It’s been an interesting few months with scarcely time to breath, and my blog and Twitter contributions have been minimal. Much of the first few months of the year was spent in working on an enterprise search strategy for a global law firm. An element of that was to specify the profile for the firm’s first full-time enterprise search manager, who is now in post. During April I had the very enjoyable experience of working on a proposal with Paul Corney and Chris Collison for a KM strategy project for a large UK-based not-for-profit organisation. The brief was poor and we spent some time coming up with a workable approach to the project, On 10 June  we went to present our approach to the organisation’s project team, an occasion notable for no relevant questions being asked of us. The indication was that they would select the contractor within a week or two. It was not until early August that we had a two sentence rejection letter. I feel sorry for the contractor that won the project! As far as we know all our competitors had the same letter, so I have to wonder if the project has been cancelled, perhaps as a result of reading the proposals. Prospective clients need to be aware that the consulting business in this sector is a small world. As there is more than enough work for everyone we do tend to talk to each other!

Later in June, in the course of our holiday, I found myself negotiating with one of the world’s leading pharma companies for an intranet assessment project. The project started two days after our return from vacation with an absolute requirement to complete in mid-August. No pressure then. Luckily I’d asked Sam Marshall to work with me, and we managed to exceed the client’s expectations for quality and quantity and still meet all the milestones. But this took every working day since mid-July. A challenging project because of the deadline but it was a pleasure to work with with the client and with Sam. The Intranet Focus business year ends in September and it will be the second best since I set the business up in 1999.

Now the in-tray is clear, and I’m in catch up mode. I have  good books to review from Tom Reamy, Agnes Molnar, Michael Sampson and Ryen White, and hope to have the reviews up by the end of the week. I’m also working on a study of the global text analytics market which is giving me valuable insights into the increasingly blurred boundary between text analytics and enterprise search but that’s a longer term project. Although still over a month away I’m looking forward to taking part in the Intranet Now event in London on 30 September. with 27 presentations packed into the day plus some exchange-of-experience sessions. My presentation will be a 7 minute history of intranets, which starts off in 1965! Both James Robertson and Michael Sampson are going to be in London in September and we have plans to meet up and catch up. Slightly further away I am looking forward to the Findwise Findability Day in Stockholm on 27 October. This year I am taking a year out from speaking so that I can listen and learn.

Now then, which book do I review first?

Martin White