screen size on any device. Only one place to upload and update content. The approach is CMS agnostic. Lower maintenance costs. Future friendly.

Is social media really worth it?

September 13, 2012 | analytics, digital marketing, expert presentation, social media | No Comments

Social media has been a big theme for a few years already and there have been many fascinating projects, eg. Maersk Line uses social media to interact with customers and Baresso Coffee use social media to listen.

Still, several organisations and many in senior management positions are reluctant to go ahead with the new phenomenon and unsure whether it really has any impact on the bottom line.

The future of web content management

September 12, 2012 | analyst, expert presentation, web content management | No Comments

The extended economic downturn has done little to slow down the spending on creating engaging web experiences. With the advent of iPhone and Twitter, the past 4 years in financial crisis mode have taken corporate sites far into a world much different from the traditional news-driven brochure sites of the past.

Still, content management systems originally designed in a single-device world more than a decade ago, remain a central component in most organisations. One might argue that content chaos remains an unsolved problem, but as buyers continue to adapt to a strange new world, what might the future offer for web content management?

Your future digital workplace

September 11, 2012 | digital workplace, expert presentation, intranet, tutorial | No Comments

With an ever expanding set of requirements to span into new fields (e.g. collaboration and knowledge management), to support multiple devices (e.g. smartphones and tablets) and to complete tasks (e.g. book meeting room, find colleagues, document standard operating procedure) intranets are transforming into digital workplaces.

How you best work towards a digital workplace is the topic of a 3-hour tutorial led by Lau Hesselbæk Andreasen on November 6 at the J. Boye Aarhus 12 conference.

How the VELUX Group went mobile

September 10, 2012 | apple, case study, going mobile, SharePoint | No Comments

Mobile apps remains one of the buzzwords among digital professionals. Despite the uptake in responsive design, these days it seems everybody is rushing out with apps. As a buyer, the hype can be deafening and it can be difficult to identify the real value. It doesn’t make it easier that many mobile projects are driven by IT and use an intimidating ratio of tech lingo.

At the VELUX Group, they’ve successfully rolled out apps for both smartphone and tablets and still managed to keep the projects anchored in the Marketing Communications department.

Selecting the right social media monitoring tool

September 7, 2012 | analyst, expert presentation, social media, social media monitoring, tutorial, vendors | 2 Comments

Would you like to:

- Become a social business?
- Use social media to gain insights about what others are saying?
- Successfully deploy a social media strategy?

These and many more are the promises of the vendors offering social media monitoring tools. Ambitious to say the least. In an extremely vibrant and still very immature marketplace, customers are rushing out to find tools to help them do better when it comes to social media. However, they are often caught by surprise when they discover that the tools are indeed just that: software, and not magic.

Delete half of your intranet

September 6, 2012 | analytics, intranet, intranet strategy | No Comments

Most intranets are bloated and difficult (if not impossible) to navigate. Every department in the organisation wants a share of the “real estate” on the home page, in the navigation and…everywhere else. The home page and the navigation can, in most cases, be controlled through a bit of dictatorial decision making by management. It’s “everywhere else” on the intranet that is difficult to control.

Use a fake name on Facebook

September 5, 2012 | facebook, fake it, keynote, personal data, social media | No Comments

Royals, artists and other famous people have long used pseudonyms on Facebook. Might it be time for the general public to consider something similar to better protect themselves?

European Union Justice Commissioner, Viviane Reding has said that “personal data is in today’s world the currency of the digital market” and called for better protection, including a “right to be forgotten“, in particular designed at helping teenagers and young adults manage their online reputations.

What characterizes a sustainable digital project?

September 4, 2012 | museums, standards & technology | No Comments

Museums are institutions “in the forever business” working to increase knowledge and build collections that tell the stories of our shared history. They strive to be relevant and collect vast amounts of data that might benefit future generations.

These grand objectives adds quite a few requirements to their digital projects. It’s one thing to build some smart social and mobile campaign for say the 2012 Olympics, but how do you ensure that it is also accessible and fully functional in the next decade?

Going from good to great web projects

September 3, 2012 | expert presentation, web project management | No Comments

Simply avoiding complete failure or severe budget overruns is no longer good enough as success criteria for web projects. You can’t just get away with launching something and then hope for the best. No matter where you work and no matter how digital your organisation has become, both your management and your colleagues expect better.

Bad planning and unforeseen events remains common reasons for project failures. Still, these are only the surface symptoms of failure — the real reasons lie deeper. As the web project manager it is your responsibility to make sure your digital projects are successful, both in terms of functional objectives as well as making it a positive experiences for everyone on the team.

The 5 dimensions of findability

August 30, 2012 | findability, user experience, UX | No Comments

As you have undoubtedly already realised, search technology unfortunately does not ensure findability on its own. Instad of simply investing in technology and hoping for the best, important activities are required across 5 dimensions to ensure findability.

Findability is still a relatively new industry term, but the idea is simple: How to ensure that your customers find what they are looking for on your website and in the bigger picture, making sure that customers find your website at all.

Vendor contest: Can you fix it?

August 29, 2012 | contest, demo, vendor | 9 Comments

Vendors of useful digital solutions everywhere:

J. Boye’s audience are experienced digital decision makers. They have been buying software and solutions for a long time and are well equipped to see through frills and fluff. So: do you know what your customers really need?

This is your chance to impress the international conference participants with your brilliant product.

Have you developed the must have digital solution? Something that dramatically improves a cumbersome work process or in another way makes a real difference to the user.

Vendors of all shapes and sizes; start-ups as well as established vendors, have the opportunity to showcase their innovative solution to the conference. We need to see the application demonstrated live, and we also need to be shown a real life customer case where the product has actually been implemented and worked its magic.

We will have a panel of judges made up of experienced industry professionals to work with you in advance, provide feedback and help you win the contest.

Entries will be designated one of the judges in advance of the conference, will have to discuss their entry with their judge and will be mentored by the judge in the run up to the event.

The winner is chosen by the conference participants straight after the contest and the winner is announced later in the same evening at the conference social event. If we win, you both get to take home the trophy and we’ll spread the word. All participants leave with valuable feedback from the judges and plenty of new connections, and potentially even new customers.

Check out detailed rules and guidelines (PDF) – and then return and post your submission in the comments field below.

The actual Can You Fix It? contest happens in Aarhus, Denmark at 17:15 on November 7 as a part of the J. Boye Aarhus 12 conference.

Submission are now closed.

Stupid bloody system!

August 28, 2012 | expert presentation, UX | No Comments

If you’ve been working with digital for a number of years, you will know that little has happened when it comes to improving intranet usability or the ease-of-use in enterprise systems such as CMS or portals. Corporate systems are often stressful to use and byzantine interfaces remain the rule rather than the exception.

At the same time, we’ve all grown used to working with smartphones and iPads with slick interfaces. Consumer technology usability has improved substantially. This means that the chasm between the user experience at work and outside has grown. You and your colleagues expect better, but how do you get there?

The evolution of internal communication

August 27, 2012 | case study, digital workplace, gamification, intranet, social media | 2 Comments

DSB S-train is the heart of the public transportation network in Copenhagen and connects the city centre with the suburbs. With 300,000 daily customers and 1,200 employees, customer satisfaction has been going up in recent years, yet the DSB S-train division is ranking among the most unwanted places to work.

In an effort to address this and make existing employees happier, DSB S-train have recently introduced a new internal social media platform with elements of gamification.

Knowledge sharing in practice

August 24, 2012 | sharing | No Comments

What do I have to do to earn and deserve the key relationships that are going to get me where I want to go?

As one of the world’s leading authorities on the management of professional service firms, David Maister is among the top business thinkers in the world. His book on Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What’s Obvious But Not Easy is a must-read for strategic thinkers.

Relationships plays a key role when it comes to knowledge sharing, as trust is one of the vital factors that makes knowledge sharing work. To paraphrase the classic book title, investing time in both relationships and knowledge sharing is obviously the right thing to do, yet not easy.

How to best organise your web efforts

August 23, 2012 | case study, digital strategy, governance | No Comments

Complaints about lack of budget, problems with the CMS and content quality issues are all too common in digital projects. The usual approach is to work hard and tackle each individually, but as many have experienced, budgets are tough to unlock, migrating to another system takes forever and rarely solves all problems and ensuring quality content is a full-time job in itself. There has to be a better way!

The Danish City of Herning is currently relaunching its websites using responsive design and umbraco open source CMS. At the same time, they are developing a new model for how the web efforts are organised that no longer resembles the typical organisational structures. Their hope is that by making a new web organisation for both those working full-time on digital and those with other day jobs, they might actually beat the odds and be on the path to many successful web projects in the future.

Simplicity wins when it comes to metadata

August 22, 2012 | expert presentation, metadata, semantic web, standards & technology | No Comments

Metadata has played a key role since the early days of the Web, but has always been plagued by complexity. Developments in the industry have been driven mostly by vendors and academia with little practitioner involvement. Metadata has been a major factor in for example search engines since the early days when AltaVista ruled. The role was to help provide useful information to enrich content with details such as the language and author of the text.

According to Olle Olsson at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), recent and simpler approaches to metadata, like microformats, microdata, schema.org, RDFa have been tremendously succesful and also increasingly adopted by practitioners. Might this path to useful and simpler usage of metadata in fact be the pragmatic route to the semantic web?

Olle will give the opening talk on the standards and technology conference track at the J. Boye Aarhus 12 conference in November.

Digital is where brand and identity disconnects

August 21, 2012 | branding, digital marketing, identity, social media | 1 Comment

Your brand is hopefully well incorporated into your physical buildings, printed materials and hopefully even how your colleagues act and the tone of voice, giving your customers the experience of a consistent message.

Where most organisations are struggling is when it comes to the digital channels, such as the corporate website, which may have the right corporate look and feel, but lacks quality and consistency. It gets even worse when it comes to social media that craves interaction, transparency and real answers around the clock. How do you make your digital activites align with your identity to prevent damaging or undermining your brand?

Content is the killer app for your intranet

August 20, 2012 | case study, content strategy, intranet | No Comments

Ambitious intranet managers are working hard to create intranet killer apps; ideally ones that work independently of the rest of the content. We’ve seen many impressive examples, including amazing intranet phone books, time tracking done really well and practical help functions.

The fact is that most intranets are drowning in bad, dull, static content. They are filled with bloated vanity pages and out-of-date material. This in turn is driving up the use of e-mail, internal social media and even the phone. Our advice: focus on better content in order to make your intranet shine?

Become a better networker

August 17, 2012 | connecting, learning, networking, social event | No Comments

How often have you left a conference feeling inspired, fired-up and motivated to go back and do lots of things – only to find that the conversations you had and people you spoke to in the sessions are quickly drifting away and have soon drowned in the sea of everyday duties once you have arrived back in the daily grind?

We would like you to think about how you plan and attend the conference so you prevent this well-known scenario from happening; how you set yourself up for better interaction with fellow participants and speakers and for more effective follow-up after the event.

Baresso Coffee use social media to listen

August 16, 2012 | case study, social media, strategy | No Comments

Social media continues to evolve at an amazing speed, but one thing is not changing: the essence of social media is dialogue(s). For many commercial entities this is a big change; if they want to be successful on social media, they have to engage with their customers. And being a good listener is just as hard on social media as in the real world.

Leading Danish coffee chain Baresso Coffee have made social media a key part of their digital strategy and are now reaping the benefits from spending time on engaging with their customers on social media. Their focus is clearly on dialogue: just check out their popular Baresso Coffee Facebook page.

Sinne Fredslund Madsen is working with online media at Baresso Coffee and will speak at the J. Boye Aarhus 12 conference and will sharehow the coffee chain started, learned and are now using social media.

A model for effective enterprise website governance

August 15, 2012 | expert presentation, governance | No Comments

What do you do when your online presence keeps expanding, but your resources (surprise!) stay the same? Website governance is all about how you manage your multi-channel, multi-sourced, multi-editor, localised, personalised and dynamically targeted digital presence.

In other words, how do you best put standards in place, so that you avoid serious compliance problems, which can undermine the user experience and fundamentally damage your brand?

Responsive web design at Jyske Bank

August 14, 2012 | case study, responsive design, user experience | No Comments

For how long can you keep maintaining your current website? With growth in both content and the number of devices, most digital teams don’t have time on their side.

In order to address this problem, Jyske Bank, the third largest Danish bank in terms of market share, decided to become early adopters of responsive web design in the spring of 2011. In the process, they abandoned the familiar desktop mindset and completed extensive testing to ensure compatability across a myriad of new devices.

Claus Stadel from Jyske Bank will share a practical guide to responsive design on the user experience conference track on November 8 in Aarhus.

Yammer makes it easy-to-share inside Capgemini

August 13, 2012 | case study, collaboration, knowledge management, sharing, yammer | No Comments

Capgemini is one of Europe’s largest consulting firms with around 120,000 employees spread around the world. As in most large, complex and global organisations, e-mail is a heavily used communication tool alongside several intranets. Unfortunately, finding what you need can be difficult via both e-mail and intranets, as can sharing relevant information with the right people.

Since 2008, Capgemini has been using Yammer as an enterprise social network to address exactly these challenges. Today 4 years later, Capgemini has rolled out Yammer to some 40,000 employees, enabling true global collaboration and making it much easier to share relevant information. Might Capgemini be on to a better way to work?

Ideas worth sharing

August 10, 2012 | sharing | No Comments

The J. Boye 12 conference is returning to Aarhus 6th to 8th November. The conference programme offers participants 10 conference tracks, 50+ speakers and fresh thinking, challenging ideas and industry trends from around the world. As always attendees will travel from near and far to spend 3 stimulating days together in a campus-like environment to learn, be inspired and bring home the hard-earned ideas and experiences shared by peers.

Sharing is caring is the main conference theme we are exploring this year. Keynotes include social media thought leader Jacob Bøtter who will share how Unboss means better governance and more innovation and analyst Alan Pelz-Sharpe will cover the coming social workplace revolution.

Digital projects need better business cases

August 9, 2012 | business case, digital strategy, expert presentation, tutorial | No Comments

Complete the re-design, get the site live, job done! This was the definition of a successful web project. Not any more. Projects have increased enormously in terms of complexity and many more resources are required, so most projects need to flesh out detailed business cases.

Writing a meaningful business case is hard and at meeting after meeting in J. Boye Groups we continue to hear questions about what should be included in a business case and how to write them convincingly. Many rush through the process and leave out important and useful stuff. Frankly, many do it because organisational rules state they have to.

When top tasks are not the answer

August 8, 2012 | content strategy, expert presentation, online communication, top task | 6 Comments

Faced with content chaos, a recent trend among web managers has been to focus on top tasks, an approach championed by Irish web visionary Gerry McGovern. The top task approach has helped improve many websites and intranets, by making it easier for website visitors to complete the most popular tasks, eg. apply for a job, sign up for a campaign or find office opening hours.

Still, the obsessive focus on task completion makes me think of Europe’s favourite discount airline Ryanair. Yes, they can get me to London Stansted, but I certainly don’t engage in anyway with their brand – and they don’t do much to enthuse me to engage with the brand and any experiences associated with it. Similarly, companies and governments might today be focused on measuring the output (task completion), but they are missing a big digital opportunity to engage with customers. Are these two strategies mutually exclusive?

Intranets transform work from a place to an activity

August 7, 2012 | case study, digital workplace, intranet | No Comments

Intranets used to be news-heavy and trapped behind company firewalls. Frankly, in most organisations few cared about the intranet and didn’t pay too much attention to the often not too exciting new stream while on the road or working from home.

But things are changing rapidly. Intranets are turning into digital workplaces where employees can actually go to complete tasks, eg. contact colleagues quickly, fill out expense forms, search for knowledge and facts or get help. Internal communication has far from left the building, but modern intranets cover so much more than internal news. Moreover, employees can increasingly access intranets from their iPad or smartphones when away from the desk.

UK Parliament uses the Web to improve democracy

August 6, 2012 | case study, democracy, digital strategy, sharing | No Comments

The Web has already had a major impact on most industries, but perhaps we’ve yet to fully understand its full potential. In recent years, democracy movements have emerged around the World, most noticeably in the Arab World. Digital media, including smartphones, YouTube and Twitter, have played a key role enabling better communication between stakeholders, improved means of access to information and more transparency.

Digital media is naturally also key to an important democratic institution such as the UK Parliament. Currently undergoing the big shift from print to digital, Parliament is on a modernisation drive where budgets are being cut and several hundred years of print tradition is being challenged by a ‘new normal’ where most things happen digitally. This change is not only having a major impact on how work is being done inside Parliament; it also impacts on the way in which democracy works generally outside Westminster up and down the country.

The modern worker is waiting for the social workplace

August 3, 2012 | collaboration, keynote, social, speaker | No Comments

Smartphones and social media are here to stay. They’ve already had a profound impact on our personal lives, including how we interact with family and friends. Still, most workplaces have not yet made the transition and embraced those new opportunities. Most organisational communication structures remain largely unchanged.

Yes, you may be able to check e-mail on your vacation and your manager might allow for the occassional home office day. But that’s just the beginning. From the enterprise perspective, if the possibilities of cloud are added to the mix with mobile and social, it could pave the way for rapid evolution and dramatic changes.

Unboss means better governance and more innovation

August 1, 2012 | keynote, speaker | No Comments

Times are changing. A worker is no longer just a pair of hands on a production line or in an office. Leaders no longer sit unchallenged behind mahogany desks. Information within an organisation no longer only goes top down. New ideas are no longer developed solely in secret research and development departments. And decisions are no longer just made by management groups behind closed doors.

Companies are no longer constrained by these limitations and according to authors Lars Kolind and Jacob Bøtter, it is about time we got used to a fast approaching future, when the place you work transforms from an organisation into a social movement.

Share your story at the J. Boye Aarhus 12 conference

May 19, 2012 | sharing, speaker | No Comments

Are you interested in sharing your experiences, providing the analyst perspective or the expert view at a J. Boye conference, then your next opportunity is the European edition in Aarhus, Denmark on 6 – 8 November 2012. The call for speakers is open. With a total of 10 tutorials and 10 conference tracks over 3 days, we are planning another great learning opportunity for all web and intranet professionals.

This is the 12th edition of our energetic, international conference which has evolved enormously since we launched in 2005. Some of the key ingredients do, however, remain unchanged:

• speakers from across sectors and industries from around the world sharing their experiences. If you want to widen your professional  horizon and meet some of your international counterparts, this is the right place
• no sales pitches: Instead we emphasize provocative, interesting and enlightening speakers who we always encourage to tell the whole story

The ethos of the conference is about help to self-help, sharing experiences, ideas and pitfalls with like-minded colleagues in other organisations. It’s about building a useful network of colleagues and contacts outside your own particular company; people whom you can call and ask informally.

The conference audience is made up of your peers; the kind of people who will appreciate in full what you’re on about, and what it really entails. A venue where you can be confident your contribution will be valued, and where you can be open and curious.

Hope to hear your story at the conference in November!