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Sharing is Caring: Dutch government promotes re-use of open data

Government of the Netherlands promotes re-use of open dataIn recent years, the Dutch government has made some bold choices to open up its online information in many different ways. This resulted amongst others in 2010 in a brand-new website rijksoverheid.nl, the main site for communication between the Dutch central government and its citizens. This site is based on open-source CMS technology from Dutch CMS specialist Hippo. In 2011 a unified intranet for all government ministries followed.

Since its launch in 2010 the website rijksoverheid.nl applies the Creative Commons zero declaration (CC0) to the content of the website, unless stated otherwise. This means that all content available on the site is in the public domain and is free from copyright or other usage restrictions. This is important in order to facilitate the re-use of the data/content. Other government websites have taken the same approach, for instance www.government.nl and www.answersforbusiness.nl

More recently, the focus has shifted to what comes after openness: the sharing – in electronic, computer-readable formats – of various types of open data produced by government agencies and public institutions.

So what exactly is meant with ‘open data’? What type of information is made available, and how is this being re-used in commercial websites and mobile apps? Read on to find out the answers and get inspired to apply ‘open data’ in your own context.

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3 good reasons not to use LinkedIn

Simone GrossWhile Facebook is struggling after what looks like an inflated IPO, LinkedIn is enjoying positive press coverage and appears like the undisputed leader among professional networking sites with 175 million users in 200 countries as of June 2012.

Still, I don't have any plans to join LinkedIn any time soon. Here's my 3 good reasons why

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How Lundbeck uses LinkedIn to support their HR strategy

In a busy working environment, how do you get employees to fill out personal details and enhance their intranet profiles? Apart from having hectic working lifes, cultural issues may also hold employees back. However, without additional details on skills, competences and experience, you have little more than an oldfashioned intranet phone book containing simply e-mail addresses and phone numbers.

At Danish international pharmaceutical company Lundbeck they've managed to integrate their intranet with LinkedIn, so that employee profiles and search results are enriched by LinkedIn data. This means that a search for a specific skill, eg. deep technical knowledge of a particular protein, will also find both new and long-time employees that have the skill posted on their LinkedIn profile.

I spoke to Lundbeck's Web Application Specialist Maria Schmidt Sander to hear more about this innovative project.

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Is a social and collaborative intranet right for you?

“Why can’t our intranet be more like Facebook?”
“Our intranet needs to be more social”
“We need to collaborate much more!”

 

If you are an intranet manager, you have probably heard these or similar questions and statements before – from either colleagues or management.

The perception of the existing intranet is rarely positive if you ask around most organisations. They are typically information heavy, difficult to navigate, not up-to-date and have failed to evolve much; they simply don’t live up to users’ expectations. So how do we move from the much maligned intranet 1.0 towards solutions that meet current user demands?

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Why bother with semantic technologies?

Semantic technologies are a key component in the move towards a better web, but as usual emerging technologies have a much slower uptake than you might think if you listen to analysts and the industry press.

It takes time before they become part of the standard toolbox of ordinary organisations and this is also the case with semantic technologies, which have so far left practitioners stuck with limiting approaches like Dublin Core and clunky content management systems.

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Responsive web design continues to take the world by storm

Developing for a Mobile First world is turning into a very exciting time for architects, developers, and designers of all things digital.  We are creating experiences for devices that have surpassed almost all other forms of media (except possibly traditional television and PCs) in terms of how people consume content.

There is a dynamic ecosystem that we have been tasked to constantly push to the next level at a breakneck pace.  New design patterns and development approaches are rapidly taking hold as we adapt to the changing means in which our users access the applications and sites that we create.

One of the more web-centric approaches to ensure that web content can be consumed by mobile device users is to leverage Responsive Web Design.  In the past two years, this new pattern has taken the user experience world by storm as we look to design a single template to serve to devices of all screen dimensions and orientations.

Like most of us involved with creating “things” for the web, we always look to the next best thing even if it isn’t always the most sustainable simply for the sheer joy in what we do.  As usual, we must sit back and perform a reality check prior to scaling a pattern from our 10-page microsite to a 2000 page website or complex intranet.

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Avoid the biggest content migration mistake

Davis Hobbs is a global expert on content migrationWant to know the single most important thing to do to optimize your content migration?  Think through the steps of handling and evaluating content during the website migration.

Unfortunately most focus exclusively on one single step: How to get content from the old system to the new one. A successful migration requires a further five steps.

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Ektron transforms the content editing experience with Aloha

ektron logoContent editing is the heart of Web content management systems, yet have received little attention in the past decade. During CMS product demonstrations, vendors tend to focus instead on nifty marketing features, social media tricks and their mobile features.

Now CMS vendor Ektron, once themselves known more for their text editor than their CMS, have decided to transform the content editing experience within the new version 8.6 of their CMS. Out goes the heavily customized version of the Telerik editor and in comes the HTML5-based Aloha Editor.

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10 to watch on Twitter in 2012

Twitter logo in 2012Welcome to our 4th annual list where we identify online professionals that make a difference on Twitter. Mostly they help us learn by sharing insights, but many of them also help challenge conventional wisdom, ask good questions and promote the excellent work of others.

Some write blogs, some are active on the conference circuit, others work in large and complex organizations where they play a key role in identifying new connections and curating knowledge.

For each of them we have selected a tweet to give you a taste of their style and what awoke our curiosity. We'll be watching and so should you. Enjoy!

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What’s the least you can expect from a modern CMS

Content management systems have been around for more than a decade, but still buyers keep getting caught by surprise as they find expected common and out-of-the-box functionality missing in their chosen Web CMS.

One frequently sought solution is to include everything in the Request-for-Proposal to avoid surprises like this, but as many buyers have learned, this solution rarely works in practice as vendors know their way around this process.

While the usual problems with a young and immature industry remain, here is a list of minimum essential functionality that emerged from a recent meeting in the CMS Expert Group.

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