Globally local - locally global

JMC Breakfast "Social Media Inside the Enterprise"

The second JMC breakfast of 2010 will take place on March 10th in Paris. The topic is "Social Media Inside the Enterprise". Exceptionally, it will take place in English. (Normally it is in French.)  Details will follow, but in the meantime,  here is the program:

• Jane McConnell : "Social media inside the enterprise: hype and reality"
• Florence Devouard : "Co-what? : Collaboration, cooperation, and coordination: how understanding the difference between the three terms help building social networks"
• James Robertson: "Award-winning social tools: Real cases from enterprises around the world."
• Mini case studies on specific social media examples from participants including Alstom and Alcatel-Lucent.
• Martin White will also be joining us and sharing his approach to integrating social media into an information management strategy.

The event will last from 9 to 12, and will include lots of time for Q&A and discussion.

Florence Devouard, previously President of the Wikimedia Foundation was our guest a couple of years ago for the January breakfast at UNESCO. You can read more about Florence here and here.

Most of the readers of this blog will already know James Robertson (Step Two Designs, Australia) our second "guest of honor". James has been behind many intranet initiatives including the international Intranet Innovation Awards. You can read more about and from James and Step Two Designs on the web site and blog.

Martin White of Intranet Focus is an intranet consultant and author of "Successful Enterprise Search Management" and "Content Management Handbook".

If you are an intranet manager and would like to join us, get in touch. We have a few participants joining us from the UK so this JMC Breakfast will be quite international.

Intranet metrics: which indicators?

Following up on our previous discussions about benchmarking intranets (here and here), this post is about indicators.

The Global Intranet Strategies survey which took place between June and September 2009 explored the topic of metrics. The resulting  "Global Intranet Trends for 2010" report shows which metrics the survey participants (nearly 300 organizations) are using. The survey looked at the following types of metrics:

• Adoption 
• Usage/activity 
• Awareness/satisfaction 
• Time saving / efficiency 
• Cost avoidance 
• Core business value 
• Employee training and career 
• Reach and workforce coverage 

What follows is an extract of 2 pages from the report, pages 96 for adoption indicators and page 102 for core business indicators. Note that the number (n =) at the bottom left of each chart shows how many participants out of the 283 organizations are using this type of indicator.

Adoption indicators

Measuring the amount of information and processes being moved online shows how the intranet is being integrated into the way of working.

Stage 3 is significantly ahead of the other stages in measuring “moving information online” (63 percent) and “moving processes online” (at 20 points higher than average at 46 percent).

The percentages below represent those in the full survey population who responded “we measure this regularly”. The chart indicates the percentages per stage, referring to the 3 stages of maturity. (If you are not familiar with the 3 stages, see post from 2008 describing them.)

• Moving information online: Number or proportion of functions or activity areas which provide information on the intranet: guidelines, news, policies etc.from Finance, HR, different business areas, etc. (52 percent)
  Note: 75 percent of the enterprises over 50,000 measure “moving information online” (23 points higher than the survey average).
• Moving processes online: Number or proportion of functions or activities which offer services directly through the intranet (self-service centers, travel booking, active discussion forums) (26 percent)
• Number of authors / content producers (45 percent)

Comments from intranet managers:
 
« We measure the number of paper-based processes that can be automated, or at least illustrated using SharePoint / Windows Workflow Foundation.
« We look at the number of processes that have transitioned to our intranet.

« We run weekly reports on a set of metrics for our internal communities, including top contributors, subscriptions, number of posts, as well as documentation management stats (related to our CMS).

Core business indicators

Core business indicators are rarely used when measuring the impact of the intranet.

Twenty-two percent of the organizations with Stage 3 intranets measure the core business indicators. This makes sense because they are also the segment with the highest proportion of business processes and applications linked to or integrated into the intranet.

The percentages below represent those who responded “regularly” within the survey population. (The chart indicates the percentages per stage.)

• Indicators from core business processes and applications (11 percent)
• Sales and marketing indicators e.g. time required to respond to new customer’s request for proposal (5 percent)
• Indicators from customer service / maintenance / call center support (11 percent)
• Indicators from business support processes e.g. budget planning, finance, purchasing (6 percent)

One organization reports:
 « Every month we make probes into the intranet use of all of our stores in all countries. The results of the statistic probes go into our Balanced Score Card where they are used to identify the Country Managers whose stores are not opening new items on the intranet within a certain time frame.

What types of indicators are you using?

Can some of you share the types of indicators you are using with your intranet? Do you have any comments on which ones are the most useful for senior management?

Note: Consider joining the Global Intranet Strategies Survey this year (as of June), and get a complimentary copy of the Global Intranet Trends fro 2011 report which will be published in November.

Intranet benchmarking: a mashup of why & how

I’ve mashed up a new post about benchmarking based on my original blog post "Vanity" or "Specific value" benchmarking? and the extraordinary outpouring of lengthy reactions and comments (including Mark Morrell's post Benchmark to get the best value). Thank you all for your contributions.

The text below is written by the Globally Local readers!

Why benchmark?

Comparing your intranet to others is useful because intranets exist within organisations and are somewhat 'oblivious' to what happens outside the company. It is hard to look over the fence. That's where the value of benchmarking comes in.

As an intranet manager, you need to show the actual value of your investment to prove that you are actually helping the organisation save money / work more efficiently / 'live' a strategic agenda / etc.

Benchmarking should...

• Be part of a more detailed analysis, requirements and benefits realisation exercise - not an end in itself.
• Emerge into actions, decisions and behaviours.
• Provide us not only with the 'snapshot' but the roadmap for the continuing journey.

In short, acquiring a 'benchmarking artefact' is only the first stage of what’s interesting about the process.

Benchmarking lets you ...

• Quantify an impartial view of strength and weakness and catalyze an action plan.
• Obtain valuable feedback and expert advice from both the benchmarking organisation and other other participants in the benchmark.
• Measure the evolution of the intranet as a result of changes that have been implemented.
• Share tips and techniques that can be helpful to other organisations.
• Provide evidence for senior management.

Speaking of senior management ...

Senior management want to know what the competitors are doing, how do they compare, how can they do better. It's also a sad fact that many companies turn a deaf ear to employees yet listen with great attention to the same message from external representatives.

Organisations are not logical. Whether it's driven by egos or politics (or both) a benchmarking report certainly becomes an asset in dealing with internal personalities.

4 tips for benchmarking and using the results

• Look at the intranet strategy and compare "actual" with "required", assuming the intranet strategy is appropriate in the first place.
• Identify (1) specific business indicators aligned with business processes and (2) "people indicators" based on interactivity and collaboration.
• Make sure you are not simply copying or cloning, just because it brings security and validation.
• Know what is transferable to your intranet, and how to use the data to justify further investment in your intranet.

JMC Paris breakfast 19 Jan on governance - update

25 intranet managers met in Paris today, (thank you to Vincent, Sophie and Renault) to discuss the topic of governance and how to make the intranet "business as usual".

We met in a building that is a "monument historique" in France (once a manufacturing workshop for Renault).

It was very enjoyable to merge history and modern technology. The ambiance was much like "Les Rencontres Internationales pour  Responsables Intranet" which takes place every November in Paris (which I have chaired for the last 4 years)  at the Automobile Club de France, Place de la Concorde - in their library with thousands of books on shelves from the floor to the ceiling and models of both classic and modern racing cars in the lobby.

I was happy to get feedback tonight from a participant who said (via Twitter) " too often professional breakfasts = waste of time, while you helped me solve a problem I've been facing for 2 months".  The person added "the intranet is dead, at least the old one ;-)".

That's great feedback: helping intranet managers solve problems and move towards  intranets that are meaningful in today's business and social world.

I'm always impressed by the quality and knowledge of the intranet managers in the companies who are part of the informal JMC intranet network. I learn more from them than they do from me! They handle complex situations, deal with organizational politics and still have time to spend half a day, several times a year, networking with me and their peers.

If you'd like a copy of the presentation used this morning on "Using governance to transform your intranet into business as usual" drop me an email, tell me who you are, and I'll send you a download link.

Next JMC breakfast in Paris: March 10, with James Robertson and Florence Devouard (past president of the Wikimedia Foundation). Topic: "Social media inside the enterprise". Get in in touch if you're an intranet manager and would like to join us.

"Vanity" or "Specific value" benchmarking?

I think it is a vanity exercise to participate in group benchmarking exercises for intranets. I do not see how comparing your intranet to other intranets truly addresses the question: What specific value does your intranet bring to your organization?

It may help you provide "evidence" to senior management that:

• Your intranet is very good, better than most
• Your intranet is sub par and deserves more attention and investment
• You've done a good job this year and deserve a raise (just joking, but I do believe most intranet managers DO deserve more recognition and higher salaries)

All of the above are valid reasons for doing benchmarks. And I fully understand why it is important to gather proof for all 3 reasons!

But they ignore the fundamental questions of:

• How can your intranet help your enterprise achieve its specific goals?
• How can it make it easier for people to work smarter?
• How can it become a place where people are free to express themselves, and do better business at the same time?

The only way you can achieve this is to identify (1) specific business indicators aligned with business processes and (2) "people indicators" based on interactivity and collaboration.

Then, and only then, will you be able to truly understand how your intranet is performing.

Intranets: are you spending your money on what will last?

What are you spending your intranet-related and IT budgets on these days? And will whatever it is still be serving the organization 5 years from now?

I was asked this question by an intranet manager on a plane a couple of months ago. It was the first time anyone had ever asked me that question.

After some thought, I started a list of "things" I believe will bring benefit to enterprises for multiple years. So far I have 5:

• Tags and tagging capabilities
• Information life cycles
• Governance principles and policies
• Change management
• Security technologies and policies that reflect new ways of working (mobile, homeworking)

Comments?

Please help me build this list.

IntraTeam Event - International Intranet Touch Point in Europe

I'm excited about participating in the IntraTeam Event in Copenhagen in March. It will be the 3rd year for me, and each time I find it a valuable investment of my time.

IntraTeam Event 2010 brings together a lot of people I respect and follow (in the general sense, not the Twitter sense although that's true too!). And the best part is that I meet so many dedicated intranet managers.

I remember last year when I presented the results of that year's Global Intranet Trends. I got lots of interesting and tough questions from the audience. When audiences "come alive" and push the speakers, it is a fantastic experience for everyone in the room.

This year there will be a two tracks of workshops on March 2nd, and I'm having trouble choosing which ones to attend outside of my own. I'm doing one on "Making Governance Operational"

I'll be covering these points:

• What exactly are you governing? What is the intranet?
• Strategic principles as a governance framework
• Who should own the intranet?
• Three ownership models and their impact
• Involving the users in the governance model
• Different types of content and governance principles
• Managing decentralized publishing
• Examples from two real cases

I hope some people come because James Robertson is doing one at the same time: How to Design and Structure the Intranet. Tough competition!

My keynote speech which opens the conference is titled:

Future Intranet for New Ways of Working

It is based on the 2010 Global Intranet Trends study and will cover:

• The future intranet: front-door, team-oriented, people-focused, real-time, place-independent. 
• How social media are being integrated: benefits, concerns, approaches. 
• The future intranet manager: different paths, different values.

I'm already preparing for  the audience questions!

If you're in Europe in early March and involved in intranets, consider signing up. I am sure it will be worth your time. You can see the full IntraTeam Event program here.

SharePoint, the human way

I rarely read books that have product names in the title. However, SharePoint Roadmap for Collaboration by Michael Sampson is an exception.

Michael approaches SharePoint the right way. From the top down. I mean that his main interest is collaboration. This means people and how they work together. He then talks about SharePoint in that context.

This is a book that can and should be read by business, communication and IT managers in any organization considering or currently implementing SharePoint.

It will help them all speak the same language, which is often a major obstacle when turning concepts into practice whatever the technology.  

User adoption

I was especially interested in some original ideas about user adoption (page 164). His ideas are action-oriented: learn by doing, learn now and fast. Very little abstract "consultant speak" about the importance of collaboration.

For example, he talks about "bulk loading parties" where you bring content owners together for a few days to migrate content into the new SharePoint environment. People learn the system fast and users are not faced with two parallel systems over a long time period.

An idea I like a lot is "facilitated group re-imagining". It's easier than it sounds! It means getting groups or teams together to discover how they work today, then define - with them - how they can work in the new SharePoint context. This lets teams define their way of working together. As Michael says, "Getting an intact group to agree on working in a different way is critical to success."

Michael will be at IntraTeam Event in March in Copenhagen running a workshop on "Crafting your user adoption strategy. He will give a talk on Frameworks for Evaluating Collaboration Tools.

He will be in Europe during the full month of March. You can get in touch with him directly if you'd like to meet him or organize a SharePoint session with him.

P.S. 22:30 Just got a phone call from Michael who told me he'll only be in Europe for 2 weeks and has just a few more slots in his schedule. So get in touch with him soon if you'd like to arrange a meeting.

Governance: publishing, approving, prioritizing

A member of NetJMC&Co (Linkedin group for intranet managers created by JMC)  recently asked for some guidance on governance.
He expressed 3 needs:

• 1. Explain how a piece of content goes from idea to published
• 2. Define who is responsible for approving content
• 3. Explain how application development gets prioritized

My contributions to the Linkedin discussion....

Three governance angles

Although every organization needs to "find" their own intranet governance policies with the right balance of control and liberty, there are some fundamental principles that apply in all situations, or at least every situation I have seen.

Point 1: Publishing content.

A general principle: You'll need to have several paths.

Intranets have different spaces with different dynamics and therefore different "rules of the game". The place where reference documents are published will be managed very differently from where teams put their working documents and still differently from a "blog central" or space where users create content directly.

Point 2: Approving content

Two main principles:
- Keep the responsibility for publishing content at the lowest level possible, but at a level where the person is still accountable for the content.
- Have as little workflow and pre-publication approvals as possible.

Point 3: Prioritizing application development

Understand the impact of the development(s) on users and on the business. Work with the business and functional managers, and also end-users of the application. Of course, you'll involve the "owners" of the app, but their views are often too subjective when asked what the impact will be.

Evaluate the the different development options by asking these questions:

• - Will this enable people to do something they could not do before?
• - Will this enable people to do something better (faster, easier) than previously.
• - Will this reduce costs?
• - Will this increase our revenue?
• - Will this bring a new or improved service to our customers (external, I mean).

You can then prioritize based on a simple rating scale where you weight the answers to the questions according to your organizations current and near future goals and needs.

Two critical pitfalls to avoid

A. Do NOT define the governance by a team located in head-quarters or the center of the organization. Involve a small, representative group of people throughout the organization.

B. Do NOT define governance by a group of "support" or "functional" people. (IT, HR and Communication managers.) Involve business people in the organization.

How, not what

My final comment - based on having worked with many organizations on their governance policies - is this: "The WAY you define governance is more important than WHAT you define."

2010 - the year of intranet governance

One-minute poll results

I just completed a poll with the informal NetJMC network of intranet managers based in or near Paris. They are nearly exclusively from some of the largest global companies in the world.

I always set the agenda for the JMC Breakfasts based on feedback from the "core circle" within the larger network, some of whom have participated in these events for many years.

Here are the topics I suggested this year, with the percentages of those who indicated "very interesting and relevant for me". The other choices were "interesting, but less relevant for me" and "not interesting or not relevant".

• Governance: principles, examples, integration into "business as usual" - 80 %
• The single-entry point strategy: realistic? desirable? risks? advantages? - 70 %
• Enterprise 2.0 and the intranet: impact, challenges, examples -70 %
• How to structure a global intranet: target users, sections, personalization - 60 %
• The intranet of the future: trends, implications, issues - 50 %
• The future role of the intranet manager - 35 %

These results do not surprise me. 2010 is lining up to be the year of action in intranet governance. People are realizing that governance is the fundamental thing to get right as intranets evolve and become more and more essential for organizations.

Topics for 2010, first semester

January: The first JMC Breakfast of the year in the second part of January will be on the topic of governance. If you are an intranet manager and interested in joining us, contact me. I'll give you more details. The breakfast will take place in French.

March: The second JMC Breakfast is tentatively planned for early March. Exceptionally, it will take place in English because I will be having 2 special guests. More on this later. Provisional topic: "Enterprise 2.0, social media and the intranet".

These are half-day events, starting at 9:00 and finishing around 12:00.

Workplace Web - 3 models

Alex Manchester triggered a long, interesting conversation on his blog when he quoted Janus Boye in a session at Online called "Death of the intranet".

Part of the discussion was about the usage of the term "intranet" versus a different term such as "workplace web". I was the one who originally suggested that the word "intranet" is out-of-date and even inappropriate in a blog post here last April 1st: A new word for the intranet

The date of April 1st was a coincidence, but some of the discussion triggered by the post on my blog and on Column Two  where James Robertson referred to it,  made me think some people thought the date was appropriate! (Just joking.)

In my comment on Alex's blog, I refer to one of the 5 future trends identified in this year's report: "Global Intranet Trends for 2010: Towards the Workplace Web".

We proposed 3 models of the workplace web to the 300 participating organizations. The rest of this post is an extract of the diagrams and text from the chapter "Future Intranet: the front door intranet"

 - - - - - - - - -

 The front-door intranet

The intranet is becoming the entry point into the “workplace web” - the ensemble of resources and information needed by staff . This includes applications, intranet sites, specialized portals, team spaces, collaboration spaces and so on. Today, 15 percent of the survey participants have achieved a “unified workplace web”. 

The fragmented workplace web

The “fragmented” workplace web means the employee has many different entry points to the range of intranets, portals, applications and spaces available. 30 percent of the survey participants currently have this model.

The hybrid workplace web

The “hybrid” workplace web is an intermediary stage where the intranet or enterprise portal is the accepted entry point into the “intranet landscape”. A few country or specific portals still exist outside this system. In particular, collaboration spaces and business applications tend to be outside the system, and accessible via separate entry points. 55 percent of the survey participants currently have this model.

The unified workplace web

The “unified” workplace web means the intranet or enterprise portal is the front door to the organization’s information, business and collaborative resources and places.  15 percent of the survey participants currently have this model.

My social media resolutions for 2010

If you are like me and have multiple accounts on different social media platforms, you are probably feeling some "social media overload" in terms of what you communicate, where and how often.

A time and a place for everything

Although some overall trends are beginning to take hold, we - as professionals in the "intranet / information / collaboration / social media" space need to be clear about our own personal social media strategies.

There is one principle today that everyone seems to all agree to: Linkedin is for professional network building.

Although I am over-simplifying, the clarity of the Linkedin positioning may be primarily because you can't share photos and play games. So, it's less "fun" than FB and less fluid than Twitter.

When it comes to Facebook or Twitter, there are a wide range of usages and behaviors. I have professional contacts whose opinions I respect and whose market and business intelligence I would like to follow. However, when they are updating their statuses or sending tweets many times a day about everything they are doing, I find myself getting very distracted.

The problem is I have different mind sets when I am working and when I am socializing online. When I'm focusing on business, I don't want to know if my business friends are stuck in a train or making a gourmet meal or sick at home with the kids. What I do want to know is what they are reading, what conferences they will be going to and what interesting links they have to share.

But, when I'm taking a break from "work-work" and socializing with the same people, I have a lot of fun reading their updates on all kinds of subjects and non-subjects!

For me, both dimensions are part of building relationships, but personally, I don't do both at the same time. So, I decided to bring some clarity to my own usages. Here are my personal social media resolutions for 2010.

1. I will use Linkedin for 3 reasons: 

• Building my business network - "contacts"' as Linkedin calls them
• Following the updates from my contacts in Linkedin, which tend to be directly or remotely related to subjects that interest me professionally
• Participating in the discussions that take place in specialised Linkedin groups (including NetJMC&Co which I created for intranet managers)

  

  

2. I  will continue to make a clear distinction between "pro" and "perso" on Facebook by having 2 different accounts.

• One for family and friends - very personal - one that I share with only a few people
• One for business friends - business-triggered but with a personal touch - people around the world I've been fortunate to meet and with whom I want to stay in touch and share informally: information, thoughts, simple stuff like what we're reading and doing, ideas, photos, etc.

  

3. I will use Twitter for multiple purposes, all professional for the moment.

• Follow trends in areas that interest me (professionally primarily but not exclusively), by creating lists based on people and following hash tags
• Publish updates myself to communicate ideas, inform people about posts I've written on my blog, and promote the content I create
• Do research: ask and answer questions within the larger Twitter world
• Provide real-time feedback to people around the world from events I attend
• Re-tweet items of interest I find. (I want to be careful here, because re-tweeting is so easy and can become a replacement for writing one's own tweets. I need to make sure it's something very special/important before I do it.)

  

4. So, how about you?

How do you see your own uses of social media?

Are there distinctions you think are important to make? If so, what are they?

Do you have any social media resolutions for 2010?

Enjoy the break, from ProvenceBeyond and NetJMC

Wishing you all a great break from work. Looking forward to seeing or hearing from you in 2010!

Photo: ProvenceBeyond.com. Luceram in the Alpes Maritimes, about an hour's drive from chez moi.

I've worked with ProvenceBeyond for many years. It's one of the best doors into Provence and has over 1 million pages read per month.

Happy holidays.

Work and Content in the Intranet: Interview with Natalia Shvetsova

My last interview of the year was with Natalia Shvetsova, author of the Russian blog "Intranet Blog". Natalia is a network partner in the Global Intranet Strategies Survey.

She oriented the interview around managing content on intranets, and added some very good points at the end of the article summarizing the interview.

You can read the interview here, translated by Google. Do not hesitate to get in touch with myself or Natalia if you have any questions or comments.

Top 12 posts from Globally Local by JMC in 2009

The top 12 #intranet posts of "Globally Local..Locally Global"  in 2009 based on reader comments or email feedback  (in reverse chronological order) are:

2009: Efficiency, Energy and Voice on the Intranet

Real Intranet Manager bloggers: a rare species

User-generated content for employee directories

Where should collaboration sit?

Web Workplace - a new word for intranet?

Who's playing in the Intranet online space?

Intranet Checklist for the Flu Pandemic

Social media on a global intranet - how do you choose?

News, emails, videos from Corp Comm: spam or not?

7 principles for decentralized publishing

5 Future Intranet Trends - Brazilian Portal Award keynote on YouTube

Highlights from the Global Intranet Trends for 2010

Thank you all for your comments and contributions. Without you, there would be no Globally Local!

Global Intranet Trends 2010 - Q&A

Samuel Driessen, author of the blog infoarch, reviewed this year’s survey report “Global Intranet Trends for 2010” on his blog. He raised some questions which I will respond to here.

Origami and intranets

Why did I choose to illustrate this year’s report with origami figures?
As I said in the preface, ..."The art of origami is based on the concept of taking a single sheet of paper and folding it in different ways to create a representation of an animal, a bird or a figure. Some origami creations are simple, others complex. Each one is unique, just as each intranet is unique with its own life and personality.”
I understand that traditionally, the sheet of paper used to make the origami figure must not be cut, only folded. That’s the way I feel about intranets. They are instruments for connecting people and not disconnecting people. They should be unified within their own landscape, whatever that may be!

One of my favorite ones from the Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report this year is the one above from the chapter “Workplace Web – the people angle”, subtitled  “Connecting people and energizing the organization”.

The real-time intranet

As Samuel points out, I have defined real-time a bit too broadly and I did it deliberately. I included blogging and  micro-blogging (Twitter, Yammer for example) in my examples. This is because they are part of what I call “one-click publishing”. You write your message, click and it’s available for everyone to see.

This is nearly real-time, especially when you think how long it takes most content to get on to intranets!

The place-independent intranet

"Place independent" has two dimensions: the physical place and the device.

One question on the survey asked where and how people can access the intranet from outside the physical workplace. They were offered the following options, and asked to indicate what proportion of their employees had this possibility:

• Can access the intranet from home from their own home computers (with appropriate security mechanisms).
• Can access the intranet from other computers (e.g. cyber- cafes, hotel business centers, with appropriate security mechanisms).
• Have company laptops from which they can access the intranet wherever they are.

This first chart shows the responses for the full survey population of 283 organizations.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

A second question asked: What proportion of your employees can access the intranet from a mobile device such as a smartphone.

Stages of maturity

Samuel wondered what the proportions were in each of the 3 stages this year. The figures have evolved a little since last year, but not much.

It is important to remember that these are approximations, and that there are different degrees of maturity within the same enterprise intranet landscape. I’ve seen cases more than once where Stage 1 and Stage 3 exist side by side in the same organization. (descriptions of the 3 stages from 2009 report)

Stage 1 - 38% this year, 35% last year

Stage 2 - 35% this year, 43 % last year

Stage 3 - 28%  this year, 22% last year

Remember these figures are based on the organizations who participated in the survey each year and are not necessarily representative of the entire global intranet population. However, they are not far off the opinion of intranet managers in  different groups I have polled informally in conferences and workshops.

Prediction markets inside the enterprise

Samuel summarizes from my study that “prediction markets are still a hidden gem. Used by almost none of the participants.” I agree, and am always surprised. My personal conclusion is that prediction markets are foreign to most intranet managers.  I will talk about this in a later post.

Thanks, Samuel, for these questions. Let's continue the dialogue. I invite any of you readers to join us either at infoarch or here!

Intranet 360 Checklist

All things intranet can and should be addressed from 360 degrees. That means, covering the full circle.

Target 360

For example, when you do evaluations or needs analysis for the intranet, you need to include:

• Staff of course. However, the end-users are sometimes the only ones targeted because many intranet managers have become focused on user-centered approaches (which is good!) but have forgotten other angles.
• The main intranet players need to be consulted. Site owners, application owners and major content contributors have a lot to say.
• When it comes to management, functional and  business managers are usually considered “stakeholders” and are usually included.

The forgotten ones:

However, senior management, in my experience, are often forgotten. We want them to sponsor the intranet but forget to ask them how they want to use it to achieve their goals.

Demographics 360

When you organize workshops to explore new directions for the intranet, or when you choose people to participate in a user’s panel, you need to include a range of ages and seniority. The views will be complementary. They will learn from each other.

• Combine people in their 20's 30-40’s and 50’s .
• Include new staff and people with many years of seniority.
• Make sure all parts of the organization are represented: from bottom to top, across the divisions or regions. If you can’t do this physically, then get virtual.

Of course, the  people you choose need to be motivated to participate in your initiative.  I recently ran a workshop with very senior people and very new staff and the results were surprising and extremely positive. There was a high degree of listening, from both ends. And a lot of discovery.

Deliberately-mixed cocktails can be quite potent!

Business 360

Most organizations can group their job types into 3 large families:

• Support functions (HR, IT, communication, finance, etc.)
• Product or service development (R&D, engineers, etc.)
• Customer-facing (marketing, sales, customer support)

The first are usually involved in the intranet. The second are to some extent. Depending on the type of organization this segment wiil be more or less involved. (Sometimes they are the “rogues” who do their own thing because they know how to!)

The forgotten ones:

The customer-facing people are frequently forgotten. Why are often neglected when it comes to the intranet? I believe it is because we still have the out-of-date view that intranets are for internal purposes.  This is a limited view and needs to change. Business needs should be a major strategy driver for what we do on intranets.

Try the following exercise to test how well your intranet serves the customer-facing teams:

• Make a list of all your “customer touch points”. A “touch point” is any time or place customers have contact with anyone in your enterprise.
• Then go and talk to someone who works at each one of the “touch points”.
• Find out how they work and how the intranet could better support them.

Providing services and content to support the customer "touch points" will attract management attention. Be sure to find the corresponding business indicators for the "touch point" before you implement your service.  You can use that as a baseline once your service is in place and start to show how the intranet brings business value to the organization.

Future proofing intranet governance

One way to future proof your intranet is to future proof the governance.

There are 3 ways to do that, and I recommend doing all 3!

1. Implement cross-organizational ownership.

If you do not already have a cross-organizational ownership model in place, move in that direction. The Global Intranet Trends for 2010 showed that 14 % of the nearly 300 participating organization have this model. In Stage 3 (more mature intranets) it rises to 22 %, still not very high.

A cross-organizational model means all the key functions and divisions of the organization have representation on the Steering Committee or Advisory Board or whatever you call your top-level decision-making body.

This puts Business side by side with Communication, IT and HR, the traditional “owners” of the intranet. They can then fulfill their traditional roles of enablers and Business can take the role it should have long had as a major decision-maker for the intranet.

2. Lock in your flows to and from the intranet decision-makers and publish them.

Cross-organizational ownership ensures you full coverage of your organization. There are no black holes where the intranet is concerned. That’s good.

However, you cannot of course have dozens of people on the decision-making body, so you will have people who represent different segments of the organization.

A common problem is that the people being represented do not always know who represents them. When strategic decisions are being discussed, these people are not consulted in advance and asked for input. Sometimes they are not even informed about the decisions that are made. This leads to confusion, and worse, rejection of decisions and “we”ll do it our way”. It’s understandable if no one has talked to them!

The representatives themselves may never have thought clearly about the fact that they represent other people, not just themselves.

So, by making the consulting and communicating flows between the intranet decision-makers and the rest of the enterprise visible to all, the intranet is protected from breakdowns coming from people’s lack of awareness and lack of being involved.

The Steering Committee itself must integrate formal reporting by its members to ensure they are carrying out their “obligations” to their “constituencies”.

A simple way to do this is to publish Steering Committee names, roles and constituencies on the intranet itself. There should be also be publication of decisions made, action items including who and when.

Locking this in through visibility will ensure that when a decision-maker loses interest in the intranet or is not doing the job right, others will notice and hopefully help

3. Invite young staff to strategy sessions on a regular basis.

If you’ve implemented cross-organizational ownership, you’ve got no black holes from the organizational viewpoint.
However, you also need to make sure you don’t have black holes from the seniority viewpoint.
The actual members of the Steering Committee will usually be fairly high level people with seniority in the business. If a few members of newer staff, preferably young staff, are invited to join the Steering Committee for regular strategy sessions, the blend of years of experience with new ways of working can stimulate everyone.

When I say “new staff”, I’m thinking of young professionals who have been in the organization for at least 2 or so, but not yet long enough to be ingrained by the organizational culture.

They will bring fresh ideas to the table, and will be sufficiently involved in the organization to be able to formulate the business value in ways that will make sense to the senior people.

Having strategy session like this once a year will keep your intranet decision-makers on their toes! It will also ensure that new voices are being heard.

"Plug and grow" your intranet

 I fear that many organizations believe that you can "plug and grow" your intranets.

It's not easy to read, but that's what is written in the red label: "plug and grow". It is also specified "No gardening experience needed."

Put someone in charge. Anyone. Experience does not matter.

Now you have an "Intranet Manager", capital I, capital M.

I saw this amazing machine while Christmas shopping and could not resist sharing it with you all!

When "global & local" becomes "common & specific"

How do you handle global and local content on global portal? A question that has as many answers as intranets! However, in my work with many complex, global organizations, I have developed 8 fundamental guidelines.

1. Replace the concept of "global/local" with "common/specific".

"Global" suggests from the top; "local" suggests from the bottom. In reality, global companies have content that is common to all that may have been developed in a “local” part of the organization.

Likewise, content developed globally (by HQ for example) may have a very specific, "local" audience.

Using the terms "common" and "specific" remove the hierarchical angle and make people focus on who needs the content rather than who created it.

2. Think of the global intranet as collection of spaces, with each space having a purpose from the user viewpoint.

Examples of spaces: News, Workplace, Employee Services, About. These spaces will later become the components of the global navigation bar.

Develop several hypotheses, each one with a combination of spaces. You should be able to make a simple statement about each space for each hypothesis: "This space is designed for (user) to (action)". 

An example will show you how important the exact wording is. What follows is 3 different ways of describing the "News" space.

• This space is designed for all employees to be informed about news from the company. (meaning primarily internal communication-driven)
• This space is designed for all employees to be informed about news from and about the company.(meaning both internal and external news sources)
• This space is designed for all employees to share news. (meaning users can contribute news)

Attention: The success of this step depends on having already positioned the intranet and where it fits in the workplace web.

If you are not working within a portal concept, you may think of each "space" as an "intranet site". The conceptual work is the same, because each site must have a specific purpose and scope. You will then have an intranet landscape made up of a collection of intranet sites, many of which will be specific. However, one will be common to all, and will have the content, features and services that are relevant to all employees. It is surprising sometimes to realized how small this may be in volume compared to the specific!

3. Identify the type of content, services and features required for each space.

Do this for all the spaces involved, for all the hypotheses. This will help clarify the real differences. Go into just enough detail to be clear on the purpose of the space.

Each space will have a combination of common and specific content. Some spaces will be primarily common content, others mainly specific. The specific may be driven by geography, profession, organizational. For example:

• The news space will have a few news items relevant to everyone, a few more relevant to the person's country or business division, and others specifically relevant to the person's profession.
• The workplace space will be heavily dependent on profession and organization.

This work can only by done in close collaboration with business and functional managers. Users must also be involved, but not at this stage if your organization is large. They will be involved later as the spaces are developed in detail.

4. Identify the appropriate type and amount of customization.

This will differ for each space and for the landing pages for each space. You will need to distinguish 3 types:

• No customization = same for all
• Implicit customization = controlled by the system, based on user profiles (e.g. geography, profession, organizational unit)
• Explicit customization = controlled by the individual user

Then you need to define who determines the content/services required for each type. Some examples:

• The communication manager may control what everyone in a given country must see
• The global marketing manager will decide what marketing people around the world need to access
• The local marketing person will decide for the local team

Work out general principles at this stage, without actually assigning names. This work is a starting point for some of your governance principles.

5. Sketch out wire frames for the landing pages for the spaces.

This is the fun part where you put pencil to paper. I highly recommend not using computers at this point. Let people sketch the way they see the landing pages. Ask them to add arrows, notes and details about the type of content, who owns it, what type of customization, etc. Keep this work at a high level.

A couple of suggestions:

• Make sure the common content is visible, but give priority to specific over common.
• When you have disagreements, don't force a decision. Draw both ideas. List the advantages and disadvantages of each.

6.Determine the appropriate place for collaboration spaces.

The debate will be: should they be inside the "workplace"-type space, or should they together in an area called "Collaborate"? There are advantages to each. Some companies decide to do both.

Whatever the decision, ensure that they do not become mini silos of their own.

7. Use the "About" space to counter balance the customization of other spaces.

Just as web sites have "About" sections for the public, an intranet should have an "About" space for employees. There are a lot of exciting concepts that can be developed for this.

A major objective is to ensure that people have visibility across the organization. This is the place where business units and teams can present themselves. It can include a section specially designed for new employees. It can be highly user-driven; it can be primarily corporate communication-driven. Senior management can have their own communication platform here.

These choices will depend on your culture, intranet maturity and resources. This section will evolve over time.

8.Attack the home page last!

The home page is the hottest territory on the intranet and will be subject to much debate! It is the "promise" of the intranet. It symbolizes what the intranet is all about.

Examples of decision you need to make:

• It should not be completely news-driven if the intranet is intended to be a work tool.
• It should have some degree of user control if the organizational culture embraces empowering employees.
• It should give "equal billing" to news from headquarters and news from countries and business units if the organization considers itself to be global.

It is critical to leave the home page discussion to the end. It take on real meaning after the other points have been discussed and agreed. 

*****

There are a lot more criteria to be considered, but this post is already too long!

Thank you Adam and Pernilla for asking the question. I welcome contact from any reader who would like to continue the conversation, by commenting here or by email.

5 Future Intranet Trends - Brazilian Portal Award keynote on YouTube

The organizers of Brazilian Intranet Portal Award 2009 event kindly posted the video I made for them on YouTube and I'd like to share it with you. I talk about the 5 future intranet trends.

I'd love to hear your feedback.

Global Intranet Trends 2010 - available for purchase!

You'll find more information on this site in the Intranet Survey & Trends section of this site:

• Table of contents 
• Read the Preface 
• You can read reviews by intranet managers 
• As well as reviews by peers 
• Click here for price and link to purchase platform

Get in touch directly if you have any questions about the report or anything else!

Catherine Grenfell on successful intranet managers

I talked to Catherine Grenfell of Step Two Designs a while ago about an article she published on the Step Two Designs web site: What do successful intranet managers have in common?

It's clear that Catherine has a lot of experience working with intranet managers and her insights are both useful and inspiring.

Some key points:

• When dealing with the legacy of intranet initiatives that have failed, Catherine says: "You can't undo the past; you can influence the future."
• Establishing communication channels and setting expectation when everyone wants everything requires good negotiation skills.
• Unlike other managers in the organization, intranet managers deal with staff at all levels. They need to have an elevator pitch about the intranet.
• Intranet managers need to learn to "let go" of content. They need to empower others.

You can listen to our conversation here:

Part 1 (5 minutes)

Grenfell-JMC-Part1

Part 2 (3 minutes)

Grenfell-JMC-Part2

Part 3 (6 minutes)

Grenfell-JMC-Part3

You can reach Catherine at catherine@steptwo.com.au if you'd like to talk more about her thoughts, or you can communicate with her here.

Intranet Portal Awards 2009 (Brazil) announced

I participated for the first time in the Brazilian Intranet Portal Award 2009 event this week - virtually!

If you don't speak Portuguese (as I don't) you can use a translator tool to get an idea about what went on for the two days of the conference. Try this link.

There were 12 awards announced and approximately 200 people each day.

The Twitter tag is #pip09 .

2009 Intranet Innovation Awards announced and published

The 2009 Intranet Innovation Awards winners have been announced and you can now purchase the report with lots of details and screen captures. (US$ 189. More information on the Step Two Designs web site.) I've read it and find it to be one of the most useful collection of intranet case studies I've seen.
James Robertson is also publishing a 10-part series of articles on his blog Column Two, describing each winner this year: one platinum and nine gold. And the articles are gold themselves!
Gold winner: IDEO (USA)
Gold winner: IBM (USA)
Gold winner: Sabre (USA)

Fear not! There are other countries in the gold winners, and articles will be soon published on winners from Russia, Denmark, UK, New Zealand and Australia (platinum).
You can read more about the awards here, and consider entering one of your own intranet initiatives for next year.
Remember that what is unique about these awards, and what makes them credible is that they concern "intranet innovations" - specific features or applications you've developed in the intranet, and do not attempt to award "the best intranets" - which is mission impossible in my opinion.
This award program lets you see intranet innovations that have brought user and business benefits to the organizations.

(Disclaimer: I am one of the participating judges for the awards.)