ABB wiki software candidates shortlisted

After intensive investigation, we have short listed three possible platforms for future Enterprise 2.0 activities in ABB.

• Lotus Domino wiki


• Microsoft Office Sharepoint Server


• Confluence (Java-based)

We have also looked at a number of other platforms, most of them open source. While many of these are nice applications for smaller projects, generally they do not scale, i.e. they are not good solutions for a major organization like ABB.

We will now set up pilots with the three short listed candidates and will try them out in different projects, primarily within GF-CC (Corporate Communication). If anybody else would like to be part of the pilot, please send me an e-mail or leave a comment to this article with your contact details. Hopefully all will be set up within a week or two, and we will then be ready to roll.

These are busy times...

I find spring is always a busy time, lots of things should be fixed before the summer, and plenty of holidays come in the way. I thought it would be good to give you an update on some of the issues we are working on:

• Server stability is priority number one. We have had performance problems every time we deploy a new release, most often affecting translated content in the Products & Services section. We had a high level meeting to get to the bottom of this last week, and came up with a long list of actions point to remedy the situation
• Spring cleaning is under way. As part of the May release we would like to clear away as many as possible of the minor bugs that have been reported in 1ABB.
• We're also reviewing usability and accessibility issues on the web site, based on a report from Webcredible in London. At the same time we're looking to fix some minor HTML and CSS compliance issues that clutter the validation reports.
• The findings from the FT Bowen Craggs report referred to below is also being analyzed. Their main focus is outside of Products & Services and shows that we need to improve consistency across and within the different subsections on abb.com, such as About Us, Investor relations etc.
• We also need to put more focus on broken links. The number of error messages from abb.com indicates that web editors may have grown complacent, letting the number of broken links start growing again. We may have to re-instate the "Hall of shame" to increase the pressure...
• The handling of web requests is another worry. While we have added more and more contacts, ABB's response rate has steadily deteriorated. Half of all requests are not being replied to even though most of them are perfectly bona fide service and sales requests.

While being busy doing mundane things, we also need to keep an eye on the future. We're busy preparing a meeting in the "ABB Intranet 2.0 strategy group" a week from now where we will discuss how Web 2.0/Enterprise 2.0 will affect ABB's future intranet activities. Issues like blogs, wikis, folksonomy, RSS and social networking will be discussed.