About Michael ONeill

Product Communication Specialist

It’s not often you find a communications professional who can quote Thoreau, understands the power of social media and has the technical capabilities to write software release notes. But that’s exactly the background Michael brought with him to Geonetric. In his role as product communications specialist, Michael uses his writing and marketing skills to create clear and concise documentation that explains how to implement and use Geonetric's software. This former adjunct professor holds a bachelor’s degree in English literature from Worcester State College in Massachusetts and completed graduate level courses at the University of Connecticut. He must be doing something right with his on-again off-again Twitter addiction, as Mindtouch rated him the 79th most influential in #techcomm and #contentstrategy.

Keeping Your Eye on VitalSite Search Metrics

Posted on April 30, 2013 by Michael ONeill

Search is the means by which people find the content they’re looking for. When it comes to a healthcare site, this might be a consumer looking for a doctor who specializes in their condition(s), a mom looking for the nearest urgent care clinic for her son’s earache, or a patient looking for the login page to the portal to renew a prescription.

While we typically look at search to assess how visitors find our site from big search providers (such as Google), understanding how visitors are using VitalSite’s built-in search engine is important too. Keep in mind, search doesn’t end at your doorstep! Understanding how your site visitors use VitalSite search can help inform decisions on where and how to tweak your site to respond to visitor needs and behavior by:

Diagnosing navigation problems
Identifying content gaps
Refining keywords
Refining navigation labels

Fortunately, VitalSite makes site search easy to monitor. Since it’s designed to work with Google Analytics’ Site Search reporting, the details of what visitors search for once they reach your site are easy to review. Let’s look at an example from a healthcare organization:

Notice anything interesting? I’m intrigued by the fact that four out of the top five search terms appear related to the client’s patient portal¹. If I saw this on one of my sites, I’d investigate a bit and ask myself a few questions:

Is the patient portal accessible/discoverable by searching the terms that actual site visitors use?
Are there clusters of pages where people tend to conduct these searches from?
Are there ways we can make the portal login more apparent to our visitors without having to search?
Do the search results for these terms bring me to pages that are helpful?

A few minutes of investigation reveals some promising areas to examine, and possibly improve.

Let’s take a look at another example:

Wow! Over 70% of the queries for the top ten search terms are baby related, and quite likely relevant to the Baby Photos module². Variants of “nursery” alone account for nearly 43% of top 10 search queries… and a little poking at this revealed the overwhelming majority of searches for these terms originated from the site’s home page…

The site’s home page… where there are no immediately apparent links to baby, nursery or baby gallery related content.

Is this a problem? Well, I’m tempted to say, “Of course!” But here’s where the art of interpretation comes into play. While I’d be suspicious of something like this and suggest a webmaster consider linking to the baby gallery from the home page, there could be valid reasons why they wouldn’t want to do this.

This leads us to an important point: use site search analytics to investigate, but don’t assume that every high-frequency search term reflects a problem with your site’s Information Architecture (IA) or usability. Remember, it’s just one signal of many, and you need to determine which signals are the most valuable to respond to at any given moment.

How to Track

VitalSite is designed to work with Google Analytics to ensure that site search information is captured. However, this functionality is not turned on by default in Google Analytics. If you work with Geonetric to manage your Google Analytics, we’ve likely turned it on for you already. If you manage your own Google Analytics account, we’ve provided instructions on GeoCentral (our client knowledge base) that outline how to begin tracking VitalSite searches in Google Analytics.

Footnotes

Of course, this assertion implies that “portal” searches represent site visitors who are looking for a patient portal and not an employee portal. This is something that would warrant additional investigation.
The assumption we’d want to investigate here is that traffic for the term “nursery” (all variants) is related to the baby gallery.

CMS Extends Taxonomy to Public Files

Posted on April 4, 2013 by Michael ONeill

One of the new features we introduced in VitalSite 6.5 is a completely revamped administration for public files (public files are files available to visitors who are not logged in to VitalSite, such as images your administrators use in the content of your web pages). This change brings to the VitalSite content management system (CMS) many of the capabilities typically found in digital asset management (DAM) solutions.

At the core of this is a move away from storing public files in the file system in favor of storing them in the database and caching them to the file system when they are requested by a site visitor (for example, the first time a visitor views a provider page containing the image of their doctor). This change to hosting files in the database allows us to push public file management in a number of new directions, including:

Scheduled publications and archiving
File previews
File versions
Administration permissions
Public file search
Workflow – drafts & approvals

These are all great new capabilities on their own, but there’s one more change we made that has profound implications: we extended taxonomy to public files.

In the past, public files were organized using a standard folder structure: you created folders on the server describing the content, and uploaded your files there. This is the way people have worked for years, so it’s familiar. But it also introduced some unnecessary constraints. Perhaps most notable was the fact that a file could only reside in one folder. If you used the same image in two different sections of your site, you had to choose one folder to store it in (and remember which), or you created duplicate files and dealt with the resulting headache of managing duplicate content.

Taxonomy provides a better solution. With the extension of taxonomy to public files, you have the opportunity to create a rich metadata tagging environment for public files that is typically only found in dedicated DAM tools. In addition to the standard file type and module facets created by default for you, you can create new facets with rich terms descriptive of file contents, color schemes, review dates, and more. The sky really is the limit.

Once you’ve defined the facets and terms you want to use, you can browse your collection of assets by filtering by facets… even multiple facets simultaneously.

If you’re used to the old way of doing things, fear not: You can always create a facet, call it “Folders” and use terms reminiscent of folder names to tag your assets. Just remember that doing so utilizes only a fragment of the potential available to you with VitalSite’s new Public Files features.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that even if a public file isn’t linked to or embedded in a VitalSite page, it’s still always publicly available (assuming it is published). Fortunately, you can use taxonomy and VitalSite’s Secure Files module to create restricted catalogs of your sensitive digital assets as well. These are assets that will never be visible to general public site visitors, but which you may make available to privileged site visitors who log in to a secure section of your site… say for a Board Extranet.

Have ideas for extending and enhancing the use of VitalSite’s asset management functionality? We want to hear them! Send us a comment!

Push Button Deployments: The Greatest Feature You’ll Never Use

Posted on March 6, 2013 by Michael ONeill

It’s kind of hard to get you excited about a VitalSite feature that you won’t click, open, save or interact with. And it’s kind of hard to build enthusiasm for something that won’t make your day-to-day work any easier. But I’m going to try anyway. Mostly because it’s important you know about something huge we just released in VitalSite 6.5.

In short, we’ve implemented push button deployments. This means we can now deploy a new version of VitalSite to websites by pushing a button in a deployment dashboard.

The Old Standard Deployment Process

Before we get to why this is important, let’s talk about the standard deployment process. Keep in mind, this process is not specific to VitalSite, or even to Geonetric. It is, rather, what deployment looks like for most hosted products without deployment automation.

Looking over the flow chart, chances are the words “fragile,” “complex,” “unreliable” and perhaps even “broken” come to mind. And for good reason. We all know that any process which appears so complex and incomprehensible is tragically flawed.

In the software industry specifically, a release process that looks like the above imposes all sorts of downstream constraints on the software, not the least of which is infrequent releases. Software vendors end up bundling multiple changes, features and fixes together because it’s difficult to get them to you. We call this bundle a “release,” and the act of getting it onto your sites a “deployment.”

Geonetric averages three to four releases a year, so we’re definitely doing better than most when it comes to delivering new features. Consider, for example, how often a new version of Windows, MS Office, or SharePoint is released. We’re far and ahead better than those products. But compare this to how often new versions come out for other software as a service (SaaS) solutions like Facebook or Google. These get updated frequently and most people don’t even know it. What we do know is that Facebook has about one minor release a day, and one major release a week. Google won’t go on record with specifics, but Matt Cutts admits an update to search at least once a day, and we track on average 500-600 updates a year. For search alone. It’s obvious we have room for improvement.

There are, of course, many more ways that a manual deployment that looks like the flowchart above will constrain the software. The point is not to enumerate all of them. Instead, I’d like to show you how we’ve addressed the problem.

The New Automated Deployment Process

We’ve changed our deployment process so that instead of a dauntingly complicated manual deployment process, it looks like this:

A big green “Deploy!” button for each client, on a dashboard showing all environments.

By automating our deployments, we can now deploy the latest code at the push of a button. Not only does this reduce the time it takes to reliably deploy to all of our client sites, it opens up some opportunities for us in the future:

Feature Releases: Instead of bundling many changes, fixes and new features into a few deployments a year, we could now push a feature or fix out to you as soon as we finish developing and testing it. Let’s face it, working software that isn’t in your hands is not good for anyone.
Continuous Deployment: This takes Feature Releases to the next level. We could deploy to production every time a new iteration of the software that passes testing, even multiple times a day. The gap between development and client feedback becomes much shorter, allowing development teams to be more responsive to clients than is possible when changed code takes months to put into use. In addition, the deployment system gets exercised continually, so deployment bugs don’t hide for months before being noticed.
Improved Quality: Smaller releases with fewer changes typically result in better test coverage and better code quality. Conversely, when you combine many changes together into one enormous release, risk goes up. Feature Releases and Continuous Deployments both mitigate this risk and improve quality.
Rapid Feature Testing: This is the process where we deploy a new feature, measure how it’s being used, solicit feedback, and improve it. We could do this in a period of days instead of the months it takes when dealing with quarterly releases.
Self-Service Deployments: With automated deployments, there’s no real need for a developer to be responsible for kicking off a deployment. It’s possible we could turn this over to project managers or even clients directly.

VitalSite 6.5 was the first release to be deployed using our new push button deployment capabilities.

While the release included other enhancements (we’ve included security groups, SEO enhancements, improved public file management, bug fixes, and more) the new push button deployment capability represents a tremendous strategic investment that has the potential to change the fundamental way we develop and deliver VitalSite in the future.

2 Powerful Strategies for Using Promotion Codes to Drive Event Registrations

Posted on February 7, 2013 by Michael ONeill

VitalSite 6.4 introduced a powerful feature: promotional codes. It’s been exciting to see how our clients are using them to promote their calendar events and drive revenue for their organizations.

So you’re probably wondering, “What’s the best way to use promotional codes?” Well, reach into your marketer’s toolbox and pull out two proven tactics: Limited Time Offers and Exclusive Offers.

Limited Time Offers

In the psychology of selling, limited time offers provide the consumer a strong incentive to act immediately, as they promote a sense of urgency that counters natural inclinations to procrastinate or forget.

VitalSite has a built-in mechanism for publishing and archiving promotion codes automatically on specific dates. By using this feature, you can create your promotion codes and start your campaigns with the assurance that site visitors will only be able to use the promotion codes on the dates you specify.

My favorite limited time offer campaigns include early-bird discounts to registrants who sign up at least two weeks before the class, and special one-day promotions to motivate registrations with the offer of a steep discount for acting immediately. Of course you can (and should) experiment and find the types of limited time promotions that work best for your organization and events.

As with any promotion, you’ll want to target specific communities, use the codes appropriately, and pay attention to the results. Too many limited time offers and your audience will quickly grow fatigued. Too few and you may miss out on revenue due to fewer registrations.

Exclusive Offers

Next to limited time offers, exclusivity is also a strong motivator for action. Chances are you have a number of opportunities to use exclusive offers to drive event registrations:

Direct mail – Identify a target market and send them a promotion code for a discount that is not publicly advertised or announced outside the direct mail campaign. Make sure to tell your readers that not everyone has access to this promotion code. Otherwise, the strong motivational component of exclusivity doesn’t exist and won’t work in your favor.
Social networks – Offer incentives for people to follow your organization on your social media outlets by periodically offering promotions and discounts exclusively through those channels. Not only can this drive registrations, but it provides your audience with tangible value for following your social media stream.
Organization blogs – Have mommy bloggers or doctor bloggers? A great way to reward blog followers while driving registrations is to promote relevant calendar events through these channels. Provide your bloggers with unique promotion codes they can offer their readers. Used effectively, this approach can drive registrations and readership at the same time.

VitalSite’s Calendar & Event Directory is a powerful tool that can help you contribute to your organization’s bottom line while helping with patient education, public health and community awareness of your organization’s expertise. In addition to the approaches indicated above, there are a plethora of other ways to use promotion codes (such as running combination deals, core SEO principles, and other approaches to marketing and promoting your events).

The Editorial Board: Your Chance to Maintain Consistent Voice in a Siloed Organization

Posted on May 30, 2012 by Michael ONeill

This past week I had the opportunity to attend STC Summit 2012 in Chicago: three days of back-to-back sessions covering everything related to communications from MarCom to agile communications practices to information design and video training. Among the insightful talks was one by Elizabeth Reese, a senior editor at Microsoft. Her presentation described how Microsoft uses collaboration and a service-oriented editorial board to create and maintain a single voice across the organization. Coming away from her session, I realized three important and portable points about the issue:

The challenge of maintaining a consistent voice increases as the number of communication channels grow.
We all face the same fundamental problem of consistency in voice across our organization, regardless of size.
The solution to the problem scales to organizations of any size.

The first point is important to acknowledge, as we’ve seen how many organizations are faced with an explosion of communication channels sprouting from within. These are often new media channels (such as blogs, Twitter accounts, Facebook pages and Pinterest streams) that develop from different nodes on the organizational chart and as such, may not fall under the governance purview of traditional teams handling the organization’s established communication assets. This is likely the new reality for many organizations: there are always going to be new channels gaining prevalence in the market that someone within your organizations wants or needs to use.

Even if you already have a handle on new media, any organization with more than one content contributor quickly runs into the problem of maintaining a consistent voice. Usually the first step in acknowledging and addressing the problem is a corporate style guide. The shortcoming of this, however, is that a section in an arcane document hosted somewhere on the intranet isn’t always accessible to the people that increasingly find themselves assuming communication responsibilities in the organization. Furthermore, describing a style or something like voice in a style guide doesn’t guarantee comprehension on the part of the reader.

The last point builds on the previous two: the solution to the problem scales to (or can at least inform) organizations, regardless of size and degree of departmental fragmentation. In fact, I’d venture to call the solution a fundamental design pattern (to borrow a term from software development) for communication governance. Reese’s presentation clearly spells out the core components of this:

Establish an editorial board composed of representatives of the various silos within the organization and charge them with collaborating on governing a consistent voice through all communication channels. At Microsoft, this board meets once a month. It is responsible for the ongoing maintenance and development of the style guide, and is chartered with a strong service responsibility in the organization (see below).
Establish an accessible service arm of the editorial board whereby anyone in the organization can ask a question and get guidance, direction and advice on their content issues. Reese noted that at Microsoft this service arm consists of an email distribution list and an online forum, but you can use any number of channels at your organization to provide the service component of your editorial board. The trick is to use something that’s accessible, is a good fit for your culture, and that can provide timely responses to queries.

By establishing an editorial board responsible for creating and maintaining a consistent voice across all communications channels, and by establishing a strong service component to this board within the organization, there is a clear opportunity to maintain a consistent voice across your content channels. This solution has been employed by Microsoft to effectively govern voice across departments and organizational silos, and is likely a useful pattern for most organizations to adopt.