A corn of wheat

When I started my new job and became the owner of our intranet, I immediately wrote a governance page on our intranet. Yes, maybe only three people will look through it spontaneously, but I thought it was needed. On this page, we outline what the intranet is for, compare it to other systems we use, outline who is responsible for what, where to turn for training, and more. This way, anytime an employee wonders how we run the intranet, we can point them to this page.

For me, governance is a subject that easily can become unnecessarily complex. No one wants far too long-winding governance texts. Luckily, quite a few people have already thought through the governance question, and below I list some of the resources I found helpful.

Rebecca Rodgers at Step Two and her “Creating an intranet governance guide“. Rebecca outlines what a governance plan is, advises to keep it short and distinct, and presents 8 steps that I used when outlining our governance page. It is also good to know why you should have such a guide:

[blockquote cite=”Rebecca Rodgers” type=”left, center, right”]A clear set of policies and guidelines for the intranet will support good practice, avoid confusion and ensure consistency of approach.[/blockquote]

Annika Appeltofft from Ericsson presents at Intranätverk how they succeeded in building governance around their new intranet. It is very refreshing to hear a practical example like this, compared to only reading theoretical material. She also asks us to focus less on only functionality, and look more at how the intranet is run:

[blockquote cite=”Annika Appeltoft via Intranätverk” type=”left, center, right”][…]a whole lot of time is often put on functionality issues, but that’s not necessary what makes the difference in the end. Instead, more energy should be focused on governance of the intranet – how we work with content owners, web editors etc.[/blockquote]

Ephraim Freed at the Digital Workplace Group in the Analysis of Gartner’s “8 building blocks for the digital workplace” aims at the broader picture and talks about governance for the digital workplace. It is not only needed for intranets per se, but also for the whole planning of our future work places:

[blockquote cite=”Ephraim Freed” type=”left, center, right”]Time and again at DWG we see that strong governance is critical to successful digital workplace programmes. [/blockquote]

There are of course many more sources when looking at governance, but I found the above to be a good start. Good luck!

​Recently, Microsoft hosted their Ignite conference where they presented their view of what is coming. Yes, they are a vendor pushing their own agenda, but a very influential one.

Here are two summaries of Ignite I have found useful:

– SharePoint 2016 – What’s new for intranets? by Sam Marshall. Sam works as a consultant for intranets and the digital workplace.

– Ignite: Collaboration in a Modern Workplace Transformed, by Benjamin Niaulin. Benjamin is a SharePoint MVP and runs a company focused on migration.

Yes, much of what was presented might change before for example SharePoint 2016 is released. Meanwhile, it presents a view of the agenda of a massive company.

Since I started working with SharePoint, Content Types have been somewhat of a mystery. Especially when I want to tell others what it is, and how they can benefit. Often, we end up either too abstract (“A way of handling content”) or too concrete (“Is it a Word file you mean?”). Thankfully, there are some great sources that can ease the pain, and let you win from using Content Types the correct way:

Lori Gowin, Microsoft Premier Field Engineer, devotes over an hour to Content Types, Managed Metadata, and You on the great Channel 9 MSDN site.

She starts off by stating the official definition of Content Types:

“Re-usable groups of settings for a category of content.”

And then quickly says it doesn’t tell her much, which is refreshing. Because it doesn’t make much sense for end users either. Lori then goes on to saying that a Content Type can contain any or all of the following:

• Template
• Custom Forms
• Metadata Columns
• Workflows
• Information Management Policies
• Document Information Panel

Complex? Yes. Potentially very rewarding? Yes!

The next source, of many, is Benjamin Niaulin‘s Understanding SharePoint Content Types where he defines a Content Type as:

“Reusable set of columns used together that defines a type of content in your organization.”

Yes, reusable is a key component here – not inventing the wheel as end users would know it. Benjamin emphasizes the demos in his webinar, making it easier for you to dive right into it and try. It is also a great start by talking about the difference between List/Library Columns and Site Columns, and how this links to the Content Query Web Part (CQWP).

Microsoft has a lot to offer on SharePoint, of course. One such page is their Plan content types and workflows in SharePoint 2013,  where their definition is:

“A content type defines the attributes of a list item, a document, or a folder.”

More importantly, they offer an Excel file that lets you record everything they discuss on that page. Very handy!

Once you know the basics, there are many videos around describing how to add them. One example is Peter Kalmstrom’s Use Content Types in SharePoint 2013 of Office 365, showing how to use both SharePoint and SharePoint Designer.

Lynda.com also delivered the SharePoint tutorial: Understanding content types, where they go through the basics in under 7 minutes.

What if you want to use SharePoint, but skip this whole Content Type thing? Well, you can’t, as Bjorn Furuknap describes:

“Your only choice to avoid using content types is not to use SharePoint. All data stored in SharePoint is stored using a content type.”

So, if you use SharePoint, you might as well learn to love and use Content Types. My advice is that you start from the above and move down among my links. These presentations have helped me go deeper into this complex subject.