Tools & Software

Our clients are planning, designing, and launching online professional networks of all shapes and sizes to reach, engage, and inform external stakeholders.

These range from private blogs to share privileged information and invite input; to online communities around face-to-face events; to project and partner collaboration; to communities of practice focused on specific topics. Since the technology landscape changes so fast, here's our current short-list of go-to platforms that we use to support our clients for these activities.

I had the displeasure of spending much of the evening reading one of the worst requirements documents I have had to wade through in some time. It wasn’t that it was poorly written (it was) or poorly organized (check). Its greatest crime was that those who had written it had clearly failed to utilize the two key words that have to be part of any requirements effort: “why?” and “no.”

Those of us who sell strategy services for a living tend to rely on the desire for measured approaches to big problems. This taps into deep-seated wisdom about how to manage large, complex situations: plan first, then execute. Heck, our language is littered with support for this view. "Look before you leap" is a cherished nugget. "His approach is 'ready, fire, aim'" is used as a criticism, as is "flying by the seat of one's pants." There is a deep desire to instill deliberation in the face of big efforts.

There’s been an exciting development in online collaboration this month with GSA’s launch of Challenge.gov – a platform for Federal agencies to conduct challenges and contests.

Recently, HootSuite, a prominent social media dashboard, introduced a new “Freemium” pricing structure, which offers basic Web services at different price points. Their once entirely free service is now being offered in distinct bundled packages - the basic features will stay free, but more advanced features will require a monthly fee. Sometime this month, they will be asking you to select a plan.

Ning, the leading free social media platform provider has recently lost not only its CEO, but also about 40 percent of its workforce. For its nearly 20 million monthly visitors, this means a rate increase.

When accessing the internet, people use a search engine 91 percent of the time (equivalent to the percent accessing their email). Two thirds of those searchers use Google over any other search engine. What if you could make sure when a user types in a search query to Google, your site was at the top of the list? Well, with Google AdWords you can.

Those of us familiar with front-end user interface development such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, understand the pains and complexities of Cross-Browser Compatibility. For most others, the main thing that matters is how a web site or application displays and functions in their browser(s) of choice. Because of the challenges browsers present, front-end interface development has become a critical part of web development.

We have described previously on this blog how Forum One approaches social media in general, as well as our experience with SlideShare and Scribd. In this post, we'll discuss the current glamour child of social media, Twitter.

Many of our clients at Forum One produce large numbers of PDF documents (reports, studies, policy briefs) which then are placed in a "documents" section on their web sites. The challenge these organizations face is then making these documents as widely accessed as possible.

One way to increase attention to documents is to use Scribd, a third-party document sharing site (or in shorthand, "YouTube for documents"). We have had good luck at Forum One using Scribd for our clients.