The intranet homepage can be the most coveted piece of online real estate in your organisation. Everyone will have their own firm view as to how the homepage should be used to drive organisational imperatives.

Managing these competing priorities is difficult and intranet managers are often placed in the position of defending the homepage from its own popularity, In doing so they are ensuring that it is able to perform its primary task of directing users to the material that they require to perform their day-to-day jobs.

This is often an unpopular stance to take and is often assumed with little support or understanding from within the organisation. Some process is required to ensure that intranet managers do not buckle under the strain. This article puts forward the use of a homepage policy as a support mechanism for those managing intranet homepages to ensure that the homepage delivers value to the organisation.

Turning the homepage statistic

It is a controversial view that the homepage requires protection from organisational and business unit marketing activity and news items. The majority of homepages utilise 50 to 80% of their real estate for news and marketing activities. The challenge is to turn this statistic around so that 70 to 80% of the homepage real estate relates to navigation, specifically to helping users access the material that they want to access. The intranet is most effective as a news channel when it is used daily by staff, this means focusing on helping staff get their jobs done.

[October KM Column written by Cairo Walker, read the full article]