Intranets

What is it that makes an intranet social and critical? Well this post, rather unsurprisingly called “10 things that make an intranet critical and social” outlines what in the authors opinion are the 10 elements that are critical to the success of an intranet.

1.  New style social intranets focus more on people then content. Although content is still relevant
2. Content is authored collaboratively by anyone and the emphasis is either knowledge sharing or documentation that is useful
3. Anyone can contribute and everyone is involved (from CEO to PA’s)
4. The intranet supports work processes and helps people get their work done more efficiently
5. Publishing workflows and approvals are kept to a minimum
6. The intranet has a mix of key social features: activity streams, authoring (wiki style), networking and  blogging

1. Assess

• Prioritize your business objectives by determining what it is you are trying to achieve: employee retention, boost collaboration, enhance executive visibility, increase speed to innovation or turn your employees into powerful brand ambassadors.
• Map your communication by analyzing  your current information flow and determining how employees engage your intranet or social media tools.
• Determine what your ideal social media ecosystem would look like. What cultural differentiators are you hoping to foster?

2. Align for Design

• Assess your perceived issues and actual limitations by balancing potential risks against projected gains in productivity, collaboration and innovation.
• Develop solid company guidelines for social media use and use metrics to measure how well your engagement
  tools are working.
• Align and train your leadership and get senior management buy-in to create a social networking mindset across business functions.

3. Implement

• Identify the most effective tools for your needs—from wikis and microblogs to robust knowledge-sharing and innovation platforms.
• Work closely with your IT teams to ensure your efforts are compliant with all internal rules, standards and architectures.

“…in the end, management doesn’t change culture. Management invites the workforce itself to change the culture.” 
— Lou Gerstner, Who Says Elephants Can’t Dance?

In a word, the role of the On Demand Workplace in IBM’s strategy is to be the vehicle through which workforce transformation takes place — to turn the IBM brand and values into enterprise-wide behaviour.

At the simplest level, the On Demand Workplace’s “work product” is a productive individual – where “productive” means not just cheaper and faster, but more creative, imaginative, independent, collaborative and opportunistic. We have to create a “horizontal” experience in which employees, wherever they sit, are free to collaborate, decide and act – and in which this vast, interconnected global business ecosystem operates in a way that makes it feel small.

For IBM, key to getting there will be an On Demand Workplace that provides:

• Content management and information architecture (IA) that are holistic, that organises the company without regard to geo or division or brand. (see also Guest Speaker piece by Sarah Goldman for more on IA)
• Instantaneous contact among people without regard to organisation, rank, profession or physical location. (see also Guest Speaker piece by Kristine Lawas for more on online, global collaboration)
• Common set of tools, applications and processes that are integrated end-to-end and that work automatically and ad hoc with one another.
• System that makes possible virtual team formation and marshalling of resources from around the world – all on demand.

In that spirit of where we need to go – w3 On Demand Workplace (w3 ODW) continues to evolve from it’s legacy role as our corporate intranet to a modern on demand workplace helping IBM employees be more productive by providing a single point of entry for the content and resources they need to do their work. “My ODW” today provides the capability to offer an employee a rich and personalised experience ranging from the content and tools presented for All IBM to know and use to the industry-specific content a seller needs in a specific geography or country in local language.

Over the past ten years content and sites has increasingly been converted to “look alike” from a design and standards perspective, but the problem has remained that the content has been generated by organisational silo – so in many cases – particularly for our sales force – the content not only looked alike it was alike! The only difference being the source of publication, e.g., brand, unit, corporate function.

Today, over 70% (i.e., 251,000) of IBMers have completed their w3 ODW profile and thus ready and willing to have timely, relevant content pushed to the array of portlets across all three tabs to help them manage their career, their clients and their life. The main challenges we face today are two-fold.

First, organising the delivery of content into a simple, integrated view that leverages the power of w3 ODW up-front and quickly directs employees to consolidated sites and resources as needed or required across the rest of IBM’s intranet.

Second, changing the mind-set of content creators and publishers world-wide to understand that the content is the valuable item to the end-user not the piece of real-estate they have created to wrap-around the information.

Through the creation of roadmaps to address integration from the end user perspective – this means the concern is how information is perceived by employees within the context of w3 ODW, rather than how information is most efficiently stored or manipulated within a given IT infrastructure – to developing compelling business cases demonstrating “value” tailored to the audience, i.e., employees, content authors, site owners and senior executives, we have are well poised to evolve.

What the On Demand Workplace will offer, for the first time, is an enterprise platform and management system adequate to the complexity and variety of our actual experience – something that can turn IBM’s size and breadth into assets, rather than obstacles. For IBM, “the way we do things around here” in the future will mean, to a very large degree, “the way we do things in w3.”

By Liam J. Cleaver, w3 On Demand Workplace, IBM’s Corporate Intranet
11-14-05

Intranet leadership is a topic of concern for any organization trying to establish its intranet as a critical business tool. But, based on the paltry input I’ve had to recent queries, most don’t really know what should be required of someone leading the intranet charge.

We should first ask what organizations want the intranet to be? Or, framed more strategically, what should they want it to be, whether they have arrived at this understanding or not.

Clearly, the intranet should be a critical business tool that drives the business. It should enable business process, sharing, dialog, and all the other things required to deliver on business goals. It should be the online embodiment of the work place. What I need, when I need it, how I need it – to be a high performer, an asset for my company.

Here are the things I think ensure your intranet leader makes the grade, based on my 13 years of experience in intranet governance and our view into client experiences here at Eloquor Consulting.

1.     Ability to see the strategic connections between technology’s potential and business strategy

2.     Strong communication skills so he or she can articulate the value from item #1 for the right stakeholders

3.     Great collaboration, negotiation and facilitation skills in order to cross any divides and bring people together to address a common goal

4.     Superb planning and project management skills, including the ability to delegate and motivate

5.     Appreciation for user needs and a willingness to allow that to usurp executive pressure

6.     Deep understanding of how users read online and strong teaching skills to help others develop great content

7.     Ability to identify important metrics, analyze data and see and promote solutions in the results

8.     Ability to serve stakeholders and the organization as an internal consultant, generating dialog to identify great solutions and keeping people focused on making great decisions

9.     Great volumes of courage – to step out, ask the hard questions, speak the truth and recommend new directions

These are some of the things I believe are crucial to realizing the great business value of a strong, well-constructed and well-managed intranet or employee portal. It is helpful to consider the steps of good intranet/portal governance to put the leader’s skills into perspective. Obviously, there are more tactical skills that could be added to the list above as well.

I’m interested to know what else you think should be added to this list.

By Stacy Wilson, Eloquor Consulting, Inc

A colleague recently asked for dos and don’ts in partnering with IT. It is a crucial skill in today’s corporate environment. Partnering with all functions in the organization is important, but IT in particular.

We need IT: we need the technology they deploy, good security, openness to new approaches such as social technology, clear, user-centered choices in technology.

IT needs communication too. They need adoption of new technologies, a clear connection to the business, openness to business process change, help leveraging their great solutions into the culture of the business. They need to be seen as not just a consumer of resources, but also a driver of business. All things we can help them with.

The way we approach partnering with IT professionals can make or break it.

Respect their knowledge and capability. Don’t be dismissive or condescending. They know important information – stuff we don’t know – and their perspective is often a good balance with the communicator’s perspective. It’s not that they “don’t get it,” it’s that the lens they are looking through is a different color. We should, however, seek to enlighten them about the role and value of communication.

Be linear, process-oriented thinkers. To work with them, we must become a little more like them. We must be able to connect the dots in a linear process, see the process breaks and bottlenecks. If we move through processes with them we’ll all see the end game together.

Speak their language. Know the basics, terms and concepts. Be able to converse about these with confidence. Doesn’t mean you have to sit down and code an application. I like being the dumb blonde in the hardware store. Working with my IT partners is no time for the dumb blonde routine.

Define roles and responsibilities clearly. IT has specific responsibility for delivering solutions that meet business needs and requirements. Communication should take responsibility for clearly communicating strategy and requirements, helping IT connect to the business goals, ensuring good change communication during rollout, and securing the change in the culture. Use our different areas of expertise to divide, conquer and succeed.

Think of IT as a client. Collaborate and ensure their success. Make them shine – sometimes IT can serve as a pilot and example to the rest of the organization. Give them positive visibility. Seek solutions, don’t take or give orders.

Communicate ROI and drive the business. What every good IT and communication professional wants to do for their company. We are on the same team and we share many of the same challenges and frustrations. Not being viewed as a strategic business driver or trusted advisor, is just one of them. We can help each other here.

IT isn’t gender specific. IT is becoming increasingly diverse with many women joining the ranks. I’ve seen some of my colleagues refer to the “IT guys,” but it’s no longer just a guy space.

Stacy Wilson, ABC, is president of Eloquor Consulting, Inc., in Lakewood, Colorado

Social media on the intranet (Intranet 2.0) are present on about half of all intranets (in the Western World). Once a nice-to-have or a future wish, Intranet 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and other vehicles have become mainstream – although not to all employees.

Despite the low cost of entry, most intranet 2.0 tools are merely experiments, pilots or limited to a very small audience. Social media has only been deployed at the enterprise level in about 25% of organizations (see the results of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey Intranet 2.0 becomes mainstream).

Intranet wikis, for example, are increasingly popular: as of last year, employee wikis were present in 45% of all organizations (regardless of size), but only 17% of organizations had deployed them enterprise wide. The results for intranet blogs are similar: only 13% of organizations had deployed them at the enterprise level.

Many of the experiments and pilots, the department and team level tools will be rolled-out to the rest (or most of the rest) of the enterprise in 2010. Still, more organizations that are sleeping through the social media revolution will jump on the bandwagon. 2010 will be the year of the social intranet.

To confirm or disprove this theory, we’re once again conducting the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey 2010 to learn the latest about what social media organizations are using, are not using, and the reasons for their use (or absence on the intranet).

The following survey takes approximately 10 minutes to complete. Respondents who complete the survey will be eligible to win $400 (a random email address will be drawn from all responses to the survey). All respondents will also receive a full copy of the results at no cost. Please provide your contact information in order to receive the survey results and to be entered into the $400 prize draw.

1-     SharePoint will continue to dominate

All hail the king, SharePoint. SharePoint has become the single biggest, most pervasive intranet platform of all time (present in 50 – 60% of all medium to large-size organizations). While SharePoint is still minimally used for department and team level document sharing and collaboration, more organizations are looking to use it as the enterprise intranet platform.

Toby Ward – Prescient Digital Media

SharePoint 2010, due to market in late spring, is vastly improved over the former version, MOSS 2007. Many, many organizations will be upgrading to 2010, and begin to use the new platform as the enterprise intranet platform. What’s more, the cost of entry for taking on SharePoint has never been lower as Microsoft SharePoint “in the cloud” with SharePoint Online. SharePoint online already boasts more than 1,000,000 users, and unlike the previous SharePoint Online the 2010 version of SharePoint Online promises to “near feature parity” (with only small exceptions) to the install version.

SharePoint’s market share will soar with SharePoint 2010.

2-     IBM will finally become more aggressive with WebSphere Portal

As dominate and pervasive as SharePoint has become, the market leader is WebSphere Portal (measured in license revenue. Although the implementation and services revenue is undoubtedly much higher than what the anemic Microsoft Consulting Services group can conjure). However, unless you follow the portal market, you would think that SharePoint is not just the leader, but a market killer.

Regardless of how you measure success, SharePoint is a massive success, and so to is WebSphere Portal, but you would never know it by wading through the surface of most technology news and blogosphere punditry. WebSphere Portal however is arguably a more sophisticated, certainly more mature, product than SharePoint. And while IBM is happy with the WebSphere’s success, there undoubtedly more than just a few ruffled feathers by all the hype and attention SharePoint gets. Never a company to sit idly by, and as innovative as ever (IBM received 4,914 U.S. patents in 2009, the highest for the 17th consecutive year), the IBM marketing machine is not as aggressive as Microsoft’s. Nonetheless, WebSphere is due for a marketing makeover and may get more attention and marketing dollars in 2010.

3-     Social media will become mainstream at the enterprise level

Social media on the intranet – collectively referred to as Intranet 2.0 – is now present on about half of all intranets (in the Western World). Once a nice-to-have or a future wish, Intranet 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and other vehicles have become mainstream.

Despite the low cost of entry, most intranet 2.0 tools are merely experiments, pilots or limited to a very small audience. Social media has only been deployed at the enterprise level in about 25% of organizations (see the results of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey Intranet 2.0 becomes mainstream).

Many of the experiments and pilots, the department and team level tools will be rolled-out to the rest (or most of the rest) of the enterprise in 2010. Still, more organizations that are sleeping through the social media revolution will jump on the bandwagon. Look for an explosion of user-generated content on the corporate intranet.

4-     KISS – Keep It Simple Stupid

The “kitchen sink” design approach to the intranet home page is standard, but it’s stupid. The more you throw on a page, the more you confuse and distract users. It might work for Amazon.com, which relies on brand and SEO, at the expense of user-friendly design.

People like Google for a reason – it’s dead simple. I’ve had the pleasure to test dozens of intranet home page designs, in many dozens of focus groups. The highest rated and appreciated home pages, are the simple ones. The least popular designs are the busier designs that are best exemplified by IBM and Cisco (very good, and popular intranets, but for highly web-savvy audiences).

I’ve seen a trend towards simpler intranet home pages, just as we’ve seen on the Internet, and the trend will really start to proliferate in 2010.

5-     Outsourcing the intranet to the cloud

Although it is only the beginning, some companies will finally begin to realize that professional hosts (ASPs) are better at hosting and security than their IT department.

The “cloud” refers to cloud computing that, at the risk of over-simplifying, is simply hosting – computer, server, software, and other hardware and infrastructure hosting. You’re already a cloud customer, probably many times over (someone is hosting your email, website, blog, etc. In fact, 56% of internet users use webmail services such as Hotmail, Gmail, or Yahoo! Mail – hosted email in the cloud).

Microsoft is aggressively pushing its cloud services. MS already hosts the gigantic 200,000 user SharePoint intranet for GlaxoSmithKiline (and it estimates that the hosted solution has delivered big ROI and reduced “IT operational costs by roughly 30% “).

Very few organizations have their intranet hosted in the cloud today, but perhaps as many as 5% of medium to large organizations will look to outsource their intranet to the cloud over the next year or so.

6-     Death to the portal

Microsoft stopped calling SharePoint a portal solution sometime ago. To Microsoft, and most of the rest of the technology world, SharePoint is a web development platform.

Oracle killed all of its portal solutions. Now there’s just simply “WebCenter Suite.” Ditto with eXo which is no longer eXo Portal, it’s now eXo Platform.

Now the word portal hasn’t disappeared from the marketing literature or the feature sets: all of these platforms and suites still have portal functionality and features. Compared to five years ago, however, there are very few companies left selling portal products. They’ve been gobbled up by other products, other companies, or swallowed by the platform.

The only big name left with a standalone portal product is IBM, with WebSphere Portal. Per my second prediction above, look for IBM to give WebSphere Portal a marketing makeover that might include the dropping of the ‘portal’ name from the product label.

As we prepare for the future it is time to start thinking of how the intranet will evolve as corporations get back to growing and improving the business.  This recession has been difficult for many in the Communications world.  You have been called upon to keep employees informed, hopeful and encouraged to give more with less. Many of you are now well instantiated into the leader’s inner circle.

You have earned your place at the table by providing guidance and demonstrating that reliable access to accurate information has given your employees confidence in their leadership and leaders’ confidence in themselves.  Together you have clarified the message and delivered it online via voice, video and text.  Employees’ reliance upon the intranet as a dependable information source has grown.  Employees are becoming increasingly vocal about their preference for online information.  The intranet has come of age.

Our profession has changed and we are called upon to lead our corporations into the world of social media and inclusive collaboration.  Our intranets must change as well.  It is time to review your corporate business objectives and confirm your intranet strategy.  It is time to question where your business is going and how the intranet will contribute to the future success of your company.

Technology and the application of technology have continued to evolve at a breathtaking pace.  Twitter, Yammer and Facebook are entering our corporate realm as fast as Sharepoint did in recent years.  Users, publishers and others are concerned and confused that they are not connected and simultaneously are over-connected.

Content is proliferating and it is located in multiple environments.  Users don’t know where to go, where they are or where to look for their content whether documents or reference information.  It is time to ensure that you have an integrated strategy to eliminate the noise in the system by providing a standardized interface that provides the illusion of a seamless intranet regardless if a user is in Sharepoint, your WIKI, your Sharepoint or a portal.

Communicators must review their governance policies and forge a coalition with other business and IT leaders to ensure that priority is placed on simplification and on the tools that will enhance productivity the most.  Communications is a natural leader in this space since they are so dependent on the intranet

Productivity can be greatly enhanced by streamlining communication processes and channels.  Web standards and guidelines should be applied across all environments to ensure a seamless user experience.  Navigation standards should be consistent to simplify transitioning from wiki’s to search to team rooms to websites and portal content.  The definition of the intranet should be expanded to include all environments where content is hosted and collaboration occurs.  The goal is simplicity – a simple, intuitive online world.

There is much to do.  Time is of the essence.  Just when you thought you might get a break it is time to shift gears and move to the future.  Take heart though, energy grows as you move forward.  It’s definitely less draining than the last twelve months.  Happy Holidays!  Laurel

Toby Ward – Prescient Digital Media

It is generally accepted now that an intranet is far more than an internal phone book and document store, the portal approach has been adopted in many organisations with the intranet acting as a one stop shop for process specific business applications, management tools and links to business management systems.   Increasingly, organisations are now adopting Enterprise 2.0 features which use collaborative and social technologies to improve business processes and bring increased efficiency to how organisations work.   These tools make it easier for departments and teams to share information, develop documents and track progress on projects. 

However, as more and more information is added to intranets valuable data can become locked away in separate silos, inaccessible by other employees.  This can result in intranets acting more like information gatekeepers, limiting productivity and frustrating users, rather than achieving their intended goal of harnessing and sharing the collective intelligence of an organisation and providing a productive and collaborative platform for staff.

In my role as Intranet Consultant I come across many intranets that contain masses of fragmented information which is difficult to manage.  Users find it increasingly difficult to locate what they are looking for, or are not even aware of its existence, leading to duplication of effort and frequently ‘re-inventing the wheel’.  This is unproductive and inefficient and leads to frustration and a lack of trust in the intranet.    I strongly believe that the future of successful intranets lies in their ability to eradicate these information silos in order for them to evolve into strategic, collaborative business tools providing better knowledge sharing, easier access to best practice and the ability for improved internal networking – ‘intelligent’ intranets.

But how will this be achieved?  We are frequently guilty of expecting intranet users to fend for themselves when trying to find information and this needs to change.  It isn’t just a simple case of getting the navigation right, intranets need to be proactive in getting the right information to the right people by understanding a user and promoting relevant content to them.

Typically, the onus lies with content providers to ensure the visibility of their content – this usually means manually linking content to other related content – not only can this result in highly subjective decisions, but it is not practical or reliable as it is time consuming and difficult (if not impossible) to find all other related content.  My experience in working with companies to improve their intranets over the last five years led me to the conclusion that the best way to overcome this challenge was that intranets needed to liberate content providers from the constraints of author-generated links to other information.  Intelligent intranets should automatically find and promote links between all aspects of content; between articles and authors, between authors and the content they are responsible for, between articles and similar articles, between comments and relevant blogs, between users and users. 

Intranet content is an all-encompassing body of information and knowledge that has some very specific elements. It is a collection of information; of articles, best practice and events, a communication database for a who’s who, discussions and blogs. Whilst these are separate items they are not isolated.  Connections exist between each and every one.  These connections should be identified, created and promoted.

This happens every day on some very popular websites – consider a visit to Amazon, it welcomes you back and it recommends things to you; why? because it wants you to spend money, and how? because it has identified previous behaviour and has an intelligence to recommend something it thinks you will like.

The same happens on iTunes; you purchase a song and, based on your choice, it will recommend the top 5 songs by the same artist and based on the genre – via the ‘Listeners Also Bought’ function it will suggest five other artists and tracks you might like.  You follow any of these suggestions and five more suggestions are made. Facebook follows similar principles; its ‘Suggestions’  links will suggest people who you may want to add as friends.

Intelligent intranets should log information such as browsing routes, search entries, documents ratings and hits and use this information to promote content to users.  Intelligent intranets would know who you are, what department / teams you are a member of etc. and automatically create links to other information such as articles, discussions, events and people so that each piece of information is not isolated, but is part of a greater whole – the intranet information store.  The more the intranet is used and the more content is added the more powerful and effective it becomes.

Intelligent intranets that seek out relevant content and actively promote it to users will revolutionise internal communication and knowledge sharing by making it easier to tap into the collective intelligence of the workforce.  Intelligent intranets know what users want and need before users do.  They learn and adapt and push relevant content to users and they make life easy for those providing content by automatically creating links to other related information.    The more they are used and the more content is added results in a more powerful and efficient intranet.  They provide a consistently positive experience for the user who can rely on and trust the intranet to help them do their jobs better, by anticipating their knowledge requirements and presenting them with relevant information.

Nigel Danson is a specialist Intranet consultant and MD at Odyssey, suppliers of Interact Intranet software.  He has successfully delivered over 150 intranets to the public and private sector to help with communication, collaboration, knowledge management and business processes

Guest Post: Nigel Danson, Managing Director of Odyssey Interactive Ltd, discusses the emergence of the next generation in intranet technology – intelligent intranets. 

Intranet 2.0 (social media on the corporate intranet) has not only become a collection of mainstream technologies, it has become a necessity for organizations that want to be an employer of choice.

Employees want the opportunity to be heard and to express their opinions and needs more frequently than the annual employee survey. As powerful as the traditional intranet can be, the next generation of intranet, Intranet 2.0, best represented by powerful Web 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and social networking that have migrated behind the firewall, have the opportunity to be even more powerful and more engaging.

In fact, social networking and other 2.0 tools have become so popular that an organization without a 2.0 strategy risks being left behind, or outright failure (though death may be slow). Employees want to work for progressive and innovative organizations, and expect 2.0 environments from employers of choice. So much so that a recent survey of 1,000 workers found that 39% of 18 to 24 year-old employees would consider leaving their employer if they were not allowed to access sites like Facebook and YouTube; a further 21% indicated that they would feel ‘annoyed’ by such a ban (Telindus study of 1,000 European employees).

Once a nice-to-have or a scribble on a wish list, Intranet 2.0 tools are present in nearly 50% of organizations (regardless of size) in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand, according to Intranet 2.0: Social Media Becomes Mainstream on the Corporate Intranet. The report reveals the findings of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey of 561 organizations of all sizes from across the planet.

Among the findings, intranet blogs, wikis and discussion forums are quite pervasive, while other less common tools such as podcasts and mashups remain an after-thought at most organizations:

• 47% have intranet wikis (17% enterprise deployment); 10% have no plans or interest
• 45% have intranet blogs (13% enterprise deployment); 11% have no plans or interest
• 46% have intranet discussion forums (19% enterprise use); 9% have no plans or interest
• 46% have intranet instant messaging (29% enterprise use); 21% have no plans or interest
• 19% have intranet social networking (6% enterprise use); 20% have no plans or interest

Intranet 2.0 Tool Adoption – Intranet 2.0 Global Survey

Many couldn’t define a blog or wiki 3 or 4 years ago – now these tools are present in nearly 50% of organizations, regardless of their size or location. One of the reasons for this rapid adoption is the popularity of these tools on the public Internet: 4 of the top 8 most frequented websites on the planet are web 2.0 (YouTube, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Blogger). Another reason is the low cost of entry and implementation of these tools. According to the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey, of those organizations that have implemented 2.0 tools, almost half have spent $10,000 or less on these tools:

• 46% have spent $10,000 or less
• 35% have spent between $10,000 and $100,00; 19% have spent $100,000 or more

Other findings:

• Only 29% of organizations rate the tool functionality as good or very good; 24% rate them as poor or very poor
• Satisfaction rates with executives is dangerously low: only 23% of executives rate the 2.0 tools as good or very good; 38% rate them as poor or very poor
• For those organizations that have deployed 2.0 tools inside the firewall, about half of all organizations have SharePoint (in some shape or form) (47%)
• Only 15% of organizations have had Intranet 2.0 tools for more than 2 years; 35% of organizations have had their Intranet 2.0 tools for less than 1 year

Ironically, while many executives want to become an employer of choice, it is executives themselves that are the biggest barrier to Intranet 2.0 adoption. Of those organizations that don’t have intranet 2.0 tools, executive support is cited as the biggest barrier blocking the deployment of these tools. Close behind, 30% cite “lack of a business plan” as the biggest barrier to Intranet 2.0 adoption.

Without a proper plan and business case, many organizations will fail to properly implement Intranet 2.0 technologies. Those organizations that don’t have 2.0 tools are not getting executive approval to proceed as they don’t have a proper plan or business case that convinces senior management of the need. If senior management doesn’t wake up to the promise and revolution represented by social media they risk being left behind the competition that actively pursue status as an employer of choice.

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To learn more about Intranet 2.0, download a free, summarized version of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey findings and analysis report:

Toby Ward – Prescient Digital Media

John Havens is Director, Partnership Marketing & Integration, BlogTalkRadio, and co-author (with Shel Holtz) of Tactical Transparency.

John presented the luncheon keynote at the Communitelligence INTRANET INSIDER WORLD TOUR LIVE 09 Conference at Con Edison headquarters in New York City April 16-17.

In this 29-minute video clip, Havens talks about the concept of community and corporate transparency.

For an excellent article covering the entire event, read Kelly Kasses’ Communicators get the inside scoop on successful intranets in SimplyCommunicate.com.

Social media adoption has accelerated on the corporate intranet, led by blogs, wikis and discussion forums. Despite a low cost of entry—often below $10,000—adopters are not reporting outstanding satisfaction with the investment, especially among the executive ranks, driven by inadequate planning and weak or non-existent business plans.

This data is contained is contained in the results of the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey, which included the participation of 561 organizations of all sizes from across the planet.

Intranet 2.0 Global Survey Results

“Once a nice-to-have or a future wish, Intranet 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and other vehicles have become mainstream, and are present in nearly 50% of organizations (regardless of size) in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand,” says Toby Ward, the study author, and President, Prescient Digital Media.

Read about the results Intranet 2.0 becomes mainstream

Toby Ward – Prescient Digital Media

Watching my son graduate from the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa was a proud moment indeed.  It wasn’t the first time I had celebrated such an accomplishment or heralded a new era for one of my children but it was a different celebration.  The discussion at graduation revolved around the lack of opportunities and the economic outlook for the future.

Today’s job market is difficult to navigate and prospects for the inexperienced limited – kind of a Catch-22 for graduates.  They need experience to get a job and they need a job to gain experience (not to mention other factors like student loans and health insurance).

The field of Communications is in a state of evolution.  The days of communicators as content creators whose writing skills are preeminent in their toolkit are gone.  Communicators in the business world are being asked to interface between departments, advise leadership on employee communications to ensure bad news is delivered in a manner which mitigates fear and encourages productivity.  Communicators struggle to manage content from many sources, position the message without controlling and to understand the impact of social media on the enterprise.

Intranet management should be a discipline taught within our universities but there are few professors schooled in social media, intranet governance and web content management.  Review the curriculums of major universities and you will see a smattering of social media courses, courses on the implications of the 2008 Presidential campaign and references to digital media. Universities struggle to achieve effective on-line communications strategies within their own realms.  Their intranets have not fared much better than those of the typical enterprise.  Searching the web for examples of forward thinking Universities I was able to discover two that looked promising – Gonzaga and John Hopkins.  Both seem to be transforming their curriculums to highlight the shift to digital communications.

The primary value of a new Communications graduate could be their fundamental acceptance of the digital world combined with the understanding of basic communication processes.  Big C, little c may no longer be relevant but perhaps digital C is.  What do you think?  More importantly at the moment, does anyone have a job for Max?

Laurel Castiglione, Pacific Gas and Electric

500 organizations of all sizes from across the planet have participated and the findings are invaluable – and surprising. If you haven’t already done so, please take 8 minutes to take the Intranet 2.0 Global Survey and you’ll get a copy of the full results including the good, bad and learned lessons. Please also direct clients and fellow colleagues. It doesn’t cost anything, and I’m not charging anything.

PLEASE TAKE THE SURVEY EVEN IF YOU DO NOT HAVE INTRANET 2.0 TOOLS — WE REQUIRE BOTH PERSPECTIVES!!

Respondents who complete the survey will be eligible to win $400 (a random email address will be drawn from all responses to the survey). All respondents will also receive a full copy of the results at no cost.

Here’s a sneak preview of some of the findings so far:

• 43% have intranet blogs (10% enterprise deployment); 11% have no plans or interest
• 47% have intranet wikis (16% enterprise deployment); 10% have no plans or interest
• 23% have intranet podcasts (6% enterprise deployment); 30% have no plans or interest
• 17% have intranet social networking (5% enterprise use); 20% have no plans or interest
• 21% have intranet content tagging (9% enterprise use); 24% have no plans or interest
• 37% have intranet RSS (12% enterprise use); 12% have no plans or interest
• 47% have intranet discussion forums (20% enterprise use); 10% have no plans or interest
• 46% have intranet instant messaging (28% enterprise use); 20% have no plans or interest
• 8% have intranet mashups (3% enterprise use); 46% have no plans or interest
• 48% of organizations using SharePoint for Intranet 2.0 tools

A sneak preview of the findings and some of the case study examples will be showcased at J.Boye 09 in Philadelphia (May 5-7, 2009). Register now & receive a fantastic deal on a technology / communications conference of this quality that includes multiple tracks on intranet, SharePoint, content management, user experience and more. J. Boye also features star speakers including the NY Times’ David Pogue.

TAKE THE INTRANET 2.0 GLOBAL SURVEY

Toby Ward – Prescient Digital Media

(NEW YORK) What is the state of the intranet today? What do employees want? Where is the intranet evolving?

Statistics, findings and highlights from Intranet Insider World Tour Live in New York City (April 17, 2009).

From Watson Wyatt (Michael Rudnick, presenter):

• 80% believe intranet navigation needs improvement
• 50% don’t actually use their intranet on a daily basis
• 50% find search ineffective

Employees use on the intranet:

• employee phone directory
• cafeteria menu
• expense report
• pay stub

Employees use outside of work:

• 75% use Facebook
• 75% use LinkedIn
• 45% use YouTube
• 35% use Wikis
• 32% use Blogs

Intranet 2.0 used at work:

• Collaboration 34%
• Blogs 31%
• Customization 31%

What technologies are powering the intranet 2.0?

• 75% have SharePoint
• 3% have Notes Connections
• 14% have other

Intranet 2.0 Global Survey (500 organizations across the globe) findings (Toby Ward, presenter):

• 42% have intranet blogs (10% enterprise deployment); 10% have no plans or interest
• 47% have intranet wikis (16% enterprise deployment); 10% have no plans or interest
• 23% have intranet podcasts (5% enterprise deployment); 29% have no plans or interest
• 15% have intranet social networking (5% enterprise use); 21% have no plans or interest
• 20% have intranet content tagging (9% enterprise use); 23% have no plans or interest
• 35% have intranet RSS (12% enterprise use); 11% have no plans or interest
• 15% have intranet social networking (5% enterprise use); 21% have no plans or interest
• 48% have intranet discussion forums (19% enterprise use); 9% have no plans or interest
• 49% have intranet instant messaging (29% enterprise use); 18% have no plans or interest
• 7% have intranet mashups (4% enterprise use); 43% have no plans or interest
• 47% of organizations using SharePoint for Intranet 2.0 tools

Intranet ROI – cost savings attributed to IKEA intranet (Beth Gleba, presenter):

• Paper cost savings = $192,000
• Streamlining processes / Self-serve travel process saves $4,590
• Modernizing communication technologies video conf to WebEx = $90,000
• Self-service hr = $219,000

Con Edison intranet survey (Fred Leach, presenter):

• 3054 completed surveys (55% management; 45% union)
• 90% say company communications are somewhat or very helpful/informative
• Preferred communications channels are:

1. email
2. intranet
3. elevator screens
4. hard copy (print)

• 54% have seen CE eye (employee video channel; employee stories are most popular)
• Most popular video: “To Catch a Thief in Brooklyn!” (documenting how a Con Edison nabbed a cable thief in a Brooklyn sewer – including a physical wrestle, chase & scuffle!)

2009 Edelman Trust Barometer Executive (John Havens, BlogTalkRadio.com, presenter):

How a company treats its employees is tantamount in influencing the level of trust amongst its customers.

When you think of good and responsible companies how important is each of the following factors to the overall reputation of the company? (4475 people – 25-64 years of age)

• Offers high quality products & services – 94%
• Is a company that treats its employees well – 93%

5 Trends for Intranet Innovation (Amy Vickers, Razorfish, presenter):

• Attention Management – separating signal from noise
• Openess – cultivating transparency, sharing, and flatness
• Networks of Knowledge – graphing known and unknown connections
• Ecosystem Efficiency – orienting around business processes
• Back is the New Front (Office) – data and infrastructure drives innovation

How D Street Enhances Deloitte

1. Innovation & productivity
2. Talent Attraction & Assimilation
3. Integrated Communications
4. Talent Retention
5. Knowledge Preservation
6. Marketplace Eminence

Benefits of Corporate Social Networking at Deloitte Consulting (Arun Parshad, presenter):

• 8.2% increase in retention
• 10% increase in productivity
• 11.8% in new businesses

Deloitte demographic trends:

• Average new hire: 27 years old
• 65% of new hires are under age 25
• 35% work in a virtual team
• Nearly half (46%) of GenYers polled rate the availability of networking programs for enterprise as important to their job
• 75% of CIOs plan to invest in social networking tools in the next four years

D-Street social networking community at Deloitte features:

• Blogroll – blogs throughout
• Headlines – intranet news
• Snapshot – pictures from across the organizations
• Seen on the Street – external stories
• Communities
• Personal profiles

D-Street participation by employees:

• 1261 personalized profiles as of February 2006
• 19171 personalized profiles as of February 2007
• Last 6 months: 80 ad hoc communities with 1800 members
• Toby Ward – Prescient Digital Media

(NEW YORK) Intranets help empower employees and sales teams to increase sales; a revenue enhancing benefit that is far too often overlooked by too many organizations. The IKEA intranet and other top-rated intranets were showcased at The Intranet Insider World Tour Live (New York, April 16 – 17, 2009). 

IKEA U.S. has 37 stores, with over 12,000 co-workers; an employee audience that is both geographically dispersed, and has limited capacity to connect to the intranet. However, a challenging retail environment with a dispersed target audience and a limited attention span has not daunted the IKEA intranet team from focusing on the bottom line: decreasing costs, and increasing sales.

IKEA’s intranet team began with a series of philosophies that guide their work and execution:

1. An emphasis on the power of people.
2. Decentralization works!
3. The Intranet is part of a total information landscape.
4. It’s good to be a passionate fanatic!
5. We are obsessed with impacting the bottom line!

The last philosophy ‘obsession’ with the bottom line has also served them well – leading to increased sales, and cost savings of more than $500,000 per year:

• PAPER COSTS = $192,000
• STREAMLINING PROCESSES / SELF-SERVE TRAVEL PROCESS SAVES $4,590
• MODERNIZING COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES VIDEO CONF to WEBEX = $90,000
• SELF-SERVICE HR = $219,000

The intranet is particularly focused on supporting the sales organization; especially sales events and the monthly “seize the day” sales. In particular, the intranet team delivers content that is highly focused on sales events with:

• Photos
• Stores “reporting in” with lots of co-worker quotes
• The good and the bad
• Employee discussion boards
• Sales number & metrics

As I finalize my workshop materials for Intranet Insider Live I am struck by the variety of definitions for intranet governance.  It seems it is easiest to define what it is not.  Having been in the midst of the battle to establish intranet governance (when it wasn’t particularly popular to do so) I have my own thoughts on the subject.  I believe it can be defined as the agreed upon structure, guidelines, policies or rules that stakeholders within a corporation utilize to accomplish a specific set of business objectives through the use of their intranet.  This structure can be as formal or informal as fits the corporate culture in which it is established.

Maybe it is most important to focus on the value rather than the definition.  The value of governance is in direct correlation to the commitment of the stakeholders involved.  Governance can be used as an instrument to build credibility, streamline communications and as the catalyst for interdepartmental collaboration.

I hope you join me for the pre-conference workshop.  I will be sharing a governance evolution roadmap to help explain the natural evolution of both intranets and the governance of intranets.  I will give you some ideas on getting started or invigorating existing governance.  I’ll take a look back at my GM journey to show examples of success and roadblock busters that made a difference.   During the conference there will be a forum for us to share thoughts, discuss issues and engage in ideas on how to enable your organization move through the governance evolution.

What’s your definition of intranet governance?  Can’t wait to meet you.  See you in NY. 

Laurel Castiglione, Pacific Gas and Electric