Intranet Communications Strategy
Well, 'tis done. And could not have been done without the assistance of all of you who sent messages, left comments or, in one case, sent through entire draft presentations (!)
Thanks to everyone for responding with ideas, encouragement, research materials and suggestions.
Thanks in particular to Jeneane Sessum - for support above and way beyond the call of duty. Jeneane loaded up the comment box and my email inbox with splendid, targeted, interesting and really useful content. Jeneane – you are the best.
For the record, Jeneane and I work for competitive PR agencies: yet she went out of her way to offer the advice, research materials and insights I needed to get this thing done. She's one of the very few people in this world with whom, if I had to, I would be confident heading off to war. And I've never met her - never even spoken to her on the phone. Proof yet again that the power of the blog is mightier than the mere pen. Or something.
My pitch actually seemed to go down remarkably well too, I'm more than a little surprised to say. Helped that we had a pretty receptive, post-lunch audience - much warm chortling at my lame jokes and self-referential silliness.
FWIW, I tried to centre my presentation around the one fairly simple idea that real intranet success comes from a willing devolution of ownership to the user community.
Seems to me that the question of who 'owns' a corporate intranet is one of the most interesting and useful discussions in this broad topic. I know I didn't have enough prep time to really do this justice, and left numerous gaping holes and inconsistencies in this hastily constructed thesis; but as I took pains to point out the gaps in my thinking, I hope not too many people felt cheated by my lack of preparation. (Heck - I had a pretty good excuse).
As you might expect, I even managed to weave in some discussion of blogging as a potential means to foster personal expression and individual ownership of valuable, opinionated content as sidebars to the main corporate communications function of a healthy intranet.
I went with a wishful thinking approach - "wouldn't it be great if individuals' personal web spaces were accepted and promoted as valuable in their own right as parallel streams to the main intranet?" Didn't have time to turn up a real world example of this thinking in action - but I'm sure there are a few companies out there experimenting with the idea. Cisco was toying with it for a while – not sure how far that went.
I cited Weinberger too, of course. I realised that many of the key questions concerning a solid intranet strategy are the very same questions one asks in building a knowledge management plan.
Well, duh.
So some of the ideas in my pitch sprang directly from old discussions with pre-Cluetrain David (back when he and I were briefly competitors - in his days at Open Text and mine at PC DOCS), and from work we did together trying to synthesise a coherent KM vision for the merged PC DOCS/Fulcrum company.
I also really liked, and used, the suggestion from Rikard Linde in Sweden, which I paraphrased as “Management’s Intranet Response Paradox Effect (…paradigm…thing)”
The dilemma, as Rikard sets it up, is this:
1. Management builds systems to change (‘improve’, ‘streamline’) the behaviour of their employees.
2. Employees like new tools they can use without changing working habits.
This seems to me to ring manifestly true. Thank you, Rikard – I gave you full credit for this idea in my pitch. (I'm really enjoying reading the articles at Rikard's blog, btw - smart, smart guy with a great turn of phrase).
Reaching back again to some old DOCS/Fulcrum thoughts, here’s how it played out:
The User Perspective: “All I want from the intranet:”
Make my life simpler:
- I don’t want to remember where to find things
- I don’t want to want to remember where to put things
- Keep me in the know with the right people
Make sure my contributions are:
- Meaningful to the organization
- Recognized appropriately
- Easy to share with others
Just let me to do my job better!
The Management Perspective: “All I want from the intranet:”
Institutionalize knowledge:
- Preserve our investment in k-workers
- Keep our IP secure in one ‘place’
- Re-use & re-purpose successful/valuable content
Manage behaviour:
- Ensure consistency & accuracy
- Reduce exposure to errors & omissions
- Reinforce standards and best practices
Just let us be seen to do our jobs better!
And therein lies much of the pain in the many intranet projects that fail to live up to expectations.
This also evokes some of that by now ancient Standish Group research about software development projects that thrive or fail. Old research, but still, IMHO, valid.
The top three reasons so many internal development projects fail:
1. Incomplete requirements
2. Lack of user involvement
3. Lack of resources
Compare that with the top three reasons some projects succeed:
1. User involvement
2. Executive management support
3. Clear statement of requirements
There was much more than this in the pitch, but there was some good stuff woven around these thoughts. Maybe I’ll get the chance to speak on this topic again some time soon – which would give me the impetus to refine and finish the argument and close up some of those truck-wide gaps.
Thanks again to all who helped.
And apologies also to today’s audience for my being so poorly prepared. I know you paid good money for this conference, and I feel more than a little guilty about showing up with what was at best a scrambled together presentation. Hope it wasn’t too painful.
Well, 'tis done. And could not have been done without the assistance of all of you who sent messages, left comments or, in one case, sent through entire draft presentations (!)
Thanks to everyone for responding with ideas, encouragement, research materials and suggestions.
Thanks in particular to Jeneane Sessum - for support above and way beyond the call of duty. Jeneane loaded up the comment box and my email inbox with splendid, targeted, interesting and really useful content. Jeneane – you are the best.
For the record, Jeneane and I work for competitive PR agencies: yet she went out of her way to offer the advice, research materials and insights I needed to get this thing done. She's one of the very few people in this world with whom, if I had to, I would be confident heading off to war. And I've never met her - never even spoken to her on the phone. Proof yet again that the power of the blog is mightier than the mere pen. Or something.
My pitch actually seemed to go down remarkably well too, I'm more than a little surprised to say. Helped that we had a pretty receptive, post-lunch audience - much warm chortling at my lame jokes and self-referential silliness.
FWIW, I tried to centre my presentation around the one fairly simple idea that real intranet success comes from a willing devolution of ownership to the user community.
Seems to me that the question of who 'owns' a corporate intranet is one of the most interesting and useful discussions in this broad topic. I know I didn't have enough prep time to really do this justice, and left numerous gaping holes and inconsistencies in this hastily constructed thesis; but as I took pains to point out the gaps in my thinking, I hope not too many people felt cheated by my lack of preparation. (Heck - I had a pretty good excuse).
As you might expect, I even managed to weave in some discussion of blogging as a potential means to foster personal expression and individual ownership of valuable, opinionated content as sidebars to the main corporate communications function of a healthy intranet.
I went with a wishful thinking approach - "wouldn't it be great if individuals' personal web spaces were accepted and promoted as valuable in their own right as parallel streams to the main intranet?" Didn't have time to turn up a real world example of this thinking in action - but I'm sure there are a few companies out there experimenting with the idea. Cisco was toying with it for a while – not sure how far that went.
I cited Weinberger too, of course. I realised that many of the key questions concerning a solid intranet strategy are the very same questions one asks in building a knowledge management plan.
Well, duh.
So some of the ideas in my pitch sprang directly from old discussions with pre-Cluetrain David (back when he and I were briefly competitors - in his days at Open Text and mine at PC DOCS), and from work we did together trying to synthesise a coherent KM vision for the merged PC DOCS/Fulcrum company.
I also really liked, and used, the suggestion from Rikard Linde in Sweden, which I paraphrased as “Management’s Intranet Response Paradox Effect (…paradigm…thing)”
The dilemma, as Rikard sets it up, is this:
1. Management builds systems to change (‘improve’, ‘streamline’) the behaviour of their employees.
2. Employees like new tools they can use without changing working habits.
This seems to me to ring manifestly true. Thank you, Rikard – I gave you full credit for this idea in my pitch. (I'm really enjoying reading the articles at Rikard's blog, btw - smart, smart guy with a great turn of phrase).
Reaching back again to some old DOCS/Fulcrum thoughts, here’s how it played out:
The User Perspective: “All I want from the intranet:”
Make my life simpler:
- I don’t want to remember where to find things
- I don’t want to want to remember where to put things
- Keep me in the know with the right people
Make sure my contributions are:
- Meaningful to the organization
- Recognized appropriately
- Easy to share with others
Just let me to do my job better!
The Management Perspective: “All I want from the intranet:”
Institutionalize knowledge:
- Preserve our investment in k-workers
- Keep our IP secure in one ‘place’
- Re-use & re-purpose successful/valuable content
Manage behaviour:
- Ensure consistency & accuracy
- Reduce exposure to errors & omissions
- Reinforce standards and best practices
Just let us be seen to do our jobs better!
And therein lies much of the pain in the many intranet projects that fail to live up to expectations.
This also evokes some of that by now ancient Standish Group research about software development projects that thrive or fail. Old research, but still, IMHO, valid.
The top three reasons so many internal development projects fail:
1. Incomplete requirements
2. Lack of user involvement
3. Lack of resources
Compare that with the top three reasons some projects succeed:
1. User involvement
2. Executive management support
3. Clear statement of requirements
There was much more than this in the pitch, but there was some good stuff woven around these thoughts. Maybe I’ll get the chance to speak on this topic again some time soon – which would give me the impetus to refine and finish the argument and close up some of those truck-wide gaps.
Thanks again to all who helped.
And apologies also to today’s audience for my being so poorly prepared. I know you paid good money for this conference, and I feel more than a little guilty about showing up with what was at best a scrambled together presentation. Hope it wasn’t too painful.
