Globally local - locally global

Off for a week - sign up for the 2008 intranet survey while I'm gone!

This is a quick note to let you know I am off for a week of bird-watching in the Camargue. So no posts until Friday 2 May.

In the meantime, please go ahead and let me know if you're interested in participating in the 2008 Global Intranet & Portal Strategies survey. Instructions here.

I'll be setting up the schedule and developing the questions over the month of May, with your collaboration I hope!

All types of organisations welcome to participate in Global Intranet & Portal Strategies survey

Quick clarification regarding my post "Searching for Intranet managers in the "most-admired" companies".
The survey is not limited to any type of company. I am using some common lists such as "most admired", "most desirable to work at", and so on to build the participant base around the world.

The first survey (2006) involved 101 organisations around the world. The second edition in 2007 grew to 178.

The charts below give you an indication of the head-quarter location, and the size of the participating organisations  in 2007.

Please get in touch if you'd like to sign up. More information here.

Searching for Intranet managers in the "most-admired" companies

Fortune magazine published their lists of the most admired companies in 2008. Companies are voted to this list by a survey done by Fortune with business people. The companies listed below are among the top 50 in the global list, and I would like to make contact with the intranet or portal managers in these companies to invite them to join the 3rd annual edition of the Intranet & Portal Strategies Survey.

If you work on intranets in one of these companies, and are potentially interested please get in touch. If you know someone who does, could you pass on the message?

For companies who are not familiar with the 2006 and 2007 survey results and reports, I've put some links at the bottom of this post where you can find more information. All participating companies receive a free copy of the Global Intranet Trends Report for the year of their participation.

Anheuser-Busch, Apple , AT&T, Bank of America, BASF, Berkshire Hathaway, Best Buy, BMW, Boeing, Caterpillar, Cisco Systems, Coca-Cola, Continental Airlines, Costco Wholesale, Deere, Dell, DuPont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, Hewlett-Packard, Honda Motor, Johnson & Johnson, Johnson Controls, L'Oréal, Lowe's, Lufthansa Group, Microsoft, Motorola, Nestlé, Nokia, PepsiCo, Procter & Gamble, Siemens, Singapore Airlines, Sony, Target, Tesco, Texas Instruments, Toyota Industries, Toyota Motor, United Parcel Service, United Technologies, Verizon Communications, Walgreen, Wal-Mart Stores, Xerox

Links about the Global Intranet & Portal Strategies survey:

Blog posts on survey results on Globally Local

Description and down-loadable samples including tables of contents of 2007 Global Intranet Trends and Global Intranet Analysis reports.

Access to presentations done and articles written based on the 2007 survey results. Includes:
Intranet 2.0 Maturity (presentation from Online Information, London), Why is your intranet not delivering its potential? (VIP, Free Pint Ltd.)

Invitation to join 2008 survey

Enterprise wikis - near the tipping point?

A Globally Local reader,Katja Hilska, has written up in considerable detail, her experience in implementing a wiki approach to the intranet in a government organisation with around 1,000 employees, average age over 40.
It is well worth reading, as are the couple of other comments from readers in response to my post of February 19th - "Wikis versus or wikis plus?"
I quote from Katja Hilska's description, telling why they chose a wiki solution for their new intranet:

"... the idea of a wiki as an intranet actually came from the requirements we wanted the new intranet to have: it should have wide editing rights, it should work as a collaborative tool, it should support easy editing, personalisation and "own pages." Read more from Katja.

Sounds like the requirements an intranet should have always been meeting, but, as we know, do not in most cases.

Language reality checkpoints - moving targets

Language strategies are moving targets, evolving along with your enterprise strategy and business and operational changes. You need to start by asking the right questions, then once you know what you’d like to achieve, see how technology can help you, how much it will cost and what organizational changes are needed. This article proposes some “reality checkpoints” you will find helpful when analyzing your needs.

Reality 1: International enterprises have three types of languages: corporate, working and local.
Corporate languages are the official ones, the ones used for press releases for example. Some companies have up to 4 or 5 corporate languages. The working language is the one used horizontally across the enterprise, for example the one used by senior and middle managers for reporting, and by R&D engineers, experts and other managers for collaboration. Local languages are those used by employees in their “home environment” among colleagues in the same physical location.

Reality 2: One country does not equal one local language.
Some countries have more than one language, and many “share” the same language, even if there are significant differences. It’s useful to draw a language map of your enterprise, basing it on “comfortable” or “generic” languages. For example Dutch people are usually very comfortable in English, as are many Scandinavians and eastern Europeans. People in France, Canada, Morocco and other countries mutually use and understand what is in reality a hybrid, generic French.

Reality 3: Different languages are used for different purposes.
Look at the different types of content you have in your intranet: news, strategic messages, HR policies, product and sales information to name a few. Then look at the different users of this information: client-facing employees, internal communities across the company, employees in manufacturing facilities and so on. Build a matrix comparing type of content and usage with type of language (corporate, working or local), then add the dimension of “as is today” and “target” for what you would like to achieve.

Reality 4: Not all content merits the same quality of translation.
Criteria to take into account are: How critical is the content? Is it time-sensitive? Who needs it? Will it change soon? The more critical it is and/or the longer it is valid and/or the more people who need it, the more you can justify doing a high quality translation. If it is of interest to a small group, and/or may change soon and/or is not business critical, it is acceptable to use approximate translations, or let employers use automated translation tools on the intranet to get the general meaning.

You now have a starting point for determining what should be translated into which languages and with what degree of quality.

Reality 5: Localization and translation are different.
Distinguish between adapting content and changing the language. A message from the CEO will not be localized. It will flow from Corporate Communications to employees through carefully controlled translations. However, a new travel policy may be defined and published by HQ, then sent to the business groups who may contextualize it to make it relevant to their organizations, job titles, and so on. It may then be sent to country HR teams who will adapt it based on local travel contexts (distances, air and rail infrastructures) and translate it into the local language. The key here is to make sure your process specifies who is responsible for contextualization and/or translation at each point.

Reality 6: Hot news defies the most well thought-out strategies!
Is it better to get it out in English first, then, publish the corporate language translations as they are done? Or is it better to wait until the item is translated into the relevant languages, then publish worldwide simultaneously? The jury is still out on this one, and companies make different decisions usually depending on the nature and urgency of the announcement.

My overall advice is to set up a cross-company working group to look at these issues within your own enterprise, and to come up with several working hypotheses that you can then analyze from both technology, financial and organizational viewpoints. Be aware that you will probably need to adjust your strategy as your business and operational contexts evolve.

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This post is adapted from an article first published in Intranets Today where I write the column International Intranets. Paid subscription required to access articles ($170 for one year).

Applications open for the 2008 Global Intranet & Portal Strategies Survey

I am taking applications in advance this year from organisations who would like to participate in the 2008 3rd annual Global Intranet & Portal Strategies Survey.

The 2008 survey dates are not yet set, but it will take place approximately between July and September.

178 organisations from around the world participated in 2007, up from 101 in 2006.

What's involved: You'll spend about 45 - 60 minutes filling out an online survey form (designed so that you can do it in several non consecutive sessions).

In exchange, you'll receive a free copy of the final report (Global Intranet Trends). The 2007 reports are described on our web site, and you can download the tables of contents to see the points covered in the Global Intranet Trends and Global Intranet Analysis reports.

You can also download a number of articles written and presentations given over 2007 based on the survey results. Please note that all participation is anonymous, and no organisation is ever identified in the reports.

Qualifications for 2008 participant:

• You may be any type of organisation (from multinational company to government agency to NGO) but you must participate using your organisational email (no gmails, hotmails, etc.).
• You may be any size of organisation, but you must be the person who has some degree of responsibility for the intranet or portal. This is not an end-user survey.

2008 enhancements:

• We will be doing more segmented, comparative analysis based on size and type of organisations than in previous years.
• Specific subjects will be more detailed than previously based on feedback from both participants and readers. Examples: languages, governance, user architecture, social networks.

Signing up:
To sign up for the 2008 survey, just send me an email telling me the name of your organisation, how many employees you have, your web site URL, your name and role or title. Contact details.

And of course, do not hesitate to get in touch if you have comments or suggestions for the 2008 survey. We are open to all suggestions!

Strategic intranet management as a leadership task

That very impressive title was created by Stephen Schillerwein who asked me to participate in the Swiss Intranet Summit in Zurich from 7 to 8 May. Although the conference is primarily in German there will some English-language speakers including myself (speaking on the 8th).

I plan to cover the following points during the 30 minute slot:

What does intranet leadership mean today in organisations where globalisation, 2.0 and new ways of working are impacting what people do and need?

• Strategy documents: scope and impact
• Decision-making bodies: why and how
• Measuring: techniques and indicators

Views from the field and data from the 2007 Global Intranet Strategies Survey of 178 organisations around the world.

Data from the 2007 Global Intranet Survey and the lessons learned and anecdotes contributed (anonymously) by the survey participants offer lots of leads on this subject.

Intranet leadership will hopefully one day be considered a highly strategic job in organisations, one that impacts how the company works, communicates and creates value for their customers.
I'll soon be starting to solicit suggestions about areas to focus on in the 2008 survey, and think that governance and approaches to decision-making will be an area that deserves special attention.

Why IBF 24 and what are the challenges? Interview with Paul Miller

I'll be attending IBF 24 decided to check with with Paul Miller, IBF founder, to see his views on this event, which is both highly visible in the intranet world and carries a certain number of risks. Any worldwide event conducted online has risks, as companies who did "worldwide jams" for the first time several years ago will tell you.

Virtual working is coming into its own now, and companies who have been doing it for a number of years will tell you that the sooner you start, the better. It takes time, motivation and a major culture shift for it to work effectively. It's much more than just learning to use the tools - it's how well you use them and how optimised the overall environment is for using them. By environment I mean the human, social aspects of the new way of working.

I had the opportunity to do a fair amount of work in Finland 6 or 7 years ago and found that my clients there were very sophisticated in their usage of virtual meeting tools. I participated in a number of meetings and workshops that were completely virtual and very effective, sometimes more than had they met in person.

Companies who have not yet experienced this way of working will soon find themselves pulled into experimenting with it. The simple benefits of less personal travelling, better-prepared meetings, and participating in a more environment-friendly way of working will make it worthwhile for many. A word of caution, however: virtual meetings don't work for all purposes and they don't work by themselves.

In the meantime, here's what Paul has to say. Feel free to comment and ask questions here on this blog. Even better, share some of your own experiences about virtual meetings.
If you want more informatiIBF 24 web site, click herek here for details on timing and cost for participants.

JMC: What made you decide to organise IBF 24?

PM: I believe that face to face public meetings and conferences are exhausted as a format for sharing intranet insights and best practice. I also believe that we are at an early development stage in terms of using and exploiting online collaboration and meeting tools. IBF 24 also felt innovative and different.

JMC: In your opinion, what are the top 2 or 3 benefits someone will get from participating in this event?

PM: A unique insight into multiple intranets live, in a way that you could not experience at a typical conference. A carbon neutral way of learning and connecting and a chance to connect globally with an advanced intranet group without leaving your desk.

JMC: What are your success criteria - or rather - how will you know if IBF 24 has been a success?

PM: At least several hundred people attending at any one time during the 24 hour period. A sense of excitement and innovation during the event. A good deal of feedback from attendees that this was not simply an alternative to a face to face conference, but a new distinctive conference format.

JMC: Will people who understand English but are not native speakers be able to "follow the action"?

PM: I hope so. We will have people attending throughout the world including many countries in Asia and so we plan to pace the communication for a non English speaking audience.

JMC: What do you think are the biggest challenges facing intranet managers in global organisations today?

PM: Biggest challenges would be:
integrating a myriad of different applications and systems into a unified user experience behind the firewall.
dealing with the increasing demands that organisations place on what are still relatively small intranet teams.
integrating and harnessing Web 2.0 applications in a way that is both useful and manageable for the organisation.

JMC: Any last comments you'd like to make?

PM: I would say that IBF 24 is an experiment. We are at the early stages of learning how to meet and connect online, whereas the face to face meeting format has been in existence for several hundred years. We need to experiment, be patient and see what is possible. Fortunately, these tools are developing just at a time when the carbon impact of wasted time and wasted travel is rising up all our agendas.

International community of practice for online media - J.Boye

Tomorrow I'll be talking to the members of the intranet section of the community of practice for online media organised by J.Boye. The session will take place in Vienna, and group a select number of international company intranet managers. There is also a section for internet managers who will be in Vienna at the same time. You can contact Peter Erik Bang Nissen  at info@jboye.dk for more information.

It's more and more relevant to handle "online" issues in the same forum as teams are becoming merged, at least for some of their activities. Companies are looking at using the same tools - at least for some functions.

Here is a snapshot of the page from the 2007 Global Intranet Trends report called "the reality of the company net".

Intranet and managing customer complaints - good for productivity and company culture

An article has been published about Siemens Building Technology: "Siemens BT Improves Global Productivity, Corporate Culture with Internal HR Complaints Tracking" that shows how managing customer complaints on the intranet (using a specific application) not only increases productivity but helps form the company culture. (Although the article is written by the software solution provider, it is not too commercial in style.)

Quotes from the article:

"In a company as distributed, dynamic and expansive as BT, employee productivity and corporate excellence hinge on effective internal communications. "In any large organization, there’s a gap between who wants to know something and who knows it," said John O’Sullivan, Program Manager for Complaints Management. "There’s a lot of internal movement, and when those with specific knowledge move to another position, they often create a missing link in the knowledge chain."

"Before, we just heard about complaints, but couldn’t measure or formally address them. Maybe everyone was experiencing the same problems but not communicating them globally," O’Sullivan said. "i-Sight makes it really transparent to see complaints, to understand them and measure them."

"Complaint management is an efficiency driver," he said. "We’re changing the culture and philosophy toward complaints, putting the focus on complaints as an opportunity to improve."