Globally local - locally global

Future proofing intranet governance

Jane McConnell — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 17:28:40 +0100

One way to future proof your intranet is to future proof the governance.

There are 3 ways to do that, and I recommend doing all 3!

1. Implement cross-organizational ownership.

If you do not already have a cross-organizational ownership model in place, move in that direction. The Global Intranet Trends for 2010 showed that 14 % of the nearly 300 participating organization have this model. In Stage 3 (more mature intranets) it rises to 22 %, still not very high.

A cross-organizational model means all the key functions and divisions of the organization have representation on the Steering Committee or Advisory Board or whatever you call your top-level decision-making body.

This puts Business side by side with Communication, IT and HR, the traditional “owners” of the intranet. They can then fulfill their traditional roles of enablers and Business can take the role it should have long had as a major decision-maker for the intranet.

2. Lock in your flows to and from the intranet decision-makers and publish them.

Cross-organizational ownership ensures you full coverage of your organization. There are no black holes where the intranet is concerned. That’s good.

However, you cannot of course have dozens of people on the decision-making body, so you will have people who represent different segments of the organization.

A common problem is that the people being represented do not always know who represents them. When strategic decisions are being discussed, these people are not consulted in advance and asked for input. Sometimes they are not even informed about the decisions that are made. This leads to confusion, and worse, rejection of decisions and “we”ll do it our way”. It’s understandable if no one has talked to them!

The representatives themselves may never have thought clearly about the fact that they represent other people, not just themselves.

So, by making the consulting and communicating flows between the intranet decision-makers and the rest of the enterprise visible to all, the intranet is protected from breakdowns coming from people’s lack of awareness and lack of being involved.

The Steering Committee itself must integrate formal reporting by its members to ensure they are carrying out their “obligations” to their “constituencies”.

A simple way to do this is to publish Steering Committee names, roles and constituencies on the intranet itself. There should be also be publication of decisions made, action items including who and when.

Locking this in through visibility will ensure that when a decision-maker loses interest in the intranet or is not doing the job right, others will notice and hopefully help

3. Invite young staff to strategy sessions on a regular basis.

If you’ve implemented cross-organizational ownership, you’ve got no black holes from the organizational viewpoint.
However, you also need to make sure you don’t have black holes from the seniority viewpoint.
The actual members of the Steering Committee will usually be fairly high level people with seniority in the business. If a few members of newer staff, preferably young staff, are invited to join the Steering Committee for regular strategy sessions, the blend of years of experience with new ways of working can stimulate everyone.

When I say “new staff”, I’m thinking of young professionals who have been in the organization for at least 2 or so, but not yet long enough to be ingrained by the organizational culture.

They will bring fresh ideas to the table, and will be sufficiently involved in the organization to be able to formulate the business value in ways that will make sense to the senior people.

Having strategy session like this once a year will keep your intranet decision-makers on their toes! It will also ensure that new voices are being heard.

"Plug and grow" your intranet

Jane McConnell — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 23:24:40 +0100

I fear that many organizations believe that you can "plug and grow" your intranets.

It's not easy to read, but that's what is written in the red label: "plug and grow". It is also specified "No gardening experience needed."

Put someone in charge. Anyone. Experience does not matter.

Now you have an "Intranet Manager", capital I, capital M.

I saw this amazing machine while Christmas shopping and could not resist sharing it with you all!

When "global & local" becomes "common & specific"

Jane McConnell — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 17:02:12 +0100

How do you handle global and local content on global portal? A question that has as many answers as intranets! However, in my work with many complex, global organizations, I have developed 8 fundamental guidelines.

1. Replace the concept of "global/local" with "common/specific".

"Global" suggests from the top; "local" suggests from the bottom. In reality, global companies have content that is common to all that may have been developed in a “local” part of the organization.

Likewise, content developed globally (by HQ for example) may have a very specific, "local" audience.

Using the terms "common" and "specific" remove the hierarchical angle and make people focus on who needs the content rather than who created it.

2. Think of the global intranet as collection of spaces, with each space having a purpose from the user viewpoint.

Examples of spaces: News, Workplace, Employee Services, About. These spaces will later become the components of the global navigation bar.

Develop several hypotheses, each one with a combination of spaces. You should be able to make a simple statement about each space for each hypothesis: "This space is designed for (user) to (action)".

An example will show you how important the exact wording is. What follows is 3 different ways of describing the "News" space.

This space is designed for all employees to be informed about news from the company. (meaning primarily internal communication-driven)
This space is designed for all employees to be informed about news from and about the company.(meaning both internal and external news sources)
This space is designed for all employees to share news. (meaning users can contribute news)

Attention: The success of this step depends on having already positioned the intranet and where it fits in the workplace web.

If you are not working within a portal concept, you may think of each "space" as an "intranet site". The conceptual work is the same, because each site must have a specific purpose and scope. You will then have an intranet landscape made up of a collection of intranet sites, many of which will be specific. However, one will be common to all, and will have the content, features and services that are relevant to all employees. It is surprising sometimes to realized how small this may be in volume compared to the specific!

3. Identify the type of content, services and features required for each space.

Do this for all the spaces involved, for all the hypotheses. This will help clarify the real differences. Go into just enough detail to be clear on the purpose of the space.

Each space will have a combination of common and specific content. Some spaces will be primarily common content, others mainly specific. The specific may be driven by geography, profession, organizational. For example:

The news space will have a few news items relevant to everyone, a few more relevant to the person's country or business division, and others specifically relevant to the person's profession.
The workplace space will be heavily dependent on profession and organization.

This work can only by done in close collaboration with business and functional managers. Users must also be involved, but not at this stage if your organization is large. They will be involved later as the spaces are developed in detail.

4. Identify the appropriate type and amount of customization.

This will differ for each space and for the landing pages for each space. You will need to distinguish 3 types:

No customization = same for all
Implicit customization = controlled by the system, based on user profiles (e.g. geography, profession, organizational unit)
Explicit customization = controlled by the individual user

Then you need to define who determines the content/services required for each type. Some examples:

The communication manager may control what everyone in a given country must see
The global marketing manager will decide what marketing people around the world need to access
The local marketing person will decide for the local team

Work out general principles at this stage, without actually assigning names. This work is a starting point for some of your governance principles.

5. Sketch out wire frames for the landing pages for the spaces.

This is the fun part where you put pencil to paper. I highly recommend not using computers at this point. Let people sketch the way they see the landing pages. Ask them to add arrows, notes and details about the type of content, who owns it, what type of customization, etc. Keep this work at a high level.

A couple of suggestions:

Make sure the common content is visible, but give priority to specific over common.
When you have disagreements, don't force a decision. Draw both ideas. List the advantages and disadvantages of each.

6.Determine the appropriate place for collaboration spaces.

The debate will be: should they be inside the "workplace"-type space, or should they together in an area called "Collaborate"? There are advantages to each. Some companies decide to do both.

Whatever the decision, ensure that they do not become mini silos of their own.

7. Use the "About" space to counter balance the customization of other spaces.

Just as web sites have "About" sections for the public, an intranet should have an "About" space for employees. There are a lot of exciting concepts that can be developed for this.

A major objective is to ensure that people have visibility across the organization. This is the place where business units and teams can present themselves. It can include a section specially designed for new employees. It can be highly user-driven; it can be primarily corporate communication-driven. Senior management can have their own communication platform here.

These choices will depend on your culture, intranet maturity and resources. This section will evolve over time.

8.Attack the home page last!

The home page is the hottest territory on the intranet and will be subject to much debate! It is the "promise" of the intranet. It symbolizes what the intranet is all about.

Examples of decision you need to make:

It should not be completely news-driven if the intranet is intended to be a work tool.
It should have some degree of user control if the organizational culture embraces empowering employees.
It should give "equal billing" to news from headquarters and news from countries and business units if the organization considers itself to be global.

It is critical to leave the home page discussion to the end. It take on real meaning after the other points have been discussed and agreed.

*****

There are a lot more criteria to be considered, but this post is already too long!

Thank you Adam and Pernilla for asking the question. I welcome contact from any reader who would like to continue the conversation, by commenting here or by email.

5 Future Intranet Trends - Brazilian Portal Award keynote on YouTube

Jane McConnell — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 11:54:17 +0100

The organizers of Brazilian Intranet Portal Award 2009 event kindly posted the video I made for them on YouTube and I'd like to share it with you. I talk about the 5 future intranet trends.

I'd love to hear your feedback.

Global Intranet Trends 2010 - available for purchase!

Jane McConnell — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 18:34:00 +0100

You'll find more information on this site in the Intranet Survey & Trends section of this site:

Table of contents
Read the Preface
You can read reviews by intranet managers
As well as reviews by peers
Click here for price and link to purchase platform

Get in touch directly if you have any questions about the report or anything else!

Catherine Grenfell on successful intranet managers

Jane McConnell — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:12:51 +0100

I talked to Catherine Grenfell of Step Two Designs a while ago about an article she published on the Step Two Designs web site: What do successful intranet managers have in common?

It's clear that Catherine has a lot of experience working with intranet managers and her insights are both useful and inspiring.

Some key points:

When dealing with the legacy of intranet initiatives that have failed, Catherine says: "You can't undo the past; you can influence the future."
Establishing communication channels and setting expectation when everyone wants everything requires good negotiation skills.
Unlike other managers in the organization, intranet managers deal with staff at all levels. They need to have an elevator pitch about the intranet.
Intranet managers need to learn to "let go" of content. They need to empower others.

You can listen to our conversation here:

Part 1 (5 minutes)

Grenfell-JMC-Part1

Part 2 (3 minutes)

Grenfell-JMC-Part2

Part 3 (6 minutes)

Grenfell-JMC-Part3

You can reach Catherine at catherine@steptwo.com.au if you'd like to talk more about her thoughts, or you can communicate with her here.

Intranet Portal Awards 2009 (Brazil) announced

Jane McConnell — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 11:00:57 +0100

I participated for the first time in the Brazilian Intranet Portal Award 2009 event this week - virtually!

If you don't speak Portuguese (as I don't) you can use a translator tool to get an idea about what went on for the two days of the conference. Try this link.

There were 12 awards announced and approximately 200 people each day.

The Twitter tag is #pip09 .

2009 Intranet Innovation Awards announced and published

Jane McConnell — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 17:18:26 +0100

The 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards winners have been announced and you can now purchase the report with lots of details and screen captures. (US$ 189. More information on the Step Two Designs web site.) I've read it and find it to be one of the most useful collection of intranet case studies I've seen.
James Robertson is also publishing a 10-part series of articles on his blog Column Two, describing each winner this year: one platinum and nine gold. And the articles are gold themselves!
Gold winner: IDEO (USA)
Gold winner: IBM (USA)
Gold winner: Sabre (USA)

Fear not! There are other countries in the gold winners, and articles will be soon published on winners from Russia, Denmark, UK, New Zealand and Australia (platinum).
You can read more about the awards here, and consider entering one of your own intranet initiatives for next year.
Remember that what is unique about these awards, and what makes them credible is that they concern "intranet innovations" - specific features or applications you've developed in the intranet, and do not attempt to award "the best intranets" - which is mission impossible in my opinion.
This award program lets you see intranet innovations that have brought user and business benefits to the organizations.

(Disclaimer: I am one of the participating judges for the awards.)

Highlights from the Global Intranet Trends for 2010

Jane McConnell — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 18:28:42 +0100

I'd like to share a preview of some major observations from this year's survey. These points and others are developed in the Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report.

The report will be available for purchase later in November and the exact date will be announced here.

Front door into the workplace web

The Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report is subtitled ‘Towards the workplace web’. This phrase reflects what is happening today in intranets around the world as organizations are positioning the intranet as the entry point into the organization’s ensemble of information, applications, collaboration and communication tools.

More key stakeholders getting involved

The intranet is starting to be “business as usual” and thereby involving more high-level stakeholders in the organization. The ownership model is slowly moving away from the single owner model (usually communication). Forty percent of the organizations do still have this model but another 30 percent have a co-owner model where two or three functions share ownership.

The third model, which is cross-organizational with all major functions and divisions represented, exists in 15 percent. Although used less than the first two models, it is more often found in organizations with mature intranets

Senior management increasing involvement

Approximately one third of the organizations have a high-level intranet Steering Committee. The senior level presence on this body has increased over the last year reaching 60 percent, with middle management and operational management decreasing slightly. This trend has continued since 2007 when the senior level presence was around 35 percent.

The individual voice emerging

There are a number of indicators showing that the employee voice is being given some room in the intranet. Two examples:

“Commenting on official content” such as letting employees publish comments and questions about articles written by management is “in general use” in 20 percent of the organizations. Another 20 percent are testing it or have it “in some parts” of their organization.

Internal social network applications (similar to Facebook or Linkedin) are not often found to be “in general use throughout the organization”. However they are likely to increase as 30 percent of the organizations are currently testing or “using in some parts”.

Social media benefits appearing

Twenty-five to 30 percent of organizations that have already implemented some form of social media have experienced 3 general benefits: increased employee engagement, more effective knowledge sharing, and better-informed employees. Stories “from the front lines” are shared in the report.

Some measurement

A few organizations have begun to measure the impact of social media and although the examples are rare in number, they provide insight on how the pioneers are making social media part of business as usual.

Social media concerns shifting

Concerns are changing as organizations gain experience. Doubts are considerably lower about the relevance of social media to business needs, senior management hesitancy and employees wasting their time. At the same time there is a higher degree of concern about two things: the difficulty of finding information and potential user resistance.

Hype and risks of disillusionment

Organizations in the planning stages for social media usage have very high expectations for benefits. Their expectations are far greater than what the “implementers” have seen so far. There seems to be a potential risk of disappointment.

Intranets in real-time

Technologies such as presence indicators, instant messaging and web conferencing are found more frequently the more mature intranets. Some organizations feel they have reached a level of "optimization" for certain real-time technologies.

Intranets being extended to where the people are

Intranets are leaving the workplace, or rather the workplace is being extended to where the people are. People do not need to be in the office in front of a computer to be able to use the intranet. Home access is possible in over one third of the organizations and smart phone access is just starting.

Some intranets have services for smart phones today, but the vast majority do not. However, twenty-five percent of the organizations in the survey say they are in the planning stages of making the intranet accessible through smart phones and PDAs.

The future intranet

In summary, intranets are being re-shaped and re-energized around 5 underlying trends.

The front-door intranet
The team-oriented intranet
The people-focused intranet
The real-time intranet
The place-independent intranet

These trends represent new dimensions of the intranet that better correspond to how people work today. They are discussed throughout the report from different angles and with detailed charts and analysis.

Note:

This is the 4^th annual report, and the survey population has grown from 100 to 300 organizations since 2006. The organizations range in size from under 1,000 employees to over 100,000 employees and are headquartered primarily in Europe, North America and Asia Pacific.

Topics explored in the survey include positioning of the intranet, strategy and management, business objectives, features of the intranet, social media and measurement.

Follow netjmc at JBoye09 in Aarhus this week

Jane McConnell — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 09:55:44 +0100

I'm tweeting from the JBoye09 conference in Aarhus, Denmark this week. You can follow me at http://twitter.com/netjmc.

The twitter tag for the conference is #jboye09.

Global Intranet Trends Report - published next week

Jane McConnell — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 22:11:35 +0100

For those of you who are wondering, the 2010 report will be published the first week of November.

Many thanks to all of you for your emails of encouragement. This year's report will be worth waiting for!

Here's where I sit in early evening when I take a break from writing.

Corporations are WAY behind the curve in real-time social media

Jane McConnell — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 22:29:28 +0200

This article is a must-read for intranet managers: Is "Social Media" Really Changing the World? by Jared Cohen.

Here are some quotes to whet your appetite. Cohen says:

"'Social media' is merely a way to describe new tools in an old and narrow paradigm where we measure success by how many people are reached."

He talks about the organizations who participated in the recent Alliance of Youth Movements Summit in Mexico City and goes on to say:

"The groups who spoke at the summit were aware of their challenges: .... they used urls and websites instead of offices and leveraged open source platforms in the absence of budgets. In each of their cases, these technological tools are about more than the exchange and posting of information; they have also allowed them to organize and mobilize in real time to raise funds, circumvent restrictions on civil liberties, hold governments accountable, build tangible documents like petitions, orchestrate counter or parallel elections, and connect people with judicial and legal resources...."

"...The term 'social media' as we know it today appeared in July 2004 as a reference to participatory media like blogging, wikis, social networks, and related technologies. This is all well and good if technology was still primarily about connecting people to information, which is really the essence of media. However, this term has become obsolete in a world where technology has become a critical tool for connecting people not only to information and ideas, but also to other individuals, entities (NGOs, companies, governments, etc.), and more recently actual resources be they financial, medical, or judicial."

"The power of technology today will be determined not by web traffic and viewership, but by its ability to strengthen and more importantly facilitate connections in real time."

This speaks to my heart as I am currently working on one of the chapters in the "Global Intranet Trends for 2010" where I have identified the "real-time intranet"' as one of the emerging trends that is transforming the workplace web. The real-time intranet connects people to people in organizations where there is often no official means for making contact.

Micro-blogging is a good example. The use of Twitter or Yammer inside enterprises is extremely low today. However even the limited number of experiences described by the intranet managers who participated in the 2009 survey shows indications of what is coming.
One example is the intranet manager himself who said: "Micro-blogging has allowed me to build relationships with other members of the organization I would otherwise have no knowledge of or ability to influence."

I am convinced that micro-blogging has a critical role to play in organizations and in the workplace web.

Any experiences to share?

J.Boye in Aarhus - hope to see you there

Jane McConnell — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 08:32:26 +0200

I will be in Denmark the first week of November for the J.Boye Aarhus 09 conference. I participated in the conference last year and found it to be a stimulating and friendly event.
This year I’ll be running a workshop on Tuesday November 3rd on Intranet Governance, and doing the keynote for the intranet track on Wednesday morning. It will be the first public presentation of the Global Intranet Trends for 2010, and I need to get my presentation ready!

The programme is looking very interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing many friends again. The Aarhus conference offers lots of opportunities to network and meet new people, and I recommend that you consider joining us if you can. Let me know and we'll arrange to meet up.

7 principles for decentralized publishing

Jane McConnell — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 22:23:41 +0200

During the first Globally Local open thread of a couple of weeks ago, Chamika asked:

"A topic I've been trying to research is how to set up workflow for intranet content using Sharepoint. There are several resources that explain the technical aspects of workflow set up, but rarely have I come across any articles about mapping out workflow from a centralized publishing model to a distributed publishing model. Another way it's being perceived in my organization is the approvals process for intranet content. Any best practices and lessons learned would be great."

I have identified (thanks to some challenging work with my clients!) 7 fundamental principles that I feel are very important and that each of my clients has implemented - their own way - in their organizations.

1. Define responsibility for content at the lowest level possible in the organization, but at a level of accountability.

Define the level according to the "natural business role". Publishing on the intranet must be part of normal business procedures. Whoever is responsible for the accuracy of a specific content should also be responsible for that content on the intranet.

Keep this level as low as possible, but make sure it does not go lower than the business responsibility.

2. Do not mix "content owner" with "content publisher".

The content publisher may be a person whose responsibility is to use the CMS or publishing tool and put the content online. This is not the same thing as being responsible for the accuracy and up-to-dateness of the content. This is a technical responsibility, which is very important, but different. It requires knowing how to use the publishing tool, and, depending on the sophistication of the tool, making the content easy to read online.

3. Make the name of the "content owner" visible on the content itself.

Ensure that the person with business responsibility for the content is visibly identified on the content itself. Visibility goes a long way towards making people aware of their responsibilities.

4. Have the business units and functions specify their own types of content and levels of approval.

If you are a large, global organization, you will have many different types of content with varying degrees of ownership depending on the source: business unit, country, function, etc. Ask the different business units and functions to define their own guidelines for what type of content require approval by what level or role.

Propose a content-approval grid with (1) the types of content with which you are familiar and (2) the potential levels of approval based on your organizational structure. Ask business and functional managers to indicate what level of approval is required. Push them a bit to ensure they are not placing the approval level too high.

Find examples outside of the intranet to help them analyze the true level of responsibility. For example, if certain people are allowed to communicate externally, they can certainly approve content for internal publication. If a level of management produces internal reports on a topic, they can certainly approve publication for this information on the intranet.

Avoid, as much as possible, elevating the approval level.

5. Avoid complex workflow. In fact, avoid CMS workflow completely!

With a few rare exceptions, assume the person publishing a piece of content is authorized to publish the content. Building workflow steps into a content management system simply adds to everyone's email overload.

I have rarely seen cases where the actual approval process takes place in the CMS workflow. It always happens either before (preferably) or after the actual publication.

6. Do not let content owners alone decide what end-users should or should not see. Involve user rep's!

Identify owners for user profiles (or "persona ambassadors"). Make sure that if you have defined profiles such as "marketing managers" or "employees based in France" or "customer service staff for product A" that you have also identified a person who is part of that profile and who can work with you to determine what members of that profile need to see and access to do their jobs. This person becomes the "user rep" for that profile. ("Rep" = representative)

One of the biggest pitfalls of customized intranets/portals is letting the content owners alone decide who should see what. They only have a partial view. The complementary view is from the users: "what do we need to see", and only a member of that user segment can answer that question.

7. Make sure you have no "black holes".

This is hard, but if you have top management support you can do it! :)

If you don't, you probably can't. :(

Require every part of your organization to have an intranet representative, a person who represents what the area publishes on the intranet and what the members of that area needs from the intranet.

If your top senior person makes this a requirement, you can be sure that users will be able to find what they need on the intranet. Otherwise, the intranet may be lop-sided (unbalanced) with some areas heavily present and others absent.

*********
Thanks for asking this question, Chamika, and I hope others will add to my list...

Intranet managers and web monitoring

Jane McConnell — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 21:23:42 +0200

In the open thread last weekend, Zeb asked the following question:

".... what tools, services, etc are available for companies to track trends such as mentions about their company, their competitors, what's popular and what people are looking for on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo & Twitter."

I gave a brief answer in my post 30-30-30-10 Watch the Trends saying that that it is important for intranet managers to have part of their time focused on external issues.

****************

In the meantime I sent the question to one of my virtual colleagues with whom I have worked on numerous projects, Anthony Hamelle,VP of linkinfluence. Anthony blogs here (in French) but he is more than fluent in English as you see below in his response to my query.

Anthony's response to Zeb:

"There are two main kinds of online monitoring services out there.

(1) Those that seek to capture and track as much data in as many languages as possible about your brands or topics of interest. They are like smart clippings services and are useful in an e-CRM fashion (hearing everything everywhere and, inasmuch as possible, providing timely answers to everyone).

Some better-known ones are Radian6 (leading paid-for monitoring service), Sysomos, Attentio, Twitter Search or Google Blogsearch (that latter two being leading free monitoring services ;-)

(2) Those that seek to make sense of the data they track and capture. These tools are akin to market research solutions and services, filtering and organising data so as to reveal interesting trends that help decide upon strategies.

Some better-known ones are linkfluence (disclosure, I am VP of linkfluence), TNS Cymfony or Nielsen Buzzmetrics.

Although almost all providers work with some form of text mining, a line might be drawn between those that provide NLP (natural language processing, i.e. automated sentiment detection) and those that choose to rely on human analysts to interpret the data.

I for one think that NLP is not yet suited for the complexity and the heterogeneous aspect of language on the social web, meaning that human analysts still have to interpret and extract insights from the data..."

****************

Many thanks to Anthony. Do not hesitate to raise questions to him directly, or via Globally Local here in comments.

30-30-30-10 Watch the trends

Jane McConnell — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 23:16:32 +0200

Open thread topics over the weekend got a couple of very relevant comments, the first from Zeb.

Zeb wants to know about tracking trends:

Zeb is right in focusing on how companies can track trends.

Intranet managers need to be externally focused - with at least 30 percent of their energy (why 30? less than half, but still significant!) in order to stay fresh, motivated and up to date on what's going on in the world. Trends on the web are impacting the intranet more than ever in the past.

I'd say the smart intranet manager should be focused on:

30 percent web trends
30 percent user needs
30 percent business
10 percent organizational needs

Of course, the "user needs" and the "business needs' converge (hopefully); otherwise there's a serious problem in the organization.

The "organizational needs" are probably Corp Comm-driven, and, in most - but hopefully not all cases - very top-down.

In spite of all this so called "synergy", the way the intranet responds to these different needs is quite notable.

Lots of consultants push the "persona" approach: what does this type of user need?

"Let's define typical user profiles and identify their needs."

That's very good stuff, but hard to achieve in a meaningful way in a global organization with multiple business units, a variety of professional profiles and presence in a hundred countries (and cultures) or more.

Other more technology-oriented partners (agencies, solution providers) will push the "personalization" approach: let people decide what they need.

So, back to the smart intranet manager:

1. Watch the web trends

2. Listen to your end-users

3. Talk to your business managers and identify their pain points.

4. Talk to your senior management: you'll be surprised, I hope!

And back to Zeb, who originated the question, I've sent it on to someone who knows web technology and who will hopefully give us some leads....stay tuned.

Open thread at Globally Local...what's on your mind?

Jane McConnell — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 00:07:58 +0200

Open thread means "over to you".

What do you want to talk about?

What's on your mind?

Start a conversation by posting a comment....

News, emails, videos from Corp Comm: spam or not?

Jane McConnell — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 15:00:23 +0200

An intranet manager asked me the following a couple of days ago:

"I am looking for some comparative benchmarks for readership of news posted on corporate intranets. I get fairly regular feedback from senior management here that readership should be higher (uptake on articles ranges from very small to as high as 80% of target audience in some cases) and I would like to find something to demonstrate to them that an average readership of X% is fairly typical. Are you aware of any such benchmarks?"

I referred him to a blog post "Spam from corporate communications?" that I wrote just over a year ago, based on 2 real life anecdotes from intranet managers about corporate emails. Since then, a couple of intranet managers have asked me what percentage of viewership is average for corporate videos.

Do any of you have any figures to share?

Spacebook: government as a process

Jane McConnell — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 08:40:40 +0200

I often say that the intranet is a process, not a project. I did a slide 4 years ago that I used then quite often in workshops and still use today: "One slide worth a thousand words". I came across a printout of this slide a couple of months ago in the office of one of my clients where he had posted it on his wall. He told me he referred to it often when "educating" his manager about intranets being more than technology and well-executed project plans.

Government as a process was one of the tracks at Gov 2.0 Expo last week, and here is a link (YouTube) to a 5-minute presentation made by Emma Antunes, webmaster for NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, last week at Gov 2.0 Expo.

I met Emma several years ago at a conference in California where I was presenting the results from the very first Global Intranet Strategies survey, which takes us back to the fall of 2006. It's exciting to remember back 3 years and see how fast intranets have evolved since then.
I still remember giving a workshop at that conference and showing participants some numbers from the 2006 survey about 2.0 experimentation and some of the people saying "not in my intranet!". There was quite a strong resistance from some of the intranet managers. I remember one of them being very worried about "losing control of his intranet". Note the "his". Those were the days where some intranet managers still thought the intranets "belonged" to them! I have not come across that thinking in some time now, thank goodness.

If you sometimes get discouraged about your intranet evolving at a snail's pace, think back a few years and reflect on the progress you've made. Remember that it's a process you're dealing with - a gradual change - and not a self-contained project.

"Evolving towards the intranet-enabled online workplace" Munich, 24 Sept

Jane McConnell — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:00:21 +0200

I'll be joining one of the J.Boye communities of practice in Munich on September 24th. This international group is one of the many CoPs run by J.Boye. (More information here.)

I have entitled my talk ""Evolving towards the intranet-enabled online workplace".
It is clear that intranets are changing. I see evidence of this everywhere I go. I have had two large global organizations on the telephone in the last 2 weeks, and both are facing challenges of how to transform their intranets into effective, online workplaces.

They both realize that a large part of this is getting the balance right between global requirements and local requirements. I'll rephrase that to say "getting the balance right between common requirements and specific requirements." I wrote about this earlier in the year: "Intranet purpose: 3 angles".

Practically speaking, many intranet managers today have to reconcile two strong strategy drivers that collide with each other. The first is the "common culture, shared vision" corporate communication departments strive to build, especially during times of radical change such as what is happening currently in many organizations. The second is the "now and fast" needs expressed by local business units, always under operational pressures.

Transforming intranets into online workplaces, or even simply making them the "front door" into online workplaces requires making certain strategic decisions and bringing these decisions to life in organizations where day-to-day activities take precedence over stepping back and taking time to think.

It also involves either making collaboration part of the intranet, or at the very least, positioning it within the online workplace with a user-centric logic.

Points I will cover in my talk:

How can the intranet/portal be positioned in the online workplace?

Definitions: Online workplace, intranet, portal
Three models: diverse, hybrid, unified
What is included in the intranet and/or the online workplace?
Strategy process: more than just paper

Defining the role of the intranet/portal

Mission statement: getting a real one - the process
Making it live: see it, hear it, breathe it

Collaboration: where and how does it fit into the online workplace?

Definitions: teams, communities
Where should team and community sites be placed?
How should they be owned and managed?

I'm looking forward very much to discussions with the members of the J. Boye CoP next week, and hope to challenge them and that they will challenge me.

Note: It is possible for non-members to be invited to attend one CoP meeting as a guest before deciding to join. There is information on pricing and membership options on this page.
(Disclaimer: I am not a member of J.Boye but work with them frequently in their CoPs and conferences as a speaker and workshop leader.)

283 hours of intranet reporting!

Jane McConnell — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 18:47:11 +0200

We officially closed the 4th annual Intranet Strategies Survey today. Many thanks to the 283 organizations around the world who participated!

Here are some statistics to show you the dimension the survey is taking on:

The number of participating organizations has nearly tripled since the first year in 2006.
The survey itself has not gotten shorter! Both 2008 and 2009 contained over 120 questions.
This year we have an even greater wealth of collective intranet experience: 283 managers each spending about one hour makes 35 full days of "intranet reporting" to consolidate and analyze.
We are growing in new regions. Both Russia and Brazil are two countries on the upswing this year, thanks to network partners in those areas.
Intranet managers are getting more involved in the design of the survey: the results of the pre-survey Quick Poll in May, and the suggestions from 9 intranet managers who did a pilot drive of this year's questionnaire were instrumental in shaping the final version.
Several fellow intranet consultants also brought valuable suggestions to some very specific parts of the survey.
Over 50 bloggers, twitterers and communicators have helped spread the word enthusiastically since June.
When asked where they heard of the survey, quite a few organizations this year answered simply "Twitter". We had a very fast RT (retweet) network this year, thanks to lots of you.

More later on the survey highlights, but again, many thanks to all of you in the global intranet community.

The official report will be published in the second part of October, but I'll leak some trends here soon!

Survey deadline extended to Friday 4 September

Jane McConnell — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 11:10:31 +0200

At the request of participants who have just returned from holidays, we have extended the deadline for the Global Intranet Strategies Survey. Instead of closing today, August 31st, it will close at the end of the week, Friday, September 4th at end of day, Pacific Standard time.
So if you haven't started it yet, or not had time to finish, you still have this week to do it!
Contact us if you have and questions, or even if you'd like to sign up and do it in the next few days. (More information here.)

Social media & the intranet, not a generational question

Jane McConnell — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 22:34:01 +0200

I was very interested in the New York Times article "Who’s Driving Twitter’s Popularity? Not Teens"
I quote:
"Twitter’s unparalleled explosion in popularity has been driven by a decidedly older group. That success has shattered a widely held belief that young people lead the way to popularizing innovations."

And...
"The notion that children are essential to a new technology’s success has proved to be largely a myth."

What about Facebook?

Evan Williams, Twitter’s co-founder and chief executive says that Twitter is a “... one-to-many network and most of the content is public, it works for this better than a social network that’s optimized for friend communication.” (read Facebook)

Take look at this article and see how it could apply to your intranet. Are you looking for colleague-to-colleague communication, a real-time communication channel or both?

Weekend launch of netjmc.net

Jane McConnell — Sun, 16 Aug 2009 21:42:44 +0200

Sunday night and I finally launched netjmc.net - my combined blog and web site. Let me know your feedback. Gobally local is still here.

Working on the weekend? Fraid so. I read this morning, yes a Sunday morning with a cafe creme at hand, made by my own expresso machine, about how the 8-hour day, 5-day workweek (created by Henry Ford no less) is no longer relevant.

Tonight it took me a few minutes but I went through my history file from all of today on the net - literally hundreds of links - and found what I was looking for: Working this weekend? So I'm definitely not home alone!

I even saw that as the deadline nears (end of August) a few intranet mangers used the weekend to complete the survey: Global Intranet Strategies.

Get in touch if you're interested. Hope you did not work TOO much on the weekend - just enough to be part of the new generation of web workers!

A valuable strategic asset

Jane McConnell — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 23:04:00 +0200

I'm looking for as many Intranet Awards as I can find.

If you have one in your country or an international one, or even an intra-enterprise one, please get in touch.

I want to publicise these awards, and understand what the criteria are for winning! I want to get the best ones on to the decision-makers' radar.
What makes an intranet business critical?
How can we make the intranet part of the strategic assets of an organization that should be considered when evaluating the value of an enterprise?

Here we go, chronologically...with the awards I know:

The oldest, to my knowledge, started in 2001 and is run by the usability guru team at Nielsen Norman:
Best Intranet Design. It awards the intranets which have outstanding design and usability. (I'm pleased to say that one of my global clients won this a few years ago!)

Another one started in 2007: Step Two Design's Intranet Innovation Awards. I especially like this one because it does not attempt to evaluate the "whole intranet" (which I personally find impossible to do in the case of global organizations), but rather looks at specific innovations within the intranet.
The goal is to "celebrate new ideas and innovative approaches to the design and delivery of intranets and find these ideas (whether large or small), and to share them with the wider community."

(Disclaimer: I am one of the judges for Intranet Innovation Awards.)

I have recently become aware of the Intranet Portal Award in Brazil, starting in 2008, organized by the Intranet Portal Institute. Its goal is to recognise portals that "facilitate access to information and knowledge which has become a necessity for those who want to be competitive in a networked economy". I love this ambition for an intranet/portal award. Very business-focused!

I know there are other awards in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, but I don't have the specific information or links. Please send them to me. I'd like to interview you about the details.

If you organize or are aware of other intranet awards, please get in touch.

We all need to work together to bring intranets up to the decision-maker radar, which is where they belong by definition!