Globally local - locally global

Goverment intranet team looking for "intranet 2.0" screen shots

A senior advisor in the ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management of a European country is looking for sample screen shots from real cases where organisations have implemented web 2.0 tools internally.

She believes these examples will help her senior management understand the vision she and her colleagues have for their new intranet.

I have met this person and her request is a serious one. If you have screenshots you are willing to share with her, contact me and I'll put you in direct email contact.

Here's some (very slightly edited) text from her email to me:

"This year we are going to change our intranet dramatically. … I have written a paper about the intranet as I see it: summarized: Web 2.0.

The paper was enthusiastically met by my communications colleagues and some webmasters and (most importantly) our management. We are well aware of the fact that intranet is not a communication tool. We want to give the employees the best collaboration and working tools as possible. Which means we want to implement all those things mentioned in the web survey on your blog (referring to the NetStrategy/JMC 2006 Intranet Study).

My new challenge is to convince the 'topdogs' in our department that Web 2.0 is a good idea. We have told them the general idea, but they do not entirely seem to grasp the concept yet. What I desperately need is an image. A picture that shows what a homepage of an intranet Web 2.0 could look like. I would welcome screenshots of organisations that already implemented (some sort) of Web 2.0.

I am aware of the risk: the image could encourage people to think that our intranet is exactly going to look like the example(s). I am willing to take this risk, because it can help me to get the meaning across to the decision makers as we desperately need budget."

When the intranet does not reach everyone - use the INTERNET

An innovative example of using the internet to reach all your employees...

When you are living through a merger, or when your organisation is so decentralised that employees do not have access to a single intranet portal, how do you communicate to all of them?

Take a look at the example of Arcelor Mittal TV targeting employees around the world.

ArcelorMittal TV

Episodes 1 & 2 - the others will follow - dramatic but with a feeling of really being there.
Reminds me of Lost (US TV series) but these guys don't seem lost - more like they are in the process of finding each other.

Stay tuned ...

Personalisation on intranets - what's the real story?

James Robertson, StepTwo, will soon be announcing the results of their web survey on personalization.
(This survey is supported by Step Two Designs, the Intranet Leadership Forum, CMSWatch, Boye ITCM Forum.)

Toby Ward has made some predictions you can read here in his communication about the survey.

Quote: "Based on my experience and exposure to many intranets, I estimate the following have personalized portals:

• less than 25% of Fortune 500 companies
• less than 5% of other medium to large size organizations
• less than a fraction of 1% of small to medium size organizations

Martin White expressed his opinion on his web site while communicating about the survey.

Quote: "Over the last few years one of the ongoing issues in intranet management has been the extent to which users need to have a personalised view of intranet content. I have seen some good examples in the case of employee self-service applications, but on a broader level I have yet to see a convincing business case based on a survey of users."

As for myself, I've already raised some issues in a previous post, and have added a couple slides here from the Global Intranet Strategies study (summer of 2006) into the pot.

Let's see how these all relate to the new poll results.

Satisfaction doesn't matter - just engage the intranet user

Toby Ward has highlighted an interesting study by IPSOS in the US (disclaimer: IPSOS Paris is hosting my next JMC Breakfast)

Take a look at Toby's article "Employee satisfaction doesn't matter, study says", posted on 8 January. (Go to blog, then search for title. Permalink is not working)

Quote:

"Employee satisfaction used to matter. In fact it still does at most organizations, however, employee satisfaction is a dying metric.

"In a new analysis (Making Employee Engagement a Focus) by research firm Ipsos, “there is a very poor correlation between employee satisfaction and bottom line results. Sometimes the connection is there, but just as often, it isn’t.”

"Instead, some experts maintain that organizations should shift their focus from satisfaction to employee engagement."

So what role does the intranet play in engaging employees?

January Breakfast in Paris - "Tendances Net en 2007"

If you're in Paris around Jan 16th and you understand French, you'd be very welcome to join us for my 4th annual January breakfast on trends in the Net world - both intranet and internet.
Read all about it on Globally Local, and let me know if you'd like to join us.

60 second survey on Personalisation

This survey is being conducted to answer a question about which opinions vary: How much personalisation is available today on intranets, and to what extent do users take advantage of it?

It is supported by Step Two Designs, the Intranet Leadership Forum, CMSWatch, Boye IT and CM Forum.

If you have 60 seconds, it would be great if you could answer the few questions you will find at this link: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=17972957515

Quote: "The full results of this survey will be shared publicly, and the aim is to quickly gather valuable figures that can be used by intranet and portal teams when planning product selection and implementation".

I had this very discussion with a client last week where there was a split of opinion within the intranet team itself - one person strongly believing the majority of people will use the personalisation options they will be offering on their new, not-yet-born Sharepoint portal, and the other person convinced that very few will.

I asked the Global Intranet Survey participants (results released in October 2006) the following questions:
1. What proportion of content on the home page is identical for all employees (press releases, announcements, and so on.)
2. What proportion is customised for a population of people such as a country or a business division or a profession
3. What proportion what proportion can be personalized by the individual (quick links, most-used sites, positioning of items, etc.)

The results of the new 60 second survey will develop details on the third question and help us better understand (1) what intranets offer or will offer in personalisation and (2) user adoption.

- The results of the survey will raise a number of questions:

- If few users take advantage of personalisation, does it mean we should encourage them to use it more?

- Does it mean that people do not need these features?

- Do they prefer having the standard home page?

- To what extent should the standard home page be "automatically" customised according to people's job roles, professions, organisational entity?

- Do people not understand how to use these features?

- Are they simply too rushed to take the time to implement personalisation themselves?

- If many users take advantage of personalisation features to a great extent, is there a risk of their not seeing the global view of their organisation?

- Do they choose to see primarily the local news and their own tasks to the detriment of corporate news and announcements?

- What is the appropriate balance of content from global, local and - often the most difficult - the intermediary layers of an organisation?

I look forward to discussing these issues with the survey organisers and the readers of Globally Local very soon.