When you want to create a new site in your SharePoint intranet, this is the page you're presented with. It's pretty daunting for an inexperienced site administrator or content owner: Should I create a team site or a document workplace?Would a social meeting workplace be ...
Articles tagged: governance
Helping intranet authors write quality content
p>One of the keys to a successful intranet is high quality, well written content, making it both useful and usable. Writing for the online medium is different from writing for paper. Staff typically scan a web page to determine if the information is relevant to them, and content has to ...
Build upkeep into intranet redesign
Intranet redesigns can be seen as the cure-all for an intranet's ills, and many intranets will certainly benefit from a significant overhaul. But if the redesign has come about due to a lack of focus, general neglect and poor content management, then a redesign alone will not be sufficient to ...
Case study: Providing comprehensive support for a public sector intranet
Managing and improving an intranet is no small task, but it is still only half the story. Even before new features go live, there needs to be extensive change management, communications and support. This support must encompass content owners and authors, who are confronted by a new site structure and the ...
Creating an intranet governance guide
Many intranets teams are tasked with 'creating intranet governance' without further guidance on what that means for the organisation or a clear understanding of what it should contain. Governance is about having a framework in place that enables the decision-making and planning processes for the intranet. It provides support for the ...
Beware of simplistic rules and strategies
When it comes to intranets (and information management in general), there is always a temptation to put in place simplistic rules, or to pursue simplistic strategies. Facing a complex situation? "Just do this." The problem is, not only do these simplistic approaches not work, they often make the situation worse. A ...
Conducting an annual intranet review
Most teams will conduct an intranet review of some description. It could be an ongoing process throughout the year or an annual event. Either way an intranet review should be on your annual to-do-list. What should be included in the review, to help the team build a better intranet in the ...
Social intranet governance
Toby Ward has written about social intranet governance. To quote: Where every organization should include specifics for social media use, if your organization does not have a separate, superfluous social media policy (that’s right, a social media policy is largely superfluous if you have proper governance and content / editorial ...
Planting governance seeds
Jane McConnell has written about planting intranet governance seeds. To quote: My underlying key message is this: Intranets evolve. They are a process, not a project. Therefore you need to plant "governance seeds" throughout the organization. They will grow and develop as the organization evolves. They will help build a ...
E2.0 Community Approval Criteria
Christy Schoon writes about approval criteria for new collaborative spaces. To quote: In my last blog post I covered open vs. managed community creation inside the enterprise. The next logical question I am asked is “If we do go the managed creation route, what types of questions should we ...
How to get quality intranet content
Mark Morrell writes about how to get quality content on intranets. To quote: We have a tool which checks content every day and informs publishers 4 weeks before the review date expires to review and update or remove the content. Failure to do this results in the content being ...
Measuring the effectiveness of intranet teams
Intranet teams are responsible for creating an intranet that is a useful business tool, flexible enough to meet changing business needs, easy to use and trusted by staff. In doing this, teams also need to assess how effectively they work. In a previous article we explained How intranet teams should ...
Our department is different!
Jeff Cram and Jeni Cram write about the challenges of rolling out an enterprise CMS. To quote: “Our department is different!” This is a common and legitimate response from groups used to managing their own websites. They argue that their needs are so specific there is little chance a common ...
Merit badges for The corporate intranet To incentivize adoption
Sadalit Van Buren writes about using merit badges to encourage intranet adoption. To quote: I've been thinking about the badges that a few social sites are using as incentives to their user communities - specifically foursquare and, more recently, Blip. So many people I talk to are looking for ...
The myth of the occasional CMS user
Seth Gottlieb challenges the idea of the occasional CMS user when rolling out a new solution. To quote: Often, one of the big justifications for a CMS is removing the webmaster bottleneck and delegating content entry to the people who have the information. The implicit assumption is that everyone wants ...
The weight of the existing intranet
Some time back, we worked for a large government agency. Their intranet was terrible, a huge collection of separate sites dating back over a decade. New sites has been published in waves, but IT didn't feel that they had the authority to delete old sites. As the organisation constantly restructured, ...
Future proofing intranet governance
Jane McConnell writes about future proofing intranet governance. To quote: 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 ...
When “global & local” becomes “common & specific”
Jane McConnell, who has often talked about "global & local", now introduces "common & specific". To quote: 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 ...
Intranet 360 checklist
Jane McConnell has written about running an intranet 360 degree evaluation. To quote: When you organize workshops to explore new directions for the intranet, or when you choose people to participate in a user’s panel, you need to include a range of ages and seniority. The views will be complementary. ...
How to empower authors
In most organisations authors are vital to the effectiveness of the intranet. Despite this, authors are often given the task of updating content with little or no thought to their skills, suitability or desire. Intranet teams generally have little influence over who becomes an author. As intranets mature and become ...
About the intranet, on the intranet
The intranet is not just a channel for the business to communicate news and information. It is also a valuable tool for the intranet team itself to engage with the wider organisation. To that end, the intranet team should have a section on the intranet devoted to the intranet itself. This ...
What every intranet manager should know
Patrick C Walsh has written about job adverts for intranet managers. To quote: I get email updates from an intranet group and recently they’ve added a jobs section. So I’ve been having a quick dip in to see what the jobs are like in the intranet world of today. This ...
Creating a social media policy for your department – here’s over 100 examples to draw on
Craig Thomler has blogged on a list of social media policies. To quote: Social Media Governance recently released a list of 106 social media policies that can be drawn on, including nearly thirty from government (including the APSC's Circular 2008/8: Interim protocols for online media participation).
Intranet governance begets intranet success
Toby Ward has written about intranet governance, answering some common questions. To quote: As is the case with most websites or intranets it is simply impossible to achieve any long-lasting success without a clearly defined ownership and management structure. Intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the titles, roles and ...
Intranet governance cycle
Maish Nichani has written an article on intranet governance. To quote: This article offers a system view of intranet governance. It is based on a simple strategy that can be applied across different areas. The areas that I've covered are: information organization, publishing, collaboration and applications.
Intranet governance – a Parliamentary perspective
Dorje McKinnon has written up the work of the NZ Parliament on their intranet governance. To quote: The team from NZ Parliament have come up with a governance structure that works really well for them in a very technically, politically and legally complex environment.
Intranet governance: ownership, management & policy
Toby Ward has published an article on intranet governance. To quote: Who should own the intranet? Communications? IT? HR? All of them? You may be shocked to learn that many companies don’t know the answer; in fact, many organizations can’t clearly answer with any confidence whom is the present intranet ...
Collaboration: questions to ask
Staff and business areas often identify a need for collaboration tools, without knowing what the best solution would be. They may have some familiarity with a handful of tools, but not know how others work. As discussed in the earlier article Successful collaboration requires support, there needs to be a ...
How to write a corporate Twitter strategy (…and here’s one I made earlier)
Neil Williams has published a complete corporate Twitter strategy, developed for the Cabinet Office in the UK. To quote: You might think a 20-page strategy a bit over the top for a tool like Twitter. After all, microblogging is a low-barrier to entry, low-risk and low-resource channel relative to other corporate ...
Who is choosing the new CMS?
Having been involved in many content management system (CMS) selection projects, we've seen a number of common causes of delays arise. 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 ...
What do successful intranet managers have in common?
The role of an intranet manager is very new, and most intranet managers only started on this career path in the last five to ten years. Intranet managers come from all walks of life and have very different skills. Because of this, the role of intranet manager is not well ...
Intranet ownership “mental models”
Jane McConnell has written about intranet ownership models. To quote: In preparing for the survey this year, I asked the members of NetJMC&Co on Linkedin the question "Who owns the intranet in your organization (which function or department)?" The answers varied. They usually - but not always - included Communication ...
Five intranet publishing models
Intranets can grow to be thousands, tens of thousands or millions of pages in size. With content as far as the eye can see, the challenge is to keep it up to date, accurate and useful. Sitting behind this huge volume of content are a wide range of approaches to creating ...
Moderating internal discussion forums, blogs and other social media
When starting intranet-based online discussions in an organisation, whether they are forums, blogs, comments on articles, or internal Twitter-style tools, how should you go about moderating them and maintaining their effectiveness? Where do you begin with writing policies and guidelines on use? Should you even monitor the discussions at all? ...
New report: Governance and support for SharePoint team sites
I'm pleased to announce the release of our latest report: Governance and support for SharePoint team sitesA best practice case study Microsoft SharePoint is now rapidly spreading through organisations. In terms of team collaboration, this is meeting a very real need. If unmanaged, however, this explosive growth will generate ...
Intranet governance guide
Maish Nichani has outlined an intranet governance guide. To quote: Getting an intranet is just a start, keeping it going is what matters most. Long term benefits and efficiencies can only be realised when the intranet is responsive to the needs and requirements of business and staff. This guide gives ...
Five ‘must have’ intranet standards
Mark Morrell writes about five key intranet standards. To quote: Some time ago I asked if your intranet standards work. I thought it would be useful to cover what I believe are the 5 ’must have’ standards you should apply to any intranet content. This could range from ...
Seeking intranet governance examples
We're currently working on a very targeted report on intranet governance, providing an underlying framework and some key tips on how to establish governance in practice. We will also be including examples of various approaches to intranet governance. We've already got some great examples, but are seeking more: intranet policies, guidelines and ...
Five intranet publishing models
I'm doing a lot of writing about authoring and publishing on intranets at present. As part of this, I've outlined five fundamental basic models. Sketching these in outline form: fully centralised publishing decentralised publishing publishing with review federated publishing end-user content contribution In a little more detail: 1. Fully centralised publishing A central intranet team is established, which ...
Basics of governance
When it comes to intranets, ‘governance’ is a word that people recognise, and a concept they are pretty sure they need, but often they aren’t sure exactly what it means. The essence of governance is having a framework in place that enables the decision-making and planning processes for the intranet. This ...
Intranet teams: are we leading or managing?
The first session of the 2-day Intranet Leadership Forum workshop in Sydney today asked the question: are we leading or managing our intranets? Leading is about being proactive, strategic and visionary. Managing is about maintaining, organising, structuring and planning. The discussions were structured around the following questions: Can you articulate your company ...
Triangles of information delivery
This diagram captures some of my evolving thinking on intranets, information management and enterprise 2.0. It outlines three scenarios: Scenario A This is the "now" scenario, typical of most intranets and information management strategies. Information is mostly published at the corporate ...
