SharePoint: Internal and External Functionality
March 29, 2012
When you hear the term “dark” these days it usually refers to the surge in vampire romance fiction or Stars Wars variants. In the world of web design, however, dark means that web developers use dark web templates on their pages. It takes a good eye for color and contrast to make a dark web site work and Top SharePoint found “50 Beautiful Dark Web Sites Built on SharePoint.”
As the article’s author explains:
“Personally I am very fond of dark websites even though clean light web design is the main choice, especially in the corporate world. It is true that dark designs have a tendency to feel a bit heavy and harder to read if lot of text is presented but I feel they look more elegant and creative. Besides, using dark backgrounds you can make the content stand out and be the main focus.”
Perusing through the list the web sites that catch my eye are “The City of Calgary,” “Hard Rock Casino Tulsa,” “Club Paradiso,” and “NSU.” Pick your own favorites and discover new ideas for SharePoint web design. No matter what graphic colors you use for your SharePoint site, take into account that if you want visitors to find information you will need an excellent search enterprise.
If you want to use SharePoint for more than internal document sharing, you can turn to Search Technologies to assist you in leveraging SharePoint. In addition to dynamic content and rich media, a Search Technologies’ implementation can integrate your public facing Web site with your internal SharePoint system. You will be able to establish immediate and direct interactions with your prospects and customers without losing the SharePoint functionality you need to run your business in a cost effective manner. To learn more, visit www.searchtechnologies.com.
Iain Fletcher, March 29, 2012
Protected: A Little SharePoint Humor
March 28, 2012
Considerations for SharePoint Career Development
March 28, 2012
Over at the ShareMuch Blog, Yaroslav Pentsarskyy looks at SharePoint career development in, “How Come Joe-the-SharePoint-Guy Doesn’t Know? SharePoint Career Evolution.” As SharePoint continues to expand and develop, IT employees have to keep up with continuing education and an evolving skill set. Pentsarskyy shares his subjective suggestion:
1. Pick your discipline area (Infrastructure, Technical BA, Developer, User Interface Developer etc.). Something you`re prepared to be an expert in;
2. Be clear on deliverables you are going to have to produce as a part of your area focus (Design Document? DR plan? Code? Governance Plan? etc.). Deliverables will outline your role on projects (usually your title is too vague, everyone wants to know what you`re actually going to produce);
3. Pick a few but not too many product areas (BI, Collab, Publishing etc) and be good at those.
Pentsarskyy warns that trying to keep up with everything may leave you as an expert in nothing. Honing in on a development area may be beneficial to many IT employees that feel stretched too thin across growing collaboration products.
SharePoint is a ubiquitous platform that continues to grow. To add rich value to your system while also providing an easier experience for your users, consider an intuitive solution like Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Their out-of-the-box solution gives you information pairing, mobility, and a more powerful search in a user-centered environment:
“Fabasoft Mindbreeze Enterprise understands you, or more precisely understands exactly what the most important information is for you at any given moment. It’s a center of excellence and simultaneously your personal assistant for all questions. The information pairing technology brings enterprise and Cloud together.”
Consider the full suite of products and solutions at Fabasoft Mindbreeze.
Philip West, March 28, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Texprocess Americas Stage for PLM Demonstration
March 28, 2012
Gerber Technology, one of the largest providers of all aspects of production and manufacturing software, has recently announced they will wow audience members at Texprocess Americas show in Atlanta, Georgia in April 2012 with new solutions to common problems. The article, Gerber Technology Adopts Modern-Day Approach to Showcasing New Product Offerings at Texprocess Americas Show, on newstimes.com, explains how Gerber is preparing to show how automation will solve all potential clients’ problems.
In response to the challenge, ‘Getting the right product to market, on time and at the right cost’ the article gives the answer,
“The solution: Gerber’s award-winning YuniquePLM™ system tracks responsibilities and workflows, provides a comprehensive view of the business and facilitates communication with global partners. Designers love YuniquePLM because it’s easy to use – even on mobile devices. Managers rely on it for clear visibility into the details surrounding a product’s journey to market. IT professionals welcome it because it integrates seamlessly with existing enterprise-wide business systems and scales to fit the needs of any size business.”
Gerber definitely has the marketing budget to put on a display like the one planned at Texprocess Americas in late April but that doesn’t mean they are the only PLM providers providing solutions. Inforbix, a data management solutions provider, is our recommendation for small to mid-sized businesses looking for cloud based PLM. Unlike some other providers Inforbix sees data as the key making their goal to help clients find, reuse and share data and in that process simplifying data accessibility.
Catherine Lamsfuss, March 28, 2012
Protected: You Do Not Need Hot Water to Shrink Your SharePoint Crawl Database
March 27, 2012
Harnessing a Strong ROI for your SharePoint Investments
March 27, 2012
Return on Investment (ROI) is no doubt a main focus for both IT and financial officers in the organization. Technology investments can be heavy on the front end and hard to measure as the system develops. The topic is addressed in, “Why is Measuring a Hard ROI for SharePoint Just so Hard?”
The author explains the issue,
“The reality is that all businesses have soft costs such as turnover, lost productivity, low morale, lost sales and missed opportunities. And any combination of those might drive soft cost dollars in your organization which can have big impact on your bottom line — sometimes just as much as the hard costs and other times even more. Many organizations simply don’t measure these types of costs because they don’t understand it or simply don’t have the capability to measure them. Or perhaps people are just focused on meeting deadlines without questioning the value or impact to the customer. Meanwhile, project management within many organizations seems like chaos, deadlines get missed, decisions are delayed, tiger teams get formed, and the insanity of our day to day work life continues.”
Budgets are tight and the economy has been shaky for a while. Everyone is taking a close look at dollars coming in and out of the business. The brief article may be worth a read to help you develop a roadmap for measuring ROI. The piece is part of a larger series of articles on measuring ROI that you may want to check out.
To boost your ROI now without the need for training and studying, consider adding an intuitive third party solution, like Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Here is a highlight:
“The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Appliance is the optimal basis for highly efficient enterprise-wide search and easy configuration. To utilize the full potential of a software solution it is essential that hard- and software are fully aligned. Even more, the required time for deployment to the user is critical for gaining the highest ROI. The Fabasoft Mindbreeze Appliance components have been optimally synchronized in numerous tests. The Fabasoft Search Appliance cuts down the time-to-user dramatically.”
A strong ROI is imperative for the sustainability of your enterprise search investments. Learn more about the Fabasoft Mindbreeze solution at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, March 27, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
PLM Appeal Growing Daily
March 27, 2012
Now that product lifecycle management (PLM) is moving beyond the traditional borders of engineering the allure of integrating PLM into production is growing. Although many plant managers are initially skeptical of PLM there are many benefits to adopting it on a universal level within a company, including the manufacturing floor. A recent article, Five Reasons Why Plant Managers Should Care about PLM, on Plant Engineering, gives thoughtful and compelling reasons why plant managers should remain open minded when it comes to PLM.
After a lengthy explanation listing many benefits for PLM, the article summarizes its argument by saying,
“With the capabilities available in today’s PLM solutions and the depth and breadth of information that plant managers can access within a central location, it only makes sense to take a closer look. The more automated and streamlined an organization is, the more efficient. Key improvements such as eliminating paper printouts, guaranteeing plant personnel have accurate documentation, and accessing reports to properly identify bottlenecks and issues are just some of the benefits a plant manager can realize with PLM.”
It’s understandable that many outside of the world of engineering would fear PLM as traditionally it has served only to aid engineers and IT staff. That has changed, though, in the last decade and many leading PLM providers pride themselves for providing data management solutions created with an entire facility in mind. We agree with the points made in this article and hope that more plant managers will take the time to discover all PLM can do for them.
Catherine Lamsfuss, March 27, 2012
Protected: Meet the SharePoint Experts at Their Own Conference
March 26, 2012
Overcoming Perceived SharePoint Barriers with Mindbreeze
March 26, 2012
Over at the AIIM.org SharePoint Experts Blog, Rich Blank confronts the tensions between SharePoint adoption, social technologies, and business goals in, “Is SharePoint an Obstacle in Your Organization.”
Blank summarizes:
“Bottom line is that SharePoint is not the obstacle. SharePoint has simply forced organizations to focus on real underlying information management, governance, compliance, service delivery, and cultural change issues at scale. In fact, if you view things holistically, the vast Microsoft ecosystem provides all the capabilities, security, and compliance required for effective communication, collaboration, news/information, team sites, communities, social, search, ECM at an attractive total cost of ownership.”
Blank suggests that organizations can focus on delivering collaboration as a service in order to introduce capabilities to users. He also warns against rushing into the hype of social business without carefully considering the overall architectural vision and basic information management principles.
This is not the first discussion on SharePoint out-of-the-box capabilities not meeting collaboration expectations in the organization. One way to make your SharePoint system accessible and more powerful is by integrating a third party solution. We like the feedback we’ve heard from customers of Fabasoft Mindbreeze. Mobility and Cloud search capabilities are just some of the Mindbreeze benefits. With information pairing, Mindbreeze allows you to connect valuable business knowledge with the right people:
“It sounds easy at first glance but it’s technologically highly complex. 6 years of research and development work later, Fabasoft Mindbreeze has the answer: Information pairing. This involves the boundless networking of company relevant information within an enterprise or organization and placing it in the Cloud. In my opinion acting in this way in all business issues is reliable, dynamic and profitable – the basis for competitive advantage.”
Read more about the full suite of solutions at http://www.mindbreeze.com/.
Philip West, March 26, 2012
Sponsored by Pandia.com
Don’t Take PLM so Personally
March 26, 2012
In the age of smartphones and tablets, it seems that everything is mobile and everything can be personalized. But how about your PLM? Do we need personal PLM? Oleg Shilovitsky tackles this concept in his post “Personal PLM: Pros and Cons.”
Employees are using more and more of their personal devices at work. Also “web and social networking create a virtual environment that’s personal in many aspects.” Shilovitsky says there are a lot of “cool” aspects to personal PLM, but the biggest problems are:
“…that everything that happens in the company, and outside is social. People need to communicate to get a job done. Without doing these things, the performance will be going down. Another aspect is related to the integration of data. I have my “Part List” and you have your “Part List”. How does it work together?”
Personalization of PLM may have some kinks to work out before it goes mainstream. However, we bet it will eventually take hold. Until then, we will have to focus on technology developments that takes us closer to that goal like the software developed by Inforbix. Though it is not personal PLM, it does revolutionize the way manufacturers find, share and reuse product data throughout their company. Sharing communication in an effective and efficient is the real focus of personalizing PLM and Inforbix is taking us there.
Jennifer Wensink, March 26, 2012
-
- Subscribe to Beyond Search
Feature archive
News archive
-
