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Features
The introduction of a new software system into an existing company (and its culture) is always a challenge. All new software is at risk of being under-used, improperly used, or simply not accepted. An intranet faces additional challenges because, to a certain extent, it alters the flow of how people work and communicate.
Each year, organizations invest ever-increasing sums in their intranet environments. They do so for good reasons: to drive internal efficiencies, to enable staff to collaborate better, to reduce face-to-face meeting and travel time, to enable remote/home working, or to foster innovation and knowledge sharing. From time to time—particularly when substantial injections of new funds are required—senior leaders posit a question: “So if we put the $2.5 million you want into the intranet, what will the return be?”
Columns
Intranets have come a long way in the last 10 years, from hobbies to core corporate platforms. Yet the metaphor underpinning this success is still the intranet as an “internal website.” This metaphor leads to a focus on content management, usability, information architecture, publishing models, search, and governance. These have improved the effectiveness of intranets, but there is a limit to how far they can take us.
Workflows are supposed to flow, like a river. Whether your CMS workflow will run along smoothly or leave users to navigate as if they were white-water rafting has a lot to do with how you think about your workflow in the first place. Usually, when organizations are implementing a web content management system, the workflow is an afterthought. It is something the implementation team thinks about after they already purchased the software and sometimes after they have designed the system.
Read_Me_File
Reviewed this Issue: Intranets for Info Pros; Global Intranet Trends Report; and Privacy International
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