This future principle explores where intranets should be heading. Previous principles include act proactively, not just reactively, provide universal access and it’s more than the intranet. They support two “future scenarios”: starting a new job and driving the engine of change.

Up to this point, the central focus of intranets has been content. How to write it, how to publish it, how to maintain it and keep it up to date. This matches the intranet’s role as a publishing platform, and an internal website.

Intranets in 2015 will put people at the centre, supported by content, tools and collaboration. This is something that Alex Manchester on our team has been talking about for a while now, and it’s a rich vision.

Putting people at the centre means many things:

• Delivering solutions that work remarkably well for staff, following best-practice user-centred design and user experience principles.
• Being respectful of staff and their needs {hat tip to William Amurgis}.
• Giving staff control over their own working environment, in many small (and large) ways.
• Connecting people with people within organisations, in addition to capturing explicit content.
• Building an understanding of staff knowledge, skills, expertise and needs; and then using this rich information throughout the intranet.
• Embedding social and collaborative tools in the heart of the intranet, and weaving them throughout working practices.
• Adapting tools to fit human needs, rather than the other way around.
• Delivering an enterprise experience that makes staff productive and satisfied.

We deliver this vision not just because we care about staff, but also because productive staff mean successful organisations.

Many intranets have implemented some of these principles, none have done them all. Many people are passionate about these types of principles, but some have become evangelists about a single aspect rather than human-centred realists.

Faruk Avdi, an Australian web channel manager, has a good view on this. He talks about staff being on a spectrum: from staff with limited IT skills, through to technophiles. Intranets need to work out-of-the-box for those with limited computer skills, and then gracefully allow more experienced staff to take control at their own pace.

This is a mature and nuanced view, and a good example of how to put people at the centre of our intranets.

Our internal information systems have been faceless, oblivious to staff needs and working practices. In the future, these tools will be turned on their heads, with technology designed to support staff in a rich and responsive ways.

How else can we put people at the centre of our intranets and information systems?