Are intranet teams feeling the pinch?

By: James Robertson Posted: October 28, 2008

The “managing an intranet during a recession” topic seems to be popping up all over the globe, and we covered it at last week’s Intranet Leadership Forum workshop in Melbourne. …

25 reasons why saving time on your intranet is a bad metric

By: James Robertson Posted: October 21, 2008

We’ve all heard the argument: if we can save staff 2 minutes a day looking for information on the intranet, we can multiply this out by the number of staff …

Metadata fundamentals for intranets and websites

By: James Robertson Posted: October 20, 2008

Metadata is a topic that almost invariably comes up when creating or refreshing a website or intranet. While basic metadata is routinely captured by most publishing tools, including content management …

Three ways to update the staff directory

By: James Robertson Posted: October 20, 2008

Internal phone directories and staff directories are only useful if the details in them are complete and accurate. This is not easy, and a mix of approaches will be needed. …

“My sites”: do they work?

By: James Robertson Posted: September 18, 2008

“My sites” is a concept coming very much into vogue at present, driven by the adoption of SharePoint and a range of other intranet and enterprise 2.0 platforms. The idea …

Naming the intranet

By: James Robertson Posted: September 11, 2008

When creating or relaunching an intranet, the question of whether to give the site a name often comes up. This briefing explores when to name an intranet, and how best …

Simplify the search user experience

By: James Robertson Posted: September 11, 2008

Out of the box, most search engines are poorly designed for the needs of general intranet searchers. Cluttered with complex features, these search tools can easily be overwhelming for staff …

Staff directories benefit from cross-linking

By: James Robertson Posted: September 11, 2008

Staff directories (internal phone directories) can be much more than just a way of looking up contact numbers. In any large or complex organisation, they can also provide a way …

How we work (3): selecting a CMS

By: James Robertson Posted: August 19, 2008

This is part 3 in our series of posts that outlines how we work with clients. There are a very large number of content management systems (CMS) in the marketplace, …

How intranet teams should spend their time

By: James Robertson Posted: July 22, 2008

Intranet teams need to use their time wisely. It is very easy to fall into the trap of dealing with urgent requests and problems, never actually making any progress. Effective intranet teams must plan up front how they will spend their time to deliver both short term and long term benefits to their organisations. The rule of thumb for intranet resources is: 30% effort for day-to-day maintenance 40% effort for projects and new initiatives 30% effort managing relationships with staff and stakeholders For a team of one this can mean devoting one day a week to managing relationships with staff