Blog for May 2022 Seminar: MS Teams – The Case for Information Architecture and Governance

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This seminar was given by Alex Church a Senior Consultant with Metataxis. Metataxis has clients in central and local government; charities and non-profit organisations; the private sector; higher education and much more. Metataxis is in the business of managing information.

What is Teams ?  Teams is all about communication (chat, audio/video conferencing, telephony) and collaboration (content sharing, storage, task mangement etc ).  Teams is only one part of Office 365 – which is a whole set of cloud business applications. Now there is both an ‘upside’ and a ‘downside’. A good thing about Teams is the fact that it can be set up and used straightaway for collaborative working. This fact can also be a bad thing because if you simply turn on Teams and then let everyone ‘get on with it’ – it can very quickly become messy and chaotic. Teams requires an information management strategy. SharePoint underpins Teams. Teams has to have both governance and information architecture.

You cannot permit ‘self creation’ in Teams. An approval and provisioning process is necessary. You can build your own (manual) or use 3rd party apps. Begin with a simplified Teams architecture :- chat can be stored in a personal mailbox and in One Drive up in the cloud. Team can create an M365 Group with a Group mailbox and files can be stored in SharePoint. Every Team has a SharePoint site behind it. Therefore a document library is created by default and a folder is created for each Channel. So Teams Information Architecture imposes a Teams/Channel = Library/Folder Information Architecture. You get a ‘General’ channel/folder which cannot be removed. Do note that Private Channels are accessible only to a sub-set of Team members. Teams need to be ‘named’ so you will need a Teams naming convention – you will need to stop two Teams having the same name. A ‘Group Naming Policy’ can be enforced via Azure AD. Are the teams going to be Public or Private ? Public teams are visible to everyone and can be joined without the team owner’s approval. Private teams can only be joined if the team owner adds you. Public or Private is also relevant regarding SharePoint permissions. Particularly check permissions of a Public Team SharePoint site to prevent unauthorised editing and/or deleting of files.

An important part of governance is managing Teams Lifecycle:-

Expiration Policy –  This applies to the Group and requires Azure AD Premium. Deletes all Teams content and apps. It can be a set time period or be based on last activity. Team owners have the option to ‘Renew’.

Retention Policy – This applies to messages/chat; files. Set at Team/Site level by admins. It can retain content for a certain period or it can delete content after a certain period.

Retention Labels – This applies to files. Admins can set defaults/ auto application. It is applied at a document level. It can retain content for a certain period or it can delete content after a certain period.

Chat and Channel Messages – You can only use Retention Policies not Retention Labels. What is the value of  Chat and Channel Messages ? There has to be a balance between the desire to delete them with the need to keep them for reference or evidence.

Archiving – This can be done by a Team Admin or Owner.

To sum up : Teams is a great tool and is the direction of travel for Microsoft.

 

Rob Rosset 24/06/22.

 

May 2022 Seminar: MS Teams – The Case for Information Architecture and Governance

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Summary

This meeting was about MS Teams and, in essence, MS Teams are about communication (chat, audio/video conferencing, telephony) and collaboration (content sharing, storage, task management etc.). Teams is just one part of Office 365 which is a whole set of cloud business applications. However, before deploying Teams you will need an Information Management Strategy, you will need to create a Team and have a proper Teams architecture. Also, every Team has a Share Point Site behind it.

Speaker

The speaker was Alex Church of the Metataxis Consultancy.

Time and Venue

Thursday May 26th, 2022 at 2:30 pm via the Zoom online platform.

Slides

Will be made available to members.

Tweets

#netikx115

Blog

NetIKX blog for this event.

Study Suggestions

No study suggestions

Blog Report for January 2022 Seminar : Introduction to Radical Knowledge Management

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Summary

The speaker (Stephanie Barnes) started from the premise that in this global and digital age we must focus on people, processes and technology. We are all leaders and we must use the knowledge and tools available to us in creative and innovative ways. Therefore we must employ critical thinking, resilience and reflection in a sustainable way to continually adapt to the volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity (VUCA) in our environment. We are forever dealing with uncertainty and having to learn continuously. We must adopt ‘trial and error’ in our practices. These new practices are drawn from art, artistic practice, artistic attitude, artistic process and, above all, artistic creativity. We will need the space to be creative and analytical.

The new work requires us to be sustainable. The new work requires the whole person to be involved in their work, not just part. It requires on-going learning and engagement; and it requires creativity and self-fulfilment. Many of these things are learned through adopting a creative and artistic approach. Stephanie spoke critically about education. She believes that creativity is ‘educated’ out of us and we must re-discover it. We broke up into small groups and drew images suggested by Stephanie and then showed them to each other via zoom to share our understanding of her instructions to us.

However, the most important ‘take-away’ from this seminar was quite simple – ‘be creative’.

Rob Rosset 05/05/2022

 

Blog for November 2021 Seminar : Writing for the web – perspectives and practical advice

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This blog is the result of the work of one of the ‘break-out-groups’ during the NetIKX seminar held by Teodora Petkova on November 25th 2021 entitled “Writing for the web: perspectives and practical advice”.

For an excellent review of this seminar please start off with a blog written by Carlin Parry which ‘sets the scene’ so to speak https://www.visucius.org/2021/12/02/writing-for-the-web-perspectives-and-practical-advice/

Our group was asked to write a script for a short video of a few minutes. The video was entitled ‘How to propagate strawberries in a community garden’. Teodora asked us for our ‘beautiful first ugly draft’ and for ‘meaningful content’ and for us ‘to think before we ink’, which to us meant being concise. Here is the result :

The Script

An Interview with Conrad who is running a Community Group for gardeners.

Personnel : Conrad – gardener; Anke – tutor; Gerard – dolly grip/best boy/cameraman.

Robert – interviewer

Robert –

‘Here we are in Fareham House garden. Conrad and Anke are going to tell us about propagating strawberries.

Conrad is a student who planted strawberries in May and they have spread all over this raised bed’.

Conrad –

‘We only had 5 strawberries and Anke is telling me what we can do about it’.

Gerard moves camera from Conrad to Anke and also shows the strawberry bed itself and goes back to Anke for her contribution….Anke talks about the proper way to plant strawberry runners, which she regards as the easiest way to propagate strawberries.

How to grow strawberries on the ground – US video.

https://youtu.be/upqmvFFHLw0

How to grow strawberries in pots – US video.

https://youtu.be/stw9KEpSNEg

Conrad – ‘I think that all members of our community would like to find out about these things and then they could take a strawberry plant home to foster in their own homes’.

[In 2022 Conrad wishes to make a video of next season’s strawberry planting which will supersede the first video above].

Conrad then explains to camera how viewers can join the Community Group.

End of script.

Now, we can open this up and show the idea of ‘the strawberry’ in different socio-cultural contexts. We have foraged the web for information and found the following ‘knowledge bits’ in architecture, art & fabric design, film, food, music and poetry.

Strawberry in Architecture

Strawberry Hill House – Community Garden – website page. Strawberry Hill House is the Gothic Revival Villa built in Twickenham, London by Horace Walpole (1717-1797).

https://www.strawberryhillhouse.org.uk/get-involved/community-gardening/

Strawberry in Art and Fabric Design

The strawberry as art in ‘The strawberry thief flower and bird pattern’ by William Morris (1834-1896) – image

https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O78889/strawberry-thief-furnishing-fabric-morris-william/

Strawberry in Film

‘Wild Strawberries’ by Ingmar Bergman (1957) – video

An old University professor goes on a long car trip to collect an award and he reminisces about gathering strawberries with his girlfriend in his youth.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwH-gJ0c5E4

Strawberry in Food

Strawberries as food – How to make chocolate strawberries – video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpKmU2_acM4

Strawberries as food/art – How to make strawberry art decoration – video

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wNFC82zFFzM

Strawberry in Music

‘Strawberry Fields Forever’ by the Beatles – original video

John Lennon used to play as a child in a Salvation Army children’s home in Liverpool  called ‘Strawberry Fields’

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HtUH9z_Oey8

Strawberry in Poetry

‘Strawberries’ by acclaimed Scots poet Edwin Morgan 1920-2010 – website page

https://www.scottishpoetrylibrary.org.uk/poem/strawberries/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

November 2021 Seminar: Writing for the Web: Perspectives and Practical Advice.

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Summary

This meeting was an unusual choice for NetIKX, but it proved extremely wide ranging and informative.  We considered how writing for the web  is different from other content? What are the processes and principles guiding web content and are there any hard-and-fast rules to stick to when crafting texts for the Web?

These are the three questions that Teodora Patkova, our speakers, looked at in this webinar. Following her passion for making the Web a better text, Teodora led us towards a broader understanding of the Web as a new writing environment. She shared her experience with writing content for the Web as well as her academic findings, related to connecting with audiences online.  Using a fascinating set of slides which drew from a hugely eclectic set of sources, she opened our eyes to ways of thinking about web content without falling back into standard content production methods.  It was hugely stimulating, thought provoking and enjoyable.

We considered:

  • Why write for the Web: We learned Teodora’s perspectives about the web as a public sphere, the blog as a way for engaging in dialogue with your audience and about a new SEO ‘on the block’.
  • What to write for the Web: ‘Content writing’ is not necessarily a dirty phrase if there are good editorial requirements for content and high quality digital texts which can be found by search engines.
  • How to Write for the Web: We all took part in a hands-on group session so that we were able to think through and then write up: a product page; a blog post brief; and a social media share.

Speaker

Our speaker was Teodora Petkova, a content writer fascinated by the metamorphoses of text on the Web. Very much in love with the Semantic Web, she explores how our networked lives transform, and are transformed by, the expanding possibilities of the written ‘webby’ word. She has an educational background in Classical Studies and Creative Writing. Currently Teodora digs deep into words and concepts as part of her PhD studies at the Sofia University and her teaching at the FH Joanneum University of Applied Sciences.

You can connect with Teodora on Twitter (https://twitter.com/TheodoraPetkova), explore her thoughts at http://www.teodorapetkova.com and read excerpts from her book on Web Writing The Brave New Text at http://www.thebravenewtext.com/. The book is also available on Amazon (only available on Kindle) at https://www.amazon.co.uk/Brave-New-Text-Perspectives-Writing-ebook/dp/B07HQ5TYQ5/
Teodora is also on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/theodora-petkova/.

Time and Venue

This was a Zoom on-line meeting at 2pm on Thursday 25th November 2021

Slides

Slides will be available for members.  They are high quality and very delightful.  Any member can ask for access to these slides, through the NetIKX document management systems.  Ask the web editor for your member’s password.

Tweets

#netikx113

Blog

There is a blog available here:   https://www.netikx.org/blog-for-november-2021-seminar-writing-for-the-web-perspectives-and-practical-advice/ 

Study Suggestions

Look at Teodora’s website, slide set or follow her on Social Media (see above for details)

July 2019 Seminar: Using content strategy to meet your business goals: content strategy at work

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Summary

The seminar in July received very positive feedback. The two speakers were able to present their different perspectives on this practical topic with expertise and they coordinated together like the perfect double act! The audience learnt from first hand experience how to work through the four stages of Content Strategy development, and then had a chance to question the speakers so that the presentation could be directly linked to current real life examples. There was a final syndicate session that gave all present the opportunity to try their skills in a potential problem situation. Several of the audience members commented that what they had learnt from the session was immediately applicable to their own work situations and therefore would be in use by Monday morning!

Rahel Baillie and Kate Kenyon explained the role of content strategy in an organisation, and gave an in-depth view of the processes and tools used to transform existing content and knowledge into a profitable business asset. They addressed the question: what exactly is content strategy? And how is it useful to knowledge management. The two presenters had a wealth of experience in this field, gained from working with clients such as Facebook, Tesco, eBay, Cancer Research, Barclaycard, and various government agencies such as the City of Vancouver and the UK’s Department of International Trade.

In the first part of the session, Kate and Rahel looked at what content strategy is, and what it isn’t. They explored how content strategy as a discipline relates to knowledge management within an organisation. They went into detail on how efforts are focused on adding business value through content, and they explained the tools and processes content strategists use during the discovery process.

The second part of the session prided an opportunity to put these tools and processes into effect in a practical session aimed at creating a content strategy. Using a group of independent knowledge management specialists as the “client”, groups used techniques such as needs analysis, a content audit and content engineering to try and create a winning strategy and roadmap.

Speakers

Rahel Baillie has a strong track record of delivering end-to-end content systems in the context of digital strategy projects, often in environments with complex content delivery requirements: the professional who delivers the hard truths and sometimes difficult prescriptions that help organisations leverage their content as a business asset. To achieve this means analysing business problems to see where content is preventing organisations from meeting their business goals, defining content offerings, and then developing systems that integrate various types of content in to a coherent strategy to optimise its production and delivery in a way that allows it to be used to meet the goals of the organisation. See her full profile here: linkedin.com/in/rahelannebailie

Kate Kenyon is a senior content strategist with 15 years of experience solving all the gnarly problems that come with large-scale digital content management. Originally trained as a journalist at the BBC in 2005, she moved from creating content into the much harder challenge of managing it, and has been working in this area ever since. She has worked across the full spectrum of content strategy from writing to governance. Kate has a particular interest in the more technical aspects of content strategy: modelling content into scalable structures, particularly for voice assistants and multiplatform, as well as API definition. Her work has allowed her to work with a wide range of clients including Facebook, eBay, Tesco, Expedia, HSBC, Cancer Research UK, JustGiving, eHarmony and Mumsnet.

Time and Venue

2pm on 25th July 2019, The British Dental Association, 64 Wimpole Street, London W1G 8YS

Pre Event Information

What exactly is content strategy? And how is it useful to knowledge management professionals? This seminar will clarify the role of content strategy in an organisation, and give an in-depth view of the processes and tools used to transform existing content and knowledge into a profitable business asset. Presenters will bring a wealth of experience, gained from working with clients such as Facebook, Tesco, eBay, Cancer Research, Barclaycard, and various government agencies such as the City of Vancouver and the UK’s Department of International Trade. In the first part of the session, Kate and Rahel will begin with a look at what content strategy is, and what it isn’t. They will explore how content strategy as a discipline relates to knowledge management within an organisation. They will go into detail on how efforts are focused on adding business value through content, and explain the tools and processes content strategists use during the discovery process. The second part of the session will be a chance to put these tools and processes into effect in a practical session aimed at creating a content strategy. Using a group of independent knowledge management specialists as the “client”, we will use techniques such as needs analysis, a content audit and content engineering to create a winning strategy and roadmap.
Seminar Objectives:
• To understand what is meant by content strategy
• To determine how useful it is to knowledge management professionals
• To begin to understand how to develop a content strategy

Slides

No slides available for this presentation

Tweets

#netikx99

Blog

See our blog report: Content strategy

Study Suggestions

None available