More feedback on “What every intranet team should know”
Categorised under: Book & product reviews
In the last week I’ve had a few more reviews and comments come in on What every intranet team should know:
Successful intranets don’t happen by accident. James Robertson, Intranet Guru and founder of Step Two Designs has combined 10 years of experience into 110 pages covering topics every intranet teams should know about. Definitely well spent dollars to beat the odds and lead your intranet to great success.
Lukas Karrer, Stimmt (Switzerland)
With such an ambitious title, the question automatically arises – what can a little book with 100 pages actually cover?
- Will this book be able to answer all the questions regarding the intranet?
- Will consultants become redundant in Intranet projects because of this book?
- Will the book help to develop an intranet strategically and to optimize it?
After reading the book we can answer the first two questions with “yes and no.” Especially the answer to question 3 is a clear and convinced “Yes!”
James Robertson discusses all the issues that challenge intranet managers across continents and industries. Any organization discusses content, organization, design and the development of the intranet.. The author provides guidelines and remarkably short and stunning statements on each of these topics, e.g.:
- About the purpose of an intranet: Intranets have a clear goal: help staff do their jobs.
- About staff as sources for intranet optimization: Staff know an awful lot about the work they do, but they do not know a lot about intranet (nor do they need to!)
- About Intranet content: Not all content needs to be of equal quality.
Does this sound obvious? The popular usability book by Steve Krug is titled “Do not Make Me Think”. The intention of James Robertson is the exact opposite: he wants his readers to reflect on the intranet and its design.
This book will help intranet managers to concentrate on the most important intranet issues. Take advantage of the ideas from this book and you will get along your next intranet project with fewer days of external consultants. The advantage for consultants is that they can conduct meetings and projects with a clearer purpose and greater focus on really implementing measures – even if they can bill fewer hours. You no longer have to first clarify the conceptual understanding. Projects run smoother and are more fun.
Overall, the book provides a lot of media competence on the Intranet and embodies media competence in itself:
- it is clearly structured,
- it points to Internet content,
- it provides summaries for fast readers and
- important points are illustrated by graphics.
A “must read” for all intranet managers.
Jürgen Mirbach, ICOM (Germany)
Regardless of whether you are a seasoned Intranet Professional or just getting started with your first Intranet design, I highly recommend adding What Every Intranet Team Should Know by James Robertson of Step Two Designs to your library. At 110 pages, this handbook packs a wealth of valuable information into a quick-read offering a background understanding of the evolution of Intranets, guidance on identifying the needs of your organization, and useful tips on designing a solution that meets those needs.
Rather than trying to educate the reader on every possible situation that could be encountered in an Intranet build or redesign, Robertson focuses on sharing industry best practices and real-world experiences that the reader can easily adopt. Robertson’s straight-forward writing style, coupled with sample images and supporting graphics makes the content easy to understand and apply.
Although the book might appear small at first glance, Robertson proves that good things come in small packages by tackling complex issues such as requirements gathering, usability design, and governance. Each chapter provides clear, actionable steps while surfacing potential pitfalls and providing guidance on how to avoid them. Throughout the text, Robertson progressively lays out the fundamental concepts necessary to understand not only how to design an Intranet, but how to design one that your employees will actually use.
What Every Intranet Team Should Know has found a permanent place in my library and will become a must-read for those involved in current and future Intranet projects.
If you need inspiration on structured ways of collecting data, I can strongly recommend Australian intranet guru James Robertson’s new book “What every intranet team should know” which is full of helpful methods for intranet and web teams alike.
Peter Erik Bang Nissen, J. Boye (Denmark)
James Robertson is the Managing Director of 