David Reinhardt writes about the death of intranets, replaced by social tools. To quote: Prince was wrong – it’s not the internet that’s dead, it’s the intranet. When I talk to clients about intranets as a collaboration hub they cock an eyebrow as if I’m speaking 2003 speak rather than ...
Monthly Archives: July 2010
July 30, 2010
The intranet is dead. Long live the intranet.
Categorised under: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Tags: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets, social tools
July 30, 2010
IntraWiki
Sean R. Nicholson and Angie Cullen have launched IntraWiki as a jumping-off point to a intranet blogs, tweets, communities and more. To quote: There are a lot of great Intranet-focused people and resources out there on the Web, but finding them can be a bit of a challenge. We have ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: Intranets
July 29, 2010
How long are intranet projects?
Intranet projects are often longer and more involved than most teams expect. While no two projects are the same, and organisational circumstances vary greatly, teams should have some core expectations going into a design or redesign project. In particular, as there is often pressure from stakeholders to deliver a new site ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: Intranets, planning, project length, project planning
July 29, 2010
Understanding new solutions
In today's world new solutions and applications appear every day, and some are more useful and interesting than others. It's part of an intranet team's role to know what's around and be able to make recommendations about suggested improvements. However some teams are reluctant to explore new areas such as ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Tags: Collaboration, Enterprise 2.0, intranet teams, Intranets, social tools, web 2.0
July 29, 2010
What attractive intranets look like
The winds of change are blowing for intranets. Every intranet survey run in the wider community has shown that 50% of intranet teams are planning (or hoping) to redesign their sites. With any redesign comes the opportunity for a fresh new look and feel. Drawing their inspiration from the best of ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: accessibility, attractive, design, Intranets, redesign, usability
July 28, 2010
Intranet Lounge
The intranet community has a new aggregator of resources and articles: Intranet Lounge. Quietly launched about a month ago, it has quickly become a tremendously useful source of intranet updates. What has surprised me is the number of blog posts and articles on intranets that I wasn't previously aware of. ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: Intranets
July 23, 2010
Intranet Leadership Forum – online session next week
The Intranet Leadership Forum has been going strong this year, with many teams finding it a great way to get support even when consulting budgets are tight (or non-existent!). The quarterly sessions in Brisbane, Canberra, Melbourne and Sydney have all been active and valuable. We've recently started running online webinars ...
Categorised under: Intranet Leadership Forum
July 22, 2010
So you think you’re an intranet manager?
Intranet Ideas explores what it means to be an intranet manager. To quote: We talked, or tweeted, to some of our intranet manager contacts on Twitter to find out whether they think that the role of an intranet manager should be focused on internal communications, tech, or both, and we ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: intranet manager, Intranets
July 20, 2010
Why traditional intranets fail today’s knowledge workers
Oscar Berg has written an extensive post on why traditional intranets fail today's knowledge workers. To quote: This leads me to the changing role of intranets in knowledge-intensive businesses. These intranets need to provide flexible access to both information and people by employing pull models for serving as many knowledge ...
Categorised under: Intranets, Knowledge management
Tags: Intranets, Knowledge management
July 19, 2010
The secret second reason why your intranet news goes unread
Wedge writes about the secret second reason why your intranet news goes unread. To quote: We know the number one reason people find your intranet superfluous to requirements; irrelevant information. The ‘news’ stories are often Company focussed (what ‘we’ need to tell ‘you’, the little people) rather than ‘people focussed’ ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: communications, Intranets, news
July 19, 2010
Ideas to actions: DAFF’s innovation experience
Brant Smith write about the Australian Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry's creation of I-Gen, an intranet-based innovation generation system. To quote: I-Gen encourages staff to come up with ideas that improve the way the department works and helps them drive their ideas forward. It provides the support and tools ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: innovation, Intranets
July 14, 2010
The scent of search
Tyler Tate and H. Stefan Olafsson discuss information scent and search. To quote: While the principles for amplifying information scent in search-based interfaces are complimentary to those of browse-based models, they are yet distinct from them. Understanding how information scent applies to search first requires an understanding of human search ...
Categorised under: Search tools, Usability & user-centered design
Tags: information scent, search
July 14, 2010
IBF 24 archive: a live tour of the SCANA intranet
IBF has started releasing copies of presentations and tours from the recent IBF 24 event. The starting point is a live tour of the SCANA intranet. To quote: If you didn’t stay up for the whole 24 hours of IBF 24, you can now start catching up on what you ...
Categorised under: Intranets
July 13, 2010
Intranets turning into marketplaces?
Jane McConnell asks the question: are intranets turning into marketplaces? To quote: A participant in one of my global intranet workshops recently said, “There’s no point in saying we have mandatory global content that everyone must see. It’s not by putting it on the home page that will make them ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: Intranets
July 13, 2010
Is it time for your intranet’s annual performance review?
Sean R. Nicholson asks the question: is it time for your intranet’s annual performance review? To quote: It never ceases to amaze me how few people trust their organizational intranets. A tool that was designed specifically for the purpose of helping employees do their job better and faster is often ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: Intranets, performance reviews
July 12, 2010
Cursing my book reviewers (in a good way)
Many readers of this blog, and followers of my Twitter account, will be aware that I've been writing a new book. This will hopefully be the textbook for intranet teams tackling intranet design or redesign projects, and I can reveal that it will be called Designing intranets: creating sites that ...
Categorised under: Book & product reviews
July 7, 2010
UX myths
A new site has been launched, UX Myths, which aims to bust some of the misconceptions commonly heard about designing websites (and intranets). To quote: UX Myths collects the most frequent user experience design misconceptions and explains why they don't hold true. And you don't have to take our word ...
Categorised under: Usability & user-centered design
Tags: myths, user experience
July 7, 2010
Intranet manager role: evolve or devolve?
Jane McConnell asks whether intranet manager roles will evolve or devolve? To quote: Will it evolve? Will the intranet manager role grow deeper, go higher and become more strategic in the spirit of “survival of the fittest”? Will it devolve? Will the tasks and responsibilities be passed on to business managers ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: intranet manager, intranet team, Intranets
July 5, 2010
Identifying intranet benefits – a case study from Malaysia
Martin White shares details of an intranet case study from Malaysia that quantifies intranet benefits. To quote: The authors used a sample base of around 150 managers to try to establish what the reasons for intranet user acceptance might be, using some classic user acceptance models. The paper is exceptionally ...
Categorised under: Intranets, Metrics & ROI
July 3, 2010
Global Intranet Survey 2010 now open
Jane McConnell has just announced that the Global Intranet Survey 2010 is now open. To quote: We’re taking a snapshot of how organizations are moving on social media. We have investigated this for 3 years and are asking some tough questions this time around. We look at whether social media ...
Categorised under: Intranets
Tags: Intranets
July 2, 2010
Events in Europe and the US (October + November 2010)
My calendar is starting to fill up for later in the year, with a return trip to Europe and a visit to the US. If you'd like me to do something for you (consulting, workshop, event) while I'm on either of these trips, drop me a line. Dates Location...
Categorised under: Conferences & presentations
July 2, 2010
Don’t change your daughter’s, or your intranet’s, name, Mrs. Worthington
Wedge writes about not changing the name of the intranet. To quote: Intranets get named at their launch; when do they get re-named? When their system is upgraded? When the business gets taken over or rebranded? When the front page gets a superficial design make-over? When is a renaming necessary? What’s ...
Categorised under: Intranets
July 1, 2010
My Beautiful Intranet
IBF has just published the results of the informal "My Beautiful Intranet" competition held during IBF24. To quote: We wanted to find the intranet homepage most pleasing to the eye. The incentive of an Ipad as a prize certainly helped the entry numbers, and we received submissions from as far ...
Categorised under: Intranets
July 1, 2010
What does the intranet look like in a social business?
Janus Boye asks the question: what does the intranet look like in a social business? To quote: Social media has evolved from distracting fun to hype to significant mainstream adoption over the last 18 months or so. Will the intranet remain unaffected by this? Or are there any emerging signs ...
Categorised under: Enterprise 2.0, Intranets
Tags: Intranets, social intranet, social media
