Time to enter the Step Two Intranet Innovation Awards for 2014

Step Two has just launched the 2014 Intranet Innovation Awards, the premier global awards for intranet teams.

Drawing on the best intranet work from around the world, the Intranet Innovation Awards are an opportunity for organisations to showcase their best intranet work.

Winning teams can also leverage an award into more support within their own organisations.

For more information, and to enter, visit steptwo.com.au/iia/enter

Entry is open until 6 June 2014.

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Entries now open for 2013 Intranet Innovation Awards

The 6th annual global Intranet Innovation Awards is now open for entries, with submissions closing on Friday 31 May 2013.

It is hard to compare best practice in intranet design and features, which makes the Intranet Innovation Awards, run by Step Two Designs, an important way for government agencies to gain an insight into the fantastic innovative ideas that are being implemented in intranets around the world.

Last year the 5th annual Awards attracted 80 entries, making it the largest award process of its type in the world. This year promises to be even bigger.

So if you've added an innovative or unique feature to your intranet please enter these awards to share your work globally and allow other organisations to learn from your achievements.

For more information, and to enter, visit the Step Two blog at: www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/2013-intranet-innovation-awards-now-open-for-entries/


You can view last year's winners and buy a copy of the case studies at www.steptwo.com.au/products/iia-report

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Is the Australian Government really slow to update staff to modern web browsers?

One of the concerns I faced when working in government, and that I know many other people faced as well, was the currency of the web browser(s) available for use by staff.

Some agencies still used Microsoft Internet Explorer 6, a ten year old browser that isn't supported by many major websites and online services and that even Microsoft admits is insecure and out-of-date. It is now used by only 0.8% of Australian web users.

Statcounter research - Web browsers used in April 2012
|in Australia and Oceania

Others prohibit access to Firefox or Chrome - which, according to some reports, together now hold a larger share of web browsing by Australians than Internet Explorer, and are also considered by many to be more standards compliant.

In fact Chrome v21 (at 21.1%) is reportedly the most used web browser by version in Australia, followed by Internet Explorer 9 (19.6%) and Firefox 11 (16%).

Why is the selection of browser so important?

There's a few reasons that spring to my mind.

Because the browser selected can limit the ability of staff at agencies to use the internet productively. To source information, monitor conversations online, use modern web services and even access advanced intranet features.

Because it costs more to develop for older, standards non-compliant web browsers - with Internet Explorer 6 compliance often adding 20% to the cost and development time of web sites and intranets.

Because it constrains testing of websites. While some web teams have special dispensation to access every browser for test purposes, in other agencies staff are forced to rely on their personal devices, or simply can't test for modern browsers.

Because there is an imperative on government to not use software more than two versions old - a particular issue for agencies still using Internet Explorer 6 when the current version is 9.


I can understand agencies who are 'trapped in the past'. There's often more important priorities for IT and management - critical systems that need to be managed, budget and resourcing concerns. However if you could improve the productivity and happiness of all your staff with a simple software upgrade which also improves your security, well...

There's also sometimes technical issues. While web browsers are free, upgrading an entire department isn't. There are dependencies - particularly with SAP, which stubbornly only supported Internet Explorer 6 until recent versions. It costs money to upgrade SAP and to manage this and a browser upgrade across thousands of computers, including any communication and training support required. Agencies, with other priorities, may put off this work as long as they can.

All this aside - how are Australian Government agencies actually doing in terms of how modern their web browsers are. Are the majority still stuck on Internet Explorer 6 or a similar old and insecure web browser?

As part of my FOI request on social media in March, I asked agencies which web browsers they used, as it impacts on which social media tools they can use.

The exact question was:

Which web browsers are currently mandated and/or supported for use by your agency's staff when using agency supplied IT equipment as specified below?
(Please tick applicable web browsers or supply by email a copy of the documentation on your Standard Operating Environment detailing this information)

While some agencies may regard this as confidential, please note the web browser type and version can, in most cases, be detected by any website visited by your staff.

Aside from two agencies who told me that this was "commercial-in-confidence" information they would not release, most agencies were very willing to provide this information.

I've aggregated the results in the chart below based on the 65 legitimate survey responses I received (the easiest information to analyse). Other (non-survey) responses haven't been included due to the analyse time required.

Web browsers officially mandated by Australian Government agencies
for use by their staff - sample from 65 agencies.

Looking at this response, many agencies supported multiple web browsers - generally Internet Explorer and one other.

Few remained on Internet Explorer 6 or 7, and most sat one version behind the most recent released web browsers - such as on Internet Explorer 8.

I did make one error. I forgot to include Blackberry's browser as an option for mobile phones. This is used as standard across all Blackberry mobile devices, so can be considered a standard.

So overall, how did Australia Government agencies do?

Very well in my view - and better than I had anticipated.

While a few agencies (including some very large ones) still lag back on Internet Explorer 6 or 7, most are using acceptably modern web browsers, even providing a choice in many cases - which helps compensate for some of the minor niggles in some browser versions.

Note
You can now view (and analyse) survey responses from my social media FOI as well at: https://www.surveymonkey.com/sr.aspx?sm=mE_2bvebDvXLOHHKrCnKP79IaCNkFpWjDocQJAN5aEvCQ_3d)

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Intranet Innovation Awards 2012 open for entries

Step Two's annual global Intranet Innovation Awards for 2012 are now open for entry until 31 May 2012.

If you've done something extraordinary with your intranet this is a great way to get your organisation recognised for this work and share your idea with others across the intranet space.

The awards aren't just for entire intranets - you can simply enter a particular feature or tool - and you don't need to be a big organisation to necessarily win, many smaller organisations have done well where they've been agile and innovative.

For more information and to enter, visit http://www.steptwo.com.au/columntwo/the-2012-intranet-innovation-awards-are-now-open-for-entries/

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2011 Intranet Innovation Awards are now open for entries

The fifth annual global Intranet Innovation Awards have just opened and you have until Tuesday 31 May to submit your entry.

What I particularly like about these awards is that the judges aren't simply looking for the best Intranet, you can simply submit the best functionality or feature in your Intranet. This means that if you have a 'average' internet, but have one brilliant and innovative feature you can enter just that feature and have a chance at winning.

The four categories for the Awards include,

• Core intranet functionality
• Communication, collaboration and culture
• Frontline delivery, and
• Business solutions

Full details of the categories, with examples, and the scoring criteria is available on the entry page.

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The rise of the networked enterprise

There's still people who believe the internet and social media are flash-in-the-pan technologies - or simply aren't relevant to their role.

This group doesn't include most senior executives at organisations around the world, as this McKinsey report indicates.

The rise of the networked enterprise: Web 2.0 finds its payday (PDF) provides insights from 3,200 executives, finding that companies using the Web intensively gain greater market share and higher margins.

In government terms these gains could be expressed as lower costs, improved reputation, better community engagement and more reliable policy outcomes.

To quote the report,

A new class of company is emerging—one that uses collaborative Web 2.0 technologies intensively to connect the internal efforts of employees and to extend the organization’s reach to customers, partners, and suppliers. We call this new kind of company the networked enterprise. Results from our analysis of proprietary survey data show that the Web 2.0 use of these companies is significantly improving their reported performance. In fact, our data show that fully networked enterprises are not only more likely to be market leaders or to be gaining market share but also use management practices that lead to margins higher than those of companies using the Web in more limited ways.

Social media channels are becoming mission critical corporate tools,

Our research, for instance, shows significant increases in the percentage of companies using social networking (40 percent) and blogs (38 percent). Furthermore, our surveys show that the number of employees using the dozen Web 2.0 technologies continues to increase.4 Respondents at nearly half of the companies that use social networking say, for example, that at least 51 percent of their employees use it. And in 2010, nearly two-thirds of respondents at companies using Web 2.0 say they will increase future investments in these technologies, compared with just over half in 2009. The healthy spending plans during both of these difficult years underscore the value companies expect to gain.

Among respondents at companies using Web 2.0, a large majority continue to report that they are receiving measurable business benefits—with nearly nine out of ten reporting at least one. These benefits ranged from more effective marketing to faster access to knowledge (Exhibit 1).

Organisations using less social media channels, or using them less frequently reported less - or no - productivity improvements from social media. However the greater the use of social media, the greater the perceived and measured benefits.

Fully networked enterprises. Finally, some companies use Web 2.0 in revolutionary ways. This elite group of organizations—3 percent of those in our survey—derives very high levels of benefits from Web 2.0’s widespread use, involving employees, customers, and business partners, according to the survey. Respondents at these organizations reported higher levels of employee benefits than internally networked organizations did and higher levels of customer and partner benefits than did externally networked organizations. In applying Web 2.0 technologies, fully networked enterprises seem to have moved much further along the learning curve than other organizations have. The integration of Web 2.0 into day-to-day activities is high, executives say, and they report that these technologies are promoting higher levels of collaboration by helping to break down organizational barriers that impede information flows.

The research closely matches the same type of research in the 1980s for desktop computer use or in the 1950s regarding telephone access as these were rolled out throughout organisations. The more staff that had access to these technologies, the greater the benefits to the organisation.

Of course there are also challenges that need to be addressed. We have codes of conduct for phones and computers, monitor their use and have management processes to rectify any inappropriate use. Precisely the same approaches are needed for internet and specifically social media usage inside organisations.

However we've done this all before, several times, so it isn't really a big leap to address.

So are these benefits really measurable? McKinsey believes they are...

We performed a series of statistical analyses to better understand the relationship between our categories of networked organizations and three core self-reported performance metrics: market share gains, operating profits, and market leadership. Exhibit 3 shows the results.

Market share gains reported by respondents were significantly correlated with fully networked and externally networked organizations. This, we believe, is statistically significant evidence that technology-enabled collaboration with external stakeholders helps organizations gain market share from the competition. They do this, in our experience, by forging closer marketing relationships with customers and by involving them in customer support and product-development efforts. Respondents at companies that used Web 2.0 to collaborate across organizational silos and to share information more broadly also reported improved market shares.

The attainment of higher operating margins (again, self-reported) than competitors correlated with a different set of factors: the ability to make decisions lower in the corporate hierarchy and a willingness to allow the formation of working teams comprising both in-house employees and individuals outside the organization. These findings suggest that Web technologies can underwrite a more agile organization where frontline staff members make local decisions and companies are better at leveraging outside resources to raise productivity and to create more valuable products and services. The result, the survey suggests, is higher profits.

Market leadership, which we ascribed to those organizations where respondents reported a top ranking in industry market share, correlated positively with internally networked organizations that have high levels of organizational collaboration.

McKinsey finishes with a very strong conclusion:

The imperative for business leaders is clear: falling behind in creating internal and external networks could be a critical mistake. Executives need to push their organizations toward becoming fully networked enterprises.

And details some specific steps to get there...

• Integrate the use of Web 2.0 into employees’ day-to-day work activities. This practice is the key success factor in all of our analyses, as well as other research we have done. What’s in the work flow is what gets used by employees and what leads to benefits.
  
• Continue to drive adoption and usage. Benefits appear to be limited without a base level of adoption and usage. Respondents who reported the lowest levels of both also reported the lowest levels of benefits.
  
• Break down the barriers to organizational change. Fully networked organizations appear to have more fluid information flows, deploy talent more flexibly to deal with problems, and allow employees lower in the corporate hierarchy to make decisions. Organizational collaboration is correlated with self-reported market share gains; distributed decision making and work, with increased self-reported profitability.
  
• Apply Web 2.0 technologies to interactions with customers, business partners, and employees. External interactions are correlated with self-reported market share gains. So are internal organizational collaboration and flexibility, and the benefits appear to be multiplicative. Fully networked organizations can achieve the highest levels of self-reported benefits in all types of interactions.

Food for thought for all public service and private sector leaders.

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Yammer use in WA Health

Given I've been paying some attention to Yammer recently, I thought it worth drawing attention to this post in Croakey regarding Yammer use in WA Health.

I've also been speaking with another Commonwealth agency where Yammer has gone viral, with more than 1,000 users in a short period of time.

Another Commonwealth agency has begun inducting all of its new staff into Yammer, using it to help them learn how to engage effectively via social media. This sounds like a good way to give people practical experience before letting them loose on the public.

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ABS embraces internal blogs and wikis

As covered in The Australian's article, Australian Bureau of Statistics embraces world of blogs and wikis, the ABS has implemented an internal collaboration platform supporting blogs, wikis and collaborative documents.

The article reports that 30% of staff have begun using the wiki and blog functions. If reported correctly this reflects a huge demand for internal digital collaboration within the Bureau and bodes well for the implementation of similar platforms in other government agencies.

Given that the platform is said to simplify the management of collaboratively written and edited documents, removing the load from email and enabling better version control, there are significant long-term knowledge management and internal efficiencies that could be realised by the ABS.

I've often wondered why government agencies have been so slow to move away from desktop-based word processing towards wiki-style collaborative documents (with appropriate security and version control). Admittedly there are transition costs - both ICT and training - however the savings in not having incorrect versions sent around as large email attachments and the time saved by not having to compile edits from numerous people back into a single document are quite large.

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Infallability, government and Web 2.0

Many rulers, from the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt to the Czars of Russia, were seen as almost infallible leaders - divinely selected and empowered to lead their people. To question their wisdom, strength or decisions was often an offence that could be punished by imprisonment or death.

Most modern states are more lenient, however governments still place a high value on being seen to be authoritative, knowledgeable and, on occasion, infallible.

So what is the impact of new media on a government's aura of infallibility?

For a long time traditional media has been keeping governments honest. However it has relied on a relative few number of reporters providing information through an even smaller number of distribution channels. Commercial interests, limited access to information and various other restrictions have, on occasion, left many government decisions and policies with little scrutiny.

Now, with Web 2.0, almost every citizen is also a journalist and publisher. This makes it possible for almost the entire population of a modern state to keep its government under constant 24-hour scrutiny and analysis, covering almost every decision and policy.

How have governments responded to this?

Some have taken a censorship and imprisonment route, attempting to limit debate and scrutiny by imprisoning, or worse, the most vocal citizen critics.

However this isn't a route that many democratic states could (or would) choose.

Instead democratically elected governments can choose to embrace public scrutiny and, rather than attempting to maintain an illusion of infallibility, become learning organisations who acknowledge that they can continually improve their performance.

This is a huge mindset change for those in governments used to the limited scrutiny of traditional media. The change can take some time to embrace.

At the moment while some governments and their agencies have embraced scrutiny as an opportunity to improve their service delivery, policy and operations, others are still conflicted. There are still situations where some individuals in various governments attempt to control and close down public discussions or limit internal transparency through self-censorship and restricted internal communications channels.

These conflicted agencies are, in many cases, doing more harm to themselves than good. When it is publicly visible that the Emperor has no clothes, that a particular topic is of community interest or facts about a situation (potentially including videos, financial analysis and/or expert opinions) are freely distributed online, attempts to limit statements to an agency line can backfire.

In other words, attempts to protect an agency or Minister through controlling information can, instead, create greater risks to them. This activity can damage reputations, expose them as out-of-step or, in extreme cases, result in rolling heads.

Government agencies increasingly need to resist the need to control all flows of information and focus on ensuring that accurate information is available wherever people are having a discussion. They need to ensure that the community has access to the facts - both when government is right and when they are wrong.

This limits the damage of false claims and myths - when government has indeed made the most correct decisions. Equally it limits the damage and distress when government has made mistakes. This approach allows government to retain the respect and trust of the community, particularly when errors are quickly detected and corrected.

Possibly the greatest challenge for public servants related to this shift to open disclosure and less massaging of messages is that it is happening right now.

The Australian Government's Freedom of Information reform law was passed on 13 May this year, Victoria has begun adopting Creative Commons licensing in a proactive disclosure approach for public sector data and NSW's government recently appointed an Information Commissioner and the NSW Premier has directed Ministers and Departments to set "an example of unprecedented openness".

This makes it imperative for agencies to recognise that their environment has changed and adjust their internal processes as quickly as possible.

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The many styles of blogging - selecting the right approach for your goals and audience

A blog is a blog is a blog in the same way that a TV show is a TV show is a TV show.

That is to say, there are many kinds of blogs in the same way there are many different kinds of TV shows, depending on their goals, audience, subject matter and format.

So when a government department, commercial organisations or individual tells me they are starting a blog often my first question is generally - what type of blog?

Around four years ago Rohit Bhargava defined 25 different types of blog and when to use them (see his presentation embedded below).

Wikipedia also discusses the many different types of blogs, differentiating them by genre, content, authorship, goal and approach.

In both cases there is sage advice for anyone considering setting up a blog to consider, preferably before you establish the blog.

Have you thought about the goals for the blog - to communicate, educate, evangelise, attract or sell (amongst other potential goals); have you consider who you see as your audience and their particular needs and approaches - are they experts or novices, do they prefer short snippets or in-depth analysis; have you considered your available resources - can you blog daily, weekly or sporadically, what technologies you are using and their benefits or limitations.

Finally have you considered your subject matter and the degree of interactivity you seek to include. Can - and will - people respond to your blog by commenting. Will they discuss and share your posts on Twitter or Facebook?

Whether you're proposing a blog as a communications or engagement tactic for your organisation, you're being told to establish a departmental blog or you're considering blogging personally or on topics of professional interest, it is well worth considering the appropriate style and approach to improve your changes of success.

And remember, you can blend a few styles together, create your own and evolve your blog over time in response to how your audience is engaging. Don't be limited by lists!

The 25 Basic Styles of Blogging ... And When To Use Each One

View more presentations from Rohit Bhargava.

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How much should a government website cost - are we over-engineering our websites?

These days when I personally need to set up a new website, I either hop onto Wordpress or download one of the free open-source content management systems, purchase space on a decent US server and follow the installation instructions.

I use a design template found online, customising it with some style tweaks where required, then spend a few days writing content.

It's not very hard and doesn't take very long (normally under a week).

However in government we have very strong governance structures around website creation - with good reason - to ensure that the platforms we use are secure, reliable and effective. We also have extensive content approval processes which can require a number of steps before words reach the screen.

This places a great deal of overhead on the process of creating and managing government websites, adding significantly to IT and resourcing costs.

I don't question the need for public organisations to guarantee the reliability and security of their websites. However I do wonder if we're placing a disproportionate level of cost onto this process - so much overhead on our websites that they may be slower to deliver and less cost-effective than other communications channels.

I also wonder if departments spend much time scrutinising their governance arrangements to see if they can reduce the burden, and therefore the cost and time to market, (without compromising the outcome) by either planing ahead or working together better.

If we are really one government shouldn't we be able to - as a group or via some central agency - security assess and review a group of web technologies then pick and choose between them as needed - depending on our internal platforms and needs?

Why not compare our departmental content management processes and learn from the organisations who are most effective and efficient?

Food for thought.

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Defining success for web projects

Not all projects completely succeed. For a variety of factors some do not meet some or all of the original goals laid out for them.

There is a tendency to label these projects as failures, to totally write them off and be more cautious when initiating similar projects in the future.

In the web space, which is changing fast, many projects are firsts of their kind. This can make it harder for organisations to allocate appropriate resourcing, time or constraints, or to set appropriate success criteria. There may also be unanticipated side effects which can distract from the project's focus.

This can lead to failures in otherwise reasonable projects, failures which could be prevented through a better understanding of project needs.

When web projects are considered failures, organisations can become more cautious and less willing to attempt similar projects or place additional constraints on how projects are run. These can reduce the likelihood of subsequent successes and lead to dininishing returns and greater reluctance.

So how do we, as web professionals, help organisations engineer for greater success in web projects?

Firstly it's important to speak up during the initial planning stages. To provide honest views of what resourcing and time is required to achieve the project's goals. There's no point in beginning a project with inadequate resourcing - it doesn't serve the government, the agency or yourself.

Where time and resourcing isn't flexible, it is important to negotiate and clarify the criteria for success. Make sure all the stakeholders have a common understanding of what success looks like and how probable it is given the constraints.

It is also possible in some organisations to define certain non-critical projects as experimental, with an underlying goal of increasing knowledge within the organisation. In this case you can define success as identifying approaches that do not work. While this may sound like a cop-out, defining success as failure, remember how Thomas Edison invented the light bulb - he 'failed' many times, allowing him to learn what did not work in order to focus on an approach that would.

It is also important to record all the unintended impacts of a web project. Sometimes a project can be successful in areas important to the organisation but outside its defined goals. An example of this is the post-it note, which resulted from experiments by a 3M employee, Spencer Silver, to develop a strong new adhesive. The adhesive was a failure - it was super-weak - however Silver kept the formula. Four years later another 3M employee, Arthur Fry, discovered that the adhesive could be added to the back of paper notes and stuck to things and removed without causing damage. After another six years convincing 3M of the commercial value (which he eventually did by providing prototype post-it notes to the executive assistants of senior managers) it finally was released in the market as post-it notes.

Most important of all, it's important to help organisations understand that a partial success isn't necessarily a total failure.

In most projects, even those that are regarded as catastrophic failures, there are components that succeeded. These successes can sometimes be just as important as the failures for educating future projects - there's even a saying for it, "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".

Particularly in large web project, or where web forms part of a larger project, it is important to differentiate between the parts that failed and those that succeeded - to acknowledge the successes even where the project is rated as an overall failure.

While this approach holds for all aspects of projects it is particularly important in the web space. As the internet is reasonably new for most organisations, some people can be more sensitive towards perceived failure in the area and more willing to use it as an excuse to kill or restrict future projects.

This is simply human nature - we fear the unknown and attempt to limit its impact on us through controls or avoidance. This is mirrored in project management strategies which define and minimise the potential impact of what we don't know through risk mitigation techniques and project controls.

So if you find yourself in the midst of a project hurtling towards failure, make sure that you spend time identifying what is going right as well as what is going wrong.

If the web component (or any other component) is meeting its goals - or at least providing key insights and tools that will enable future projects - make sure these are highlighted to the organisation and that these learnings are shared outside the project team.

Even where you cannot save the project, you can at least add to corporate knowledge and prevent the organisation from mistakenly throwing out that baby with the dirty water.

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Encouraging government departments to embrace accessibility standards (WCAG2)

Some things are better communicated by song than words, for example the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.0 (WCAG2).

If you're struggling to get your department to understand the importance and detail of the WCAG 2.0 standard, why not send them this video.



Note that WCAG 2.0 has not, to my knowledge, been endorsed yet by the Australian Human Rights Commission, whose latest World Wide Web Access: Disability Discrimination Act Advisory Notes dates back to 31 March 2009.

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Community managers' survey

Kommein is currently holding a Community Manager's survey to build a picture of the role across different organisations around the world.

To quote their request,

Are you a community manager? If so, we’re interested in learning about your experience. We’ve put together a survey for community managers that will tell us a little something about community managers salaries, who they report to, job challenges and more. And yes, we’ll post the results here.

Please note, we’re not asking for names and don’t need to know who you are. Feel free to speak openly and candidly about the issues facing you as a community manager.

Please access the community manager survey here. We’d be doubly appreciative if you could pass this around to other community managers in your network.

In case your organisation wants to better understand this type of role, the results of this survey will be published online.

And if your role could be described as a Community Manager, please complete the survey.

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Participate in the 2009 Global Intranet Trends survey

Jane McConnell of NetStrategy/JMC is asking organisations to participate in the 2009 Global Intranet Trends Survey.

All participants receive a free copy of the final report.

The 2008 survey had 226 participants from almost every continent and provided key insights into trends in the intranet area.

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Global Intranet report found that organizations without a 2.0 strategy risk outright failure

Prescient Digital have released the results of their Intranet 2.0 Global Survey, reporting that organisation without a 2.0 strategy risks being left behind, or outright failing.

The survey, with 561 responses globally (13% from government), found that Intranet 2.0 tools such as blogs, wikis and other vehicles have become mainstream, and are present in nearly 50% of organizations (regardless of size) in North America, Europe, and Australia and New Zealand.

Toby Ward, CEO of Prescient Digital Media & author of the Intranet Global Survey said in a press release that,

“Employees want to work for progressive and innovative organizations, and expect 2.0 environments from employers of choice.”

The survey found that organisations that had deployed Intranet 2.0 tools such as wikis, blogs and forums had spent very little doing so, with 46% having spent less than US$10,000 and only 19% having spent US$100,000 or more.

A summary of the Global Intranet 2.0 report is available freely online.

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New book - What every intranet team should know

Step Two Designs has released the book, What every team should know written by James Robertson.

The book is designed as a 'quick start' for intranet teams and provides practical advice on how to plan, design, manage and grow intranets.

Combining over 13 years experience in intranets and building on the free reports available from Step Two's website, I reckon the book is well worth a look.

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What would you do? Balancing intranet needs across corporate and local objectives

James Robertson of Step Two Designs has published an interesting scenario regarding how a mid-sized government agency can meet global needs (corporate communications, top-level strategy, culture), while also meeting varying local needs.

He's opened the floor for ideas on how to most effectively support the needs of both management and staff.

Judging by the comments so far, this isn't a unique challenge. A number of Departments and agencies are wrestling with similar scenarios and the tensions between top-down and bottom-up needs.

Take a look over at Tackling the global-local challenge?



Type rest of the post here

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Turning around undersupported intranets

Intranets have been around in various forms for around twenty years now. Many are firmly rooted as an essential tool in the operations of organisations.

However there are many organisations where intranets are still treated as costs or are not sponsored and supported at senior management levels.

In fact in last year's Global Intranet Trends report, 40% of respondents said that the lack of senior management ownership (stewardship or championing) of the intranet was a serious obstacle to intranet success. Only 33% of intranet steering committees had c-level executives on the steering committee (rising to 50% in the 2009 survey.

So how do intranet managers build acceptance and use of their intranets?

Prescient Digital Media believes that one of the most important task for intranet managers is to be a salesperson for the intranet to senior management.

In their article, Selling an Intranet Redesign, they discuss different approaches to selling intranets to senior executives in order to gain appropriate sponsorship and resourcing.

However sometimes senior executive support isn’t available.

Where an organisation does not recognise the value of its intranet it’s likely that the intranet itself has suffered. There is limited investment, promotion or encouragement of intranet use. The intranet becomes a wasteland of outdated and useless content.

Many executives will have bought into the current situation and focus on adding value to the organisation via other avenues, essentially giving up on the intranet. Others will simply be unwilling to tarnish their reputations by taking on a losing intranet proposition.

So if you cannot find an executive sponsor willing to take a risk on an intranet 'nobody uses anyway', what are the alternatives?

Go elsewhere
Changing jobs is almost always an option. Find a different role in the organisation, or a different one (where the intranet is valued). This isn't a failure on your part, it's simply an acknowledgement that at the level you're at and for the money you're paid it's simply not worth mortgaging your own career, health, family and future to turn the situation around.

Make the intranet indispensable
This approach involves identifying information, tools or functions that are critical for the organisation and could be more easily managed or distributed via the intranet. You only need a few of these to start with - get them into the intranet and begin encouraging use, preferably with the support of the areas that need these tools used.

Over time, as intranet usage and value grows this can be sold to other areas to place their tools online. Eventually you’ll begin attracting high level attention as executives realise that they now have a stake in the success of the intranet as it is tied to the success of the organisation.

Build usage from the bottom up
Another approach is to add features useful to large numbers of staff, such as a tipping competition, classified and tools to support social clubs. While these are not work related the goal is to build usage and familiarity - creating a habit of using the intranet.

As more people use the intranet more frequently the growing usage can be promoted to management and the intranet sold as an effective mechanism to reach staff.

Note that this is a risky strategy - if the intranet becomes too socially orientated it can be devalued even further, seen simply as a staff timewaster than a productivity tool.

Show them the money
If you're numbers-orientated, calculate the relative cost of providing services via the intranet versus printing and distributing paper=based tools (such as staff directories, manuals, staff newsletters, presentations and forms).

Also look at the cost to the organisation of staff accidentally using old versions of material - because it was either emailed to them and they saved a copy locally, or they didn't get the latest printed version.

The overwhelming likelihood is that the cost of online distribution via your intranet is significantly less than that of other methods in common use.

This approach is particularly useful when organisations are cost-cutting. Demonstrating that the intranet can save your organisation money, rather than being a cost, shifts perceptions of your intranet. From being a weight around the organisation's budgetary neck it becomes a cost-saving tool, potentially even saving executive reputations.

Keeping up with the Joneses
Another tactic is to demonstrate how far behind your organisation is in terms of its intranet compared to similar organisations. Find examples where other intranets generated wins for organisations - such as cost savings, productivity improvements, staff retention, executive reputations. Even cases where intranets look better or do funky things can help.

Humans are trained to respond to the need to 'keep up with the Joneses', so showing these examples to the right groups can build the realisation that your organisation isn’t realising the value it could be and looks old-fashioned to outsiders.

This can help create some urgency to change and update your intranet to make it more useful and modern - though the process for achieving this has to be carefully managed to ensure that the outcome produces real organisational benefit and isn't simply lipstick on a pig.

Just start
Finally, sometimes you just have to just start improving the intranet.

If you don't start making improvements, achieving a few quick wins, you could be tarred with the do-nothing brush - making it less likely that you will get support (or promotions) in the future.

When you begin with an old, outdated intranet system there are more opportunities for improvement – including many that can be made quickly and cheaply. Use these to build momentum.

Even changes as simple as tweaking search, placing links to the most used tools on the homepage or changing the visual design can give you the wins needed to begin lobbying for resources and support for bigger changes that add even more value.

What strategies have you used?
There’s many other ways to turn around an intranet situation. What strategies have you used, or heard about?

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Vic government publishes intranet IA best practice analysis report

The Victorian government has published the Intranet Information Architecture Best Practice Analysis report, conducted by the IA Strategy project team in the Web Domain Group, Department of Human Services (DHS) Victoria.

The analysis is available in summary and in full from the eGovernment Resource centre.

One of the writers of the report, Suze Ingram, has also published comments on her blog as 10 Intranet Best Practice (and more...).

The best practices outlined in the report are supported by evidence statements from various intranet experts to help intranet teams support their case when arguing for improvements.

One of the most interesting sections for me is regarding adequate resourcing of intranets. To quote the report,

It is crucial to the ongoing success of an intranet, that intranet teams are treated and funded at the level of other vital business tools and projects. A successful intranet needs the appropriate staff and resources so they can research, develop and produce.

In his “Managing the Intranet and Teams” report, Jakob Nielsen’s research has calculated that the average size for a core intranet team is five people. As a percentage of an organisation’s total employees, the average proportion of people with responsibilities for the intranet is 0.27% (for an organisation the size of DHS - approximately 12,500 staff - this equates to 33 staff). Some of these team members had other job responsibilities as well; team members often worked only part-time on their intranet. Nielsen asserts that “this is a small number given that intranets are a majority productivity and communication tool for organisations”.

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