Globally local - locally global

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.

"Evolving towards the intranet-enabled online workplace" Munich, 24 Sept

I'll be joining one of the J.Boye communities of practice in Munich on September 24th. This international group is one of the many CoPs run by J.Boye. (More information here.)

I have entitled my talk ""Evolving towards the intranet-enabled online workplace".
It is clear that intranets are changing. I see evidence of this everywhere I go. I have had two large global organizations on the telephone in the last 2 weeks, and both are facing challenges of how to transform their intranets into effective, online workplaces.

They both realize that a large part of this is getting the balance right between global requirements and local requirements. I'll rephrase that to say "getting the balance right between common requirements and specific requirements." I wrote about this earlier in the year: "Intranet purpose: 3 angles".

Practically speaking, many intranet managers today have to reconcile two strong strategy drivers that collide with each other. The first is the "common culture, shared vision" corporate communication departments strive to build, especially during times of radical change such as what is happening currently in many organizations. The second is the "now and fast" needs expressed by local business units, always under operational pressures.

Transforming intranets into online workplaces, or even simply making them the "front door" into online workplaces requires making certain strategic decisions and bringing these decisions to life in organizations where day-to-day activities take precedence over stepping back and taking time to think.

It also involves either making collaboration part of the intranet, or at the very least, positioning it within the online workplace with a user-centric logic.

Points I will cover in my talk:

• How can the intranet/portal be positioned in the online workplace?

• Definitions: Online workplace, intranet, portal
• Three models: diverse, hybrid, unified
• What is included in the intranet and/or the online workplace?
• Strategy process: more than just paper

• Defining the role of the intranet/portal

• Mission statement: getting a real one - the process
• Making it live: see it, hear it, breathe it

• Collaboration: where and how does it fit into the online workplace?

• Definitions: teams, communities
• Where should team and community sites be placed?
• How should they be owned and managed?

I'm looking forward very much to discussions with the members of the J. Boye CoP next week, and hope to challenge them and that they will challenge me.

Note: It is possible for non-members to be invited to attend one CoP meeting as a guest before deciding to join. There is information on pricing and membership options on this page.
(Disclaimer: I am not a member of J.Boye but work with them frequently in their CoPs and conferences as a speaker and workshop leader.)

A valuable strategic asset

I'm looking for as many Intranet Awards as I can find.

If you have one in your country or an international one, or even an intra-enterprise one, please get in touch.

I want to publicise these awards, and understand what the criteria are for winning! I want to get the best ones on to the decision-makers' radar.
What makes an intranet business critical?
How can we make the intranet part of the strategic assets of an organization that should be considered when evaluating the value of an enterprise?

Here we go, chronologically...with the awards I know:

The oldest, to my knowledge, started in 2001 and is run by the usability guru team at Nielsen Norman:
Best Intranet Design. It awards the intranets which have outstanding design and usability. (I'm pleased to say that one of my global clients won this a few years ago!)

Another one started in 2007: Step Two Design's Intranet Innovation Awards. I especially like this one because it does not attempt to evaluate the "whole intranet" (which I personally find impossible to do in the case of global organizations), but rather looks at specific innovations within the intranet.
The goal is to "celebrate new ideas and innovative approaches to the design and delivery of intranets and find these ideas (whether large or small), and to share them with the wider community."

(Disclaimer: I am one of the judges for Intranet Innovation Awards.)

I have recently become aware of the Intranet Portal Award in Brazil, starting in 2008, organized by the Intranet Portal Institute. Its goal is to recognise portals that "facilitate access to information and knowledge which has become a necessity for those who want to be competitive in a networked economy". I love this ambition for an intranet/portal award. Very business-focused!

I know there are other awards in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Switzerland, but I don't have the specific information or links. Please send them to me. I'd like to interview you about the details.

If you organize or are aware of other intranet awards, please get in touch.

We all need to work together to bring intranets up to the decision-maker radar, which is where they belong by definition!

Web Workplace - a new word for intranet?

We need to find a new word for "intranet".
Why? Because we need to wake people up, lose the "dead weight" we have with the word "intranet", help people - especially top management - focus on why intranets are business critical.

I turned to the members of NetJMC & Co, the Intranet manager group I run on Linkedin (over 300 members around the globe), and asked them the following...

"The word "intranet" is out-of-date in my opinion. I'm often asked how I defined "intranet" for the Global Intranet Strategies Survey, and I confess it is getting harder and harder to have a meaningful definition.
I'm considering concepts like "the intranet-enabled workplace" or the "web-enabled workplace" or the "connected workplace".
I need to find a phrase that embraces all the things intranets do (or could do) for people and for business.
Can you help me find a phrase or word for this?
Ideally we need a term or phrase that also speaks to senior management. "

Here's the brainstorm that resulted from my question:

• Web office
• Online office
• Online interactive workspace
• Online workspace
• Online interactive website
• Online desktop
• Online workplace
• My workplace available anytime anywere
• Employee Connected Office
• Collaborative Employee Workspace
• Mobile workspace
• My deskspace
• Workspace anywhere
• Employee Portal
• Resource and Collaboration Portal
• Communications and information mangement platform / portal
• Workplace Web - getting business done - Together
• Company information, news and collaboration portal
• Workplace Channel
• Communication and Information Channel
• Workplace Connections
• Web Workplace
• My Collective and Personal Workplace
• Adaptive Workplace
• Intranet Portal
• Workbench
• Online-Desktop

My personal favourite from this list is the Web Workplace. I like it because:

• It is not limited to internal, and expresses the business need to provide workspaces for mixed teams (internal + external)
• It focuses on work, business, what people need to do.
• It can be abbreviated into WW!

I sent out a message on Twitter about my preference, and got the following responses:

Response: "Web workplace. Not bad, but doesn't really indicate anything internal, to me. Or was that intentional?"
JMC - YES, that is part of the intention!

Response: A "Web workplace" is for Digital Nomads & is intra-extra-internet enabled.
JMC - Exactly!

Response: "Doesn't get my vote definitely needs to be a one word solution for me"
JMC - I agree, but what...???

Response: "I like it"
JMC - Me too!

Response: "Not sure if i agree with the "web" part... in my company we are creating a new "intranet" based on a RIA application"
JMC - Good point. Could you elaborate a little?

So, the conversation is not yet finished.....

Please give me your ideas on this. I feel it is really an important issue and can be part of the solution for making intranets more meaningful and visible to management, and thereby better resourced and supported in general.
What are your favourites from the list above? Do you have other words to suggest?
- - -

P.S. If you're an intranet manager and haven't yet joined NetJMC & Co, drop me an email or click here to request membership: http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/1360277

Intranet managers Linkedin group update

We started at around 40 intranet managers as of Sunday evening, and have built a community of exactly 111 intranet mangers around the world in just 3 days. Thanks to all of you who have joined Net JMC & Co.

If you've just joined, please start a discussion on a topic that interests you. Or post updates on the intranet scene near you.

If you're an intranet manager anywhere in the world, consider signing up. It's a Linkedin group and if you don''t already have a Linkedin account you can sign up here (it's free).

If you do, click here to request membership.

The ambition of this group is to become the intranet manager's place to share "peer-to-peer" on a global scale (no vendors, no agencies, no solution providers).

I'd like to point out at the same time that there are already two well-established communities that have a broader membership. All intranet professionals are welcome to join these groups: intranet managers, consultants, agencies, vendors, .... These groups are very useful and I am a member of both.

Intranet Professionals (Linkedin group)
Intranet Global Forum (Facebook)

Hope to see you on Net JMC & Co soon!

Linkedin global community for intranet managers: NetJMC & Co

NetJMC & Co was created several weeks ago by an intranet manager after discussion with a group of other intranet managers at a recent JMC intranet breakfast in Paris. They decided there should be an online space for informal, peer-to-peer networking among intranet managers. (No vendors nor agencies.)

I agreed to take over management of this virtual group which has grown to over 40 members in different countries in 10 days. The range of organizations and county locations is broad, and we're hoping it will grow fast! English will be the primary language but there can also be discussions in French, and why not other languages too if there are members who so wish.

If you're an intranet manager anywhere in the world, drop me a line, or request to join at this link.
(You need to be a member of Linkedin, which is free. You can sign up at the same link.)

The group is restricted to intranet managers, so be sure your Linkedin profile indicates your job role or drop me an email and introduce yourself.

- - - - - -
I'll use this post to also point out two other global intranet networking groups that exist, both of which I have joined and recommend. They are complementary to NetJMC & Co, and you should check them out too. Intranet Professionals is also a Linkedin group. It was created and is managed by Anne Mitchell. It is an open group where any intranet professional can join. There are interesting discussions and contacts to be made in the broad "ecosystem" around intranets. This is also the case with the Intranet Global Forum on Facebook, created by Toby Ward. Lots of contacts and a broad range of people.
- - - - -

Hope to see you at NetJMC & Co. Get in touch if you have any questions.

Intranetwatch Twitter group - new page with instructions

If you're interested in the new Twitter group "Intranetwatch", see this explanatory page about how to join. For people in the group already, please send your intranet comments, questions, links etc. using the Direct Message function on the Intranetwatch Twitter page.

Update on Intranetwatch Twitter group

I believe the group is correctly configured. We'll see over the next few days. Here is how it works:
1. You need a Twitter account
2. Then you need to "follow"' the Intranetwatch Twitter group.
3. It is a protected group, so I need to OK your request to follow. Once I've done that, you're part of the group.
4. You can then send your questions, comments, links, etc. about intranets to the Intranetwatch group, and hopefully others will respond, answer, twit back...

Remember to keep the twits to this group strictly related to intranet issues.
Let me know if any of you have problems - this is an experiment, and may take a few days to tweak!

Many thanks to the pioneers who joined over August (to whom I just now responded) and those who joined over last night (following my blog post of yesterday). I bet this group will get to be quite big, and a good resource for intranet managers when you need to find something, ask a quick question, make a connection with other intranet managers who have challenges similar to yours.

P.S. to Lack of online talkspace for intranet managers

Following my post of a few minutes ago, here is a perfect example of someone wanting to exchange ideas with other intranet managers around the world.

The question asked by Dorje (posted on my blog as a comment, and therefore not very visible to others) is a great example of how intranet managers could benefit from an international, online talkspace:

"My comment is related to the Survey 2007 and your posting regarding the titles that those looking after the intranet have.
At a recent Intranet conference I was at much of the talk amongst the speakers was around how we describe what we do. That the word intranet isn't, for many of us, broad enough in scope to encompass what we do.
The term landscape you used is a very interesting one. As was the title "Director, Workplace Strategy & Enablement : Total Workplace Experience CoE".

Do you, or any of the other readers, know of  ideas in this space? Specifically around how intranet folks are attempting to describe the role they play within organisations ?
As always many thanks for sharing your knowledge with the community. Even those of us in the most Southern Pacific ;-)"

"

Lack of online "talkspace" for intranet managers

In his recent comment about grassroots intranet groups, Frank Hamm asks me a question:

"Jane, there really is the need for communications on intranet topics. So far by now there exist quite some blogs for these topics but I don't know of a place where discussions on intranets happen.Do you know of or have a proposition for an international and open platform (like a forum) where intranet managers could share their thoughts?"

My answer is no, I don't know of an online place where intranet managers around the world discuss together.

I think there could well be a need for such a place. The success criteria I seen for this are:

1. International participation
2. A few key facilitators from different countries to stimulate the conversations when necessary
3. No commercial pitches from consultants or solution providers.
4. A technology that enables a little structuring but lots of freedom - structure so that conversations can evolve around topics, and freedom so that participants can bring up whatever is on their minds.

Some questions:
Would people join or could anyone participate?
Would people be asked to identify themselves or would there be screen-names or anonymous participation?
What kind of platform would be suitable, who would set it up and maintain it?

These are some first thoughts - what do others think?

Grassroots Intranet Groups - Let's GIG!

Thanks to all the additions about other Grassroots Intranet Groups.   I'll collect the information together shortly and do a summary post.

Then, hopefully, three things will happen:

1. People with blogs will link to the list so that the word spreads
2. Groups will come out from other parts of the world and make themselves known
3. Regions where there are no GIGs will be inspired to start one

By the way, I just created a new category for my blog - "GIG - Grassroots Intranet Groups". If you like it, feel free to use it on yours.

Intranet grassroots groups - German, Switzerland and the UK - there must be more!!

I'm in regular touch with people involved in  intranets grassroots groups (my post from Aug 1 "To all intranet managers - things are getting better, aren't they?"  encouraged some readers to report back on grassroots intranet organisations in their countries. By grassroots, I mean groups that are relatively informal, organised by intranet managers themselves, possibly facilitated or led by a consultancy, but if so, not as money-making ventures.

In the UK - From Rod McLean – Intranet Manager: Centrica plc:

I think that there is a growing Intranet Managers ‘community’ in the UK, but like all worthwhile ventures, they tend to be borne from the grassroots. Certainly, after attending many ‘corporate’ seminars, I became so overwhelmed with PowerPoints of other people’s intranet that in conjunction with another likeminded individual, we set up a very informal group called the ‘Intranetters’ which is mainly based in the South East UK.
The main aim is visit other peoples offices to see their intranets (how hard is that normally!). The only rule is that the meetings are obviously held under confidential terms, and that we each take it in turns to host a session. People get to see other intranets, the host gets to have some free benchmarking/feedback, we all share in potential ideas that we can ‘adapt’ for our own use, or advise on pitfalls that we have already encountered.
Aswell as the sessions we have a mailing list that often acts as a ‘support’ line whereby members can discuss topics or even ask for specific help, which is often given depending upon what is asked for and aslong as its not commercially inappropriate to do so. I asked for help the other week and within hours I links to various documents and website that could help me on the way to solving my issue (is this Knowledge Management in action?)

There are also some technology specific ‘communities’ too that can be worth seeking out. We currently run MS SharePoint as our platform, so the UK SharePoint User group often has some helpful content.

In Germany - our man on the spot... Frank Hamm

Intranet Managers in Germany more and more get connected to each other. I'm a member of a working team that shares experiences across company "borders" and meets every 3 months. Having started with one team in the Rhein-Main-Area in December 2006 now there are 4 teams initiated by a consultant company. This month we will go online in our own community.

Another one in Germany from Stephan Schillerwein

There's one more Networking Group in Germany that I also know of : the intranet brunch in Frankfurt

Switzerland - our man on the spot ... Stephan Schillerwein

- Swiss SharePoint Club: a real grassroots movement that of course is a bit more technology oriented  It's also a great example how to master the challenge of setting up a community in a multi-lingual enviroment (German/French).
- Stimmt Intranet Breakfast: organized twice a year by the consultancy Stimmt in Zurich
Furthermore I know of several companies in Switzerland that would be interested in more frequent and more regional activities for intranet managers. If anyone else is interested, I'd be happy to get you in contact.

What about other countries?
What about India, China, Australia, New Zealand, Africa, South America, the Middle East and on and on. Please forgive me if I have not mentioned your part of the world, and if you have an intranet group, club, informal  network going, and would like to tell us about it, please speak up.

Either post a comment, or send me an email and I'll add you to our list.

My dream is for the intranet grassroots groups to grow and to communicate among themselves.