Recommending "Intranet Login for Dummies"

After using our custom-made Intranet system in the office for more than two years, we launched our Sharepoint Intranet today.

Historically, the old version was built primarily to connect officemates opting to work remotely, usually at home, during the SARS crisis in Hong Kong. The benefit was obvious as a coordination among project managers, programmers and designers were somehow visible in there. Of course, one should update his entry/blog to keep track of current projects, vacation leaves or other interesting topics such as websites to visit, movies to watch and book reviews.

I liked the old one despite the limitation in what it offers. After all, it's the first Intranet system I had where my entry is read by everyone. When I was in PCCW I don't remember having to input my thoughts and ideas.

As the two companies merged to become one big interactive agency, the need for more coordination was essential and necessary. The need to facilitate workload, annual leaves, client meetings and use of laptops and boardroom bookings must come in unison.

Well, going back to that new Sharpoint intranet system, everyone was excited I guess. At least twenty more bloggers will be added in the list and updates should come all throughout the day. Previously, I can pick Marco, Angela, Marcus, Ginny and Henry the bloggers whose frequency to update their entries range from often to ocassional. I do mine about five times a month and do it in spurts.

As we got the details for logging in today, everyone was expected to log in and have a feel for the new environment. Personally I still preferred the old one at this point probably because of the features I usually refer to such as the china.com stock price, weather forecast, clickz and wired online feeds.

We use our names to log in as instructed. But someone in the office literally logged in using "firstname.lastname" and not say, "peter.wong" or "kitty.chui". Historically, it becomes the first sensational story of the new blog system. Although I was a bit taken back on making fun of that colleague, the others kept on making fun of her/him that I myself had to join the fun albeit cautious about it. It is not so funny to me but perhaps the fact that we belong to an IT company makes this colleague look like a dummy.

For fun, I would like to recommend an imaginary book from the Dummies Series. This publisher was bashed years ago with insults and pranks that the "Dummies" books won't sell. Look now, they are becoming best sellers of their honest to goodness approach in their instructional materials whose scope has a wide range from marketing to mototcycling, from indian cooking to italian language.

This book is called "Intranet Login for Dummies". It's widely available at Paddyfield or Dymocs locally or you can order used copies at Amazon.

You can find on page 126 on Chapter 7 the instruction on how to login to intranet, part a is for office workers, part b is for geeks, part c is for CEOs and managerial people. Furthermore, if the software complexity is the issue, turn to the next page and you will see a neat list of products and a detailed login instruction. Tips on how to keep your password secret (even if it's absolutely not), choice of avatars, hot topics worth posting (never post something about your chihuahua's eating habits) and other ideas that will make you the most popular blog artist without having to humble yourself. Kidding. Nonsense. Sorry.

There are times when no matter how simple things we're told to do, our minds get blocked out for a few moments and doing such thing becomes a challenge rather than a chore. So I am careful about it. We do make mistakes, but while we make fun of such mistakes, we better watch out we don't repeat it ourselves or next time we become the poster model for the book called "E-mail for Dummies", "Using the Microwave Oven for Dummies", "Calculator for Dummies" or "Washroom for Dummies".