Is It Time For Your Intranets Annual Performance Review?

8th July, 2010 - Posted By Sean R. Nicholson - 7 Comments

It never ceases to amaze me how few people trust their organizational intranets. A tool that was designed specifically for the purpose of helping employees do their job better and faster is often the joke of the water cooler. Yet organizations knowingly ignore the fact that employees don’t use or trust the information stored on their intranet.

Periodically, I have the great opportunity to sit in front of a group of employees and ask them about their intranet experiences. Often, it’s in anticipation of an intranet revamp, so the need for a “do-over” or an evolution has already been defined at some level. While the individual users and comments might be different, they usually go start with something like this:

Turn Your Intranet Into A Clown College

26th January, 2010 - Posted By Sean R. Nicholson - No Comments

As Intranet Professionals, think about whether your Intranet is being used to encourage new ideas. Do you have a campaign asking employees to behave like clowns? Do you have an idea center where employees can submit their ideas and vote on those that they feel would be valuable? Are your executives open to new ideas and are they actively encouraging innovation?

Intranet Tip – Weak Passwords Jeopardize Organizational Security

27th November, 2009 - Posted By Sean R. Nicholson - 1 Comment

As the centralized point of access to organizational information, your Intranet portal may also represent a potential security risk. This is especially true if your portal is accessible to employees via the Internet. If your Intranet authentication is tied to your Active Directory or LDAP, be sure to put policies in place that ensure that your employees change their passwords on a periodic basis. In addition, be sure to encourage (or require) employees to use “strong” passwords, that are comprised of a combination of alpha characters, numbers, symbols and mixed cases.

99 Great Intranet Resources – Sean’s Intranet Twitter List

1st November, 2009 - Posted By Sean R. Nicholson - 1 Comment

Check out this list of 99 great Intranet resources that I added to my Intranet list on Twitter! If you’re looking for Intranet resources to follow, these are your folks!

Intranet Best Practices – Creating an Intranet Governance Team

26th October, 2009 - Posted By Angela Cullen - 3 Comments

When developing your Intranet, it’s best not to develop in a vacuum. You may not be the best person to make decisions on how employees will use the intranet to do their job. Be sure to identify employees that will be involved in the maintenance of the portal and get everyone involved in the design process. Create an Intranet Governance Council that will include at least one member from each department throughout your company. Bigger departments might have 2 or 3. Let the members of the governance council represent their department and tell you what employees in their department need to be able to do their job more efficiently.