Feeding into the next-generation intranet at Ernst & Young

Last week I had occasion to participate in a leadership conference at Ernst and Young. Its purpose was to bring communications executives together to understand the latest trends amongst advance intranets and to parlay that information into a strategic roadmap for a next-generation intranet.
 
The day and a half meeting was set in Secaucus, New Jersey. Meeting delegates flew in from across the US and Europe. Several delegates came from as far as New Zealand, Australia and Japan. They were an inquisitive, sharp and attentive group. I couldn’t have asked for a more engaged audience!
 
Guest speakers included IBM and Human Factors International in addition to IBF. Each of us in turn had an opportunity to speak to intranet trends and best practices for 60 minutes. We capped off the day with a 60-minute panel discussion that lasted nearly 90 minutes. Committing the extra time punctuated the idea that the Ernst & Young leadership were an inquisitive, sharp and attentive group!
 
Building on recent IBF research, my presentation sampled practices amongst advance intranets along with emerging trends. 
 
Trends Among Advanced Intranets

1. Intranets as serving as broad digital environments for action
2. Remote and home working is on the rise, accelerated by crisis and environmental needs
3. There is growing ease with new “peer to peer content reality” spurred by the social media craze
4. Companies are using intranets to tap into the collective intelligence of the workforce
5. Managers are finding ways for the intranet to release previously unexploited value and make a major contribution to the organisation’s bottom line

Trend number five was based on IBF’s recently released briefing paper on the Recession Strength Intranet, which is now available for download. This is a must-read for intranet managers – especially those who embarking on annual planning. (IBF members can access this paper via the document library on the extranet.) 
 
Looking to Next-Generation Intranets

1. Access to online services will be managed through “identity” controls – intranet, extranet, internet (no one cares much anymore)
2. Staff don’t care what they use; they just want stuff that works!
3. Access will become low cost for all, using the devices they already have.
4. Dedicated resource will be in place to handle “search” and “findability” across the enterprise.
5. Optimised employee directories
6. The conflict between the desire to open up will be tempered by risk management and control.
7. Intranets will drive a low carbon/low travel/low cost agenda
8. We will discover the financial value of large intranet environments and this will re-shape the intranet career and status 

The panel discussion late in the day served as an opportunity for Ernst & Young executives to put what they heard that afternoon into context; to explore organizational readiness for such topics as  

• Using video and other digital media as a launch-point for engaging employees in candid, productive conversations with executives
• Engaging employees in places such as Japan, where the culture hasn’t embraced social media tools in the same way as the US and Europe
• Overcoming the technical constraints (e.g., bandwidth limitations) to enable greater use of video
• Expanding the skill sets of communicators to include persuasive engagement
• Contemplating the delivery of intranet tools and information via mobile devices
• Of course, this is merely a sampling of what we explored inside of the 90 minutes

I certainly look forward to hearing about the strategic priorities and actions laid out during day two of the agenda, which was reserved uniquely for Ernst & Young colleagues. Perhaps that will be a story for another day!?!?!?

Comments

[Inflecto Systems - Extranet Development]

I think one of the biggest problems with SaaS for this type of development has not been addresses yet and that is data security.