If you want to see a great employee portal in action, plan to attend Communitelligence.com’s webinar Intranet Insider World Tour: GM’s mySocrates (this Thursday, June 1).

mySocrates was launched in 2001 for GM employees and contractors in the U.S. Human Resources, Information Systems and Communications joined forces to deliver secure access to communications and self-service applications enabling access to the intranet from any internet machine 24/7. Since initial launch the portal continues to transform to provide role/location based access to tools and information to GM employees throughout the globe.

Today, the mySocrates corporate team is led by people from HR, Communications and IT. Each of GM’s global functions also have people working on intranet integration. Socrates has solid tendrils into every key process, function and location of GM. Everything from benefits enrollment to supply ordering to 360-degree performance management can all be done online. 

Socrates took two giant steps at the end of 2001. A fully-personalized portal was deployed (SunONE) and the company provided low-cost home intranet access for all U.S. employees. Since its launch, mySocrates has been governed by the Intranet Strategy Board. Business and IT stakeholders from all functions and regions work together to establish web strategy and develop and implement enterprise approaches to increase business effectiveness and efficiency.

Take the Intranet Insider World Tour -- a unique teleseminar series from the Comunitelligence Learning Academy. See behind the firewall and pick up tips, techniques and secrets for maximizing the value of your intranet or portal. You and your intranet team will have a chance to dissect and discuss what makes each intranet world-class. Most important, you’ll get to ask real-world questions from intranet insiders and see best practices that could work on your own intranet.

Learning Topics

• History/evolution of mySocrates - and integration of business teams into process and portal
• Role-based publishing
• Governance and globalization – importance of involving right level of leadership with the appropriate areas of focus
• News Publishing on Socrates
• employee Marketplace
• My Authorization
• GM Drivetime daily video newscast
• Collaboration and Knowledge-Sharing Tools
• Socrates Metrics
• Intranet ROI

This webinar is presented by Laurel Castiglione, Manager – Intranet Governance, Globalization and Marketplace for General Motors. As the business leader of the mySocrates Globalization Project she is responsible for deployment of the mySocrates to portal to employees and contractors in 38 countries , 13 Global Process Teams enabling an integrated portal across business sectors. She has successfully implemented a governance board which involves stakeholders from all levels of the organization. She is also responsible for deployment of the employee Marketplace.

To register for this see Intranet Insider World Tour: GM’s mySocrates

The intranet is only as good as the people that run it. The technology is secondary and only an enabler.

Transforming the intranet is the new intranet manual by Melcrum. It’s really a must have if you’re connected to managing or planning any intranet. However, if you don’t have $395 and don’t have time to read this news blog on a regular basis, then Shiv Singh’s recent article Value-driven intranet design is a good synopsis:

"Within most corporations, taking ownership of an intranet is an unglamorous, exhausting, and thankless job for a new intranet manager. Many corporate intranets lack thoughtful, focused, and disciplined design and are often extremely large and unwieldy. Fixing these intranets can seem an impossible and futile task.

Furthermore, with new terminology proliferating from the armies of IT consultants, software vendors and business professors in the marketplace, it is becoming even harder to define an intranet, determine what it should accomplish, and measure those accomplishments. In the domain of company intranets, terms like empty portals, peer-to-peer sharing, smart enterprises, digital dashboards, social networks, taxonomy design, and knowledge management all come together and compete for attention and dollars. These buzzwords capture the imagination of senior executives who force you to devote dollars to intranet-related initiatives that the organization may not be ready for or that do not benefit the employee community."

Shiv specifically offers some advice regarding defining and measuring the intranet’s value, as well as managing and nurturing intranet talent and consultants. Nice addition.

What is often overlooked by most articles, case studies and manuals is the issue of people. People make the intranet work. The degree of their ability and effort determines the end value of the intranet. A content management system or portal may certainly bolster this intranet – but it could also hinder the intranet if not used properly

For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

“Intranets get plenty of complaints.  With cluttered homepages, out of date content, poor search engines and information people don’t want, too many employees just don’t have faith in their organization’s intranet.  And on top of this, senior executives can’t see the value in spending so much on something with so little return.  So how can you get your intranet to deliver real value?”

The introduction promoting Melcrum’s new intranet manual, Transforming your intranet, hits the nail on the head. The point is that most intranets are a mess and yet they hold so much potential value – if executed properly. If you’re at all connected to managing an intranet, you need this manual. Written by a number of leading intranet minds – including chapters by myself (on measuring intranet value) and Carmine Porco (on Content Management) – Transforming your intranet is the best how-to-manual you can get your hands on (next to this blog of course J)!  

“Written to turn your organization’s intranet into the time-saving, value-creating tool it was always meant to be.  You’ll find out how to take your intranet to the next level by integrating the latest strategies, technologies and metrics, ensuring people can get to the right information when they want it and, ultimately, delivering business value.  You’ll also learn how to prove value to senior managers, with measurement techniques that go beyond simply counting page hits.”

Here’s a sneak preview of the Table of Contents:

CHAPTER 1: STRATEGY

Strategy is the starting point for superior intranets. We show you everything you need to know about setting an intranet strategy that includes the vital elements of information, technology and governance.

What you’ll take away:

• A comprehensive strategy model with a detailed explanation of each element to help you write or benchmark your intranet strategy.
• A table with real-world examples of how intranets can meet business objectives.
• A table outlining how intranets can address business risks.
• Case studies on building employee buy-in at HP, 10 tactics to align the intranet with the business strategy at GlaxoSmithKline and 10 secrets of steady improvement at Sodexho.

CHAPTER 2: GOVERNANCE

We answer the questions: Who should be in charge of the intranet? How many editors do you need? How can you avoid the “headless chicken” model of intranet governance?

What you’ll take away:

• A diagram outlining the ideal governance structure, with an “executive content board” at the top of the hierarchy.
• The eight key elements of governance that an intranet team must have control in order to be effective.

CHAPTER 3: CONTENT MANAGEMENT

This chapter includes a cautionary tale: “One prominent financial services firm purchased a content management system for US$1.5 million. One year after implementation the CMS was scrapped.” We help you avoid the same fate with a step-by-step process for buying a content management system and setting up a content management process in your organization. 

What you’ll take away:

• A sample plan for buying a content management system, taking you through the planning phase, gathering business requirements, negotiating and awarding the contract.
• Worksheets with sample questions for stakeholder interviews.
• An evaluation matrix to help you evaluate which content management system will best meet your unique requirements.
• Case studies on choosing a content management system from Prince George’s County in the US and centralizing your content management processes at Rexam.

See Transforming your intranet

For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

Merril Lynch recently completed a survey of 100 CIOs in the United States and Europe on Internet readiness.

Asking them to rate on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being ‘finished’), the CIO's where asked how far each respective company had progressed in implementing its Internet strategy.

The average response: 6.5. That’s 65% complete.

While not a priority for the vast majority of companies my guess is that if the same question was asked about the intranet the rating would be far less – perhaps a three or a four.

A good way to take this temperature reading at your organization is to ask all of your intranet stakeholders (key stakeholders, owners or content publishers that influence the future of the intranet).

Read more on Rating your intranet readiness (my article on Communitelligence.com)

Aussie guru James Robertson has written a very precise and succinct piece to describe a successful intranet. 10 words to describe successful intranets is a great list:

• Innovative
• Trusted
• Productive
• Useful
• Pervasive
• Usable
• Essential
• Collaborative
• Coherent
• Strategic

There’s only one word I’d add to this list:  ‘asynchronous’ (or interactive). High-powered intranets promote active, two-way or asynchronous communications between the organization and employee users. The true value of an intranet is not in just pushing information to employees, but engaging both sides in an ongoing dialogue while promoting individual, team and enterprise collaboration.

Read the full article 10 words to describe successful intranets.

RELATED READING:

Top 5 killer intranet mistakes

Five Winning Intranet Characteristics

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

“In today’s market in which survival depends on retaining talent and delivering high levels of customer satisfaction, no organization can afford to fail at understanding how to communicate effectively to its employees,” says writes Carm Porco, VP, Prescient Digital Media, in his recent article, Tuning in the right employee communication channel.

“If those market imperatives weren’t enough, one would think that the broadest array of communication channels in human history would provide a sufficient incentive for organizations to take this topic seriously.”

Understanding what the employee wants and needs (and there’s a key difference between the two) is imperative for intranet success. If you don’t intimately understand – both quantitatively and qualitatively – what your intranet users expect then you might as well just have a one-way newsletter.

Here’s some stats cited by Carm…

• An estimated 22 million workers are “actively disengaged” or extremely negative in their workplace, resulting in a $300 billion cost to the U.S. economy annually.
• A study found that negative employees can scare off every customer they speak with — for good.
• The magic ratio: 5 positive interactions for every 1 negative interaction (Source: Donald O Clifton: How full is your Bucket?”).
• A 2004 IABC Survey states “Better employee communication leads to increased employee morale, loyalty, faith in management and productivity.