Intranets
May 17, 2010: Time is (still) money: Time for intranet leadership employee productivity (Part 2)May 09, 2010: Time is (still) money: increasing employee productivity (Part 1)
May 03, 2010: How to measure the success of your intranet
June 22, 2009: Intranet offers bright future for internal communicators
How to manage an intranet
December 15, 2008: Traditional managers often lack the skills required to understand if an intranet is successful or not. More
Fixing appalling intranet search
May 19, 2008: Intranet search is appalling because people don't want their content to get found, and the organization does not value the importance of finding. More
Intranets are not information dumps
May 12, 2008: The first step in creating a genuinely useful intranet is to ban the intranet team from using the word "information". More
Google is good but it's not God
March 17, 2008: Installing Google for your public website or intranet does not replace the need for professional management. More
Finding people: top task on the Web
March 10, 2008: The Web is supposed to replace manual service with self-service, but sometimes our number one task on a website is to find someone to talk to. More
Web customer rejects silo mentality
November 19, 2007: Organizations have an overwhelming desire to own and control. Even within organizations, each unit/department is constantly trying to prove that it is important. More
Intranet personalization: does it work?
September 10, 2007: The theory of intranet personalization is wonderful. The practice is generally woeful: hugely expensive implementations that totally fail; massive maintenance overheads and very little employee uptake. More
Intranet managers, don't lose hope
September 03, 2007: In the historical context of the organization, the intranet is definitely the new kid on the block. Properly managed, the future for intranets is very bright indeed. More
Intranets: getting senior management's attention
August 27, 2007: If the intranet is to show genuine value to the organization, it must prove that it is increasing productivity and reducing costs. More
Intranets: what staff really want
August 20, 2007: Staff overwhelmingly want a better organized intranet where they can quickly find people, policies and procedures, and forms. More
The future is collaborative
March 12, 2006: The network rewards collaborators and punishes hoarders. The Web rewards those who are generous and punishes those who are mean. More
Why intranet search fails
December 04, 2006: Intranet search performs miserably because most organizations do not properly manage their content. More
Intranets not realizing productivity gains
November 27, 2006: The intranet is still in its infancy. It has not yet exploited its potential for creating value for the organization, according to the 2006 Global Intranet Strategies Survey. More
Intranets must be task-centric
October 02, 2006:An organization-centric intranet is departmental-based. A staff-centric intranet is task-based. Organization-centric intranets fail. Task-centric intranets succeed. Here's why. More
And the killer content for an intranet is …
August 07, 2006: Who's who? More than anything else, staff want to get in touch with other staff. Most organizations are poor at facilitating such interactions. More
Websites are self-service not organization-service
February 13, 2006: The organizations that love to use their intranets and public websites to tell things to staff and customers will fail. Web success is about empowering staff and customers to serve themselves. More
Why is corporate communications seen as fluffy?
October 10, 2005: In many organizations, corporate communications doesn’t get a lot of respect. The intranet gives a rare opportunity for corporate communications to get the respect it deserves. More
Key benefits of a single intranet or public website August 01, 2005: A single website is more connected and credible. It is more consistent and cost effective. It is easier to manage and measure. More
Make sure your intranet is well perceived by staff May 30, 2005: Many intranets are only now beginning to show their true potential. However, many staff, having had unsatisfactory previous experiences of the intranet, may need quite some convincing that the intranet is now genuinely useful. More
Web content management is not data management
May 23, 2005: Web content management and data/document management require very different approaches. Data management is about storage; web content management is about using content to make the sale, deliver the service, and build the brand. More
Intranets: strategy first, usability second
March 07, 2005: More and more intranet teams are buying into the need for usability. However, usability is not a strategy, and without a clear strategy, usability can become a pointless, wasteful and counter-productive exercise. More
Is communications up to running intranet?
February 28, 2005: The natural home of the intranet is in communications. However, intranet management requires particular skills that many traditional communications departments don’t have. More
The intranet gets serious: Part 4: if you can't measure it, you can't manage it
December 08, 2003: Intranets don't self-organize. Without planned, centralized information architectures and clearly defined published processes, they become unproductive. Intranets often have applications that either don't work properly, are too difficult to learn, or have no clear business benefit. Applications, like content, must be able to establish a clear return on investment. More
The intranet gets serious: Part 3: publish what you can manage
December 01, 2003 : There is a view in some organizations that an intranet is only for staff, so you can publish what you want. Quality content matters as much on an intranet as on a public website. Get your content right to begin with. Keep it right by removing out-of-date content. More
The intranet gets serious: Part 2: making knowledge sharing work
November 24, 2003 : The intranet is beginning to restructure the organization in more ways than one. Content is now an asset, and the people who manage it need to treat it as such. Managing editors, and their team, understand how technology can facilitate effective publishing, collaboration and self-service focused application development. More
The intranet gets serious: Part 1
November 17, 2003 : Finally, organizations are getting serious about how they manage their intranets. The intranet is now moving out of an evolutionary, experimental phase into a more systematic, managed phase. It is being seen as an asset, a driver of productivity. However, return on investment measurement for the intranet still requires a lot of work. More
Intranet communication versus traditional communication
November 25, 2002: A way to measure return on investment (ROI) for your intranet is to answer two basic questions. How does the intranet increase the level and quality of communication? How does it replace traditional forms of communication? To develop such an ROI model, you need to be clear on the current level and type of communication within your organization. More
Intranet return on investment case studies
November 18, 2002: An intranet can deliver return on investment (ROI) by either reducing the cost, or expanding the ability, to communicate. By shifting manual processes to the intranet, the cost of accessing and processing information is reduced. The intranet speedily delivers information to large numbers of people. This gives the organization a greater capacity to change. More
How to demonstrate your intranet delivers value
November 11, 2002: The days of having an intranet just because "it's a good idea" are over. As a manager, you need to deliver hard data that justifies investment in your intranet. You need to show that a dollar spent on your intranet will deliver more value that a dollar spent elsewhere. Otherwise, your budget will shrink. More
The lifecycle of intranets
July 15, 2002: Intranets have defined lifecycles. Starting usually with the lone evangelist, they can quickly grow to a point where small intranets are sprouting up everywhere around the organization. With this tremendous growth come problems of manageability. Navigation becomes difficult. Content goes out-of-date. Decisions made at this stage will define whether the intranet will mature or decline. More
