Going Beyond Blogs
In This Chapter
^ Managing people and projects with blogs ^ Using blog software for e-commerce and intranet sites ^ Adapting blog software to manage information logs are a powerful communication medium that you can use to facilitate dialogue among groups of all kinds on almost any subject. The heart of this strength lies in the powerful software applications that produce blogs. Though a specific, authoritative definition of blogs may be elusive, one thing is certain: Blogs are made possible because of the existence of this blogging software. These software programs are perfect for blogging, but they can also be adapted and used for other Web projects. The possibilities may surprise you.
Businesses and individuals seeking reasonably priced content management software, especially publishers, have discovered that blog software can be used for everything from e-commerce applications to corporate intranet systems. With a powerful blog software package and a savvy technical developer, the possibilities for using blog software for nonblog purposes are wide open.
Blog software is especially useful for organizations that want to launch a Web site and a blog — purchasing a good blog software package fulfills both needs and makes updating your site much easier. It's easier on the pocketbook, too.
In this chapter, I walk you through some ways in which you can use blog software to go beyond blogs or to produce both blog and nonblog content for the Web.
Using Blogs for a Whole Web Site
Most of this book assumes that you're adding a blog to an existing Web site, but if you don't have a Web site yet or need to redesign, consider using blog software to build the entire package. It takes some work, so you should have a good Web developer close at hand or be one yourself, but you may just find that the end result is easier to update and organize than a Web site made up of individual HTML pages.
Web sites (that aren't blogs) built with blog software don't need to look or feel like blogs at all — remove the timestamps, comments, and chronological arrangement of posts, and you start to have a collection of material like any other Web site. Start thinking of categories as Web site sections, permalinks as pages, and blogs as organizing principles, and you're on your way.
Many of the Web sites built with blog software actually combine multiple blogs in the same page. For an example, take a look at Alaska Science Outreach (www.alaskascienceoutreach.com), a science information clearinghouse site run by freelance writer Sonya Senkowsky. Alaska Science Outreach, shown in Figure 15-1, runs on pMachine's ExpressionEngine, but very little of it looks or acts like a blog. Each section of the site is actually a separate blog.
The Online News Association used Movable Type to build the Web site for its 2004 conference (shown in Figure 15-2), and it too is made up of several different blogs. Visit the site at journalists.org/2004conference, and you see that the site's polished look reads more like a news Web site than a blog. Click around, however, and you find ONA making great use of blog functionality, such as comments, to enrich the site.
Figure 15-1:
Alaska Science Outreach doesn't act like a blog, but it is built with blog software.
Figure 15-1:
Alaska Science Outreach doesn't act like a blog, but it is built with blog software.
Figure 15-2:
The Online News Association used blog software to build the conference coverage Web site.
Figure 15-2:
The Online News Association used blog software to build the conference coverage Web site.
During the conference, ONA ran a blog for participants: Any conference attendee could add content during (and after) the conference. Instead of registering every attendee as a blog author — a major headache fraught with forgotten passwords and incorrectly typed e-mail addresses — ONA created a single post and allowed participants to post comments to it. By tweaking the design of the page, the result looks and feels like a blog created by multiple authors, rather than a huge list of comments.
Using Blogs for Project Management
Before I move on to the more creative applications of blog software, take a moment to note that blogs themselves are a natural tool for collaboration and project management.
You can use a blog to keep together a group of team members to do the following:
^ Organize a conference, retreat, or company event. ^ Track bugs and fixes in a process. ^ Help shift workers coordinate progress and schedules. ^ Share meeting notes.
^ Alert each other to new tools and tips that can speed up tasks.
il Create checklists and tasks, and assign workflow. I Build consensus.
i Keep noncore employees in the loop with fewer monotonous meetings. i Solicit feedback on decisions in a low-pressure environment.
This list is only part of the daily communicative encounters that happen during the course of normal working life.
Using blogs instead of e-mails, memos, and endless meetings has the added benefit of creating a electronic archive of the ongoing conversation — going back to figure out what people were thinking when a decision was made or keeping tabs on progress is easy to do.
If a new member joins the project midway through, instead of having to forward a dozen e-mails and files, the new member can see the evolution of the discussion and the efforts of each member — if not perfectly, hopefully a little more easily than sifting through someone else's old e-mails.
Will using a blog to track progress increase productivity? There's no evidence that it does, but adding more accountability to your workflow may have the effect of making people feel more engaged, involved — and more publicly responsible for the work they do.
Organizations such as Google, InfoWorld Media Group, Microsoft, Sun, Disney, and others are reportedly using blogs for workplace collaboration and communication. How many companies use blogs this way is hard to know, because naturally these blogs are not open to the public!
The price tag for letting your employees add a blog to their communication tools is certainly reasonable as well. Many basic blog packages start at rates much, much lower than larger project tracking software, and their easy-to-use interface encourages people to use the product. In the long term, your needs may outgrow blogging software, but in the short term, you can be up and going in minutes.
Blogger (www.blogger.com) lets you create a blog with multiple contributors for free, although the blog is public. Turn to Chapter 5 to find out more about Blogger.
Creating Intranet Web sites
An intranet is a private Web site or network of a company or organization used to maintain internal information, manage projects, provide employee information, and distribute common forms and files. They are especially important for large organizations with employees in multiple locations who need access to the same data — think of a headhunting organization with a database of employers, for example.
Organizations commonly have pages on an intranet site for sections, departments, even individuals. Kept updated, these sites can be a great way for employees to stay in touch and on the same page. Allowed to grow stagnant, the organization gets little to no benefit from an intranet. So if the intranet keeps everyone else informed, the question is: Who keeps the intranet updated?
In the best possible world, the intranet would be updated by the people who use it and know the information best. Typically, these are people who don't have the time or need to learn HTML and code Web pages; they have jobs to do! Centralizing updates in a technical department is one solution but one prone to failure in times of technical crisis or sheer work overload. On the other hand, training dozens of people in the details of FTP and HTML is difficult and less than efficient.
The best solution is to run the intranet using a content management system, or Web publishing tool, that puts intuitive, simple updating tools in the hands of employees. Sound familiar? Part of what is so revolutionary about blog software, after all, is the ability of nontechnical folks to publish and keep publishing powerful, functional Web sites.
Intranets and blog software are a close fit, which many companies have realized and taken advantage of. Some have turned off the more "bloggy" features, such as timestamps and comments, and focused on simply having announcements with headlines and text; others have incorporated these features into the functionality of the intranet and increased the communication abilities of staff at the same time.
The Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center in Seattle is one such organization. The hospital has had an intranet since 1995 that connects its (approximately) 3,000 employees, referring physicians, University of Washington students, and other partners.
When looking for a more robust way to manage the intranet a couple of years ago, the technical team initially considered using a more traditional content management system. It proved to be hard to customize pages for different departments and was very difficult for would-be updaters to get the hang of. Plus it was expensive. Keith Robinson, then the lead Web developer (he has since left to pursue another job opportunity), had been using Movable Type to publish a personal blog and wondered whether it might be something the hospital could use for the intranet.
Christian Watson, eHealth Program Manager, says they built a test intranet site using Movable Type with news and announcements and trained some key staff to update it. The hospital invested six months in testing the system to see if it would really work and in the end converted nearly its entire intranet to Movable Type.
There are seven sections to the intranet, which is shown in Figure 15-3. It contains these sections: home page (news, events, calendar), policies and procedures, staff resources, clinical resources, education and development, an about section, and approximately 70 department pages. The Web team also maintains a How To blog to help staff use the system.
Figure 15-3:
The Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center, Seattle, runs its intranet site using Movable Type blog software.
CHILD
Phon« Directory
o Find a Department
O Find a Form o Find a Person
O Find a Policy o Login to ChEX
O Look up a Lab Test o Reserve a Meeting Roam o Use eFeedbackNOW
O View Classified Ads
© View Job Listings
O View Online Reports o Visit Human Resources
O Visit The Hospital Library o Visit The Sound Cafe
Contribute to CHILD /
Tell us what you S think or give suggestions for making CHILD better._
DEPARTMENTS
Children's Retirement Plan Will Offer Contribution Match
Enhancements coming soon to the Children's Retirement Plan will offer employees a new opportunity to add to their retirement nest eggs, Starting Jan. I, 2005, Children's will provide a new matching contribution to participants in the Children's Retirement Plan (also known as the 401(a) plan).
TRead Morel
!5 InHouse
"Peter Pan" Appears in Children's Playroom
Dec. 6 — Striking her best Peter Pan pose, actress Cathy Rigby watches as patient xxx sprinkles "pixie dust." Rigby, currently starring in "Peter Pan" at the 5th... l"Read Morel
ARNP Pattl Varley Earns Nursing Excellence Award
Dec. 6 — Congratulations to xxx, who was honored by the Association of Advance Practice Psychiatric Nurses (AAPPN) by receiving the Nursing Excellence Award for 2004. This statewide... l"Read Morel
& Announcements
General > New Model of Care Launches in the ED This Week
Facilities > Room Renumbering Takes Effect This Week Facilities > Be a Part of Children's History Facilities > Met Park Moves Begin Dec. 10
Mark Your Calendar December 200-I M T W T F S
Upcoming Evetïts
12/07 - Grounds Dept. Holiday Greenery Sale
12m ft ? - Staff Holiday
12/09 - Fall Forum at OBCC
12/09 - Ped Grand Rounds: What's Uo in the Pads Patch?
12/09, 16 fc 23 -Christmas Music for the Soul
13/10 - Hanukkah Celebration
© Children's Hospital and Regional Medical Center
There are about 50 different employees who update the site themselves; infrequent updates from smaller department are still usually handled by the Web team. Overall, Watson says, the usability of the system has greatly increased, and users like the increased control they have over their content.
Not all departments were converted; those with specialized applications continue to use older systems.
Testing of the site and development of the system took almost a year; the hospital had some difficulty in finding the right combination of tools and servers. Today, adding sections to the intranet is relatively easy, even for those who want a customized look and feel. Users are updating more often, employees can find things more quickly, and the Web team workload has dropped. The Web team, with its eye on the future, appreciates that Movable Type generates static pages that could — if need be — be ported to another application or just edited.
Using Blogging Software to Build a Store
You can easily adapt blog software to any content that contains multiple sets of information that must be formatted in the same way. Think of news stories (always have a headline, author, and story), library catalogs (books always have titles, authors, publication dates, and publishers), and products (name, description, and image).
Although no blogging software that I know of (yet) includes an e-commerce tool (though I expect that to change soon), many can be adapted to display products information with links to an external shopping cart.
Blanca's Creations
To launch this site, I adapted blogging software for use as an e-commerce site for a Los Angeles-based artist who wanted to sell her work online without learning how to build HTML pages herself.
Blanca Lee of Blanca's Creations (www.blancascreations.com) sells hand-crafted key chains, pendants, bracelets, pillows, and other objects she makes through eBay but wanted to be able to showcase all her merchandise on one Web site, which is shown in Figure 15-4. I adapted the pMachine ExpressionEngine to integrate her products with the PayPal shopping cart system.
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