As a fundamental purpose of intranets, communication has a vital role to play in the ongoing development and success of a site. But understanding how an intranet can perform as a useful communication platform is often lacking.

This article will explore three types of communication that can be found or deployed on an intranet. There are many others too.

Common questions

• What’s happening in the business?
• What’s the leadership team focusing on?
• What are my colleagues working on?

These are just some of the key questions staff ask and expect to see answered via platform like the intranet. Yet often such information is communicated infrequently or not at all.

With less resources and time, and more remote offices and home-workers in businesses, there’s an ever-increasing need for communication via the intranet. But there’s also a balance to be found. Too much information can cause information overload, and too much irrelevant information can be as frustrating as no communication at all.

Time and time again in research projects, interviewees will say, ‘I only want to see information that’s relevant to me’, but this will also be contradicted by a desire to know what’s happening in the business.

[CM Briefing 2010-05 by Alex Manchester, read the full article]