Usability, aesthetics, functionality… and SharePoint!

CA Technologies (formerly Computer Associates) and EA (Electronic Arts) join us on IBF Live, Sept. 6, to show us their intranets!  Maish Nichani from PebbleRoad in Singapore also stops by the studio to talk about his new, free, incredibly useful book: Manager’s guidebook on intranet redesign projects.

This month, Paul Miller, our regular host, is on vacation, so Nancy Goebel,  Managing Director of IBF, takes his place. Co-hosting is Gary Swart, CEO of oDesk, on the heels of a hugely popular appearance on IBF 24, along with the always-insightful Wedge from Interact Intranet.

EA - employees can choose from a number of skins for their profile pages

Feast your eyes on these intranets!

Bert Sandie will give us a tour of an integrated set of internal intranet solutions used at Electronic Arts (EA) that includes rich social profiles, knowledge sharing, and search. The EA intranet is one of the most spectacular SharePoint experiences we’ve seen to  date. Indeed, EA is all about the experience… it is a leading global interactive entertainment company that develops and publishes games including FIFA Soccer, Madden NFL, The Sims, and Mass Effect. And this culture of experience informs their approach to all their products… including their intranet. You’ll be amazed to see what is possible with a single-minded focus on design that combines usability, aesthetics and functionality.

Lauren Jones, Business Analyst for the Enterprise 2.0 program at CA Technologies (formerly Computer Associates), will give us a tour of their social intranet and enterprise content management platform. CA is currently on SharePoint 2007 and NewsGator with an enterprise search engine, and is augmenting real-time collaboration capabilities using Salesforce Chatter especially useful for customer facing employees who are in  SFDC daily for other activities related to their job. Integration challenges? You bet. But over the years, CA Technologies has taken great strides to develop a comprehensive and balanced governance model. This, in turn, has enabled the central team work at a strategic level — and develop trusting relationships — with the various departmental owners. So when it’s time to deal with challenges or move big projects forward, they know they have a strong network of strategic alliances across the company to help get the job done.

If you are already an DWG member or an IBF Live subscriber, you can get the login details on the extranet (no need to register in advance). If you miss IBF Live or want to watch it again, you can view this or prior episodes via on-demand playback.

Guests can sign up for a one-time free guest pass, but hurry, there’s limited seating. Don’t miss out!

Meet the studio guests:

Gary Swart brings to oDesk a passion for helping small businesses succeed and more than 17 years of experience in the enterprise software market. Before oDesk, as the VP of Worldwide Sales for Intellibank, he was responsible for building the sales organization, but Gary’s enthusiasm for small businesses was born during his tenure as a Business Unit Executive for IBM’s Rational Software Product Group, where he led Small and Medium Business sales for the Americas. Gary came to Rational through its merger with Pure Software, where he held sales, management and leadership positions. Gary holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from the University of Maryland. Connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Maish Nichani is a well-respected thought leader and a practitioner in the field of user experience design. He holds a BE in Mechanical Engineering and an MA in Instructional Design. His interests lie in exploring new ideas and building a culture of innovation. Maish is also editor of the popular blog elearningpost where he writes on a variety of things from infographics to content to e-learning. You can also connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn.

Lauren Jones is a Business Analyst at CA Technologies. She joined CA in 2007 as a graphic artist, and has several years experience as a graphic designer and multimedia developer for various eLearning companies. Lauren attended Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. Connect with her on LinkedIn.

Bert Sandie is the Director of Technical Excellence at Electronic Arts where he is a key contributor to the organizations dynamic culture. His technical knowledge, corporate learning expertise, and leadership background in the high-tech industry has helped him drive formal, informal and social approaches to knowledge sharing, collaboration, learning, and innovation at EA. Bert is a passionate leader in the learning and collaboration space and is uniquely skilled to ensure an organization can leverage the right blend of traditional and non-traditional based learning including visual facilitation, social media, video, eLearning, and interactive workshops. Bert is a renowned speaker and has been invited to present at several industry conferences including Enterprise 2.0; Gartner Portals, Content and Collaboration; AIIM Info360; SharePoint 2009; and the Evanta HR Leadership Summit. Connect with him on Twitter or LinkedIn.