http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Intranets A listing of the most recently indexed works about Intranets in the field of technical communication. en-us Copyright (c) 2005-08 by the EServer. All rights reserved. tclib-editorial@eserver.org (TC Library Editorial Board) webmaster@eserver.org (Geoffrey Sauer) http://tc.eserver.org/images/newlogo.gif http://tc.eserver.org/dir/Intranets http://tc.eserver.org/35650.html http://tc.eserver.org/35650.html The key to intranet success is to provide value to employees and give them a reason to visit the site repeatedly. One of the primary ways to achieve this is to connect employees with the people and groups with whom they need to collaborate. Workgroups, or communities of practice, provide the basis for a living, growing, vibrant space in which people can access the information they need, share best practices, and contribute to a shared knowledge base. This article discusses the role of communities of practice within organizations and provides a framework for planning research and design activities to maximize their effectiveness. http://tc.eserver.org/34896.html http://tc.eserver.org/34896.html Community features are spreading from "Web 2.0" to "Enterprise 2.0." Research across 14 companies found that many are making productive use of social intranet features. http://tc.eserver.org/34740.html http://tc.eserver.org/34740.html Most intranets are not all that different from each other - the same content subjects tend to apply to most companies and organizations. Content-Strategy has developed a universal intranet content chart that you can use directly - or modify - for free. http://tc.eserver.org/34376.html http://tc.eserver.org/34376.html People are doing business differently today; the intranet of yesterday is not sustainable. Make your intranet work the way people work. http://tc.eserver.org/33596.html http://tc.eserver.org/33596.html Intranets are getting more strategic, with increased collaboration support. Team size is growing by 12% per year, and platforms are becoming integrated. Improving usability increased use by 106% on average. http://tc.eserver.org/33104.html http://tc.eserver.org/33104.html Intranets are more than mere applications. An intranet is a community--made up of technology and personnel--that represents and supports an organization's collective knowledge and culture. And as such, the benefits of an intranet are not always apparent. Perhaps they're taken for granted as normal part of day-to-day operation; only in its absence will we truly discover the worth of an intranet. http://tc.eserver.org/33105.html http://tc.eserver.org/33105.html Intranet developers and content owners are able to grab the attention of their users through momentum. Interest--caused by curiosity, marketing, word-of-mouth, or hype--is raised during initial rollout. And there will always be a surge in your web server's usage logs during this period. But once the novelty has worn off, will your intranet have enough true substance to transform that initial momentum into regular usage? http://tc.eserver.org/33106.html http://tc.eserver.org/33106.html Vocabulary used when talking about intranets reveals a lot about an organisation's model and approach to becoming more international, or global. Which raises the question: what's the difference between global and international? I've included a snapshot of a slide on this point which I use in workshops. http://tc.eserver.org/33107.html http://tc.eserver.org/33107.html Intranet search often fails to meet the needs or expectations of users, with confusing and complex results provided for even the simplest searches. http://tc.eserver.org/33108.html http://tc.eserver.org/33108.html One of the first challenges when establishing an intranet is to determine who should have overall ownership of the site, and where the intranet team should be located. While the responsibility for driving the intranet must be given to a single business area, this group must be located within the right area of the organisation if the intranet is to succeed. This briefing explores a number of common intranet owners, and discusses the pros and cons of each group. It then presents some general guidelines and approaches for selecting where to place the intranet team. http://tc.eserver.org/33109.html http://tc.eserver.org/33109.html The single most important thing to realize about an intranet is that it is a growing entity. If you wipe your brow in relief after rolling out your intranet and think that that was all there was to it, you are going to be in for a surprise. You should not leave your intranet locked away in some room and hope that it will run itself. http://tc.eserver.org/33110.html http://tc.eserver.org/33110.html Many intranets are structured around the organisational chart. It is well known that this method of grouping content is difficult for staff — they can’t find information if they don’t know who is responsible for it. However, it often seems too difficult to move from an organisational-based structure to a more intuitive topical structure. Before moving to a better structure it is necessary to identify why the intranet is currently designed around the organisational chart, and address these issues first. http://tc.eserver.org/33060.html http://tc.eserver.org/33060.html When faced with an out-dated and ineffective intranet, a common response is to launch a redesign project. This can involve spending the next three to six months researching staff needs, creating a new information architecture, and authoring new content. If redesign efforts are based on a solid analysis of business and user needs, this can be an effective way to improve an intranet. However, it takes considerable time and resources, and does not result in a measurable payoff for several months. For some organisations, a full redesign is therefore out of the question. One method that is certain to provide immediate business benefit is to improve the way the intranet supports key tasks. In fact, by selecting only one task at a time, improvements can be made in a manageable and cost-effective manner. http://tc.eserver.org/33061.html http://tc.eserver.org/33061.html Much is expected of intranet authors, and they are vital to delivering an intranet that is useful (and used). Yet, in many cases, intranet authoring is treated as a hobby within organisations. This briefing looks at the role of intranet authors, and challenges organisations to either take intranet authoring seriously, or to let go of unrealistic expectations regarding content quality and timeliness. http://tc.eserver.org/33062.html http://tc.eserver.org/33062.html When planning improvements to an intranet, two main approaches can be taken: the ‘big bang’ and evolutionary approaches. The big bang approach involves making a single, site-wide change to the design and structure of the intranet as the old site is replaced by a new one. In contrast, the ‘evolutionary’ approach makes gradual changes over time, evolving the capabilities and design of the current intranet. This article discusses the differences between the big bang and evolutionary approaches to intranet development. Guidelines are provided on when to use each approach, along with a range of practical tips and suggestions. http://tc.eserver.org/33063.html http://tc.eserver.org/33063.html Effective communications requires two-way, synchronous communications – not just messages pushed on a one-way street from the top floor executive offices. Successful intranets have a well-defined plan that accounts for employee needs and preferences and engages the target audience. http://tc.eserver.org/33064.html http://tc.eserver.org/33064.html A way to measure return on investment (ROI) for your intranet is to answer two basic questions. How does the intranet increase the level and quality of communication? How does it replace traditional forms of communication? To develop such an ROI model, you need to be clear on the current level and type of communication within your organization. http://tc.eserver.org/33065.html http://tc.eserver.org/33065.html While intranets often have someone appointed as the intranet ‘manager’, do they spend their time actually managing the site, or publishing pages? Observing many organisations and intranets, one of the critical success factors is to have an intranet manager who is free to focus solely on the management of the site. The intranet manager should not be writing HTML or publishing pages. http://tc.eserver.org/33066.html http://tc.eserver.org/33066.html How does the intranet designer ensure that employees can productively find the important content and functions, with minimum frustration, with a network growing that quickly? Many designers are turning to Portals -- a set of pages that act as a launch point for every dive into the intranet's ocean of content. We've found that some designers confused portals with a site's home page, but they actually function differently. Home pages guide users to content within a specific site, but because the intranet is actually a collection of sites, (such as human resources, sales, or individual project information,) they each have their own home pages. http://tc.eserver.org/33067.html http://tc.eserver.org/33067.html Over the last half year, it has become popular for large and medium sized companies to build portals to their intranets which have been spinning out of control for years. Still, many companies don't even have a single default starting page for all of their employees: some leave browsers set to boot with the browser vendor's page (an utter waste of bandwidth and time) and others have a smattering of department pages but no company-wide internal home page. http://tc.eserver.org/33068.html http://tc.eserver.org/33068.html An intranet can deliver return on investment (ROI) by either reducing the cost, or expanding the ability, to communicate. By shifting manual processes to the intranet, the cost of accessing and processing information is reduced. The intranet speedily delivers information to large numbers of people. This gives the organization a greater capacity to change. http://tc.eserver.org/33069.html http://tc.eserver.org/33069.html The Intranet Review Toolkit provides a comprehensive set of guidelines for assessing the strengths and weaknesses of corporate intranets. It contains a substantial set of heuristics, allowing a detailed intranet review to be conducted that focuses on a wide range of functionality, design and strategy. http://tc.eserver.org/33070.html http://tc.eserver.org/33070.html This article challenges the vision of the corporate intranet as a publishing tool, or a static repository for web pages or documents. Instead, it looks at a number of ways in which the intranet can become a dynamic and living environment for knowledge-based activities. http://tc.eserver.org/33071.html http://tc.eserver.org/33071.html Improving the effectiveness of internal communications is often one of the key goals underpinning corporate intranets. In practice, this is often reflected in ‘latest news’ section on the home page of most intranets. While news on the home page is certainly widespread, the question needs to be asked: how effective is it? This article explores the role of the intranet as a news channel, revisiting some of the assumptions about how best to deliver online news within an organisation. http://tc.eserver.org/33072.html http://tc.eserver.org/33072.html All too often, intranets become a dumping ground for “second-hand documents”. Information is sent out via email, or other mechanisms, and then stored on the intranet as an afterthought. Where this is the case, intranets deliver few real benefits, while still shouldering the full cost of maintaining an increasingly large collection of pages and documents. This briefing explores the nature of the problem, and proposes what may be considered a radical solution. http://tc.eserver.org/33073.html http://tc.eserver.org/33073.html Employee information, HR procedures, collaboration tools, technical manuals, customer relationship management—these are just a few examples of the applications that are commonly deployed on intranets. When you start to add up the list, even a small business' intranet can easily grow to encompass large volumes of information. The issue that inevitably arises is how to allow your users efficient access to that information. As a site grows, traditional navigation schemes can become cumbersome. http://tc.eserver.org/33074.html http://tc.eserver.org/33074.html I have been watching the knowledge management boom for 15 years. I would love to belive that knowledge management was a valuable field. But to the extent that it's about capturing "knowledge" in documents, it goes against everything I know about successful organisations. Like artificial intelligence, it seems based on a mistaken idea about what knowledge is, and about how knowledge-based economies function. http://tc.eserver.org/33075.html http://tc.eserver.org/33075.html All too often, centralised intranet teams find themselves battling with decentralised authors to enforce consistency and quality standards. Not only is this fighting ultimately fruitless, it can be very damaging for the morale of all participants, and potentially crippling for the future of the intranet itself. In these situations, intranet teams need to find a new approach, and new ways of working with their decentralised authors. The first step is to lose the language of enforcement. http://tc.eserver.org/33076.html http://tc.eserver.org/33076.html More and more intranet teams are buying into the need for usability. However, usability is not a strategy, and without a clear strategy, usability can become a pointless, wasteful and counter-productive exercise. http://tc.eserver.org/33077.html http://tc.eserver.org/33077.html The natural home of the intranet is in communications. However, intranet management requires particular skills that many traditional communications departments don’t have. http://tc.eserver.org/33078.html http://tc.eserver.org/33078.html It is widely recognised that an intranet must be trusted, if it is to be regularly used by staff across an organisation. While it is easy to make this statement, it is harder to qualify what is meant by trust, how users assess it, and how we can build (or rebuild) trust in the intranet. This briefing looks at the issue of trust, and presents some simple steps that can be taken to further build staff trust in the intranet. http://tc.eserver.org/33079.html http://tc.eserver.org/33079.html Many intranets contain a large number of sections ‘under construction’. In general, this happens when a new section of the intranet is being created. The template or section for the site is set up (often by another, more techical team) a list of ideas for content is written and some initial content may be loaded. The section is unfinished but the creators are excited and want to release it, so it is marked as ‘coming soon’ or ‘under construction’. http://tc.eserver.org/33080.html http://tc.eserver.org/33080.html An intranet must constantly grow and evolve to match the changing needs of the business, while ensuring a high level of usability and efficiency. This is no easy task, and it will require the constant enthusiasm and efforts of the intranet team. http://tc.eserver.org/33081.html http://tc.eserver.org/33081.html A single website is more connected and credible. It is more consistent and cost effective. It is easier to manage and measure. Multiple websites weaken the potential power of the overall organization on the Web. http://tc.eserver.org/33082.html http://tc.eserver.org/33082.html Intranets require strong leaders if they are to be more than just publishing platforms for occasionally-used information. The intranet team must take on this leadership role, and drive the evolution and enhancement of the site. This is not an easy role for some intranet teams to play, but ultimately it is one that is satisfying for the team, and greatly beneficial for the site itself. This article outlines a range of practical tips that can be applied to help intranet teams operate more effectively in this leadership role. These are all small (but important) steps that can be taken immediately by any intranet team. http://tc.eserver.org/33083.html http://tc.eserver.org/33083.html Many intranets are only now beginning to show their true potential. However, many staff, having had unsatisfactory previous experiences of the intranet, may need quite some convincing that the intranet is now genuinely useful. http://tc.eserver.org/33084.html http://tc.eserver.org/33084.html You can’t usefully deliver information to users that you haven’t personally met. This article discusses the challenges in delivering information to all staff within an organisation, and outlining practical approaches that ensure efforts spent publishing intranet content are not wasted. http://tc.eserver.org/33085.html http://tc.eserver.org/33085.html Search is often the greatest source of frustration on intranets. Irrelevant results, hard to read results pages and ‘untitled document’ entries plague many intranet searches. With the size and scope of most intranets, search is a key tool used by staff to find information. While the expectation is that it should be quick and easy to find information on the intranet, this is often not the case. Beyond generating staff frustration, these problems can reduce trust and confidence in the search tool. http://tc.eserver.org/33086.html http://tc.eserver.org/33086.html One of the greatest challenges confronting intranets is ensuring that content is up-to-date, accurate and useful. In many organisations, much thought and effort is put into maintaining (and enhancing) the quality of published content. What must be realised, however, is that not all content on an intranet needs to be of equal quality. Only once this is recognised can successful strategies be put in place to support content authoring and publishing. http://tc.eserver.org/33087.html http://tc.eserver.org/33087.html Staff in geographically isolated locations are most reliant on information sources such as intranets. In practical terms, however, these staff are the hardest to reach.This is a central paradox for intranets, and while there are no easy answers, there are some practical steps that can be taken to better meet the needs of these isolated staff. http://tc.eserver.org/33088.html http://tc.eserver.org/33088.html Designing, developing, and deploying an intranet can be expensive, time-consuming and organizationally tricky. Complicating factors include: supervising the budget; prioritizing features; addressing user requests; collaborating with other departments to produce and deploy content; and leading interdisciplinary teams of site administrators, information architects, content writers, visual designers, technical architects, and developers. Nevertheless, certain strategies, when carefully executed, can simplify designing and managing your intranet. http://tc.eserver.org/33089.html http://tc.eserver.org/33089.html Yes, it is possible for white-collar workers to work smarter and become more productive. While intranet usability provides substantial initial gains, workflow usability can go much further and will save millions of jobs. http://tc.eserver.org/33090.html http://tc.eserver.org/33090.html Many organisations are attempting to clarify the relationship between the corporate intranet, and their document/records management system. While this is a broader issue of information management with an organisation, there are some short-term activities that can be taken to create a working relationship between these two platforms. This briefing outlines a simple scenario in which the intranet helps staff find key corporate information, while the documents accessed are stored in the document/records management system. http://tc.eserver.org/33092.html http://tc.eserver.org/33092.html Thanks to Google, intranet users expect to be able to type in a word (or two) and find the page they are looking for, preferably in the first few results. This is not an unreasonable expectation. At the most fundamental level, search on an intranet is supposed to make it quick and easy for staff to find things, thereby saving them time and improving their productivity. This can be distilled down to a very simple concept: search should work like magic. As much as is possible, search should always give staff the information they need, somewhere in the first few results. http://tc.eserver.org/33093.html http://tc.eserver.org/33093.html How do you get old-school management to support and finance an intranet when they themselves are not likely to use it? http://tc.eserver.org/33094.html http://tc.eserver.org/33094.html The growing status of content management systems (CMSs) is now providing many organisations with an impetus to revisit and renew their intranets. Unfortunately, while the technical aspects of implementing a CMS are well understood, many organisations are struggling to identify the issues with the content, structure and management of their intranets. The good news is that by following a disciplined approach, it is possible to re-invigorate an intranet, making it deliver real business benefits, and supporting strategic goals. This article outlines a sixteen step process which guides you through to a refreshed and dynamic new intranet. http://tc.eserver.org/33095.html http://tc.eserver.org/33095.html How can an organization empower its employees, reduce costs and improve data quality? Implementing employee self-service tools is one direction that a number of leading companies are turning to as they look to build win-win propositions with their most important assets: their people. http://tc.eserver.org/33096.html http://tc.eserver.org/33096.html Intranets are complex because they have complex objectives, whereas Internet sites cast a wide net and filter audiences into a few focused paths that eventually lead to a single call to action (such as a purchase transaction). Intranets provide all of the information available on a topic and let readers cull the data they need to complete the task at hand. Intranets cast a wide net, but the filtering is much more difficult. This is a major problem when more and more content gets jammed into an intranet by various corporate divisions. The result is often a resource that's too cumbersome to use. http://tc.eserver.org/33097.html http://tc.eserver.org/33097.html The primary purpose of intranets is to support staff in doing their jobs, to help them complete common business tasks. In practice, however, this can be very frustrating on many intranets. Policies are located in one section, procedures in another section, and forms in a third. Information then needs to be hunted out in order to complete even simple activities. The effectiveness of intranets can be greatly enhanced by bringing together all of the information and tools relating to a task or a subject, and presenting them in a single location. http://tc.eserver.org/33098.html http://tc.eserver.org/33098.html Your intranet and your public website on the open Internet are two different information spaces and should have two different user interface designs. It is tempting to try to save design resources by reusing a single design, but it is a bad idea to do so because the two types of site differ along several dimensions. http://tc.eserver.org/33099.html http://tc.eserver.org/33099.html Finally, organizations are getting serious about how they manage their intranets. The intranet is now moving out of an evolutionary, experimental phase into a more systematic, managed phase. It is being seen as an asset, a driver of productivity. However, return on investment measurement for the intranet still requires a lot of work. http://tc.eserver.org/33100.html http://tc.eserver.org/33100.html The intranet is beginning to restructure the organization in more ways than one. Content is now an asset, and the people who manage it need to treat it as such. Managing editors, and their team, understand how technology can facilitate effective publishing, collaboration and self-service focused application development. http://tc.eserver.org/33101.html http://tc.eserver.org/33101.html There is a view in some organizations that an intranet is only for staff, so you can publish what you want. Quality content matters as much on an intranet as on a public website. Get your content right to begin with. Keep it right by removing out-of-date content. http://tc.eserver.org/33102.html http://tc.eserver.org/33102.html Intranets don't self-organize. Without planned, centralized information architectures and clearly defined published processes, they become unproductive. Intranets often have applications that either don't work properly, are too difficult to learn, or have no clear business benefit. Applications, like content, must be able to establish a clear return on investment. http://tc.eserver.org/33103.html http://tc.eserver.org/33103.html Every intranet is different, and every section of a company’s Intranet can be used differently. There are a number of different methods to how an Intranet can be used to benefit a company. However, the three most popular and most valuable are knowledge management, collaboration and communication, and task management. http://tc.eserver.org/33044.html http://tc.eserver.org/33044.html When you have a small base of users (say, under 10,000), everything has to be perfect to create effective discussion forums. Here are 6 guidelines. http://tc.eserver.org/33045.html http://tc.eserver.org/33045.html The amount of work involved in designing a new intranet or redesigning an existing intranet is minor compared to the time needed to maintain an effective intranet over the longer term. In fact, it is common for the initial excitement of a new intranet to fade away as the reality of day-to-day maintenance and the challenges of improving the intranet become apparent. http://tc.eserver.org/33047.html http://tc.eserver.org/33047.html You want to make sure that your systems have a certain amount of longevity — prolonging system lifecycle, avoiding the risk of obsolescence, and maximizing your return on investment — by making use of current technologies while not hastily chasing bleeding-edge promises of some sort of high-tech eden. http://tc.eserver.org/33048.html http://tc.eserver.org/33048.html Despite best intentions, intranets often fail to deliver on the value they promise. Why? Companies take an 'if we build it they will come' approach. Too often, intended users don't come. And if people don't use the intranet, it will never deliver value. http://tc.eserver.org/33049.html http://tc.eserver.org/33049.html A relatively large navigation list (about 50 content areas) of ‘un-substructured’ finance related material. The intranet in question uses single menu pages for each of 8 main information groups and the above list was part of the wider finance information group. Some work had already be done on other subsections (i.e purchasing). But the rest of the content, which included policies, procedures and other reference material, was all in the same sub-section. The list was structured by alphabetical order only. http://tc.eserver.org/33050.html http://tc.eserver.org/33050.html The fundamental question to ask for all intranets is: what is the intranet actually for? While this is an easy question to ask, answering it meaningfully involves gaining an in-depth understanding of staff and organisational needs. http://tc.eserver.org/33051.html http://tc.eserver.org/33051.html The intranet needs to have a strong brand, a sense of identity that, at a basic level, distinguishes it from the public website and other information sources within the organisation. Beyond this, the intranet brand should be designed to build staff trust, and to convey a clear sense of what the intranet can offer and when it should be used. This briefing explores the role of the intranet's brand identity, as well as outlining how to put it into practice. http://tc.eserver.org/33052.html http://tc.eserver.org/33052.html Many intranets are trapped in a 'downwards spiral': process and resources issues lead to poor-quality content, which reduces trust, which leads to more problems, and so on. This briefing explores the nature of the problem, and outlines some approaches to reshaping the intranet into something that grows and prospers. http://tc.eserver.org/33053.html http://tc.eserver.org/33053.html Over the years I've received many e-mails from readers with some pretty wild, and even dangerous, misconceptions about intranet development and management. In this article I'll take a look at five of these common intranet myths. http://tc.eserver.org/33054.html http://tc.eserver.org/33054.html This case study presents the findings from five different intranet reviews, with the aim of exposing some of the issues being confronted across different organisations. These reviews also show that even within seemingly-similar organisations, the intranet issues can be quite different. This highlights that there is no 'one size fits all' intranet solution, and emphasises the value of conducting meaningful 'needs analysis' activities, such as those outlined in this article. http://tc.eserver.org/33055.html http://tc.eserver.org/33055.html Most intranets have some form of policies and procedures, typically focusing on authoring guidelines and standards. The question is: are these the right policies to have? In many cases, intranet teams have established policies that they find difficult to enforce, while missing the opportunity to develop policies that will be much more beneficial for both the intranet team and the site itself. This briefing takes a different look at the role of intranet policies, and outlines five policies that all intranet teams should develop. http://tc.eserver.org/33056.html http://tc.eserver.org/33056.html Moving an intranet structure from a producer logic to a user logic is probably the hardest thing an intranet manager will ever have to do, especially in large, complex organisations. http://tc.eserver.org/33057.html http://tc.eserver.org/33057.html When an intranet isn’t working effectively, many organisations attempt to tackle the problem with a full-scale redesign of the site or the implementation of a content management system. But these major projects can create as many issues as they resolve. http://tc.eserver.org/33058.html http://tc.eserver.org/33058.html When developing intranet releases, intranet teams often find themselves very constrained by both time and resources. The challenge then becomes delivering sufficient content and capabilities to meet business and user expectations, within the project constraints. This briefing introduces a simple approach to scoping a release that takes all of these factors into account. http://tc.eserver.org/33059.html http://tc.eserver.org/33059.html The role of the developer is to ensure that their systems don't put undue stress on users simply for the sake of technology. Developing for technology alone helps no one. It may showcase the advances in the industry and impress those in-the-know; but after the oohing and aahing stop, it does little to ease the disconnect between the user and the tool. http://tc.eserver.org/32937.html http://tc.eserver.org/32937.html In the information economy, the longevity of an organisation is based as much on the sophistication of its knowledge management practices as it is on traditional differentiators such as the strength of its products, the talent of its employees, and its marketplace reputation and partner relationships. Simply speaking, as actionable and insightful information becomes the currency of an organisation, there are few other ways to tap into any latent potential lost in the office corridors. http://tc.eserver.org/32939.html http://tc.eserver.org/32939.html Continuing my discussions about practical approaches to enterprise 2.0, I’ve been observing and thinking about a range of adoption patterns. Like any new technology, there are many successes, and at least as many failures. For organisations looking to benefit from enterprise 2.0, we obviously want successes. From where I stand, there are three main considerations when conducting strategic planning. http://tc.eserver.org/31871.html http://tc.eserver.org/31871.html Most of us who are working as part of a design team in a services company, a product company, or even a design boutique have to live with a generic intranet. In this article, I’ll describe how to leverage your company’s intranet and how to build a community around an intranet for a UX team. http://tc.eserver.org/31538.html http://tc.eserver.org/31538.html Brand has become an integral part of the employee communicator's role as organizations recognize the importance of employee behaviors in building brand. When it comes time to integrate brand elements into the intranet or portal, good usability practices and testing can guide that integration, ensuring desired employee behaviors. http://tc.eserver.org/31514.html http://tc.eserver.org/31514.html Did you know an intranet could actually be more global than the Internet? The interactions within an intranet are more intense and frequent, and anonymity is replaced with specificity—your real name, job title and location. Company management often believes that a unified employee communication intranet site will foster a community, a shared corporate culture and a universal standard. But a review of two U.S.-based global intranets reveals that today’s reality may fall short. http://tc.eserver.org/31513.html http://tc.eserver.org/31513.html Confusing. Frustrating. Underutilized. Time-consuming. If you are like most communicators, these are just some of the words that come to mind when thinking about your organization’s employee portal. Intranets and employee portals have long been plagued by numerous challenges, including limited funding, poor navigation, content overload and changing technology. Add in growing user expectations, disengaged executives and differing opinions about what portals are and how they deliver tangible value, and it’s no wonder they are such sore spots for communicators. http://tc.eserver.org/31512.html http://tc.eserver.org/31512.html Admit it. Your intranet is a mess. What started out as a great idea for sharing information inside the company has turned into the corporate junk drawer—a jumbled collection of useful, not-so-useful, relevant, irrelevant, redundant, inconsistent and unmanaged stuff. While parts of it make you proud (perhaps the employee directory or news portal), taken as a whole, it just hasn’t lived up to all the grand ideas you had when you posted those first few pages. http://tc.eserver.org/31515.html http://tc.eserver.org/31515.html Is your intranet failing to deliver value for your company and your staff? If so, time and money are being wasted. Research shows that employees can take twice as long to complete tasks and get information from a poor intranet as compared to one that is well designed. This wasted time can cost over US$1,000 each year, per employee, which translates to a cost of US$1 million for every 1,000 employees. So what can you do to improve your intranet? Here are 10 things to think about. http://tc.eserver.org/31485.html http://tc.eserver.org/31485.html In many organizations, when economic conditions improve, funding becomes available for investment in internal communication technologies. While the potential expansion of budgets is welcome news to communicators around the globe, capitalizing on it requires careful, thoughtful prioritization of still-precious resources. So what type of focused investments should communicators consider? Intranet and employee portal improvements should be high on the list. http://tc.eserver.org/31409.html http://tc.eserver.org/31409.html When you measure hits on inter/intranet sites, you are measuring overall volume of usage -- how many times parts of your site have been opened. However, hits don't distinguish between the opening of an entire page or a single illustration. There are many additional ways of measuring usage. However, measuring the "userability" of a site is just as important in order to improve usage numbers. But the first place any communicator should start when measuring the effectiveness of electronic communications is to identify the original objectives for putting something on-line. Conducting some baseline audience research upfront to make sure your electronic solutions will be as effective as possible and then measuring afterward to see if the intended objectives are being met. http://tc.eserver.org/31430.html http://tc.eserver.org/31430.html While the use of a news section on the company intranet's home page is widespread, communicators need to ask themselves how effective this is as a way to avoid mixed messages and information overload. Does it reduce information overload, or increase it? And how can the news section be used to effectively cut through informational clutter? http://tc.eserver.org/31268.html http://tc.eserver.org/31268.html QAS is a small company with only 400 employees. However, this small postal software company well understands the power and value of knowledge and empowering employees with the right information and tools to excel in their day-to-day jobs. How? Rather than accepting their small size and stature as an impediment to intranet success, QAS has evolved their intranet from good to great. http://tc.eserver.org/31269.html http://tc.eserver.org/31269.html If the pace of change in social media and collaborative working continues, intranets as we know them will rapidly become a thing of the past. At the same time, those responsible for corporate intranets need to be sure that past and present investment in the platform pays off. What should they do? http://tc.eserver.org/31270.html http://tc.eserver.org/31270.html Every year needs its hype topic of choice. In the field of intranets and portals for 2007, the fashion has now been decided: It's the 3-D intranet—some version of Second Life (the virtual digital environment gaining popularity among large corporations) designed for employees. IBM is investing large sums of money looking into what a 3-D intranet might be like, and intranet managers and directors in large organizations are gaining interest in this new possibility. http://tc.eserver.org/31077.html http://tc.eserver.org/31077.html The key to efficient and effective user support is an intranet site that supports employees in performing their tasks. However, most intranet sites offer an overload of information that users often must interpret on their own. Van Mansom outlines a useful approach to creating corporate intranet sites. http://tc.eserver.org/29997.html http://tc.eserver.org/29997.html Measured usability improved by 44% compared to our last large-scale intranet study. The new research identified 5 times the previous number of intranet design guidelines. http://tc.eserver.org/29156.html http://tc.eserver.org/29156.html In this article, we present a usability experiment in which participants were asked to make intensive use of information on an intranet in order to execute job-related tasks. Participants had to work with one of two versions of an intranet: one with an organization-based hyperlink structure, and one with a task-based hyperlink structure. Efficiency and effectiveness were measured in terms of execution time and task accuracy, respectively. After the task execution, participants were asked to evaluate the task as well as the intranet. The results show that participants perform more efficiently with the organization-based structure, which is probably due to their familiarity with this structure. A post hoc analysis revealed, however, a learning effect in the task condition, which suggests that once users are acquainted with it, a task structure is at least as efficient. http://tc.eserver.org/28734.html http://tc.eserver.org/28734.html Documenting networks is playing less with words, and more with diagrams. It also requires an engineering mind, an ability to think out-of-box, and creative mind. Technical writers can rise to a new scale and expand their skill sets if they are able to document networks. http://tc.eserver.org/28160.html http://tc.eserver.org/28160.html An intranet, in contrast to the Internet, is in-house and serves the employees of an enterprise. Although intranet pages may link to the Internet, an intranet is not accessed by the public. The intranet was fertile ground for web-savvy geeks like me to till and plant. http://tc.eserver.org/28091.html http://tc.eserver.org/28091.html In analyzing 56 intranets, we found many common top-level categories, labels, and navigation designs, but ultimately, the diversity was too great to recommend a single IA. http://tc.eserver.org/26681.html http://tc.eserver.org/26681.html Technical communicators can gain knowledge and expertise in web technology including developing intranet sites, usability engineering, and knowledge management. http://tc.eserver.org/26629.html http://tc.eserver.org/26629.html A usability analysis of 23 intranet portals finds strong growth, increasing collaboration features, and cross-functional governance. http://tc.eserver.org/26430.html http://tc.eserver.org/26430.html Thanks to web technologies, the intranet allows us to access and share information easier than ever before. http://tc.eserver.org/26147.html http://tc.eserver.org/26147.html Some main points submitted by readers about writing for intranets, in quotation marks or paraphrased. http://tc.eserver.org/25775.html http://tc.eserver.org/25775.html In recent years, intranet homepages have become very similar in their basic layout. Intranets that look the same can nonetheless differ drastically in usability due to different features and content. http://tc.eserver.org/24377.html http://tc.eserver.org/24377.html Easy access to corporate databases, collaboration areas and tools for project teams, up-to-date product and competitive information, instant access to information on employee benefits and company policies, a single email system that reaches every desktop and every person. These are some of the services that are causing companies across the world to implement Internet standards, protocols, and browsers within their organizations. This introductory session demonstrates the progression of intranets from glorified networks to electronic performance support systems and gives you the opportunity to determine how an intranet might benefit your company while designing several intranet approaches. http://tc.eserver.org/24219.html http://tc.eserver.org/24219.html Our Veep of Development laid down the glove: An award, he promised, would be given to that department producing the most useful intranet site. Budget, you ask? So we used all manner of freeware. In this session, we'll explain why an intranet made sense in our company, what tools we used to build our site, feedback we have received, and how the intranet has made our work more pleasant and efficient. http://tc.eserver.org/24079.html http://tc.eserver.org/24079.html The goal of an intranet site is to improve knowledge sharing and productivity. In a large company, it can be difficult to achieve consensus on how to make this happen. Knowledge management experts, information systems project managers, graphic designers, marketing leaders, HTML developers and usability engineers are used to fighting for their places, convinced that they know best. In truth, the intranet is not yet mature, and there are no definite answers. This chapter describes experiences with the intranet sites of two Fortune 500 companies. In both cases, the usability engineer was a consultant from outside the company, in one case part of a team of consultants and in the other working more closely with company employees. Both intranet projects were riddled with mishaps, bad decisions, personality conflicts, and compromises. Still, the usability engineers were able to improve the sites by becoming members of the project teams, and by tirelessly incorporating usability in everything they did. http://tc.eserver.org/23780.html http://tc.eserver.org/23780.html The Intranet brings together Web sites owned by departments, divisions, and individuals across the organisation. It may link local and regional offices, and employees of diverse cultures and languages. The strategy for designing a Web site requires an understanding of the context of use, user and organizational requirements, produce design solutions, and evaluation of design solutions against requirements. If this appears similar to product design – it is. Content, design, consistency and maintenance are essential to quality. If done well, the Web site contributes to the corporate Intranet community. This article looks at important issues to consider when designing a web site for a corporate Intranet. http://tc.eserver.org/23761.html http://tc.eserver.org/23761.html We're pleased to bring you the first of two excerpts from upcoming second editon of 'Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.' The excerpts look at MSWeb, which the authors say provides a glimpse of what most intranets will be doing in three to five years. http://tc.eserver.org/23763.html http://tc.eserver.org/23763.html In our second excerpt from the newly-released second editon of 'Information Architecture for the World Wide Web.' the authors look at how the MSWeb team succeeded at spreading its gospel through a huge organization like Microsoft when similar efforts at smaller companies often fail. http://tc.eserver.org/23656.html http://tc.eserver.org/23656.html Microsoft FrontPage is used extensively in small and medium-sized companies to create both Intranet and Internet Web sites, even though professional Web designers turn up their noses at it. This paper reviews some of the factors that led to its widespread usage, and gives some pointers to nonprofessional Web Mistresses. http://tc.eserver.org/23518.html http://tc.eserver.org/23518.html Redesigning an intranet for usability often more than doubled the use of these award-winning designs from ten public-sector organizations. http://tc.eserver.org/23437.html http://tc.eserver.org/23437.html Communication over the Intranet can change how a company's employees and departments work as a team. This is especially important for companies with branches or subsidiaries overseas. http://tc.eserver.org/23427.html http://tc.eserver.org/23427.html To keep abreast of current issues, Australia's federal parliamentarians need timely information, analysis and advice. This is used not only within the Parliament itself, but also by Members and Senators when undertaking their electorate duties. A large and vital part of this service is provided by the Parliamentary Library. The particular characteristics of clients and their diverse needs means the Library’s communication issues differ from those faced by other libraries. From a myriad of manual techniques the Library has increasingly moved into using electronic sources and dissemination methods, which are being enhanced and expanded regularly and will soon include a comprehensive intranet portal to Library services. http://tc.eserver.org/23187.html http://tc.eserver.org/23187.html Construire un intranet, cela semble simple et pourtant l'expérience nous montre que les écueils sont nombreux. Manque de cohérence, communication mal adaptée, mauvaise ergonomie, manque d'implication du management risquent de transformer l'intranet en un patchwork sans cohérence, ni ligne directrice, que les salariés finissent par ne plus utiliser. http://tc.eserver.org/23052.html http://tc.eserver.org/23052.html Is the portal a task-oriented platform for applications, e-services and cross-functional business process integration or a tool for enterprise-wide knowledge management? Is it a bottom-up enabler of communication and collaboration or a top-down channel for broadcasting official corporate propaganda? Inevitable consensus answer? It's all of these things and more, and the IT folks better be ready to support this exciting new paradigm! http://tc.eserver.org/22872.html http://tc.eserver.org/22872.html As the World Wide Web rapidly evolves, as philosophies for designing online documents change, and as technologies grow ever more sophisticated the technical communicator is presented with many challenges. What are the most eflective methods for structuring, authoring and maintaining online documents? What are the best tools and formats to use for the construction of a documentation Web site? What kinds of technical decisions must the designer or writer make? HTML or PDF? GIF or JPEG? Can several text and graphics formats be combined into one seamless site? What about hypertext links - how many is too many? What is the best approach to building a prototype? Presenting it to users? Selling it to management? Many lessons can be learned before embarking on the journey. , . http://tc.eserver.org/22855.html http://tc.eserver.org/22855.html A technical writer on an intranet team can also play the role of trainer. This paper provides a 'how to' of training end-users and content-providers associated with a web- and PDF-based company intranet. These ideas will be expanded in the session and on the CD-ROM of the Proceedings. http://tc.eserver.org/22671.html http://tc.eserver.org/22671.html Since the mid-1990s, the promise of intranets has beckoned. These systems can transcend geographical barriers, offer the information workers need, and churn out answers at any time of day. With them, workers can save valuable time and make better decisions. But less than a decade later, a usability study about research intranets has found that the promise remains largely unfulfilled. Why do intranets fail? How can more usable designs be created? In this article I review usability findings from my company’s recent report, based on the 2001 usability study for Special Libraries Association and conducted at Bechtel Corporation, ChevronTexaco Corporation, Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company, Gale Group, Gilead Sciences, Sun Microsystems, and Synopsys. http://tc.eserver.org/22647.html http://tc.eserver.org/22647.html This document discusses the significant opportunities available for business to use websites to interact directly with their various audiences. Web services technology has enabled the Corporate Web to evolve from static 'brochureware' into a 'behavior-shaping' communications and relationship-building tool. http://tc.eserver.org/22308.html http://tc.eserver.org/22308.html Yes, it is possible for white-collar workers to work smarter and become more productive. While intranet usability provides substantial initial gains, workflow usability can go much further and will save millions of jobs. http://tc.eserver.org/22141.html http://tc.eserver.org/22141.html The plumbing division of Kohler Co. is no stranger to managing their content. They had been using BroadVision's document-management system, Relation Document Manager (RDM), for three years and authoring in Interleaf since 1989. But when BroadVision stopped supporting RDM, Mark Peterson, the technical publications manager at Kohler, was desperate to find a replacement. BroadVision offered BladeRunner, but that tool didn't sufficiently support the heavy and stringent print requirements of Mark's department. Plumbers don't always have adequate or readily available access to the Internet. http://tc.eserver.org/22085.html http://tc.eserver.org/22085.html Numerous surveys across a diverse range of IT projects have identified that the lack of support from senior management (project sponsorship) is one of the biggest causes of project failure. This briefing explores the need for a project sponsor, the role they need to play, and how to choose one. http://tc.eserver.org/22089.html http://tc.eserver.org/22089.html In many organisations, the intranet competes with e-mail, file shares, the document management system and records management. Information is scattered between these systems, making it difficult for users to know where to look. What is needed is a clear policy about when these information systems should be used, and what they are for. http://tc.eserver.org/22095.html http://tc.eserver.org/22095.html At the core of the structure of many intranets is the organisation chart. This is not surprising as many intranets grow organically with little central control. Business teams create their own areas on the intranet, include information about what they do, and disseminate it to their internal clients. This article outlines practical ways to move from an intranet based on the organisation chart to one that is more intuitive and allows people to complete their tasks more easily. http://tc.eserver.org/22091.html http://tc.eserver.org/22091.html A simple intranet feedback mechanism is an effective way of keeping an intranet up-to-date, and assisting with change management and cultural change processes. http://tc.eserver.org/22083.html http://tc.eserver.org/22083.html Many intranets are under-used. Intranet managers lament the low use and discuss how to get staff to 'use the intranet more', resulting in marketing and promotions activities to increase use. http://tc.eserver.org/22078.html http://tc.eserver.org/22078.html A range of statistics are typically gathered on intranet usage, but of these, search engine reports are by far the most useful. This briefing explores two key search engine reports that should be implemented on all intranets, and looks at how they can be used to improve the effectiveness of the site. http://tc.eserver.org/22060.html http://tc.eserver.org/22060.html Within most corporations, taking ownership of an intranet is an unglamorous, exhausting, and thankless job for a new intranet manager. But if approached with the same rigor, discipline, and focus as any other business initiative, the task can quickly become much simpler. http://tc.eserver.org/21750.html http://tc.eserver.org/21750.html Within most corporations, taking ownership of an intranet is an unglamorous, exhausting, and thankless job for a new intranet manager. But if approached with the same rigor, discipline, and focus as any other business initiative, the task can quickly become much simpler. http://tc.eserver.org/21649.html http://tc.eserver.org/21649.html Offers suggestions for creating an effective corporate intranet. http://tc.eserver.org/21336.html http://tc.eserver.org/21336.html The Nielsen Normal Group report 'Intranet Design Annual: The Ten Best Intranets of 2001' is a worthwhile look into successful intranets that would otherwise not be available to the general public. It is a valuable guide for anyone (not just specialists) involved in intranet design and development. http://tc.eserver.org/21334.html http://tc.eserver.org/21334.html Designing, developing, and deploying an intranet can be expensive, time-consuming and organizationally tricky. But certain strategies, when carefully executed, can simplify designing and managing your intranet. http://tc.eserver.org/21033.html http://tc.eserver.org/21033.html There's a large body of theory available to guide Web and intranet design, but concentrating too much on theory sometimes leads designers to overlook basic things they can do to improve the usability of sites. This article presents, in no particular order, seven simple ways to make your Web site or intranet more usable. http://tc.eserver.org/21006.html http://tc.eserver.org/21006.html This year's winning intranet designs emphasized workflow support, self-service content management, and offloading tasks from email to collaboration tools. On average, companies spent three years between redesigns, and one year on the redesign itself. http://tc.eserver.org/20296.html http://tc.eserver.org/20296.html The Internet created a revolution in electronic documentation. Now corporations are creating intranets (internal networks) and extranets (secured Internets for customer use) for the distribution and access of corporate documentation, manuals, and training using Internet technology. You’ll learn how to determine what should go on your intranet/extranet, how to ensure information meets users needs, and how to design effective electronic materials. http://tc.eserver.org/20301.html http://tc.eserver.org/20301.html If you are considering or planning an intranet site, you know it can be an overwhelming experience. Given all the hype around the World Wide Web and HTML these days, it's easy to become overwhelmed--we were too. We were given the task of developing an intranet site for our department. We lost sight of the fact that, as technical writers, we are skilled at learning new tools and new technology and we are trained to present information in an effective manner. There will always be new tools and technology, but the process of good information design remains the same.