Phew! Intranets2012 — the biggest intranet conference in the southern hemisphere — has come to a close. And what an event it was! While participants loved the first year, we had many comments this year it was even better, with speakers (both local and international) being the big highlight.

We’ll post up the presentations as they come in, but we’ll start with my closing keynote.

This drew together threads from the conference, and explored what it means to have an intranet that delivers surprise and delight. Key points:

• As a community, we’ve got great new technology and ideas, but where should intranets be heading?
• We need to go beyond just “satisfying” staff, and should instead aim to “surprise” and “delight”.
• Four principles of delight:
  1. Generate an emotional response (ugly doesn’t cut it, so make use of the great design talent that exists within the web community).
  2. Make things simpler (reduce staff frustration by ruthlessly focusing on simplicity).
  3. Use technology in smart ways (now that we have incredibly powerful technology at our disposal, let’s make sure we’re using it to its full extent).
  4. Put people at the centre (if we help staff, then they’ll help the business to be successful).
• In the short term, forget about intranets as a whole, and focus on the next activity, project or improvement.
• Four questions to ask for the next piece of work:
  1. Can it be made more attractive?
  2. Can we make it simpler?
  3. Does it make smart use of technology?
  4. does it meet the needs of staff?