Business is undergoing a shift to the point where almost every worker has an element of knowledge work in their role. It’s significantly more complex for business to cope with the spread of knowledge workers throughout every part of your organisation.

I can work with your organisation to build and implement programs to successfully manage the spread of knowledge workers across your business. These strategies will allow you to manage the necessary change and adopt polices and practices to empower those workers to do their jobs the best they can, increase productivity and morale and deliver real value back to business.

I will draw inspiration from many places and deliver to you a variety of services based on your needs. That could include:

• writing or assisting with documentation, guides and project artefacts for your business
• holding workshops or seminars to communicate strategies to your staff, clients or other stakeholders
• working with you on building your Internet site, intranet or other web-based tools for your knowledge workers and their clients
• consulting with your management, staff, clients and stakeholders to develop strategies on empowering your knowledge workers by building communication, collaboration and community

Social Networking and Social Media Strategy

Your organisation could benefit from using social networking and social media as a way to boost internal collaboration opportunities (Enterprise 2.0) and as a way to improve communication with your clients and customers. In particular, an understanding of how consumers are taking control of your message - sharing it when it has value to them and rejecting it when it is delivered badly, could be critical to new strategies you adopt. While likely to make a significant difference in many ways, this isn’t something to be done lightly.

In considering the use of social networking and social media, your organisation’s management needs to learn and understand about just what these things are. It’s much, much more than just putting up a blog or installing a wiki. There are significant cultural factors to be considered. These factors may introduce significant change (for the better) to your business.

I can advise your investors, senior management and staff on best approaches to the use of social networking and social media. I can also aid in the growth of understanding in your organisation of Web 2.0 tools inside the wall (Enterprise 2.0) and through the wall to your customers, clients and stakeholders (community building and social networking). Helping your organisation develop cultural and strategic change plans and implementation approaches to your entry into the social world will also be a part of the approach we work on together.

I am available for briefings, workshops, training and longer term involvement in your projects.

“The boundary between where a product ends and where a customer begins is changing.”
John J. Sviokla, Vice Chairman, DiamondCluster International Inc. in FastCompany Magazine

Knowledge Management

Too many organisations (mis)understand knowledge management as some kind of electronic filing process where corporate data is shoved away in a giant black box, unlikely to ever see the light of day again. This is not the world of knowledge management that acidlabs believes in.

Today it’s critical that your organisation or community frees and makes openly available as much of the knowledge it holds as possible. Equally, or even more importantly, your organisation needs to engender a culture where its people are freed to collaborate and share in a community driven by knowledge and learning. Siloed information is no longer a viable option. Those who fail to collaborate and communicate will be marginalised and their businesses and organisations will fall far behind the leaders.

I can advise your organisation on leading edge approaches and tools for knowledge management and help you build the communication, collaboration and community needed in your organisation to make it a success.

“You can’t manage knowledge – nobody can. What you can do is to manage the environment in which knowledge can be created, discovered, captured, shared, distilled, validated, transferred, adopted, adapted and applied.”
Chris Collison and Geoff Parcell, Learning to Fly

Web Strategy

A well-considered web strategy brings together the three spheres of community, business and technology in an effective, long-term plan for your web presence. That presence should take into account all the components of your online existence - Internet, intranet and anything in between, such as client or vendor portals.

Community

Through understanding of your community, you can develop a complete picture of what your users want.

acidlabs uses a number of tools and techniques in order to build this understanding of your community - user research, examination of the user experience, information architecture research and development and a deep understanding built through experience of just what it takes to tune in to the needs and wants of the community around your site or product.

Business

Your web strategy needs to be closely linked to your long term business goals and your objectives in your market. An understanding of the internal stakeholders, limitations and resources in your organisation, as well as knowing the market you operate in - your competitors, the forces operating around you and the nature of your organsation will have a significant impact on your web strategy.

acidlabs has several years of business consulting expertise and will leverage that experience in helping your organisation to develop your web strategy.

Technology

An understanding of what tools and technologies will work in a given situation and what benefits, limits, time and money costs and people effort each requires is a core component of your web strategy

I have extensive experience working with a wide range of web technologies in the commercial and Open Source markets and understands what each brings to the table. The strategy I develop with you will provide you with knowledge and information to make the most of the best technologies available to you.

“Web Strategy is the long-term iterative process of defining the direction of a web site or web product. The Strategy must meet three goals; Users, Business, and Technology to be successful.”
Jeremiah Owyang, www.web-strategist.com

Information Architecture

With the growth of Web 2.0 and social computing, the strength of user-driven communities on the web, widespread access to fast connections and near-ubiquitous e-commerce, it is critical that visitors to your site can use and understand its content quickly and easily. Google searches aren’t going to keep them coming to you forever.

Well structured information and good design are core components of your web strategy. It is possible to reduce the information overload faced by users of your applications and make them more usable, more user-centered and more easily accessed by those with special needs.

By applying recognised and proven information architecture processes and models to your web applications, I can work with your organisation to bring greater business value to your site.

“Information architecture deals with the structure and organization of a Web site. It’s about the design of the navigation and searching systems, the design of taxonomies, and making sure that they work both for browsing and searching, with an emphasis on making sure people can find what they’re looking for.”
Peter Morville, co-author of Information Architecture for the World Wide Web

User Experience

There’s not a lot of point launching your fabulous (and probably expensive) new web site if you haven’t had some serious research done into whether it’s actually usable.

Great user experience can make or break a site. It’s a well-worn maxim that unhappy customers (or site visitors) are likely to tell others about their bad experience. So a good user experience makes your visitors happy and brings them back to your site, which is good for your organisation. Steve Krug, author of Don’t Make Me Think, describes this as the “reservoir of goodwill” and notes that failing to consider the user can break this reservoir. Not something you want to do.

I have experience evaluating, advising on and testing user experience factors across all stages of web projects and ensuring that the best outcomes for your users and clients are delivered before going live. Strategic advice at all stages of a major development can add real value by taking user needs and business goals into account across user experience development.

“Keeping your users in mind isn’t hard. It’s elementary.”
Jesse James Garrett, The Elements of User Experience