With 2012 rapidly unfolding, we’ve just announced our full workshop calendar for the coming six months. This includes sessions on SharePoint, intranet design and governance. It also introduces a brand-new workshop on “writing for the intranet”, especially for decentralised content owners and authors.

And not forgetting Intranets2012, the mega-event for Australian intranet teams!

With the first workshops in late March, you’ll want to register quickly:

This is how it works. Book in an in-house workshop for a date in January 2012, and lock it in this year, and we can offer:

• A discounted price of $2,800 + GST (20% off the normal rate of $3,500).
• Two copies each of Designing intranets: creating sites that work and What every intranet team should know, worth $190 (one for the team, and one to share with stakeholders or content owners).

We can run workshops throughout Australia, and up to 20 staff can attend. There are heaps of great topics to choose from, and we’d be happy to tailor further to meet your needs. Current workshops include:

• Writing for the intranet – provides intranet content owners with practical skills to deliver better online information, with plenty of hands-on activities.
• SharePoint for intranet teams – build your knowledge of the technology platform that underpins many new intranets, preparing you to work with IT to deliver a great intranet.
• Designing intranets – helps teams deliver an intranet that works for staff, sharing key usability and information architecture techniques, and best-practice insights.
• Intranet governance – get the foundations for a successful intranet in place, and spend time working on key governance documents.
• Intranet alignment workshop – bring stakeholders together into the one room, to clarify where the intranet is at, and where it should go.
• The future for intranets – a forward-looking day that explores the best that intranets can be, and what this means in practice for your organisation.

To get your workshop locked in, or to get more information, email contact@steptwo.com.au or ring Rebecca Joseph on 02 9319 7901.

I will be running my Designing intranets that work workshop in Melbourne in August (with just 10 places!). The really big news is that we’ve listened to your requests, and have launched a brand new SharePoint for intranet teams workshop, with dates in Sydney and Melbourne.

With the early-bird rate for the first workshop closing on July 20, you’ll want to be quick!

Designing intranets that work

James Robertson is the author of Designing intranets: creating sites that work and What every intranet team should know, the world’s first textbooks for intranet teams. This is your chance to learn from James how how to design a usable intranet that works for staff.

This intensive workshop is strictly limited to 10 places, to ensure maximum interactivity. Bring along your screenshots to get feedback from James and the rest of the workshop participants.

Melbourne: Wednesday 17 August 2011 (read more and book …)

Important: these intensive workshops invariably sell-out, so you’ll want to be quick! Early-bird date closes on July 20.

SharePoint for intranet teams

This is the workshop you’ve been waiting for! The first SharePoint workshop to be run in Australia by intranet folks for intranet folks. Get the knowledge you need to plan a successful project and to see what others have done.

Via a best-practice methodology, deliver a great SharePoint intranet that works for staff, the business and IT.

Sydney: Wednesday 19 October 2011 (read more and book …)

Melbourne: Tuesday 15 November 2011 (read more and book …)

This is a brand-new workshop, and we’re expecting a lot of interest. So don’t delay on getting approval to attend…

This was a great group, and their energy made the day fly by. (It’s so much easier to run a workshop when everyone’s laughing and having fun!). It seems they enjoyed the day too:

“Great lightbulb moments! James is an engaging presenter who knows his ‘stuff” — he has great stories, responds easily and fully to questions, imparts heaps of relevant information and keeps to time schedule too.”

“Thanks, lots of inspiration and focus.”

“Great! Really informative and now I can go back to work with tools to use straight away.”

“Changed my thinking alot about the role of the intranet and how we can improve it.”

“Really informative, engaging and useful.”

“Useful, interesting, engaging, well presented. Lots of useful tips and tricks.”

“Excellent. Well presented. Great use of visuals and slides.”

“Really interesting! It got me in the mindset to get working on my intranet and intranet strategy. One of the best trainers I have seen.”

“Excellent – knows his stuff, keeps it interesting, injects humour. Would recommend highly.”

This is the second time this year we’ve run a private workshop session in Melbourne, and the format works well. It’s extremely cost-effective for participants, and a great way for us to connect with a tightly-knit group of participants. Drop us a line if you’d like to organise something similar in your neighbourhood…

I’ve been running intranet strategy workshops for years now. They’ve run in over a dozen countries around the globe, and have always been well received. One constant request I’ve had though: “when are you going to run something on how to design the intranet?”.

The time has finally come, and I’m very pleased with how the workshop has turned out. This is our most polished and refined workshop yet, as befits the subject material. It’s structured around five key areas:

1. Work out what to deliver
2. Follow a strong methodology
3. Get the structure and navigation right
4. Design the pages
5. Sort out the home page

As you might’ve guessed from this list, the workshop is very practical, drawing on our experience with literally hundreds of intranets. This is my promise to participants:

• If there is a clear principle to follow, I’ll state it (“the answer”)
• Otherwise, I’ll provide a clear methodology to follow (“how to work out the answer”)
• In some cases, there may be more than one solution, and we’ll talk them through (“the options”)
• I’ll always provide pragmatic advice, based on what has worked for real intranet teams

As it turns out, there will be a world-premier of the workshop in London later this week (with a few places still left). Closer to home, I’ll then be running it in Sydney and Canberra later in October. I’ll report back on how the day goes, and drop me a line if you’d like the workshop run in your local area.

In most cases, the existing departments have intranets, and the obvious question to ask is: what to do with these multiple intranets?

When agencies merge, there is considerable pressure to move quickly, and to rapidly launch a single intranet site that reflects the new naming, and serves all staff. This is no easy task, particularly when the existing intranet teams are themselves still merging.

What is needed is a clear way forward for intranet teams, that allows a transitional site to be quickly released, followed by a longer-term strategy for delivering a comprehensive intranet site. Intranet teams also need a process for determining new team structures, governance and management models.

Step Two Designs has organised a pair of one-off workshops to bring agencies together to determine practical strategies, and to share best practices:

Sydney: 8 October 2009

Brisbane: 14 October 2009

These sessions will be highly interactive, combining the experiences of the participants with the best practices identified by Step Two, the recognised intranet experts.

“Great – directly applicable to me & particularly valuable for sparking ideas.”

“Very relevant, well pitched, excellent!”

“Good, interactive, plain English, sensible stuff!”

“Good common sense practical advice, but packaged in a well structured format.”

“Great day. My head is full of ideas and new directions.”

“Great – dynamic and engaging.”

“Interesting and engaging as always.”

“Very good and useful, good to talk about this stuff, especially in detail, risks, mitigating factors.”

“James is great, educated, clear and knowledgeable.”

“Good overview of the tools – working through the important questions to ask.”

“Patient! Clear explanations, inclusive.”

“The examples were great and a really good way of applying lessons to my own experiences and challenges.”

“James was a good presenter, engaging the group and kept the day flowing.”

If you didn’t make it to Canberra, you haven’t missed out yet, as we have upcoming sessions in Sydney (25 August 2009) and Melbourne (10 September 2009).

To share some rough notes from the discussions on the day, without editing …

Why is collaboration important?

• Prevent reinvention of the wheel
• Better outcomes
• Increased staff efficiency
• Help make decisions
• “Two brains are better than one”
• Bringing information together
• To be better informed
• It’s a fundamental thing (“we are humans, we collaborate”)
• It’s a social thing
• Share knowledge
• Capture the activity
• Innovate
• Progress, improve, reflect, evaluate, learn
• Empowers people to contribute more
• Team building

Questions needing answers?

• Integrate collaboration tools with the intranet?
• Governance and ownership?
• How to maintain momentum?
• Ho much needs to be decided upfront?
• How to motivate participation without over-selling?
• Educating management?
• How to achieve good ROI for people in terms of effort?
• Convincing managers it’s not dangerous?
• Good examples?
• Lessons learnt?
• Start small? Pilot?
• Finding relevant expertise?
• Pros/cons of tools?
• Choosing tools?

I’m looking forward to the upcoming sessions in Sydney (25 August 2009) and Melbourne (10 September 2009).

Our first Succeeding at collaboration workshop, scheduled for Canberra has been a big hit. We’ve now organised a date for Sydney (25 August 2009). We expect this to fill, so you’ll want to register quickly! Key details:

SharePoint, wikis and blogs are bringing collaboration capabilities into many organisations, and are spreading rapidly. This intensive session will help you put in place strategy and governance that ensures that these tools are successful and valuable.

Collaboration brings many opportunities, and can transform how organisations work. But: the unmanaged spread of collaboration tools can be ‘anti knowledge sharing’, fragmenting information and hiding documents in many individual silos.

There are many questions to answer:

• What are the true benefits of collaboration?
• Why does collaboration succeed in some cases, and fail in others?
• What management and governance should be put in place?
• Which collaboration tools should be used?
• Do these tools replace the intranet?

The workshop will be facilitated by James Robertson, managing director of Step Two Designs, recognised as an expert on collaboration and knowledge management. Author of over 200 articles, and the soon-to-be-released Which collaboration tool? report, James has keynoted conferences and workshops around the globe.

When: 25 August 2009, 9am – 5pm

Where: Step Two offices, Sydney (next to Central Station)

How much: $750 + GST (25% discount for Intranet Leadership Forum members)

Full event details and registration