Enterprise RSS Best Practices

Ain't no use whining about Attensa and Wikigate. I'll chalk it up to live and learn and move on. Besides, our plates are full with customer projects.

I thought it would be useful to share how we work with customers to get their managed RSS programs up and running smoothly.

Step 1. Form a focused RSS initiative team

We recommend bringing the right people together to build an RSS Initiative Team consisting of stakeholders from IT and targeted business users. We become part of that team. The team's charter is to develop the program objectives, logistics, and schedule. We also create a collaborative workspace for sharing our insights, knowledge and experiences about collaboration and communication processes as the project progresses.

Step 2. Define Applications and Use Cases

With every company we work with there are numerous opportunities to benefit from managed RSS immediately by connecting people, information and communities. We help identify specific use cases that are representative of the broader framework and start creating secure, managed, publish-subscribe networks based on these target applications. These applications span both traditional and emerging Web 2.0 applications and facilitate the flow of relevant information, knowledge and collaboration.

These target initiatives provide the experience and insight that contributes to the success of the broader RSS initiative. These programs can be implemented in the short term while the long range planning and implementation for the enterprise 2.0 transformation continues moving forward.

Step 3. Implement and Document Use Cases

Working with key IT and business stakeholders we help implement target applications. Technical issues are identified, prioritized and obstacles removed. The applications and use cases are documented for training and functional testing criteria are collected based on real-world examples. The knowledge and documents built through these experiences become the foundation for a repeatable business deployment strategy and phased deployment plan.

Example Use Cases

Market Intelligence - Collection, Analysis and Distribution

Typically there are multiple opportunities to use RSS to improve business intelligence activities. These projects use the Attensa FeedServer to create highly relevant persistent search and filtered mash-up feeds focused on research, markets, brand and competitive intelligence. Feeds are identified and created by business analysts and channeled to the team responsible for identifying threats and opportunities. Highly relevant content is discovered, commented on and shared using flagging, tagging and publishing tools. Highly relevant filtered custom feeds are created and channeled to management and other stakeholders who can act on the information.

Successful market intelligence programs:

• Reduce the time required to monitor news and information sources by using intelligent search and filters
• Provide tools to discover, share and act upon relevant intelligence of strategic importance
• Increase the scope and quality of information monitored by distilling information to a relevant subset
• Enable the efficient distribution of business intelligence information via highly relevant feeds and collaborative publishing
• Provide tools for measuring the use of the information

Opportunities to improve group communication and efficiency by migrating existing email newsletters to a more efficient publish-subscribe service exist in every organization we work with. The same content that is being assembled into monolithic email blocks can be broken down into articles in feeds that deliver the information in a contextual and accessible format through a group blog and RSS feed format.

Successful internal communications:

• Reduce email traffic from one to many type communication activities
• Audience opts-in to relevant subscription content
• Follow internal workflows and approval processes before distribution
• Distribute content instantly upon approval
• Delivere content contextually organized based on subscribers preferences
• Attention analytic reports enable publishers to measure the use of the information
• Provide a more flexible publishing approach that can be replicated across other similar use cases

Step 4. Build on Success

These are still early days in the move to enterprise 2.0. Our experience has shown that the key elements in successful projects are focused on people, information and community:

• Bringing together the right people
• Defining a clear focus
• Defining phases that are manageable
• Crisp communication by the project team
• Effectively evangelizing success internally