However if your company needs something put into place in a short amount of time, has a limited budget and will be content with boxed functionality maybe Sharepoint isn’t a good choice.

I think it is important that management does a bit of research before they tell their already overworked IT staff. “we need Sharepoint!”

I am a bit biased but here a few interesting links about MS Sharepoint.

What’s wrong with Sharepoint?
http://nkilkenny.wordpress.com/2006/11/13/whats-wrong-with-sharepoint/

Sharepoint Sucks Part 1
http://blog.furuknap.net/2009/10/sharepoint-sucks-and-heres-why-part-1.html

Here is a site that tracks negative comments about Sharepoint
http://amplicate.com/hate/microsoft-sharepoint

New studies highlight the potential downsides of SharePoint
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/microsoft/new-studies-highlight-the-potential-downsides-of-sharepoint/1492

Cutting Through The Hype – What You Should Know About SharePoint
http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/alexexmachina/cutting-through-the-hype-what-you-should-know-about-sharepoint-22775

Tips to avoid a Sharepoint nightmare
http://www.goarticles.com/cgi-bin/showa.cgi?C=1369582

SharePoint – Dream or Nightmare?
http://www.thecontenteconomy.com/2008/04/sharepoint-dream-or-nightmare.html

Let me know if you have any Sharepoint Links I should include.

Users set up their own custom tabs in the Quickbar which can include a link to any application or page the user has the rights to access.

Step One

From the My Profile Page, click the edit button in the top right.  In the General Settings Tab choose Yes to Display Quickbar.  Save your changes and log back into Noodle to apply.

Select the Edit link in the top left under the Toolbar logo to open the Quickbar Settings

Step Two

Create a tab by entering a name into the textbox below the list of currently available tabs (the top box). Ex.Company Forms, or Personal Pages…Select ‘Create New’ to save.

When a tab is selected, a list of its linked applications or pages will now be shown in the lower list. Simply select ‘Add New’ and select an application in the new window to create a link.

Shortcut names may also be altered from this menu by selecting them in the lower list and entering a new name for them in the textbox. Quickbar tab names may also be changed this way using the upper list and textbox.

Step Three

Create multiple tabs to organize your links for quick access frequently accessed applications within Noodle.

Noodle Knowledge

The benefits of Intranet training are near limitless with the ability to reach employees whether they are across the street or across the world.  Noodle provides effective employee training tools allowing your business to customize the experience and cater to work groups or individual needs.

Gear Content to User Work Groups

Management can quickly create programs by organizing multimedia content and linking them from a single page portal.  A seamless launch of applications aid in training users.  Incorporate a Calendar so employees can follow the same schedule, sign up forms  and detailed instructions to complete and check off assigned tasks.  Noodle’s  Document  Manager has sub-folders to group training videos, handbooks, policy outlines and much more.  Reports can provide progress evaluation.

Make Experts out of Users

Content is current, updatable and relevant.  Create a forum for interaction allowing users to share experiences and tips.  Lead discussions and compare thoughts.  Offer quizzes to test knowledge and insure the information was retained and can be applied to the workplace.  Then, showcase the skills of employees in your Company Headlines. Provide certification and reward for completion.  To highlight a job well done assign a new Expertise.

Schedule Flexibility and Access to Materials

Self-paced multimedia instruction engages users and allows them to learn at their own speed, skimming areas where they are strong and investing more time in their areas of weakness.  No time is wasted retraining.  Users can track their status and move forward quickly becoming more efficient and effective learners.

The material is there to refer back to at any time

Effective Intranet training can increase memory retention, refresh course material and keep employees up to speed.  Material can be printed at their discretion.  Save time by including a question manager to highlight frequently asked questions categorized by departments or subject.  Offer highlights in an easy training company newsletter.  Make it fun, rewarding and interactive.

Use your Noodle to lower the cost of training an employee, When you measure output simply and visibly, the numbers will speak for themselves.  Allow employees take initiative to strengthen their talents and build corporate wisdom.

This is a perfect opportunity to look at your Intranet and the processes that accompany it.  Here are few suggestions on how to review your Intranet strategy.

Survey Says

The users are the most important part of your Intranet.  The people that use it every day to find important information and obtain corporate wisdom from it’s contents.  Create a simple 5-10 question survey to ask questions that will help point you in the direction of what areas are working and what areas are not.  The survey should me mandatory for all employees who access the Intranet.

Stats

Ensure you have a good look at the stats for the Intranet.  Key metrics to look for are:

What pages are being accessed the most
What pages are being access the least
What features are popular based on traffic
What department is getting the most use from the Intranet

Who are your champions?

By looking at your stats and the results of your survey you should be able to find out who your champions are.  Champions play an important role in improving your Intranet and getting more people involved.  They are a valuable resource that will help your Intranet be successful.  Think of them as your Intranet ambassadors.  Have them write a page or blog about why they use the Intranet and how others can benefit like they do.

New Technologies

Summer is the best time to look at the market and see what new technologies or features are available for your Intranet.  For example micro blogging has become very popular with Intranets or integrate a group chat tool for a few months to see what works and what doesn’t with your user base.  Using the results of your survey and stats will help you decide what new features you should try.

Putting it all together

As Fall approaches you will need to use the data you have collected to update and optimize your Intranet.  The survey will tell you what is working and what is not.  Anything that is not working needs to be removed or updated so that it does.  Your Intranet champions will have been interviewed and encouraged to evangelize the benefits of the Intranet and you will added few new features and technologies that will help your company experience the benefits of a finely tuned Intranet.

This process should be done every year to keep your Intranet a value creator for your company.

-Enhancements:
* 10 languages added
* Option to crop or pad thumbnails
* Whitelist IP’s for controlled access
* SMTP port and password options
* Photo Portlet now shows thumbnails
* Import/Export Backup entire site
* Faster loading user list with dedicated search

-Bug fixes:
* redirect if remember my password cookie and password changes
* calendar weekly repeating was hitting the safety
* loads export/import bugs
* routing reloading the wrong frame from one of the views
* deleted items not showing up
* DataManager>reports> editing a radio button will not save state
* import/export whole site fixes
* Forum Portlet was still showing if folder was deleted
* UploadedFile memory leak (failed to close io stream)
* better image support (no more pink png thumbs)
* links app/folder now deletes if there is a portlet pointing to it
* delete not showing on DataManager with routing
* LDAP now can use different domains
* upgrade deadlock on mssql

To upgrade your version of Noodle please contact support.
If your Noodle is hosted with Vialect your site will be upgraded automatically.

We recently added Leigh Anderson to our team and she has been in training for the last two weeks.  Leigh will be part of our support group and soon will be answering phones and emails.

Instead of going over all the technical issues we train people on I thought it would be more interesting if we listed some of the characteristics we feel is important to our ongoing success.  Every team member at Vialect must have these 5 characteristics.

Listening
In some cases new employees will try to prove themselves by interjecting with comments or suggestions, of course we encourage this but listening to fellow coworkers and customers will help shorten any learning curve.  Understanding why something is done is more important than how something is done.

Focus
Multitasking is a word that is used way too much and we see it on resumes all the time.  What it usually means is you do many tasks poorly instead of one task great.  We prefer you focus on one task and do it great.

Attention to Detail
This may be related to focus but it deserves mentioning.  The details are what makes something great.  Doesn’t matter if you work in design, support or sales, pay attention to the details.

Organization
This may seem like a common sense point but if you are unorganized the previous points will all be lost.  There are many tools today to help you get organized.  We like to use Noodle.:-)

Don’t have a Know-it-all Attitude
Be open to learn new things.  Every day we learn new things and technology is almost never black and white.  Every job requires uniques skills and knowledge so be ready to learn.  You should know more today than you did yesterday.

Feel free to welcome Leigh to the team!

The site now has a simple yet elegant look. All the information is easy to find and showcases our product and success stories.

Our Blog is now a main navigation item as we feel it is an important piece of our customer communications and will evolve in the future with more people from the company contributing to it.

We hope you enjoy the new website and look forward to hearing your feedback regarding the update. Would love to hear your comments or suggestions.

As a Canadian we understand the relationship but it nice to see it summed up in this wonderful video by Tom Brokaw.

“Geography has Made us Neighbors
History has made us friends.
Economics has Made us Partners
and Necessity has made us allies”

President Kennedy

The US Miitary calls their social network TISC.

“TISC” (the Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation) is a new iteration of APAN, the All Partners Access Network, which was developed by the Defense Department a few years ago. Initially, the military was using APAN to communicate across borders, particularly in countries without sophisticated communication technology. Even in third-world countries, Internet connection seemed to be frequently accessible, so the APAN system was built to work over the Internet, to facilitate the sharing of classified files, as well as things like coordinating calendars.

Check  out the full article here.