Social networking with Sharepoint 2010 @ ABB Global #epem

Next speaker: Stein-Ivar Aarsaether, ABB Global Web Management.

ABB is a global leader in power and automation technologies. 117000 employees. ABB has a long history (founded in 1883 after lots of mergers).

ABB’s intranet is a traditional CMS-intranet, based on Lotus Notes. In 2002 they were one of the top-ten intranets of the year (Nielsen).

Problems they have:

• Hard to find information and services you’re looking for
• Difficult to keep content updated
• Lack of collaboration tools

They organized an ABB Intranet Conference in 2007. In 2009 they decided to go with Sharepoint 2010. In 2010 they launched the 1^st version. Every couple of months they launch a new version.

ABB uses Google Search.

A new section in their intranet (based on SP 2010) allows employees to follow feeds of other employees (like Twitter). But it could be more interactive, like Facebook. For instance if you comment on someone’s feed he/she doesn’t see that… Commenting on activity stream in SP is not out-of-the-box.

ABB finds it hard to live up to the user expectations based on external experiences (internet).

Customizing SP is a lot of work, but the end result was good. Make clear distinctions what you customize and what not. And don’t expect SP to meet all your requirements.

ABB finds that Sharepoint governance should be multifaceted. Different governance for taxonomy, branding, information architecture, team roles, etc.

ABB finds that Sharepoint governance should be multifaceted. Different governance for taxonomy, branding, information architecture, team roles, etc.

They have governance for:

• Ordering new team spaces
• For pricing (free)
• For cleaning up unused spaces
• For ensuring the desired level of ‘brand building’

Plans they have are:

• federated search (based on FAST)
• move outside the firewall
• further integration