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.

Comments

[Janus Boye]

How about investing in training as well as networking, e.g. connecting with other intranet professionals.
A benchmarking exercise will also be valuable for years.
Dare I say SharePoint ?

[Jane McConnell]

Hi Janus,
Thanks for your comments. Some questions and reactions:

1. Training for whom?

2. Networking among intranet professional: this is excellent for the intranet pros themselves and good long term value for the enterprise if it is the type of company where people stay for a fairly long time. When I see how often intranet managers change from year to year in my survey population, I realize there are fundamental problems in the job itself! Not sure networking is the answer....(sigh, sigh)

3. Benchmarking: this is not something I really believe in. The only way it might help is to do it in detail with very similar organizations. Otherwise, I find it to be primarily a vanity exercise, or an activity carried out to prove something, e.g. show your senior management how the intranet is getting better.

I find it much more positive to do what I call "self2self" benchmarking, using very specific business indicators.

[James Robertson]

I'm doubtful about tagging! Hasn't this proven to be a fad, and we've now moved on to "social media"? ;-)

I would argue that business solutions like those delivered by the intranet team at BA provide long-term value, perhaps far in excess of managing content.

These can easily become core to the way staff work, saving millions, improving productivity, and enhancing customer service...

Cheers, James

[Janus Boye]

I was thinking about training for the intrant team, e.g. in writing for the intranet, in project management, in better usage of tools etc.

Perhaps you can explain what you mean by "Information life cycles" ?

[twitter.com/Risgaard]

This may sound old but...: Search. It ought to be a part of any decent intranet, but too many still neglect this. On ever growing intranets the ability to find relevant information is key.

[Jane McConnell]

Thanks for all your comments.

James, you say "I'm doubtful about tagging! Hasn't this proven to be a fad, and we've now moved on to "social media"? ;-)"

For me, tagging by staff (= end-users, not publishers) is an integral part of social media. Letting people "classify" what they read, in their own terms.

Janus, you ask "Perhaps you can explain what you mean by "Information life cycles" ?"

Many enterprises have not made a clear call on whether intranets should provide "archiving" services or just offer up-to-date information. How far back should intranet content go? Should staff be able to look up reference documents or news from the past? Or should this be removed from the intranet? Obviously this depends on the nature of the content, and the historical or reference value of the content. Who decides? What are the criteria?

Martin: you say "On ever growing intranets the ability to find relevant information is key."

I absolutely agree, and think this is one of the most critical functions of an intranet. Personally, I believe that social tagging will make information more findable. But I have no "proof" to back this up, yet! What do you think?