Intranet Benchmarking Forum

Intranet Garden Video Blog: January 2010

In his first Intranet Garden Video Blog of 2010 - Paul Miller, CEO and Founder of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum, in a snowy and wet garden reflects on his recent chat with Jeff Jarvis - author of "What Would Google Do?" and confirmed speaker on IBF 24. He considers the idea that intranet managers are "new e-economy " workers within the enterprise and deliver disproportionate value to their employers - watch the video below.

 

Intranet Garden Video Blog: Dec 2009

In his final Garden Video Blog of 2009, IBF CEO and Founder Paul Miller looks back at the key intranet trends of the year - all from the garden of The Engineer pub in London's Primrose Hill. 

 

IBF members share experiences to improve intranet performance at London meeting

As Managing Director of IBF, one of the highlights of my year is meeting so many of our members in one room and really getting into the nitty-gritty of intranet improvement.

At IBF we run lots of online meetings throughout the year, and we do detailed benchmarking of individual member intranets, we share new research topics, but the face to face meetings are still special.  There’s a core group of members who have been part of the IBF community for some time, and there are always new members to welcome, this time is was IKEA who were attending their first IBF member meeting.

In a cold but sunny London we welcomed members to the sixth and penultimate IBF Member Meeting of 2009. We had the chance to browse the various zones of the meeting prior to the welcome.  In the Best Practice area we had screen shots from members demonstrating best practice in this meeting’s theme – ‘Metrics and Performance’.

Our Homepage Gallery gave members an insight into the look and feel of other intranets across the IBF membership, whilst the Intranets Live episodes  (IBF’s online monthly media programme) played in the room over breakfast. 

They also got to see the full intranet benchmarking league tables which always provokes some competitive conversations!

This meeting's theme was around IBF’s benchmarking of ‘metrics and performance’, particularly targeting content to users and measuring the performance intranet sites for content owners.  Some great examples were shared and good debate had.

Following lunch members had the choice of two areas to focus on, Intranet Futures with IBF CEO and Founder Paul Miller and Ross Chestney, BT’s Head of Communication Services or News best practice with Nancy Goebel, IBF Director, North America.

Paul and Ross challenged members to think about where work place technologies are heading in the next three to five years, following Paul's recent article on Intranet 3.0.  The key topics discussed were:

• The Customer Service Intranet – dealing with the topic of the intranet vs business processes and breaking down the wall between what the public and the business

• Mobile devices / applications – are intranets moving into our pockets with location independence becoming key

• Intranet vs internet – consumers are now driving what they want and can see what is available.  Intranets will reuse internet technologies.

• Social Media and the Digital Divide – the digital divide in question being between those who contribute through social media, and those who don’t.  Employees need to shown the value of contributing to encourage further participation.

• The role of IT and risk – Many intranet managers continue to experience difficulties between IT security controls and encouraging increased collaboration.

As always we then had a fun packed evening out, this time watching our food being cooked by the Teppanyaki chefs at Sen Nin in Islington.

Our second day was based at the Aviva Head Office in London City.  Aviva were great hosts with an excellent agenda, an in-depth view of Aviva’s recent SharePoint roll out and lots of hands on across for IBF members, finished with lunch and a fantastic view across the London skyline!

Throughout the two days we saw great examples from BP, Unilever, Aviva, Northwestern Mutual and Maersk to name a few, highlighting items such as search, personalisation methods, demonstrations of delivering proven intranet value and a new tool to really deliver meaningful intranet metrics to content owners.

But the conversations that happened around all of these are always the best bit about meetings, with members exchanging advice, experience and knowledge and further building the IBF community. Although virtual working has come on leaps and bounds (I work from home most of the time) I really do enjoy these face to face meetings, they do so much to further build our intranet community and enable an in-depth exchange of ideas.

Roll on the next one in Houston on December 9th and 10th!

Get ready for intranet 3.0! it's coming, it's real and it will change the way we work

Earlier in the year, Paul Miller - IBF CEO and Founder, wrote a piece on building communities within intranets which has recently been 're-blogged'. It included his 'intranet trends for 2009' - as we approach the end of 2009 - were these the key trends for gloabl intranet managers?  Here is what he had to say...

Something odd is happening. While financial turmoil engulfs large organizations, intranets and related employee-Facing technologies are experiencing a new injection of momentum. Budgets may have been slashed in many central services, but intranet services across multiple sectors are enjoying large-scale investment.

It seems that intranets--and the related online communities within them--are being viewed by senior management as drivers of efficiency and productivity, and as "cultural glue," during turbulent times. Let's get rid of the people handling travel booking and automate the service via the intranet. If people can work from home using the intranet and online communities more easily, then the need for office space declines. And so it goes on.

If anything, intranets are driving services forward at such a great pace that, post-recession, the organization that emerges will be fitter, leaner and more adaptable. Prior to the downturn, the rate of development was already intense, but market conditions have caused a new wave of intranet acceleration to arrive.

This new wave can be loosely described as "Intranet 3.0." The term describes the integration of a range of employee-facing services delivered via technologies that are melding into the fabric of the organization. This amalgamation of deep-lying services, applications and communities is reshaping where work is done, how it is done and the ease by which it can be completed. Any "intranet road map" must take into account the current reality for many innovative large enterprises, as their present-day practice and performance anticipate the future of your organization. Get ready for Intranet 3.0, because it's real and it will change the way we work. Just look at these examples from Sun Microsystems, IBM and Nissan.

Sun: Realizing the intranet of the future

Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz is well known for his blogging. Keeping him company are around 5,000 Sun employees blogging externally on a range of topics (http://blogs.sun.com). Inside the company they refer to it as a "social movement," and it's driving exciting, groundbreaking changes to the intranet.

When asked about the impact of the intranet on the organization, Sun's senior director of employee communications, Terry McKenzie, says, "I can't overstate how important it is." And with the release of its next-generation intranet, Webnext, later this year, the intranet looks set to provide a whole new level of usefulness and integration.

Known as Project 90/10, Sun is turning over ownership of the intranet to employees (that's the 90 percent) instead of corporate communications (which will become the 10 percent). The intranet, they say, will become an aggregation point like a Netvibes or iGoogle page on the Web. The borders between internal and external are coming down too: Employees will be able to aggregate external content such as Facebook alongside internal content such as corporate news.

For Sun, it's all about orienting the intranet toward the employee of the future. "The type of employee we'll be seeing in five years, and are already seeing a lot of today, will be very familiar with social tools. They will want to get corporate news but also to share and play, to have fun and connect," says McKenzie. Social media are at the heart of this vision, but where most companies struggle to come up with meaningful measures of ROI, Sun is introducing the Community Equity tool. This tracks both the level of participation and the value of contributions by employees. "It will be a powerful tool for us," he adds. "For example, as a manager deciding who to promote, I can see who is contributing and participating.

IBM: Developing the interconnected intranet

From its origins back in the 1990s, W3, IBM's global intranet, has played a key role in helping to build an integrated IBM, and has become an essential part of life for its workforce. "The intranet is so deeply woven into daily life at IBM, it's part of every employee's day to use it," says Ethan McCarty, editor-in-chief of W3.

The starting point for this level of usefulness and penetration is in the mundane tasks that every employee needs to do on the intranet, such as managing expenses and searching for information. The difference on W3 is that social and collaborative elements have been built into these tasks: Opportunities to learn, connect and read news blend seamlessly into the experience. "You take a very mundane task and turn it into a social activity," says McCarty. "Collaboration isn't separate from work."

As new tools and features are developed, they are integrated into W3 in such a way that they are woven into the existing way of working. Developers across the company are encouraged to pull the functionality of these tools into the places where they will be useful, so instead of users having to go to the tools as a separate experience, the tools are taken to where users are already working and collaborating.

Nissan: Democratizing communication

At Nissan, the intranet is a central hub providing employees with access to the information and tools to do their jobs-from workflow and processes to project management and virtual meetings. The vision for Nissan's intranet is straightforward: to enable employees to connect and engage in a dialogue. "I think that without the intranet it would be almost impossible to run the organization," says Simon Sproule, corporate vice president of global communication.

Nissan's internal social network, N-Square, is bringing fundamental changes to the way of working at Nissan by breaking down hierarchical, functional and regional barriers. Interactions that would not have happened previously-such as dialogue between senior executives and employees, or across functions--are now happening in a way that employees are comfortable with and find convenient.

"In the same way that you may watch the inauguration of Obama on CNN and then go and visit other news sites and blogs to get a different perspective, so internal communications needs to become a trusted brand within the company," says Sproule. He sees the internal communication brand, N-Com, not as being in competition with the democratized dissemination of information via employee blogs and profiles, but as adding value by providing a timely, relevant and trusted news service.

Intranet trends to watch for in 2009

1. Access to online services will be managed through "identity" controls-intranet, extranet, Internet (no one cares much anymore). Staff, contractors, suppliers, customers, etc., will be able to access a range of intranet (and extranet) services based on the organization knowing who you are. Your identity will define your access. If you are a senior manager, your identity will allow you free reign across all online services offered to staff, suppliers, customers and partners.

2. Staff, particularly younger ones, don't care what they use--they just want stuff that works! Creating an overarching technology solution that delivers information and process integration in a "big band solution" will prove a fruitless journey. Workforce demographics require a range of Web-based providers that meet specific needs depending on who people are, where they are located and who they work with.

3. Access will become low cost for everyone, using the devices they already have. It has always been a struggle to give intranet access to manufacturing staff, frontline retail staff or those working in the field in developing countries. But instead of providing devices, intranet services will be made accessible to staff using whatever technology they do have. Why not deliver news, pay-slip information, location information, etc., to the mobile phones of your workforce, or have them log on to a mobile version of the intranet ?

4. Dedicated resources will be in place to handle "search" and "findability" across the enterprise. PricewaterhouseCoopers has one person who just handles internal "search" effectiveness. As organizations become ever-richer knowledge banks and information containers, helping staff find what they need to do their jobs becomes an essential efficiency driver.

5. Optimized employee directories. Finding people and connecting with them will accelerate and grow richer. Nokia uses GPS so that you can not only find people's details but also see where they are right now! Presence information and social software style connecting will operate so the employee directory becomes the hub for your organization.

6. The desire to open up will be tempered by risk management and control. The technology and Internet trend is to connect, share and liberate content. But against that is the need for organizations to know and manage their risk for legal, compliance and financial control reasons.

7. Intranets will drive a low-carbon/ low-travel/low-cost agenda. Intranets will offer richer online meeting and collaboration These tools will be part of the intranet environment. In a low carbon/low travel corporate world, such offerings will be increasingly valuable to staff.

8. We will discover the financial value of large intranet environments, and this will reshape the intranet career and status. As a financial value is placed on intranets and accepted at the CFO level, the status of intranets and the people who manage them will rise markedly. If you are the manager of a mature intranet at a Fortune 500 company, typical compensation will be at least US5250,000 annually, with a likely annual investment of less than US55,000.

Paul Miller is chief executive officer and founder of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum, executive producer of My Green Film and the author of the knowledge-management handbook Mobilising the Power of What You Know.

Intranet Garden video blog: Nov 2009 - World Usability Day Special

Improving the usability of third party intranet applications

“Have I left our intranet and gone into someone else’s website?” This is the kind of thing Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF) experts hear quite often when benchmarking large scale intranets in different regions. Users feel they have somehow travelled from an online environment they know and can navigate to a place that “feels different”.

The effect of this shift in user experience is to disorientate users and cause them to lose confidence in where they have arrived. They leave the intranet they know and find themselves in the world of major HR systems like People Soft or other enterprise systems like Oracle and SAP. At IBF we are mounting a campaign to try and surface this issue and have it taken on board within the large scale third party application vendors.

We started this journey in 2007 – initiated by one of our IBF Members BT and specifically Mark Morrell, BT Intranet Manager – and we produced  an IBF Member report called “The usability of third party applications” which had an extensive checklist of usability features that could be used by procurement teams when contracting with large technology vendors.  The idea was start to get the likes of Oracle to build these features in to their applications and so improve user-experience across the board.

It has been a slow process and frankly not a great deal has improved in the last two years. IBF is mounting this campaign to try and get this vital topic on the agenda again by linking the campaign into World Usability Day on 12 November.  The theme of that day this year is around “Sustainability” and while we have promoted “Green Intranet” earlier this year actively, it is the overall concept of upgrading the ability for third party intranet apps that attracts us to World Usability Day.

As Mark Morrell has said poor usability leads to poor productivity; so build the usability standards in from the start. This issue has now taken on wider importance as intranets move outside the organisation and with us likely to see intranet services being experienced and used across mobile devices in “iphone app” style formats where the usability is essential.

Interestingly Apple allows a wide range of apps to be developed for the iphone but they must meet a certain level of user experience standards to do so. That is the thinking and practice that is required.

IBF is making its checklist of standards within this IBF Report freely available to be adopted by those on the “customer side" – i.e. large and medium size enterprises and also on the “vendor side” – i.e. large technology vendors. It is not perfect but it is a solid set of shared expectations.

What we notice is that small technology vendors seem to place a higher regard for usability perhaps because they cannot take their marketplace “for granted” or perhaps because getting changes made is simpler in smaller companies. It seems that if you talk to people at Oracle and SAP they “get the message” but somehow that does not seem to translate into upgraded standards. Over the next week IBF will use a variety of routes to raise this issue and try to make further progress in what has been a frustrating issue for the intranet industry.

You can download the checklist for free from IBF’s Online Shop.

The hottest topics in the intranet world

Each year IBF covers some of the hottest topics in the intranet world in its Research Programme. Now it’s that time of year when we ask our members to vote on the topics they want to see covered in next year’s programme. I’ve been taking an early look at the results of this survey, which closes at the end of October, to see what topics are climbing up the list. If you’re a member and haven’t yet had your say, you can do so from the member extranet!

So what did I find from that “early look”? Here are a few highlights:

• Usability: always high on the list for intranet teams, I think we’ll be looking into the latest good practice relating to usability. This also follows a recent refresh to our usability benchmarking which will tie-in to give a fresh perspective on this area.
• Inside out intranet: also popular in the early results is the “Inside out intranet”, looking at redefining the firewall and the boundaries between the intranet and website, which Paul Miller IBF’s Founder and CEO, video blogged about recently.
• Intranet maturity: at a recent episode of Intranets Live one of the early results we heard from Jane McConnell’s 2009 Global Intranet Survey was that only 14% of participants said that their online workplace is unified. I know this is a broad issue for our members and we’re looking at some research in intranet maturity models/ roadmaps to help organisations understand where their intranet is at, and how to move it closer to that unified workplace.
• Operational intranets: having managed an operational intranet myself I know that it can be hard to track down specific good practice and advice in this area. So it’s interesting to see that so far there is quite a bit of interest in looking at the impact of intranets on operational areas of the business such as customer services and sales.

With a couple of weeks before the survey closes, things may well change – but my hunch is that the above highlights will make it to the final shortlist of six topics that we cover in the 2010 Research Programme.

Over the years we’ve covered a range of topics and built up a valuable bank of research papers on intranet topics from strategy and governance to social media and sustainability. (I only wish I’d had access to this back in the days when I was managing an intranet!)

From time to time, IBF does make research available to non-members and you can find this research in our Online Shop (including a couple of free reports).

Can implementing social media on your intranet help gain business benefit?

Is your organisation still in two minds about social media? Is it just something that kids play with and where time is time wasted? Or are social applications a way to derive real business benefit from collaboration, innovation and productivity gains?

IBF's “Social Media Guide”, an exclusive report for IBF member organisations, looks at these issues in detail and sets out to help organisations derive benefit from social applications. With the help of real-world case studies from successful implementations and survey data from member and non-member organisations, the Social Media Guide provides practical advice.

Business social media adoption is more widespread than you might think, with IBF's own findings and major research from Prescient Digital Media indicating that as many as one in two organisations now have some form of social application on their intranet. On top of this, credible case studies are emerging that show clear business benefits and returns on investment.

This still leaves many organisations with no social applications and no clear idea about the path to take and what the benefits might be. This report aims to help organisations that have yet to introduce social media on their intranets as well as those who have taken some initial steps down this road. It looks at the common factors in successful social media implementation, the potential benefits of social media and how they can be measured. It includes detailed case studies from BT, BAT and Nokia to provide substantial real-world learning.

The key recommendations from the report are:
1. Be business-led
2. Gain senior management support
3. Get IT on board
4. Use the right language for your organisation
5. Manage concerns over risk
6. Pilot and beta test
7. Enforce the use of real identities
8. Plan for an integrated solution
9. Address usability

Excerpted below is recommendation #3, Get IT on board.

While social media implementations should always be led by core business needs, IT support will be essential to any experiments or long-term plans for adoption inside the firewall.

Perhaps surprisingly, lack of support from IT was named as a major barrier to implementation by 36 per cent of our survey participants. Prescient Digital Media’s Intranet 2.0 Global Survey arrived at similar findings.

The key to resolving this barrier is working with IT colleagues to understand and address their concerns.Do they perceive a risk to the stability of existing applications? Do they see social applications as a threat? Are they having trouble identifying suitable strategic technology (cited by 19 per cent of our survey respondents as a major challenge)? If you can answer these questions, then you can begin planning how to respond.

Of course, some organisations sidestep this whole issue by using third- party-hosted solutions. We do not consider this approach in this report.

IBF members can sign up to a webinar to discuss this research on 20th October, and join other members in London for a Special Interest Group meeting on 29th October for a deeper dive into social media implementation.

This is a guest post from Andrew Marr, IBF Associate and independent consultant. With over 10 years’ experience in online strategy, analysis, development and management, Andrew recently authored IBF’s “Social Media Guide” which is available exclusively to IBF members. Among other things, he managed Bupa’s intranet for three years and implemented a number of pioneering social media applications in that time.

Managing News on the Intranet

Information is moving at blinding speed! What does this mean for your intranet news service? Employees are expecting more and more from internal news.

Driven in large part by their experience on the Web, employees want up-to-the-minute information delivered in a lively, innovative and credible fashion. Employees want useful information, and they want it now. What’s more, they want to be able to debate the issues of the day and drive the whole news agenda.

In its recently released briefing paper entitled “Managing News on the Intranet,” IBF provides tips for managing news on the intranet, highlights examples of good practices, and points out key considerations for intranet managers and internal communicators. Guidance is drawn from research based on specific interest from IBF members. Among the featured case studies include American Electric Power, BT and Citi’s Channel ‘C.’

In particular, IBF sets out eight good practices, including:

1. Leveraging employees to enhance the value of your internal news

2. Making content real, relevant and fresh
3. Making way for the digital C-Suite
4. Expanding your definition of news
5. Making news easy to access anytime, anywhere
6. Engaging employees in conversation; communication is a team sport
7. Teaching employees how to fish
8. Creating a continuous feedback loop

Excerpted below is tip #2, making content real, relevant and fresh.

Employees can be sceptical and distrustful of the information they receive internally – especially news. Earlier this year, PR giant Edelman released the 2009 edition of the Trust Barometer. It shows that trust has become a particularly thorny issue in the wake of the global economic crisis. Moreover, confidence in CEOs as a reliable source of information about their companies has hit a new low.

Amid current crises, internal news services need to take a neutral position. Employees see right through company-speak. Fundamental to this is asking hard-hitting questions and tackling difficult subjects. At the same time, internal news should be media and content rich.

A recent example was the internal announcement by General Motors about bankruptcy proceedings. CEO Fritz Henderson addressed employees via video to share his personal views on what the bankruptcy meant for the company and staff.

Fritz confronted the bad news directly and swiftly, then took immediate, positive action by rolling out GM’s reinvention programme. Laced throughout his message was a clear view of the WIIFM. (What’s in it for me?) It is recipient-oriented communication that answers four simple questions. Address these, and you’ll capture employee interest.

WIIFM QUESTIONS GM REINVENTION MESSAGES

WIIFM Questions	GM Reinvention Messages
What do you want employees to SEE?	Management has dispensed with corporate speak and is fully committed to open and transparent communications.
What do you want employees to THINK?	Management is ready to tackle issues of importance e.g. environment, safety, innovation, service, quality.
What do you want employees to FEEL?	There will be job losses, but all hope is not lost. Let anger fuel your passion.
What do you want employees to DO?	Take part in the reinvention of the company and the automobile. Focus on customers, cars and culture. Along the way, engage in a dialogue with management that is grounded in transparency, innovation and forward momentum.

Fast forward 40 days following the launch announcement, GM emerged out of bankruptcy – ahead of schedule and ahead of rival Chrysler Group LLC's 42-day timeframe. Although there is still much to be done for GM to claim success, employees together with retirees, shareholders, car owners and spectators now have an open invitation to participate in ongoing conversations with leadership about progress and issues, bring new ideas and issues direct to the CEO and follow breaking news via GMreinvention.com.

The full version of this briefing report is available exclusively to IBF members via the research section of the secure IBF extranet along with the newly released "Social Media Guide." Still to come in 2009 are:

• "The Art of Tagging" (briefing paper)
• "The Role & Value of the Intranet" (full report)

If you are not yet a member of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum and would like to learn more about our research programme and other member services, contact us at info@ibforum.com. You can also visit our online shop, where we occasionally we make IBF research available to non-members.

In the meantime, leave your mark via the comment section below; tell us what steps you are taking to deliver a more vibrant and useful intranet news desk.

Takeaways from the September 2009 IBF Member Meeting and Site Visit

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).