Comments on: Innovative & skilful: it's The Business

By: Defra and BIS websites: before and after

Defra and BIS websites: before and after — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 21:10:41 +0000

[...] BIS, today’s update moves us forward from the interim website we put up rapidly and at minimal cost straight after the merger of BERR and DIUS. The aim was to improve the design, add useful content [...]

By: Twitter police stop traffic

Twitter police stop traffic — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 19:18:45 +0000

[...] experienced first hand c/o Simon Dickson when I launched CLG’s Twitter channel (we’re over it now) and more recently when Dave and I had a bit of bother with live streaming from the Digital Britain [...]

By: Michael Cannon

Michael Cannon — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 06:42:36 +0000

Great work on the BIS site! I like the Web 2.0 and simplicity as well. It helps make for easy reading. WordPress really is a great tool for helping agencies of all sizes get started with before moving onto larger scale web content management systems like TYPO3.

By: Neil Williams

Neil Williams — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:10:45 +0000

That Rythmyx monstrosity (your words, I couldn't possibly comment!) was for the scrapheap anyway. Before BIS happened, BERR was in the middle of a re-tender. Technology is a relatively small part of good content management I'd say, though. Business processes and responsive, cost-effective support come higher on the list. And against the backdrop of web convergence, I'm not sure WP is features-rich and scaleable enough to provide the solid web 1.0 backbone you need for enterprise use.

But I am a huge fan, and WP was perfect for this interim site - and perfect for many other uses beyond plain old blogging, to which both BERR and DIUS were putting it and BIS will continue to do so long as I (or, clearly, Steph) have anything to do with it.

By: Jon Worth

Jon Worth — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 16:58:34 +0000

Depends to what extent the e-comms people win (hence WP would be enough), or to what extent the rest of the staff win (i.e. each wanting their own info on the site, even if no-one reads it) - if it's the latter then WP might be complex.

This might be one for some investment for both of you two: program a page management plugin for WP (I don't think one exists) that makes the management of hundreds of pages easier in the backend. That's the real strength of Typo3, my open source business orientated CMS of choice. Happy to provide logins for a demo site if it would be of any use to you.

By: Simon

Simon — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:01:33 +0000

I think WordPress can do it, but only if you embrace the blogging metaphor. The top layer could be 50% navigation, 50% 'general corporate information' (including news/press); beneath that, you'd effectively have a series of 'team blogs', 'project blogs', etc. And in fact, since those lower pages are generally only of interest to subject geeks who will want to have a chronological presentation of latest news, and will want to contribute and participate, it's probably the right thing to do anyway.

By: Steph Gray

Steph Gray — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 20:15:08 +0000

And though you don't say it here, you did tell us so, back when DIUS was first set up and needed a site in a hurry. So while your advice wasn't heeded then, I think there's been enough change in digital thinking around Whitehall since to make Wordpress a palatable option now, which is in no small part your influence. @Jon: it's too early to say. To be honest, I'm still not convinced that a Wordpress-powered site on the scale that would be needed is feasible, but we'll be looking at CMS infrastructures of course as the two organisations complete the merger. But as I'm always saying, it's not all about the corporate site these days, is it?

By: Jon Worth

Jon Worth — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 19:39:06 +0000

Does that mean that BERR's old Rythmyx powered monstrosity is not going to be live any longer and everything will move over to WordPress...?