Secondly, you need to make problems tangible, so they can be understood by executives who generally have little understanding of the web. Top management is often where the strategy has to be signed off, and if you are asking for more resources you will certainly need to show what difference you will create for the organisation. Often, web managers will focus too much on low level problems and technical details that are irrelevant to others.

We are researching the use of collaboration tools in Australia. “Collaboration” is a buzz term at the moment, and we want to get behind the hype to discover how organisations are selecting and implementing tools and whether they are benefiting from them. If you have experience with selecting, implementing or maintaining a collaboration tool within the last 12 months then we would like you to take part in this survey. The survey is open from Monday 22 June 2009.

The intranet currently forms an integral part of the internal communication strategy in most organizations as an information provider and collaboration tool. But social media also allows collaboration, dialogue, documentation and much more, at a lower cost and with much less back-end work involved. In this report we look at the future of the much-loved intranet and it’s chances of survival in a web 2.0 world.

Coach Leaders ahead of time about the essence of communicating with these tools: praise the good, ignore the bad, be prepared to accept criticism, and never come across as critical or negative. Doing so will freeze all activity.

Choosing the right wiki for your team, project, or organization is essential. The right tool will help catalyze adoption, encourage continued use, and help people get their work done well. So how can you find the best enterprise wiki for your needs?

I’m publishing the Enterprise Wiki Software Guide to help you get started. The guide contains descriptions and screenshots of twelve wikis that are designed with business and organizational needs in mind.

So what’s the difference between PDF and HTML, and when should each format be used?

PDFs versus HTML

The ‘Portable Document Format’ (PDF) was primarily designed to present documents in an easily readable, easily printed and common digital document format that will display as its creator intended (no matter which computer it’s opened with). This hasn’t changed and PDFs remain fantastic for displaying detailed and in-depth information that’s difficult to digest on screen, as manuals and policies, for example.

Alternatively, as an easily interpreted, scaled, read and copied from format, HTML web pages are the standard for web browser-based content. HTML loads quickly, is searchable, can be updated quickly and easily and adapts to a computer’s screen size and resolution.

These different characteristics mark the overall difference between the two formats: HTML is designed to be read on screen, while PDFS are really designed to be printed out.

[Read the full article by Alex Manchester]

Of these, the biggest stumbling block is a lack of structure around the selection project: who is doing what, when will it happen, and how are decisions going to be made?

There are three main groups involved in the CMS selection project:

• steering committee or senior sponsor
• stakeholder group
• evaluation team

Of these, the evaluation team is the most critical, and the membership of this group must be defined very tightly from the outset of the project. Failure to do this will slow the pace of the project, as well as generating uncertainty at the key points of decision-making.

[Read the full article]

Because of this, the role of intranet manager is not well defined. The key skills needed by intranet managers fall into a few broad categories:

• technical skills
• business acumen
• leadership

In reality, very few intranet managers are competent in all these areas. However there are many opportunities for intranet managers to learn and grow. From our experience, the common attributes of successful intranet managers are:

1. ability to create and foster personal networks
2. ability to deliver
3. a thick skin
4. ability to achieve customer-focused outcomes
5. consistently striving to improve
6. knowing how to let go of content
7. being pragmatic in decision making
8. displaying self-confidence
9. harnessing the power of the organisation
10. having an effective sponsor

In this article we define these attributes and outline two methods for intranet managers to improve these crucial skills.

[Read the full article by Catherine Grenfell]

People in BT can use a variety of mobile devices – Blackberrys, iPhones, mobiles with media capability – on our intranet to access all content needed for their work

The survey this year covers topics such as:

• Are intranets catching up with what people need to do their jobs?
• Are they becoming the online workplace for employees or are they primarily communication tools?
• How does the online workplace support virtual teams and communities of practice?
• To what extent is social media being used internally? What purposes do blogs serve? Wikis? Discussion forums?
  Are Twitter-like services being used internally? How?

• Is search still a big pain point?
• Who owns the intranet? What ownership models are in place?
• What indicators are being used to measure the value the intranet brings to an organisation: adoption, usage, satisfaction, workforce coverage, reduction of risk, business value?

This is the 4th annual survey; last year 226 organizations around the world took part. The survey will be open for entries until the end of August. Participants will receive a complimentary copy of the “Global Intranet Trends for 2010″ which will be published in the second part of October.

I cannot encourage intranet teams strongly enough to participate in this survey. One of the biggest challenges for intranets is that they are hidden away behind the firewall. This survey brings to light intranet practices, gives benchmarks for intranet teams, and shows important trends across this global industry.

It’s a popular question from the Chief Financial Officer these days… if we are going to invest ‘x’ amount of dollars in your project, what will the company get in return?

This post identifies ways that intranets can add bottom line value to an organization. People putting together a business case to obtain funding for intranet improvement initiatives will find this post useful.

The World Wide Intranet Challenge (WIC) is an opportunity for Intranet owners & managers to obtain and benchmark feedback from their end users.

Participation in the WIC allows you to benchmark your intranet against other organisations and view who has the best intranet on the best intranets page.

(There is an official launch this Thursday evening in Melbourne, get in touch with Andrew Wright to obtain an invite.)

SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration is the indispensable guide for the CIO and IT department about what to do after installing the software. This book takes everything that I teach in my SharePoint Roadmap workshop — about using the collaboration capabilities of SharePoint — and makes it very accessible in book format.

Considering the strength of Michael’s last book, definitely worth pre-ordering his next masterpiece!

Giving control of an intranet to a traditional communicator is a bit like giving a pub to an alcoholic. It’s happy days. There’s so much to publish. All the stuff they never read offline can go on the intranet. The homepage can be covered with news because the communicator with a hammer will see nails everywhere that need to be hammered home. And of course the intranet can reach everybody (in theory, at least), not like those magazines, brochures and flyers.

I’ve been talking to numerous owners of corporate websites lately to try and understand where the “internet prescence” of large enterprises is heading in the future. In my view the future for the “corporate website” looks bleak. Online services in large organisations are gradually melding, with the intranet, extranet and internet growing closer in technology, content and resourcing; due to synergies and efficiencies achieved.

We’re certainly seeing a stagnation of many corporate sites, stuck in the world of dump-and-publish. That being said, the merger of intranets and websites seems a long way off. The challenge also remains for intranet teams to improve their current role and reputation, before taking on more challenges (such as the website).

It’s always interesting to peer into the crystal ball! I’m always for new and challenging perspectives, keep them coming…