Creating an Internal Blog with Limited Resources

Our CNO at work is interested in creating a blog here at work to write about the happenings, planning, and future of nursing at our facility. YIPPEE!!! I'm so excited that someone on our executive wants to start doing this.

Now the question arises how to help facilitate this request. We have an intranet that apparently does have blogging capabilities....if you buy the module. We haven't and currently won't be making any extra purchases right now. I placed a query out to my Twitter friends to see if any of their CEO's blog. The limited consensus that was shared with me is that a few do, but they are indeed only privately shared.

I assume I will be advising my CNO that she too (and I'm assuming this will be her intention) is to keep her postings private to the staff. That eliminates some of the free blogging tools such as Blogger (what I use) and Wordpress. Out intranet is limited into what we can add to it. I suppose I could chat with IT about what options I could import in, but who really wants to go that route if they don't need to.

So, now I must become creative with the way we organize and use our pages on our intranet to create a pseudo-blog for her to post her messages. Here's my solution:

It doesn't typically look like a blog does, but it has all the elements. There is a breakdown by month and then individual postings within that month. The only true issue I see is that they are not in reverse chronological order. That is the most recent post first. That is easily changed by shuffling pages on the back end of the system (where the content is truly created), but it does add new pages (posts) in as last one posted, last one displayed. This I'll have to chat with her about to see if she is willing to do the manipulating needed to get the format truly looking like a blog.

The backside of the system looks like this:

Where across the top you can see how many pages deep I have navigated to get to a place to enter a posting. The listings of postings (or actual web pages) looks like this:

It's certainly a little trickier then using blogger to post items to, but the idea is relatively the same. So with a little trickery and making the most of the tools you do have access too, it's interesting to see what you can create when you're in need and limited.

I'd be interested to see other work-arounds that perhaps you have come up with to solve needs like this with limited resources. Please feel free to share your creative solutions.

Learning from blogging: Creating your own and learning from other's

I'm actually presenting at the Annual Gathering in about 30 minutes or so and am quite excited. I really hope those in attendance enjoy the presentation and those that can't attend are free to take a look at my slides and forward any questions to myself.

AG09 Presentation (full slide presentation)

AG09 Presentation (handout - tba)

Mostly this is about the steps needed to start up your own blog and then ways to tweak the blog to make it your own. There will be some notes on how to tap into other blogs out there and in doing so learn from peers by reading theirs and connecting with them. I also will be presenting some info on changing the basic templates using some simple html tricks to make your blog uniquely your own or branding it to your corporation.

Looking at Blogs to Share About Blogs (which do you use?)

I'm currently preparing for a presentation on learning how to blog and learning from other's blogs and so that is exactly what I'm doing. I'm surfing around looking at blogs that I've only been reading in the past to dive a little deeper into some of the tools/widgets that seem most common. Looking to see if there is a standard length of a post....doesn't appear so. Looking at the use of colour and fonts. Has the blogger modified the standard template to their own or are they content with the format offered?

Another big thing I'm trying out is to see how different Blogger is from WordPress. To me they seem quite similar in what they offer. Each has it's merits though and I can see quite easily why someone might choose one over the other. Blogger seems a little more streamline to me and I haven't yet been dissatisfied with it as a tool. However, I can see how someone that prefers more of a standard webpage feel might like WordPress with its tabs and embedded pages.

I'm curious to know, if anyone would like to share, why they may have changed from one tool to another. If so where you happy with the change? Did you stick with the change or go back? I'm very curious about this last question as I have tried setting up a mirror blog on WordPress and it's okay, but I think I'm going to stick to my Blogger version.

Blearning at a Conference

Well today was a bit of a test run for next week's AG08 conference. I'm wondering how I am going to capture my info for posts during the sessions. I've thought about a few options.

One is to take notes (paper based) and write them up at the end of the day.

I tried using my pda today to take notes at a conference on the fly, but using one of those little pens to write with proved more annoying then anything. Dear Santa, I would like a new pda (blackberry, iphone, whatever is great!). Although it was a fast way to transfer the notes to my computer/blog, it was a pain to capture.

Another method I will have available to me at the AG08 is being able to use my laptop and the wireless network. I use this method quite frequently while do online webinars so I know I've practiced this method, but will the battery of the laptop last.

I know I could use my cellphone to access Google Docs but I only seem to be be able to see my documents not create new ones. Even if I could this would required me to use bandwith and being out of country for me - this is going to cost.

I can however text message as much as I want. Perhaps I will try this method for some short posts through out the event. But use the note taking and late night posting for the rest of the information I want to capture and share.

Stay tuned.