Posting Emails as Intranet news items - Just because you can doesn't mean you should !

I had an unusual incident happen the other day which reminded me of the need to keep content management training content and resources up to date.

In my organisation I have a group of about 30 employees across the business who are trained as content managers and have the ability to create, maintain and publish content to the Intranet. All of those people are also able to create and publish news items to the front page.

I always recommend that content managers create news items in HTML format using the templates and tools I have provided for them however it is also possible to publish items that have been created in Word, PDF and PowerPoint format.

A couple of weeks ago I noticed a news item appear regarding some changes to IT services and was very surprised when I clicked link and after a short wait, Microsoft Outlook started to open.

One of the resourceful and obviously time poor content managers had published an email they had received from their manager as a news item to the front page of our Intranet. I quickly contacted the publisher and explained that there are many reasons why emails should not be published as news items.

The primary issue with this practice is that our email system runs on Microsoft Exchange. That means that all emails on desktops & notebooks require outlook to be running before they can be opened. That slows down access timed considerably for those in the office but for those in the field using VPN it frequently grinds to a halt.

The second reason is all the non essential texts contained in an email. Subject and date stamp details for a start, but there is also the addition of Email addresses for sender, receiver and all cced. This additional content is not aesthetically pleasing, not needed and not very secure.

Since this incident I have had to revisit our training and reference documentation and also the training provided for Intranet content managers. I never thought that I would have to not only provide details of what file types are suitable for publishing online but also what file types should not be used. Just proves that you never stop learning.

Get a free copy of the Digital Workplace Trends 2012 Report

Because Intranets are inside an organisations firewall it is difficult for Internet Managers to keep abreast of what other organisations are doing in their Intranet space. Jane McConnell's annual Global Intranet Trends report fills that knowledge gap.

In the last survey over 400 companies participated resulting in a snapshot of Intranet trends and strategies from around the globe for 2010. I was personally interested to discover how many organisations were testing the social intranet waters and the Global Intranet Trends Report 2011 provided me with the detail I was looking for.

Jane does a comprehensive job of preparing each years survey and report and the consistent result is an invaluable and relevant reference for every Intranet Manager in any sized organisation. Get a taste from the 2011 report here.

If you are an Intranet Manager and would like to get your hands on a free copy of the Digital Workplace Trends 2012 report all you need to do is join up to participate in the survey and Jane will send you a personalised link. The 45 minutes it takes to complete the survey is time well spend as you will be referencing resulting report you receive for the next 12 months.

The more participants the more beneficial the results so join up to participate today and help make this the best Digital Workplace Trends report yet.

Sites about Intranets - Platforms & Resources

This morning I received a Google Alert titled Top 10 Sites about Intranets and I expected to see all my favourite sites listed and although there were a couple of sites that I used, most of my favourites were missing.


The source was a site called Xmarks a bookmark synchronisation application which once installed registers and aggregates the bookmarks of all its users browsers. The currently narrow cross section of users of this application results in less than comprehensive results when searching for sites about Intranets. Having said that, the results are not bad and will only improve if take up of the Xmarks application grows.


It has prompted me to provide you with my list a few of my favourite sites about Intranets.


Step Two Designs
Headed by James Robertson @s2d_jamesr Step Two Designs provides vendor-neutral consulting and mentoring services on all things Intranet. The site contains a plethora of free resources in the way of fact sheets and articles. It also hosts the Column Two blog that James authors and I would advise all Intranet Managers to subscribe to the Column Two feed.


NetStrategy JMC
Jane McConnell runs this site for her Digital Workplace Strategy & Governance consulting firm. It also hosts her must read blog and is the home of the annual Digital Workplace Trends survey (formerly the Global Intranet Trends survey ). I have participated in the survey since it began 6 years ago. I encourage every Intranet Manager I meet to take part in the survey each year and as a reward receive a participant copy of the report. You can read a review I did of last years report here.


Prescient Digital Media
Intranet Consulting firm with many years experience in Intranet planning, consulting & strategy. Prescient Digital Media is headed by Toby Ward @tobyward who has been a twitter friend of mine for some time. As well as publishing excellent Intranet related articles and videos to the site there is also an excellent Intranet Blog with lots of valuable Intranet Information.


Worldwide Intranet Challenge
Run by another of my Twitter friends and fellow Aussie Andrew Wright @roojwright the Worldwide Intranet Challenge provides a wonderful service to allow your organisations Intranet to be benchmarked against others across the globe. This site constantly provides valuable reference material and insights into issues that face modern Intranets and the people who manage them.


Intranet Experience
Another essential blog to follow is Intranet Experience authored by Sean R Nicholson @seanrnicholson. Sean is one of the leading commentators in the current hot topic of Social Media on the Intranet.


Intranet Connections
Intranet Connections is an out of the box all in one Intranet software solution and although they have a product to sell they still provide oodles of valuable Intranet information and opinion for free. The organisation is headed by the wonderful Caroline Douglas @carolyndouglas and yes she is another of my valued twitter friends. The frequently updated Intranet Connections blog consistently delivers value for Intranet managers in any sized organisation.




There are many many more wonderful sites out there to help you stay informed and up to date with everything Intranet and the above are just a sample to wet your appetite.

Usability Testing - How many users should you test?

One of the last presentation sessions I attended at Intranets 2011 was by Step Two's Rebecca Rogers @rebeccarodgers titled "How do you find out what staff need?".


Rebecca is a specialist at performing user needs analysis for organisations so I was keen to attend her presentation and I was definately not dissapointed. When Rebecca came to discussing Usability Testing I raised the question of how many users should be tested and referred to Jacob Nielsen's well known Alertbox article from 2000 Why you only need to test with 5 users.


The discussion that followed raised many differing opinions. Some were of the view that the research performed by Nielson & Landauer was specific to Internet Web sites & not for Intranets. Others maintain that 5 users was definitely not enough and that testing 20 users minimum was more appropriate.


My experience tends to agree with the research (now nearly 20 years old) that recommends testing 5 users at a time provides the best insight into an Internet or Intranet sites usability problems.


The Nielson posting explains the reasons why 5 users is enough:

"As soon as you collect data from a single test user, your insights shoot up and you have already learned almost a third of all there is to know about the usability of the design. The difference between zero and even a little bit of data is astounding.


When you test the second user, you will discover that this person does some of the same things as the first user, so there is some overlap in what you learn. People are definitely different, so there will also be something new that the second user does that you did not observe with the first user. So the second user adds some amount of new insight, but not nearly as much as the first user did.


The third user will do many things that you already observed with the first user or with the second user and even some things that you have already seen twice. Plus, of course, the third user will generate a small amount of new data, even if not as much as the first and the second user did.


As you add more and more users, you learn less and less because you will keep seeing the same things again and again."

This does not mean that you stop at 5 users. It merely means that you perform testing with 5 users. Attempt to fix all the issues arising from these user tests, then test again with the next group of 5.


I have found that using this method of testing, fixing and testing again makes the most of everyone's time and resources. My experience in using this method has demonstrated that by the time you have tested 4 groups of 5 users you will have identified around 90% of usability problems.


Of course careful consideration needs to be given to selecting which users to test. It is best to choose from a wide variety of employees, each with varying degrees of computer skills and diverse roles in the organisation. You need to try hard to ensure that the broadest range of employees as possible participate from the Executive level to those in call centres, outlets and on the road. This is also highlighted as an important consideration in the research.

"If, for example, you have a site that will be used by both children and parents, then the two groups of users will have sufficiently different behavior that it becomes necessary to test with people from both groups. The same would be true for a system aimed at connecting purchasing agents with sales staff."

I have always found usability testing to be fun and enlightening and while not everyone would share that view it is still an essential exercise that all Intranet Managers should carry out.

Intranets 2011 - What a fabulous event.

What a wonderful conference. I was lucky enough to be asked to present myself which I must say was a little intimidating due to the high standard of speakers. The presentation line up and the way the event was organised was excellent so I just had to share some of the experience here.

Some of the many logistical touches that made this event special.

• An espresso coffee cart. So much better that the usual coffee served at these events.
• No delegate folders that rarely get opened after the conference. Instead a conveniently sized little booklet was provided that contained the presentation schedule, speaker bios that included the Twitter name for each speaker and plenty of room for notes
• Free Wi-Fi for all - Fantastic
  
• Power boards on each table meant notepads and iPads stayed charged for the entire event.
• Smartphone charging station was a great touch that I took advantage of twice.

Then there was the excellent lineup of speakers. I was very excited to meet Jane McConnell for the first time face to face after dealing with her for 5 years online and she was as lovely and interesting as I knew she would be.

I was very impressed with Michael Sampson's live blog posts. He captured the essence of the sessions he attended as they were happening and posted them immediately. Great effort.

And then there were the excellent presentations. I have never been to an event that provided such a wonderful lineup of knowledgeable Intranet professionals.

My only disappointed was that I was unable to attend every presentation due to the dual stream format and deciding which session to go to was very difficult.

Here are a few of the presentations from the event that made it so special.

What are the global trends for intranets?
Jane McConnell (France) @netjmc

You’ve got collaboration tools: now what?
Michael Sampson (New Zealand) @collabguy

Intranet features that staff love
Andrew Wright (Australia) @roojwright

Your intranet on the go — developing QUT Virtual Mobile
Andy McBride (Australia) @andymac7

What Makes an Essential Intranet?

James Robertson (Australia) @s2d_jamesr

As blogged by Michael Sampson

If you would like to see a few more of the speaker presentations they are available Here.

Thanks to Step Two for making Intranets 2011 happen. I don't know how you will top this next year but I can't wait to see what is in store.

Preliminary feedback from this year's Global Intranet Strategies survey

Participating in Jane McConnell's annual Global Intranet Strategies survey is rewarding in so many ways. Its wonderful to know that you are contributing to a survey that each year provides a valuable snapshot of Intranet trends, developments and strategies from across the globe.
The biggest rewarded comes when participants receive a complimentary copy of the report.

The annual report is an essential reference tool for any Intranet Manager in any sized organisation and I look forward to receiving my copy every year.

There is still time for Intranet Managers to participate in this years survey. You have until the end of August 2010. The more participants, the more useful the data so sign up for the 2010 - 2011 survey today.

Jane has this year provided participants with some preliminary observations from the responses received so far. Please Note that these figures are provisional but definately give you an idea of the valuable information this wonderful survey provides.

Strategy drivers for the intranet are shifting a little
Communication has become even higher as a strategy driver for the intranet: 92% consider it a primary driver compared to 87% last year. Appeal for the new work force has dropped significantly from 17% last year to only 9 % this year.

Collaboration is still in "middle land"

• Over 30% say "Collaboration spaces are available from the intranet via 1 or more links, but are not well-integrated."
• Just under 20% say "Collaborative spaces are well-integrated throughout the intranet in different, relevant sections."
• Around 5 % say "We consider the entire intranet to be "collaborative" and do not make a distinction."

Overall, the use of social media internally is about the same as last year, hovering around 70%.
However, this year we asked you to indicate how many years you've used social media internally. The figures break down fairly evenly from "less than 1 year" up to "3 or 4 years". Percentages range from 17% to 30 % for each segment. 8% responded 5 years or longer! In the final report we will be looking closely at the difference between the early adopters and more recent adopters in terms of results, strategies, experiences and measurement.


Silos exist in the very places where they should not!
75 % of the organizations say "Our employee support functions sometimes work as silos. (HR, Communication, IT, etc.)". This figure is 25 percentage points higher than the other options: collaborative silos, geographical/language silos and value chain silos (logistics, R&D, sales & marketing, etc.). This was a new question in 2010. We will see how it evolves in 2011.

Involvement of senior management in the intranet
Nearly every participant responded to this open text question, so there'll be lots of verbatim in the final report.

If you found the above as interesting and relevant to your Intranet as I do you should definately sign up for the 2010 - 2011 survey today while there is still time.

Follow Jane McConnell on Twitter, @netjmc and subscribe to her NetStrategy/JMC blog for excellent knowledge on Intranets large and small.

Missed It

I am a keen surfer and am very lucky to live near the beach here in Sydney. Unfortunately working full time limits the opportunities I have to go surfing and I am usually restricted to only being able to surf on weekends. I certainly missed out this morning. When this picture was taken at 8am this morning I have already been at my desk for over 2 hours.

Image shows the reef behind Shelly Pool going off. I really should start going to work late instead of rising with the sparrows. Certainly hope this swell hangs around for the weekend.

Image sourced from The Sea Life a pictorial surf report for Cronulla I receive each day.

Mesmerising Kinetic Sculpture

Wow, I have just realise that I did not post in June at all. Perhaps it is something to do with it being the middle of winter here in Australia or perhaps more likely it is because I have been lazy.

Came across this video from the BMW Museum recently and still find it mesmerising.

"The installation consists of 714 metal spheres hanging from thin steel wires attached to individually controlled stepper motors. Covering a six-square-metre area, the spheres enact a seven-minute long mechatronic narrative, creating a representation of the form-finding process in different variations. Moving chaotically at first, the sculpture evolves into several competing forms and eventually resolves as a final shape, which hints at the outlines of well-known BMW automobiles such as the 327, the 1500, the Z4 coupé and the Mille Miglia 2006. The cycle is synchronised with a graphic light strip running around the walls and texts and audio quotes from senior BMW figures on the company’s values and design aims."

Who owns the Intranet?

The question Who owns the Intranet? was asked on Twitter by @danasml from the UK recently and my instant response was “The Users own the Intranet !” . While I am sure most Intranet managers would agree that Intranets are there for the benefit of users, what @danasml was asking was who is financially responsible. What part of the business funds the Intranet? Who has the task of taking any proposed redevelopment business case to the board for consideration? What division is responsible for including money in their budget for the operation and development of the Intranet?

In my case over the past five years the Intranet and its management has been in the IT division, the HR division, the Shared Business Services division and currently the Internal Communications division. I’m sure that if the question was asked of all the Intranet Managers out there that the answers would be just as varied.

The fact is that regardless of what division I have fallen under and who is funding the Intranets operational expenses, I have been able to maintain a kind of autonomy. I know from discussions with other Intranet managers around Australia and abroad that this is not always the case. Some divisions feel that if they fund it, they own it and have the right to use it push their own agenda.

I strongly believe that the Intranet MUST be there for everyone. It is not purely a communication tool for the communicators or a policy and process delivery tool for HR. It is not just a repository for technical documentation or launch pad for the latest browser based applications for IT. The Intranet is all of these things and more and it needs to be managed in a balanced and unbiased way. Wherever in the organisation the Intranet manager sits they need to be an impartial facilitator for all parts of the business.

I think you should try to develop your Intranet over time so that it is a business tool for everyone in the organisation from the executive group to the workers on the coal face. If you can make sure that there is at least one or two specialised functions that each staff member can use to assist them perform their specific role and more importantly ensuring that they are made aware of these tools and how to use them, when it comes time to put your hand out for money it will be less difficult to justify. Regardless of what division is submitting the business case or funding request both the requestor and the approver should have first hand experience of the value of the Intranet as a business tool.

Sound like a big ask? Not possible in your organisation? I would be very interested to hear your thoughts, observations and experiences on the subject.

If a house was dreaming

I have not strayed from Intranet related topics for some time now but this morning I saw this totally cool example of public art and just had to share it.

Check out this stunning and surrealistic work of projected art, turning the facade of the Hamburg Kunsthalle art museum in Hamburg, Germany and turning it into a three-dimensional video canvas. This life-like transformation must be seen to be believed.

Art Director Daniel Rossa and creative-company URBANSCREEN used this work to illustrate the fragility and flexibility of architecture. Within it, the moving graphics seem to effortlessly manipulate the exterior wall of the museum space, making it as malleable and subject to the imagination as a computer rendering program.

"How it would be, if a house was dreaming"

555 KUBIK | facade projection