Having an internal networking system (intranet) is a great tool to boost internal collaboration between employees. But as many company realizes, these systems cost a dime to implement. Thus it is only limited to big companies with IT budget reaching 7 figures.
Well, there is a good way to acheive the same result withut costing your arms and legs. Open-source Content Management Systems, or open-source CMS for short, is a powerful tool that can act as a collaboration platform for your company’s need.
And we highly recommend companies, especially those small to medium SMEs with offices geographically scattered, to implement one.
Here’s why CMS is an all-around solutions for your company:
- You can have it as your official website. You can easily update the content of your website without any programming knowledge. You can even alter a whole lot of features for your website, like page structure or navigational menu. These actions are no longer limited to web developer- now you can have the power in your hands.
- It can function as a membership-based website, with different Access Control Level (ACL). With this membership features, you can set the access level and privileges your registered user can have. Hide sections and pages according to your user- different level of employees, vendors, customers etc..
- It can perform as a dynamic communication channel. Forum scripts, for example, is a great way to encourage internal discussions which can include image and files attachment. Therefore related documents can always be downloaded where the action happening.
- It has member profile system, where each user can have their own page where information about them can be displayed. Turn these pages into your employees details page, where when combined with the search function, it is a powerful employee directory for internal use.
- It can be cheap. There’s so many open-source CMS available today that gives more and more ability for smaller companies to leverage this powerful tool. We’ll cover some of the best in future postings, but overall, these open-source CMS is a viable alternative for companies to implement their internal networking capability without the 7-digit budget.
The only drawback of using this cheaper alternative for internal networking is you have to host the system on the world wide web, exposing your system to
- bigger security threat
- capped bandwith usage
- volatility of your ISP’s internet connection
But it’s still a useful system for SMEs that can be achieve using tremendously lesser budget. How low is low you might ask…Well, if you have an IT exec who knows some bits of web development, you can have your own all-rounder intranet system for free! That is if you don’t mind the bland default look of course 
Although Eric Schmidt claimed that Web 2.0 is just a marketing buzzword, i know that he knows better, that it is not. My take, is that large chunk of web 2.0 revolves around participation and social networking. Below is what i think of what web 2.0 is (ehem.. excuse my horrible (MS)paint job)
1 . User participation
Blogs, comments, user tagging (Digg) , social bookmarkings, etc. Basically, more power to the user on how things should be rather than presenting them a product as is.
2. Usability
Clean, simple looks, larger fonts for readability. Centralized and more focused layout, AJAX etc.
3 . Standard
CSS, cross browser, cross platform structural and presentation markup.
4. Open platform
Open APIs, open developement etc
5. Rich media
Video, podcast, animation etc
6. Aesthetic
And of course, it has to be beautiful (this is where the rounded edges comes to play!) 
When you are organizing the layouts of your web page, consider the visual flow, which should guide your web visitor from their point of first focus to your message. For instance, if you are putting an animated banner with dark color, use static and lighter colored content below it, helping your visitor to first focus on your banner and gently scrolling down section by section so none of your content will be missed.
If you use a similarly dominant element like a crowded and heavy picture on the bottom of the screen, visitors would most likely focus on the banner then directly to the picture, making them undecided on what to focus next.
They can become lost in your page, lessening their interest and attention level - which proves to be a costly mistake in delivering your message. Use contrasting BUT complementing elements and colors, but don’t apply too much variety- or this will happen!
Contrast will separate your content from the design, while complimentary elements will reduce your visitor’s conflict for attention. These should help them to effortlessly absorb the content of your website one by one - making your site browsing not just enjoyable, but effective as well. Look at how this site use a banner, large vertical top sections with icons, a small row of images and decreasing size of texts to guide your attention flow.
A hectic week this is, but luckily I got some time to do some reading on the net. The hype nowadays among web developer is of course the web 2.0, and currently designers are very concern to produce websites that is up to this standard. Let’s focus now on the web design aspect first where we will cover the programming part in later postings.
Although still debatable (and controversial sometime), there is loose definition on the term itself, making it harder for designers to create a standard guideline in designing a website. Gradient? Rounded edges? Flash?
Design wise, I got a great site to share. According to the page, among the crucial (but not in certain cases) approaches in web design for the 2.0 bandwagon are:
- Simplicity
- Central layout
- Fewer columns
- Separate top section
- Solid areas of screen real-estate
- Simple nav
- Bold logos
- Bigger text
- Bold text introductions
- Strong colours
- Rich surfaces
- Gradients
- Reflections
- Cute icons
- Star flashes
From our definition here at Digital Gaia, web 2.0 is not really design-centric. It’s not about beauty. It’s all about user experience. It’s about delivering your message in a very pleasing way that it can enter your web visitors mind effortlessly.
Of course beauty will always help, but don’t let it detract your message away. The elements above will mostly help as it is the trend of beauty- in the eye of the general web user, not in the web developer’s.
The question: Does your web visitor belongs to the general group? Sometimes, your targeted web user might be those senior citizens, which rich media content might annoys them. Or they might be located in low-speed internet access areas, who find the extra loading time for those heavy yet subtle detailing (and sometimes mega-rich flash animation) painful.
Consider your web user carefully, and choose a design theme that can accommodate their needs and preferences, not yours.
Imagine this:
You are a superbly talented and creative web designer, resourceful and possess the most complex techniques in designing a website. When you are designing your client’s website, which way should you approach? A dynamic and outrageously beautiful website, or a simple static website?
Some of you might ask first: what is my client’s budget? Or some prefer: what is my client’s objective? Then you proceed with the first question. Well, I should mention, you miss a couple of crucial questions:
What is their message?
A website should always focus on the intended message, whether it is to sell product, present news, encourage people to sign-up or inducing brand images. And all this should relates to the next question.
Who are their targeted visitor?
Websites are for web visitors, not you, not your clients. It is your job to find the right way to present your client’s messages to their web visitors. Web visitors, and not your client’s customers.
So,when designing a website, understanding the challenging programming languages or possessing the gifted creative talent is no guarantee for a successful web design. You must understand your client’s whole business and possess a critical view of communication. Your approach can vary heavily in this stage.
Designing the best website takes some time. Understanding your client’s business takes most.
