The firm recognised that with different staff working in different ways using different information, that one size no longer fits all when designing an intranet portal.  The concept of user-customisable pages has been around on the internet for a while, but the emergence of client side tools such as the jQuery javascript library have made it possible to recreate and adapt this concept for the enterprise.

Platform/innovation

Shepherd and Wedderburn has created a widget platform, MyShepwedd, which allows users full control of the content they see on their home page.  This marks the first time the firm has allowed users as much freedom to decide which content they consume.

MyShepwedd has been developed internally with no capital cost and using existing resources.  Our development team has designed the platform to be quick, lightweight and to run well even on low-specification machines.  The platform is built using PHP for the application code, Microsoft SQL Server as the backend database and AJAX and jQuery to perform the functionality without the use of page-reloads.

The platform hosts a set of widgets that can connect to any of our enterprise systems either directly through SQL, or through the use of Web Services to extract appropriate, relevant data from these repositories.  Users are given the ability to customise the display of these widgets further through widget-level options.  This can be as simple as determining the number of rows of data to display, or more complex filtering based on a number of criteria, including location and practice group.

Examples of current widgets come from a number of our systems – financial management, CRM, knowledge resources, current awareness – include recent matter worked on, WiP alerts, CRM updates as well as external content such as news and weather feeds.  The widgets are user-aware so are able to bring back information of direct relevance to the currently logged-in user based on their geographic location, practice group, rank or profit centre – for example matters the user has recorded time on, changes or notes against contacts they know, or location based office events.  We have found that this increases the usefulness to the end user, as they don’t have to sift through data that is of little interest to them to get to what they need.

We have retained control over a limited number of widgets in order to allow the firm to push important, firm-wide content to users.

As part of this project, we have taken the opportunity to implement Microsoft Search Server Express, again at little capital cost.  For the first time, this has enabled end users to search across all enterprise repositories to find information that may otherwise have remained hidden.  The filtering capabilities this provides have proved popular with users allowing them to perform a search and then refine it to display accurate, concise results.  Through extensive customisation of the search results, we have been able to enhance the display of results based on its source. This allows access to a number of actions.  Matter based results, for example, allow actions such as summaries of both the matter and client, quick access into the CRM system to contacts for that organisation and direct entry to our financial system for that matter.  These actions have combined to save considerable fee-earner time locating information.

Goals

The goals of this project were three-fold:

1. Highlight the vast array of information we, as a firm, hold electronically, and make better use of it to aid our transactional work;
2. Increase the efficiency of end users’ day to day work by giving them ready access to information they need on a regular basis;
3. Create a platform on which we can build in the future.

Results and feedback

Since the platform was launched firm wide, feedback has been universally positive.  As expected, younger members of the firm have taken to MyShepwedd very quickly and have been actively customising their pages to suit their needs.  As a whole, take up has been high with around 70% of end users customising their pages from the standard template pushed to all users on launch within the first month.

Analytics tracking page loads have fallen since fewer clicks are required to locate relevant information.  Correspondingly, the number of user sessions have increased showing that users are spending more time interacting with firm information using MyShepwedd as a base.

Benefits/added value

Significant production and distribution cost savings have been made through a number of hard-copy management reports being pushed electronically using widgets to appropriate staff with security inherited from our practice management system.  This has resulted in reduced printing costs for weekly and monthly reports that are now pushed electronically.

Feedback sessions have garnered interesting feedback both on how end users are using the platform, and to efficiencies it is creating.  Giving users the ability to customise their intranet experience has enabled some staff to become more productive as they spend less time trawling firm systems for information relating to their matters.  For research too, time has become more productive through our Search Server Express implementation as there is not a single place to search all information silos.  Within the search results page, the ability to perform the same search on external sources such as PLC, WestLaw and LexisNexis has proved valuable both from a time perspective as well as from a risk management point of view.

Time was spent before launch liaising with partners and knowledge champions in each practice group to ensure that content provided by widgets was useful to them, and to gather views on additional content that would benefit their daily working life.  Additionally, we spent time scoping what each practice group would like to see on day one as their standard set of widgets which proved effective in gaining valuable buy-in at all levels of the firm.

Partner Joanna Boag-Thomson comments “It’s great, we’re very excited about the delivery of information in this widget based format”.

The MyShepwedd platform has been live for one month and already we are witnessing significant benefits in terms of information usage and access, but also in terms of requests for new content to be made available in widget form.  Usage statistics from the first month of operation suggest that end users have grasped the concept and are willing to buy-in to it and use the platform to improve their access to information to help their working lives.

Shepherd and Wedderburn has long realised the need for a centralised integrated client relationship management tool to complement existing CRM strategies and processes however the current economic downturn is bringing co-ordinated business development activities into sharper focus.  With little appetite for a large capital expenditure project but a highly skilled and talented IT team, the firm decided to build in-house.

Over the last 12 months, our development team has designed, built and implemented a CRM tool – Connect – that has been explicitly tailored for Shepherd and Wedderburn.  Existing server resources have been used incurring no capital expense.

Goals

The goals of this project at the outset were to:

1. Combine individual Outlook contacts into a central database
2. Provide a mechanism for sharing information about contacts
3. Create greater transparency of existing knowledge and connections within the firm
4. Improve the speed of access to information and knowledge about contacts
5. Support and enhance existing CRM strategies and processes
6. Better facilitate and support our planned, targeted marketing campaigns and activities

Platform

Acknowledging that it is unusual to build such a key system in-house, a thorough research and scoping exercise was performed to identify not only the current data requirements but also anticipating future demand and usage. In addition a review of products and best practice currently being used elsewhere in the legal market was carried out.  This informed the design of the system.

Connect is built using PHP for the application code, Microsoft SQL Server for the data storage and business logic and AJAX and jQuery to enhance the user interface.  For more comprehensive integration and to increase user familiarity with the data, client and user information is pulled from the firm’s practice management system, allowing CRM data to be easily combined with financial information to aid targeting, segmentation and account management.

Given the volume and complexity of much of the data involved, ease of use was a key driver in building the user interface.  Several iterations of the design were tested and this process has led to a clean, simple interface that has required minimal training to perform the majority of functions within the system.

Access to contacts is through Outlook with which Connect integrates.  The Connect contacts within Outlook provide direct links to further information about each contact, such has who within the firm knows this contact, recent marketing activities, meetings and contact notes.  Also in-built is the facility to subscribe to other users’ contacts that enables PAs access to their lawyers’ contacts.  This “business as usual” approach has proved very successful in gaining buy-in and has been enthusiastically adopted.

By building Connect around the way Shepherd and Wedderburn works, we have found that we had the ability to understand deeply the data and integrate it with our existing enterprise systems.  By using Aderant Expert as the driver for user and client information, we are able to provide reports combining information from the two systems, further removing the silo effect so often created by implementing new systems.

Gaining buy-in

Connect has been operational since February 2009 and we have recently completed importing data which has been done on a team-by-team basis following extensive data cleaning.  Much of the effort in this project has been less technical and more process oriented, ensuring buy-in from each team, culling individual contacts and grouping contacts by team prior to migration into Connect.

One of the main barriers to projects of this nature is often the unwillingness of users to accept changes to their working practices. The project team was fortunate to include a member of the firm’s board whose role it was to be an ambassador for the project. In addition extensive consultation was carried out with all stakeholders throughout the firm to ensure that their concerns and input were recorded and accounted for. Whilst it is impossible to win over all 67 of our partners instantly, our attention was focused on several influential figures with whose support we could make significant progress.

It was also appreciated that one of the most important groups to engage with was PAs who had to be convinced of the project’s worth and long-term benefits. The ability to tailor an in-house system to the degree that we were able to, in a collaborative way with users, undoubtedly contributed to the successful and universal adoption of the system in a relatively short space of time.

The benefit to the end-user

Fee earners

The transparency of data in one central repository has enlightened many of our fee earners. There are many examples of those who were initially sceptical and their transformation has been significant as the information once held in ‘silos’ is exposed and they are able to appreciate connections across the firm and within client organisations. Awareness of these connections is enabling far more structured account management, targeting and cross selling.

Sharing information about contacts and their organisations has improved markedly by enabling contact notes to be stored against individuals within Connect.  This has benefited from senior management reinforcing the need to share contact activity information using Connect as the mechanism.  The increased levels of activity logged in Connect have allowed a number of customised reports to be created to disseminate information on a weekly or monthly basis covering practice groups, sectors and client activity.  This has dramatically increased awareness of activity around the firm that previously was only available on an ad hoc basis.

Many of our lawyers use BlackBerrys to continue working when out of the office.  It is essential that they be able to access their contacts on the move.  Connect allows access to contacts and the ability to record a contact note through the BlackBerry while travelling back from a meeting which ensures that people in the office have the latest information available to them.  This has been invaluable when it comes to increasing responsiveness to clients, and productivity as updates can be made instantly.

Partners

Partners within the firm have realised the need for a centralised system to manage contacts and spot new, or enhance existing opportunities.  Connect has spurred many of them on to encourage their teams to log all activity with contacts for the benefit of the firm.  This drive has led to increased adoption as people receive reports that are relevant to people they know and improve their knowledge of their own contacts.

The Board

The firm’s board invested in the talents of the IT team to deliver a solution that met the needs of all parts of the business. There is confidence that this has indeed been achieved – and at no capital cost.

PAs and secretaries

Feedback from this group has been overwhelmingly positive despite initial reservations about the level of work in making ready the data for rollout. The resultant improvements have helped to increase productivity through ease of access to relevant information.

Marketing and BD team

The MBD team now has the infrastructure to enable it to leverage the work that has been done in recent years to change the focus of the lawyers’ relationship with their clients. They have seen a renewed enthusiasm for the key account programme now that there is transparency and clear accountability for client management.

Marketing campaigns and mailings are now more accurate in reaching the correct individuals and can be more sophisticated in their targeting, with significant cost savings in reduced numbers. Each contact within Connect has been assigned a primary contact, an individual within Shepherd and Wedderburn whose responsibility it is to maintain and develop the relationship with the contact. The increased visibility has driven them to keep in touch with their contacts and to ensure that the information we hold is up to date.

Testimonial

James Will, Partner and member of the Partnership Board comments “One of the great advantages of building Connect in-house is the development of our products has very much been a combined involvement between legal staff and IT in order to ensure the firm’s objectives are met.  Without the skill of our IT development team, this is something that we could simply not have undertaken”.

Usage of Connect measured by page views has increased month-on-month as more teams are migrated in.  However, the number of activities tracked through contact notes has been increasing at a faster rate (about 30% per month) although some teams are still to get fully involved.

Conclusion

Although Connect has not been operational for long, benefits have already been seen throughout the firm in terms of increased awareness and knowledge.  However, it is the buy-in from all levels of staff measured through continual increase in usage that signals a culture change in the way the firm manages relationships with its contacts a in much more cohesive and strategic way than previously.

Christenson Photographers has had a web site for a number of years but it was felt that with competitors updating their web sites, it was time to revisit their web presences in order to remain at the cutting edge in this competitive sector.

Aesthetics were important in this brief. Wedding traffic depends strongly on a slick, professional looking site but without compromising the quality of the content. The use of high quality photography was essential due to the subject matter. Luckily Chris was able to supply a vast library of top notch images to use around the site and to create example galleries of previous work.

One of the two central purposes of the site is to provoke enquiries. As a result, a solid mechanism for soliciting and tracking responses to web lead generation was built into the site which allows the client to monitor ongoing progress with enquiries.

The second purpose is to display and sell prints to newlyweds and wedding guests. A password protected photo gallery was implemented that allows Chris to upload photos to the site and gives users the option to purchase images directly from the site. Being a small business with limited resources, there was little incentive to implement a full e-commerce operation so the Paypal shopping cart was implemented instead that fulfils the business’ need.

esspeedee decided to use the open source content management system WordPress due to its simplicity for end users to maintain. Additionally, WordPress provides the flexibility to implement all the functionality that Freewheeling were looking for.

The Coppermine photo gallery solution was implemented to host photos of Freewheeling’s work. This was closely integrated into WordPress and with the addition of Lightbox technologies gives a modern and professional look.

esspeedee produced a clean design that highlights the profiles of the group members and their work. It excels at re-use of content which is essential in creating a “sticky” web site that encourages visitors to remain on the site and click to more pages.

I took part in the panel discussion on building the business case for developing an intranet along with Jane Gospel from Amec, James Peer from Reed Elsevier and Chris Schilling from Phizer. Three very large firms and very different from Shepherd and Wedderburn, I hope I brought a different perspective to the discussions being the only services firm on the panel.

• Developing and executing a robust intranet strategy – Brochure
• Building the business case

If you want to find something on the internet, chances are you will use a search engine such as Google, Yahoo! or MSN/Live.com. You will enter your search terms, hit the button and be presented with a list of search results. How do those sites manage to be listed on the first page of results? Is there anything that can be done to help your site be listed there for terms appropriate to your site?

Well, yes and no. To an extent you can help to encourage search engines to index (or read) your site and remember it. There are two types of Search Engine Optimisation – organic and paid. Both have their benefits but ultimately a combination of the two can be hugely effective. My personal opinion is that you should spend more time on the organic SEO – the reasoning being that users are more likely to trust organic listings as they are deduced from an algorithm rather than how much money the advertiser has paid.

Paid SEO
Paid SEO involves using programmes such as Google AdSense to deliver messages to search engine users

Pros:

• Controllable – message, costs
• Quick to set up
• Highly trackable – measureable ROI

Cons:

• Competitive and saturated market
• Commercial feel – less credible
• Requires time and effort to get it right

Organic SEO
Organic, or natural, search listings are the more traditional search results which are returned when a search is performed.

Pros:

• Can produce strong results based on relevancy
• Credible source – not commercial incentive to be listed higher
• Sustainable way of acquiring users

Cons:

• No direct control over position in rankings
• Dependant on search engines not making changes to their methods
• Can optimise too far and cause damage

Simple activities to perform to enhance search engine placement
Produce, high quality, unique content that labels you as authoritative

Google is uses many factors in ranking pages, but high up the list is incoming links – people linking to your page.

By producing useful, relevant content, other sites are more likely to link to your site which increases your worth to Google. The more links, the more authoritative Google believes the page to be and it will increase your ranking accordingly.

Blogs are an excellent way of producing content for this purpose.

Choose outgoing links carefully

Google also looks at who you link to. If you link to sites such as Joe Bloggs personal home page, a page that has little credibility, your page is liable to be downgraded. If, however, you are linking to credible sources such as the BBC, FT, your site will gain additional worth as Google will believe you to be providing useful, relevant links to further information about the subject of the page.

Keep the content short

Attention span on the web is even lower than print media. Articles should be kept concise to keep visitors attention. Long rambling pages dilute the the keyword ratio – the number of keywords that people will search for compared to other words.

Ensure web site is coded according to web standards

Many sites, especially older sites have incredibly messy code. Google only scans the first x number of characters before it gets bored and moves on. If you have a mess of code on the page before you get to any content, there is a change Google will never actually reach the content.

By having neat, well-structured code, Google can easily read the content of your page and index it effectively. It can identify meaningful links between pages on your site and externally and weight your page accordingly. Google can only scan what is put in front of it so it is worth making the effort to ensure it scans useful content

Name pages carefully

The single most important aspect of a web site is its title – the line of text in the blue bar at the top of the window. This is what Google will display in its results and what will entice users to click on the link and visit your site.

Compare these examples:
“Widgets.com – the widget store”
and
“High quality Widgets at low prices, shipped for Free to UK addresses: Widgets.com”

Think about which is more likely to be clicked on if it appeared in a results page.

Ensure relevant meta data is added to each page

Meta data is information about each page, it’s title, description, keywords. This is not the factor it once was, however, it can put a page over the top in terms of ranking. Think carefully about the content of each page and customise the title, description and keywords for each based on what you think users will search on to find that page – think laterally! There are some tools available that can help with what users search for.

Summary

This only scratches the surface of the potential of organic listings. There are many more techniques that can be applied to better your chances of good listings. It is important to remember when discussing organic listings that there are no guarantees – only the search engines know the exact criteria that determine their rankings, these techniques represent current best practice.

Organic and paid for listings should complement each other. It is worth making the effort for good organic listings for their better credibility and long term sustainability. However, paid for listings are ideal should you need to get a message out quickly.

It should be noted that the search engines have rightly taken a hard line against spam and web sites that propagate spam and other types of online attacks such as phishing. Large companies such as BMW have been removed from Google in the past for using what are known as ‘black hat’ or underhand search engine optimisation techniques. Stay focussed on your site and related keywords and you will be fine.

In the first part of this article, we looked at the theory of open source software, how it works, its benefits and drawbacks. In this part, I want to look at open source software in practice on the internet.

If you’ve read a blog, chance are you’ve unwittingly used open source software, if you’ve visited any major web site, there’s a better than even chance you’ve used open source software. Open source software is much more common on the internet than on the desktop at this time.

I thought it useful to highlight some of the online open source software available in different categories to give an indication of what is available and how easy it is to use.

I’m going to look at, in the order they are used by users on the web:

• Web servers
• Development languages
• Content management systems
• e-Commerce
• Other software

Web servers

• Apache - The Apache web server commands a 61% (netcraft.com, October 2006) share of the web server market. It has been around since 1996 and has matured into a flexible, scalable server that caters for all needs from personal site right up to enterprise level. Its nearest competitor, Microsoft’s IIS, has a 31% share. It’s popularity stems partly from its free nature and partly due to its original as a UNIX product that is favoured by technically minded people. These days it runs on almost any platform, Windows, Linux, Mac.

Development languages

• PHP – PHP is a simple scripting language that has been designed specifically for the web. Its use is common place on a number of major sites. PHP allows developers to provide interactive functionality to site visitors. It is frequently used in creating content management systems that allow non-technical users to create and maintain web sites.

Content management systems

The sheer number of open source content management systems is astounding. The quality of some leaves something to be desired. One of the problems of open source software is that anyone can create a very basic system that suits their name and distribute it. However, it may not suit anyone elses way of working. There is a wide disparity between what is available. Some of the good systems are highly advanced and do rival the commercial options available. Some of the good open source content management systems are:

• Mambo/Joomla
• Drupal
• ezPublish
• Typo3

OpenSourceCMS.com provides a great way to try out all these CMSs and more without any effort.
Blogging is becoming a popular hobby as well as increasingly relevant in the corporate arena. Corporate blogs are a great way for a corporate entity to communicate with its staff or customers and are becoming more common. Some blog software, such as WordPress, like this site is built on, are beginning to cross over into content management system territory.

e-Commerce

Given that online shopping is infringing more and more heavily on high street retail sales, it comes as little surprise that open source software has ventured into this area where numerous retailers are finding themselves in need of the ability to sell online. There are some very advances systems available. One, osCommerce, provides a basic store front with the associated administration functions but whose community provides an additional 3,500 modifications and contributions that you can activate depending on your requirements.

Other software

While content management and blogging are the most popular uses of open source software on the internet, they are far from the only options. Some other popular options include:

• Discussion boards – allow users to carry out discussions in an open forum
• Customer support – through helpdesks
• Online research – online polls, quizzes and in depth survey tools are all available
• Image galleries – display a collection of images – think holiday photos!

Summary

There is a vast array of open source software that is available to be freely used on your business or personal site. It is usually possible to try before you waste time installing packages so try them all and see which suits you best.

What is Open source software?

It is essential to gain a firm understanding of what open source software (OSS) is and isn’t.

OSS, according to the Open Source Initiative must meet 10 conditions to be considered open source:

1. Software must be free distributable
2. The underlying source code must be included or obtainable
3. Modifications to the software must be allows
4. The integrity of the original author’s source code must be maintained
5. Must not discriminate against any specific person or group
6. Commercial use must be allowed
7. No additional licences, eg support licences, can be required for use
8. Package must not require additional products to be used
9. Can be distributed with closed source software
10. Must be technology-neutral

So, what does this mean in practice? It means that OSS can be used freely, modified to your exact requirements and distributed without the need for capital outlay in terms of software licences or support agreements. That said, some OSS providers do offer optional support plans for more complex packages.

What is closed source software?

Almost the exact opposite of open source software. The developers create the product, then close off the underlying code so no one is able to access the code to see how it works. This is the basis of most commercial products available – the companies involved make their money almost exclusively through product sales although support agreements are often a compulsory part of the deal.

What software will I know from each group?

You will undoubtably be familiar with much of the software on the list of closed source software, but as open source grows in prominence, they are likely to become household names.

Closed Source Software examples:

• Microsoft Windows (operating system)
• Microsoft Office (productivity)
• Adobe Photoshop (graphics)
• MacOS (operating system)

Open Source Software examples:

• Mozilla Firefox (web browser)
• Linux (operating system)
• OpenOffice.org (productivity)
• Apache (web server)

Is Closed Source Software dead?

Not yet, no. But it is likely that as open source products mature, there will be growing demand for them. Their model of no upfront fees is attractive, especially for small and medium sized businesses.

If an organisation has the in house expertise to install and maintain the software, the total cost of ownership can be slashed.

There is a level of discomfort among senior managers and board members with accepting something for nothing. The belief that if it’s free, it can’t be very good is still prominent although with major players like IBM and Sun Microsystems now developing open source software specifically for enterprises, that viewpoint is gradually being eroded.

It won’t be an overnight change, but it is certainly coming.

How can software companies support this business model?

There has been a trend for companies not to upgrade at every version of a software package but to do so, perhaps every second new version. This has created a revenue stream problem for the software companies who have seen the frequency their revenue arrives decrease. They have decided to give their software away for free.

The financial experts among you will notice a slight flaw in this plan – no software sales = no cash. True. Software companies now offer attractive support packages to their customers while giving the software away. For the customer this means the latest software without the capital outlay. For the software company it is more profitable as providing support is cheaper and more profitable than product sales.

Fine, but are open source products of an equal quality?

It really varies. The market for open source software is still in its infancy but there are some really high quality products available. As the market and concept matures, the products will become almost indistinguishable from closed source products.

Products such as the Apache web server have been around for the best part of 10 years and command the majority of the market share in web servers. The web browser, Firefox, now commands a 12% market share just two years after it began its head to head battle with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. At the enterprise level, IBM has made elements of its DB2 database open source and Sun has made its Java language open source and other big names, such as Hewlett Packard and Oracle will certainly follow this pattern.

How does the software develop?

One of the main benefits of open source software is that if you don’t like the way something works, you are free to enter the source code and change it so that it suits your way of working. Many packages request that any changes made to packages are released back to the user community so other users can benefit from the work. Rather than having a team of 100 developers working on a software package, community developments can allow thousands of users to further develop the software.

Summary

Open source software is still a recent concept and not fully mature. That said, there are many products that are ready for use organisations. While the benefits outweight the negatives, there are still cultural objections to overcome from management and board level. Those will diminsh over time as an increasing amount of quality software becomes available.

If you’re building a business case for using open source software, here’s a basic crib sheet of advantages and drawbacks:

Advantages:

• No initial capital outlay
• Lower total cost of ownership
• Ability to make changes without necessarily paying external developers
• Access to community of developers

Drawbacks:

• Not fully developed market
• Variable product quality – on a product by product basis
• No support package included
• Senior management reluctance

Further Resources:

• Wikipedia – Open Source Software
• The Open Source Initiative

The second part of this article will focus on the use of open source software on the internet and on intranets.