Earlier this month, 25+ delegates from various organizations gathered at the offices of Citi in New York City for the sixth IBF member meeting and site visit of 2009. Organizations in attendance included TD Bank, JP Morgan Chase, The Bank of New York Mellon, HSBC, Citi, Abbott, Deloitte, KPMG and Johnson & Johnson -- to name a few.
Day one centred on all-things culture and communication. Live tours included a view into JP Morgan Chase’s efforts to morph the intranet from a communications portal to a high-value, business workspace. KPMG shared key learnings from their recent launch of a new-and-improved KPMG Today news portal. We also beamed Oracle into the room from London to talk about a wholesale change management programme dubbed S.L.A.M., which is teaching individuals, teams and organizations how to leverage social media to drive operating efficiencies and enhance business results.
Day two encompassed a site visit hosted by Citi. Featured elements included an in-depth look at Citi’s intranet transformation road map. Live demos of Channel C, Citi’s first foray into social media, an early look at Citi 2.0 to be release later this year. Perhaps the most popular agenda of the day was the access zone. Four Citi workstations were set up; each of which was hosted by a member of the Citi intranet team. In 15-minute intervals, delegates rotated to each of the workstations to get an in-depth perspective on Citi’s web 2.0 strategy, Channel C video programming, communities using SharePoint and an open-space workstation to fill in any blanks.
In between, delegates carried conversation over drinks and dinner at Le Cirque. By all accounts the evening’s festivities made for a unique and interesting blend of a rich food and conversation.
Beyond the lasting impressions of a unique gastronomic experience, delegates shared the ‘food for thought’ that they consumed over the two-day meeting. A sampling of key takeaways included:
- Manage intranet news as you would a daily, on-line newspaper. Keep it current, compelling and fresh. Include a mix of business and local news in addition to corporate stories. Incorporate external news and competitor intelligence.
- Rotate featured news items daily. 60% of readership for news on the intranet occurs on the first day. Interest trails off thereafter, according to the product manager for KPMG Today.
- Flip cams can be a great way to engage regional colleagues in sharing local special interest stories and business developments in a way that is crisp, engaging and quick hitting.
- Beyond news, the intranet can emerge as a business-critical space for action, integration and innovation as suggested by JP Morgan Chase’s success with it’s my actions ‘in-box’, technology workspace and idea box.
- Expand success measures beyond hits and visits; to demonstrate value and surface important issues, a formal intranet measurement program -- inclusive of KPIs – is needed.
- Big-bang deployments don’t work when it comes to social media; grass roots efforts go a long way in building confidence and competence for both intranet teams and the constituents they serve.
- Don’t build a social media programme using a tools-based approach. The technology is the last piece you talk about when pitching your strategy to management. Courtesy of Oracle, remember the POST method (People > Objectives > Strategy > Tools).
