http://tc.eserver.org/publisher/CIO_Magazine A listing of works published by CIO Magazine in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/CIO_Magazine http://tc.eserver.org/35151.html http://tc.eserver.org/35151.html Practicing good project management in the area of initiation, planning and execution will increase the performance of your project execution. Resources will be better utilized and the team will be more motivated and organized. This will reduce any duplication of effort and ensure that dependencies are dealt with in an optimal manor. http://tc.eserver.org/34916.html http://tc.eserver.org/34916.html Each time I sign up a CIO speaker, I hopefully suggest the option of going slide-free. From the reaction I get, you'd think I suggested walking on stage pants-free. http://tc.eserver.org/34813.html http://tc.eserver.org/34813.html In the year 2007, higher-ups and bigwigs in Corporate America still believe that telecommuting is not a good activity for their workers' long-term career plans. Trends@Work data revealed that 61 percent of surveyed execs believe that telecommuters are less likely to advance in their careers when compared with employees who work in the traditional office setting. That's almost two-thirds of the 1,320 respondents. http://tc.eserver.org/34814.html http://tc.eserver.org/34814.html Sure, telecommuting is great. Until you realize you've got nothing but moldy cheese in the refrigerator for lunch, you're way out of the gossip loop and you never get the Friday afternoon back-slaps. http://tc.eserver.org/33174.html http://tc.eserver.org/33174.html Let's start with a single, seemingly simple premise: A website's main page should allow users to find the answers to basic questions. Amazingly, this fairly obvious rule is often ignored. http://tc.eserver.org/32925.html http://tc.eserver.org/32925.html How could an $11,000,000,000 company fail so miserably in its e-commerce efforts that it had to turn its storefront over to a relative newcomer? And what is the Big Lesson we can learn from Toys'R'Us' difficulties? http://tc.eserver.org/32926.html http://tc.eserver.org/32926.html Information architect Lou Rosenfeld never thought he'd criticize a website for being over-architected. Then he saw Brint.com and its 16 navigational systems. http://tc.eserver.org/32927.html http://tc.eserver.org/32927.html It's all too common for IT players to emphasize the technology and ignore the information that the technology exists to convey. Take my friendly local cable provider, MediaOne. http://tc.eserver.org/32928.html http://tc.eserver.org/32928.html His own vendor conspiracy theories aside, Lou Rosenfeld knows of three main reason why technical "support" is often not support at all. http://tc.eserver.org/32929.html http://tc.eserver.org/32929.html Website critic Lou Rosenfeld is shopping for a baby present, but the website he's using is making his task tougher than it should be. Lou takes on www.toysrus.com. http://tc.eserver.org/32930.html http://tc.eserver.org/32930.html With April 15th approaching, Lou needed some basic tax information, but Merrill Lynch's labeling system made the easiest answers tough to find. http://tc.eserver.org/32931.html http://tc.eserver.org/32931.html Creating a user interface that is consistent across a website isn't easy. But managers of sites that serve multilingual, multinational users are going to have to rise to the task, however daunting it may be. http://tc.eserver.org/31076.html http://tc.eserver.org/31076.html A no-nonsense approach to finding a great tech writer, even when you don't know what to look for. http://tc.eserver.org/28127.html http://tc.eserver.org/28127.html As open-source development options proliferate, CIOs are finding ways to make it work for their organizations. http://tc.eserver.org/26730.html http://tc.eserver.org/26730.html The Frito-Lay portal has also been an invaluable tool for helping him assess employee skill sets, because each salesperson is required to catalog his or her strengths and areas of expertise. http://tc.eserver.org/26731.html http://tc.eserver.org/26731.html One law firm strives to transform scattered file cabinets into an online knowledge-management system. http://tc.eserver.org/23768.html http://tc.eserver.org/23768.html Proper usability design commonly cuts training costs by 50 percent and increases productivity by 25 percent. http://tc.eserver.org/23036.html http://tc.eserver.org/23036.html For finance organizations, process and organization matter more than vendor. http://tc.eserver.org/22480.html http://tc.eserver.org/22480.html Is your website easy for Maude to use? Or, for that matter, Tiffany or Raul? Here's how to sync up your website with your audience. http://tc.eserver.org/20782.html http://tc.eserver.org/20782.html The current stampede toward offshore outsourcing should come as no surprise. For months now, the business press has been regurgitating claims from offshore vendors that IT work costing $100 an hour in the United States can be done for $20 an hour in Bangalore or Beijing. If those figures sound too good to be true, that's because they are. http://tc.eserver.org/19027.html http://tc.eserver.org/19027.html Once upon a time, if it was on the web, it was good. If it did tricks, so much the better. And how did a company know if its website was really good? Of course, by measuring traffic. The more traffic, the better, right? http://tc.eserver.org/19032.html http://tc.eserver.org/19032.html Back when having a website was more important than having a sound business plan, Web content management systems were a must-have for large companies. IT managers bought into the idea that they needed an all-in-one system that would help them generate content, structure it, design it and publish it. But new research suggests these systems largely failed to live up to their promise. According to a recent report by Jupiter Research, 61 percent of companies that have deployed Web content management software still update their websites manually. http://tc.eserver.org/19031.html http://tc.eserver.org/19031.html You ask the Web jockeys to pull the latest stats. Hits are growing. Page turns per visit are up. The search button has been getting lots of action too. But before you pass those numbers on to the CEO, think again: The search button's popularity could be a sign that customers can't tell where the site's navigation buttons will take them. Those hits and page turns could be a sign that customers are lost, testing link after link. You don't know because at your company, as at most companies, no one has ever asked customers whether your Web site is easy to use. And what you don't know can cost you. http://tc.eserver.org/19033.html http://tc.eserver.org/19033.html In most organizations, data is piling up by the minute: e-mails, names, addresses, transactions, you name it. As a result, finding what you need when you need it is becoming increasingly complicated, which is why more companies are deploying enterprise search tools. According to a recent report by Boston-based Yankee Group, 75 percent of businesses with more than 100 employees have some sort of enterprise search technology in place. The study also found that the bigger the organization, the more likely it is to invest in search technologies, as 91 percent of companies with more than $1 billion in annual revenue report having enterprise search capability. In 2001, a similar Yankee Group survey found that 63 percent of businesses employed search technology. In that year, enterprise search vendors generated $400 million in revenues. http://tc.eserver.org/19034.html http://tc.eserver.org/19034.html Digital asset management (DAM) software stores and organizes images, audio, video and other digital objects, making them easier to find, transform and reuse. And many companies are using DAM to provide a centralized way for employees and partners to locate and manipulate content-a big time-saver for all.