Sean R. Nicholson

There are a lot of great Intranet-focused resources on the Web, but they are scattered across a wide variety of sites. In an effort to bring those resources together in a common place, Angie Cullen and I have put together the beginning of an Intranet Wiki with links to a broad range of resources.

This tool is in its infancy, and we’d love to have your contributions and input to make it one of the best Intranet tools on the Web. Know of a good resource? Share it with us! Know of an upcoming event or a great Intranet tweeter? We want to add it!

Let us know what you think about the tool and how we can make it a useful tool for Intranet professionals! The more collaboration we get around this tool, the better it will be come. Feel free to spread the word about this great new tool so we can get as much input as possible!

We have added an “IntraWiki” link to our to navigation for easy access from any page on the site.

I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts/comments.

–Sean

Sean R. Nicholson

About a year ago, I had a conversation with a then SocialMediaphobe who tried to convince me that social media was a fad that had no future in the workplace. His argument was that Facebook was too personal and Twitter too truncated to ever offer any value to business culture. I tried to convince him that, like all emerging technologies, social media was still finding its place in the workplace, but it was slowly, almost imperceptibly changing the way we communicate. His response was to try to dissuade me by saying “it’s just a bunch of people talking about what they ate for breakfast.”

As I look back the amazing strides social media has taken in the last year, even I’m amazed. The importance of short, meaningful messages tugged at my heartstrings as major news outlets like CNN and MSNBC relied on Tweets from survivors of the tragic earthquake in Haiti to keep us informed. YouTube has become the second largest search engine in the world (arguably the largest content engine), and Facebook continues to grow at astonishing rates, becoming one of the largest photo repositories on the Web.

Yet, somehow….corporate executives continue to ignore social media like it’s going to go away. These social media ostriches often argue that Social Media is a “B to C” (business to consumer) activity, meaning that businesses can only use it to market directly to consumers. They argue that companies selling “B to B” (business to business) can’t effectively leverage social media, because it’s the wrong market and businesses don’t pay attention to social media.

Little do they understand that businesses are not faceless organisms that make decisions without human input. On the contrary, business decisions are influenced by people and made by people, making “B to B” marketing almost irrelevant in a world where social media dominates the conversation. Executives need to understand that consumers of all type rely on product advice gained from other consumers, and the value of marketing Web sites that expound on the value of their product is diminishing. Need more convincing? Take a look at the Answers section of LinkedIn and you’ll find thousands of professionals (working for businesses) asking for recommendations on ECM, CRM, Intranet, and back office software. Yes…they even ask for advice on what blogging and social media platforms to use.

A shining example of a “B to B” corporate executive leveraging social media is Carolyn Douglas, the CEO of Intranet Connections. Her passion about Intranets, collaboration, best practices, and social media are evident in her blogs and tweets. Her thought leadership in the Intranet industry influences her peers, colleagues and customers on a daily basis. She demonstrates that although her business is technically “B to B”, her social media communication is aimed at interacting with people.

Great examples of executive leadership can be found in the “B to C” markets, as well. Just look at leaders like Marc Cenedella of TheLadders.com or Bill Marriot of Marriot Hotels. Each has established a meaningful blog and/or twitter presence that educates the public on topics ranging from interviewing tips to downtown revitalization efforts. Both activities are ancillary to their business, but provide meaning to their readers. The effect of the trust they earn from their readers is often carried over to the brand the represent.

And product marketing is just the tip of the iceberg when looking for social media opportunity. The value of collaborative activities inside your organization can justify an investment relatively quickly. You see, your employees are people, and people like to share. They share their stories, experiences, and knowledge. They talk around the water cooler, at the coffee pot, and at their cubes. At work, they feel valued and important when another employee is able to use a past experience to solve a problem. They get frustrated when they discover that the knowledge in their head could have been useful to another employee in a previous experience.  It’s the age-old knowledge management problem. How do you get the knowledge out of your employees heads and into a media that can be shared and leveraged by other employees?

The answer is social media. Give your employees and platform and they will share. Sure, they’ll share personal information, too…but mixed in with stories about their weekends, cats, and World of Warcraft are valuable nuggets of corporate knowledge that can help you solve problems, produce new products, and deliver a higher level of customer and employee satisfaction. It’s up to you to find ways to filter or segment that information to uncover that which is valuable to your business, but once you do…you’ve unlocked the potential of your employees.

In summary, social media is not about people eating oatmeal. Well…actually it is. But it’s also about people solving problems and people serving customers and people buying products. Social media is about your employees and your customers. It’s about your friends and colleagues. It’s about what they want, and what they want to offer. It’s a valuable tool that will provide insight to markets, products, and ways of doing business that you probably never thought about.  It’s up to you to get involved and show leadership. Good luck!

P.S. I’d love to hear from Execs who have taken the plunge and how your efforts are proceeding. Feel free to comment or email using our contact form.

Sean R. Nicholson

Okay Intranet fans, here it is…the 2009 completely unofficial list of must have functionality for every Intranet.

**Please note that we reserve the right to update this list and expand it beyond 10 based on the great feedback and comments we will undoubtedly receive.

{drumroll please….}

# 10) Application Interoperability – There’s nothing like a good Intranet mashup. Being able to search for a user and see not only who they are (from the HR application), what they are working on (from the Project Management application), and where they are located (From HR + Google Maps) is pretty cool, not to mention that it brings relevant information to the user on a single page. Look for creative ways to mash up your applications and streamline information gathering. Remember that good mashup also leverage a “simpler sign-on” schema so that users don’t have to login over and over to see data in different applications.

#9) A Clean Design – Lot of functionality is good, but be sure to spend time up front determining what should be on the front page and what can be moved to secondary pages. Your users should be able to find content quickly and easily. Spend some time watching how your users physically navigate the Intranet and strive toward reducing the number of clicks they have to make to locate the information they are looking for. Need help creating a design? Bring in a consultant from the outside to provide an objective point of view.

#8) A Good Name – I always love hearing people refer to the Intranet by it’s given name, rather than “the Intranet”. Creative names allow folks to create an identity for the Intranet that gives it a life of its own. If you don’t have a name for your Intranet, try holding a company-wide contest to come up with names and then have your company vote on it. Your even more likely to get strong buy in if the name is chosen by your organization as opposed to being assigned by a developer with a Star Wars fetish.

#7) A Strong Navigation Taxonomy – Yes….it’s a Google kinda world, so folks like to find content through search, but when they find that content, they also like to see where they are in the navigation, using a folder taxonomy or breadcrumbs, so they can find other content that is similar in nature AND know how to get back to the content in the future.

#6) Personalization – Users need to be able to customize pieces of the Intranet. Whether it’s their weather, stock quote, news headlines, horoscope or other content, allow them to make the Intranet more useful to them as an information source. Also, by allowing users to relocate portlets or widgets, they can create a design that meets the way they work. Need a good source for personalized information? Look to subscription information providers such as YellowBrix.

#5) A Good Rich Text Editor – Nothing helps an Intranet grow more than content, so making the creation of content easy is important. A good WYSIWYG (“what you see is what you get”) editor is important. Don’t forget to make sure your editor has a spell check. I speak from experience on this one (ahem…Plumtree/BEA/Oracle WebCenter)

#4) Governance – No need to go into full-blown lockdown mode, but governance is a good thing for any organization. It keeps your Intranet from becoming the wild, wild west and ensures that the content created has meaning and is relevant. Some areas of the Intranet (WIKIs, forums, etc… ) can be looser than others, but your governance strategy should be flexible enough to accommodate for these different needs.

#3) A Strong Collaboration Toolset – User created content will drive your Intranet page views through the roof. A good, spirited conversation about the latest product or marketing campaign can help spread the word about what your organization is doing and can drive new innovations. Try adding an “Idea Center” to your Intranet and challenge your employees to come up with new ways to do business. Products like user-driven blogs, forums, and WIKIS can turn your readers into contributors growing your content exponentially. Daily polls can also be used for gathering user sentiment on a corporate topic, or just for a little fun.

#2) A Federated Search Engine – Again, it’s a Google kinda world, so make sure your search works and it can talk to other applications. No one likes to have to search 10 different places for information, so leverage tools like Google appliances or federated search engines like FAST or Autonomy to bring all of your content together into one search. If you haven’t ever seen a demo of one of these “meaning” based search engines, give them a call and ask for one. You’ll be amazed at what modern search engines can do.

#1) Meaningful Content – The best design, the coolest name, even a great governance strategy…they’re nothing without meaningful content. If your users don’t find value in your Intranet, they won’t adopt its use. In addition (and I can’t stress this enough), the content MUST be timely and accurate.

The only thing worse than no information is bad information…Your employees will act using bad information because they don’t know it’s inaccurate. There’s nothing worse than a sales rep sharing an outdated rate sheet or a customer service rep providing an inaccurate solution to a problem. To avoid this, be sure your Intranet content is up-to-date and reviewed frequently.

There you have it, Intranet fans! 10 must haves for any good Intranet.

Additions:

Accessibility – Everyone needs to be able to use your Intranet. Ensuring that your pages comply with the accessibility guidelines will ensure that folks with disabilities can read or hear the content. Thanks to Russell @theparallaxview for the suggestion

Have input? We’d love to hear any additions, suggestions, or constructive criticism in your comments!