I think the point everyone here is making is that the intranet is so different from what it started that it feels like we should be calling it something else. A rose by any other name…

-Candace

1. are professional project managers
2. can analyse business processes
3. understand how financial information fits into business processes and how managers need this information in a user friendly way. Here by the way is a huge potential. Most web-based interfaces to financial systems still require a degree in finance to fully understand them, and most managers do not have this. So here is a huge potential to improve performance management in most companies.

We have talked about how to make HR understand the full potential of the intranet for years. Now we must turn to the Finance department and start digging for all their gold!

Nina Sonne Nikolaisen
Knowledge Management consultant
COWI A/S

Well that is one of the things I asked, who is the target audience ? If its end users then I still think we need to reinforce a modern definition of the same word – intranet.

By the way, having been to read it, I dont think the Wikipedia definition is dead from a technical perspective, I think it provides useful underpinnings for the technology centric (as opposed to user centric) view

I think we are having this discussion because we (as practitioners) care about that the name infers, and that it infers something that accurately defines what we are providing. Do users have the same concern? no.

I’ve been looking at the future of intranets in some detail for an forthcoming research report, and it looks to me as if, yes Jane, the intranet is becoming the online workplace and, yes Mark and others, it will incorporate a wide range of tools, systems and even external ‘web’ resources.

But does that mean we should change the name? Not if the current moniker works for users as a term to indicate “work stuff you can do through an web browser or other online tool”. Does ‘The Tube’ accurately describe the London Underground Railway? No, but we all have an appropriate mental model.

The important thing is not to change users expectations through altering the name of the beast, but to understand what users expect an intranet to be and do and to meet that expecations. What is the user’s mental model of the intranet? How can we make sure our service is oriented toward that mental model and therefore provide a satisfactory experience.

Does it really matter what it is called?

The one thing I *am* sure of is that this definition is dead. It’s not how end-users think, and it isn’t meaningful from a technical perspective either (people don’t call their Oracle DB the intranet, nor their file shares).

I do like your “ecosystem” approach, and I’ve heard quite a few users say that the intranet is “the thing you access via the blue e [the IE desktop icon]“. That would suggest that they recognise it as a web site, plus associated functionality.

James when you ask “should we be using something different” – is that the ‘royal’ we ? The industry, the consultants, or the Corporate Comms ‘foot soldiers’ on the front lines ?

I am a geek as you well know, therefore to me it is simple, an intranet is an “internal” network using internet protocols – http/https, etc. As such I would debate Toby’s point about including the LAN (file shares ?) in fact in my current organization there is a big difference in use of language here – something is either “on the LAN” or “on the intranet”.

However I agree that the “intranet” is in reality an ecosystem that encompasses many facets, from web publishing, to collaborative workspaces to instant messaging, and might be seen to include tools as old as email and as new a microblogging. So…..

@Martin – I agree an intranet is just part of an enterprise information management ecosystem, or system or systems, thus it should be about info mngt strategy

@Mark – absolutely agree that the shift brought about by broad adoption of social ‘consumer’ IT, like your Facebook example, causes more definition issues – is FB part of the intranet, well no because its external and belongs to someone else, and at the same time yes because its our collaborative social networking platform…….

@Jane – the workplace web sums it up well, but to me the workplace web is a sub-system of the broader intranet.

For all those that comment that the “intranet is what the intranet does”, true, but Toby is right about how use of language becomes ingrained. Thus finally in response to James, we stick with intranet but do a better job of explaining what it means ! (???)

Let’s keep working on expanding your survey, and hopefully we’ll finally have a clear picture of the intranet landscape!

All those artifial terms like Web, Desktop, Application, Site, Intra/Extranet – they are loosing their meaning and purpose. It’s up to consolidating channels/portals/experiences to bring those pieces back together in a meaningful way. I don’t know how they are going to be called, but Intranet is already out the moment external users are working with it (extended enterprise bla bla .

Great article!
Milan

Frankly, the term ‘intranet’ as applied to the internal, employee website, is a misnomer and technically incorrect. The intranet is in fact the whole network, and it includes email, all internal websites, LANs, WANs, etc. However, the internal, employee website has become to be known as the “intranet” and that’s a fact. There actually is no changing that unless a popular movement to supplant it arises (which is highly, highly unlikely).

There’s a lot of terms I don’t like — especially 2.0; there’s so much wrong with this label… where to begin… However, 2.0 is a popular term, and therefore it should be used, because its common nomenclature that everyone understands; this is the point. Its correct to call the internal employee website the “intranet” because common nomenclature supports this understanding.

BT has an intranet. It’s called the BT Intranet. It’s what it does that has created the reputation it now has rather than what it is called.

It’s what an intranet does that it important – not what it is called.

I feel you should go further than you have. In BT we use internet tools as well as intranet tools including Facebook, Twitter and RSS feeds of internal and external news for business purposes http://markmorrell.wordpress.com/2009/06/30/i-now-receive-only-the-information-i-need/.

I also feel work and personal lives are blurring in being separate distinctive things we do and we are doing more of these using intranet/internet tools.

As this evolves intranets could well become a redundant term and something far more embracing takes hold.

This will because of what people are doing rather than calling an intranet by another name.

At a basic level, the technology underpinning intranets is not very interesting, and can easily remain invisible to all but authors and content owners. It’s enough for these tools to allow simple publishing of content. The real value is delivered by great IA, interface design, content management processes.

As intranets get more advanced, there is a greater technology component, but will this really be out-of-the-box? To streamline tasks requires true integration, not the clumsy approaches by the big portal and ERM vendors.

I say: forget the vendors! Look not to them for salvation!