Facebook is not an alternative to the intranet. The intranet is a business system, one to support the entire organization, not just a social networking tool.

Now Facebook is becoming more than a social networking site, and shows great potential as a platform for intranet services, but there’s much to be overcome. Facebook is being used by some businesses, including Prescient Digital Media (feel free to join us on the Intranet Global Forum), but it is not a substitute for the intranet which must feature among other things, federated search, application integration, robust security, etc.

As Phil Wainewright writes in Is Facebook a PaaS contender?, Facebook provides us food for thought, but it’s not really a legitimate intranet platform.

"After all, many individuals and some organizations do use Facebook for business purposes. Most famously, Serena Software, which last year adopted Facebook as its intranet. I was somewhat skeptical when I first heard this but the company’s SVP Rene Bonvanie assured me when we met a few weeks ago that 740 out of 820 employees are active users, which is a lot better participation than Serena’s former intranet ever managed.

 

The Facebook platform of course constrains applications into a social networking framework, but that’s no different from the functional constraints imposed by a lot of other PaaS (platform-as-a-service) application builders (the topmost of my five-layer categorization of PaaS).

 

The problem for any business considering Facebook is that it’s a determinedly consumer play, to the extent that I don’t think it can ever seriously fly in the enterprise. Facebook trades free functionality in return for attention and relationship data — and users give up a lot of their control over that data. Businesses aren’t willing to make that trade-off.

 

Bonvanie shrugged when I put this point to him, saying that very little of what Serena’s employees post to the Facebook intranet is proprietary to the company, but at the same time he admitted that Serena stores its company confidential documents elsewhere than Facebook, so its role as an intranet platform is more limited than you would typically look for in an enterprise setting."

Skepticism on Facebook’s value as a platform aside, it could still continue to evolve and become a platform-as-a-service (a hosted intranet platform for business). There is great value in implementing the social networking approach within the enterprise.

IBM understands the value of Facebook, and is testing an employee social networking tool on their intranet called Beehive.

“Beehive truly is an experiment in our own version of an internal 'Facebook.',” says Liam J. Cleaver, Program Director, IBM Jam Program Office. “The research goal of Beehive is to aid IBMers with various people-centric challenges within the workplace. We broadly categorize these challenges into "relationship building" and "people-sensemaking”.

Relationship-building challenges include, for example, new employees struggling with making connections that are important for their current project and professional growth, remote workers having difficulties with team building and staying in touch with their team members, or employees moving on to new assignments who are not easily able to stay touch with former colleges. 

People-sensemaking includes, for example, the difficulties of discovering people with the right skills and common interests, or learning more about someone personally as well as professionally to facilitate making contact, or getting to know about ongoing projects and activities beyond your immediate team.”

IBM’s Beehive will be only one of the tools examined and showcased in the next Intranet Insider World Tour webinar on June 12th at 2pmEDT, produced by Communitelligence.com. Hosted by Liam and myself, the 90 minute webinar will look at the latest and greatest from the world’s best intranet, W3, with a close look at all its Intranet 2.0 functionality which boasts 30,000 bloggers, and thousands more podcasts (audio & video) and wikis – and an “employee directory that puts Facebook to shame.”

Honestly, you are an absolute fool if you work on an intranet and don’t attend this webinar. IBM is doing some groundbreaking stuff that you simply must know.

It’s only $199 to attend this webinar, and you can register online at Communitelligence.com.

Web 2.0 and Intranet 2.0 will be the subject of several hours of instruction and discussion in my upcoming workshops Deploying First-Class Web Content Management For World-Class Websites (Ad Astra) in Hanoi, Vietnam (Interncontinental Hotel) from April 23 – 25. I’ll be repeating the workshop April 28 – 30 in Bali (Hard Rock Hotel).

These workshops will be three full-days and promise a lot of learning, examples and hands-on work. To register for either please phone (65) 6334-9828 or email sales@adastra.com.sg

If you'd like to learn more about Facebook and its potential value to the business, then please do join us on the Intranet Global Forum.

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Some inventive and enterprising organizations like Alaska Airlines and the U.S. Army used to maintain their intranet home page on the public Internet (though they’ve both since closed off the home pages to the public).

Others organizations, in attempt to find scales of economy, use a single web platform or tool (often a CMS or a portal solution) that serves all audiences, and serves up content based solely on the audience. So whereas there is a single home page for customers, employees, vendors, etc., content is additionally served-up based on the identity of the individual (often requiring the person to login to see that customized or ‘personalized’ view). The Internet, intranet and extranet sites are merely one-in-the-same but the content is different for each audience.

SYNNEX Canada CEO Jim Estill started his own blog on the public Internet nearly 3 years ago. Estill’s blog, CEO Blog - Time Leadership, though has a multi-audience focus. Though his blog is external, his employees are one of his primary targets, and comprise some 25% of his total readership.

Read the entire case study: Blogging case study: SYNNEX Canada

Estill presents this case study at the upcoming 2008 Social Media Summit Canada Conference in Toronto, ON from March 31 - April 2, 2008).

Do any of your executives maintain an external blog that is also aimed at employees? Do you have multi-audience web platform that serves as both intranet and Internet (and possibly extranet) sites? Drop me a line at toby at prescientdigial (dotcom) and I may feature it in an upcoming feature.

RELATED READING:

Converging the intranet, extranet and Internet

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An interesting post I did a couple of days ago on the free version of Windows Sharepoint Services and the surprising breadth of available features (from Setting-up a free Sharepoint intranet:

Ü      Announcements

Ü      Calendar

Ü      Contacts

Ü      Tasks

Ü      Projects

Ü      Wiki

Ü      Blog

Ü      Message Board

Ü      Image Library

Ü      Forms Library

Ü      Shared Documents

Ü      Surveys

Ü      Meeting Workspace

Read my full post Setting-up a free Sharepoint intranet at the Intranet Insider blog on Communitelligence.com.

“Collaborative tools are overloading employees and killing productivity—to the tune of $588 billion a year, according to a January study by Basex, a collaboration technologies consulting firm,” writes Brian Watson of CIO Magazine (see Web 2.0: Too Good to Be True?). “It’s the money-saving argument that’s getting pushback lately.”

Web 2.0 does not deliver the ROI, does not live up the hype, and is not even close to being a top priority for senior management (not all, but most).

A CIO Magazines study, Top Technology Priorities for 2008 finds that even techies don’t consider Web 2.0 as a priority. A survey of 250 “top IT executives” from a collection of small, medium and large organizations doesn’t even touch on the issue of Web 2.0.

Continue reading "Web 2.0 fails the grade, according to executives" on Content Matters.

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Here are some tips to consider when establishing a blogging policy:

• No anonymous post must have the authors name with a link to their email
• A statement expressing that the blog and its contents are the views and opinions of the author only and not necessarily those of the employer
• Corporate confidentiality and privacy policies must be adhered to with links to each contained in the blog footer
• Each employee should have the prior consent of their immediate manager for maintaining a blog
• Mutual respect for the company, its customers, and employees is critical and should be reflective in all writings
• Potty language is a no-no; develop a style guide or sheet outlining the tone or feel a blog should adhere to (e.g. professional, corporate, conversational, avoiding jargon, etc.) 

Here’s a list of some blogging policies found and compiled by Forrester’s Charlene Li (see Blogging policy examples):

• Groove Networks
• Harvard Law School
• Sarasota Herald Tribune
• Sun Microsystems
• The Corporate Weblog Manifesto 

Charlene also offers this “Sample Blogger Code Of Ethics” that could be incorporated into a blog policy:

• I will tell the truth.
• I will write deliberately and with accuracy.
• I will acknowledge and correct mistakes promptly.
• I will preserve the original post, using notations to show where I have made changes so as to maintain the integrity of my publishing.
• I will never delete a post.
• I will not delete comments unless they are spam or off-topic.
• I will reply to emails and comments when appropriate, and do so promptly.
• I will strive for high quality with every post – including basic spellchecking.
• I will stay on topic.
• I will disagree with other opinions respectfully.
• I will link to online references and original source materials directly.
• I will disclose conflicts of interest.
• I will keep private issues and topics private, since discussing private issues would jeopardize my personal and work relationships.

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I’m off to Chicago to address the annual Ragan Web Content Management Conference tomorrow morning on the subject of “Measuring the Value of Web 2.0”… and then off to Paris for client work. I'll have further insights on both tomorrow and over the weekend.

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Just about every Internet user has read or does read a blog on a regular basis (you’re reading this one). Do we really need proof of the value of a blog? Did you need to prove the value of the phone in your office before the company let you use one?

It's neither sad nor unfortunate, bloging is a new technology and everyone should be given the time to figure it out. Corporate bloging should not be doen half-assed based on guess work. And, whenever possible, draw upon the learnings and case studies of others.

Shel Holtz has highlighted an employee blog case study from Northwestern Mutual and their successful deployment of internal blogs at the large financial services firm:

"While the bloging initiative was designed to improve the culture of openness and honesty, the biggest benefits were seen in project and team management. About 70% of the active blogs at Northwestern Mutual focus on project management.

Nobody doubts that the blogging and RSS effort has produced business value but, not surprisingly, it isn’t easy to measure. Still, there is strong evidence that communication has improved and team and individual productivity have increased. Contrary to the concerns expressed by some that employee blogging will drain productivity, Northwestern Mutual’s experiment has shown that it helps address information overload."

I still maintain that before any company undertakes corporate blogs, they better have a solid and well-executed communications plan that includes a well-defined and planned intranet. Until your communications and intranet are up to par, the potential value and success of any employee or executive blog will be undermined.

Read Shel’s full case study summation: An insurance company benefits from employee intranet blogs.

WHAT TO KNOW ABOUT SETTING UP AN EMPLOYEE OR CORPORATE BLOG:

Blogging the intranet

Should you blog the intranet?

Case study: PNM Resources CEO blog

IBM leads corporate blogging pack

Study: Intranet blogging on the rise

McDonald’s beefs-up intranet blogs

Top 7 Tips To Write an Effective Business Blog

Live by the sword; die by the sword. It’s an all too familiar quote, and lesson, that many of us have learned by experience. Politicians and writers know this lesson well.

Blogging is a powerful new sword that exacts and enables great freedoms and celebrity, but it also can violently swing back at its wielder with greater viciousness. Debbie Weil knows this well and has been slashed by the darker underside of the blade that is not always seen when it is exacting great things. The well known blogger and affeciando, popularly known as the “Mona Lisa of blogging”, has developed (by all accounts) a very successful business from blogging and consulting about blogging.

Recently Weil was hit very hard by critics who were quick to show her the blade when she promoted a client’s blog, GlaxoSmithKline’s alliConnect blog (a blog for GlaxoSmithKline’s new weight loss drug, alli). Her critics were quick to pounce and were harsh and ruthless, as I revealed in my writings of August 7 (see Flogging). Weil was further upset by my writings relating the exchanges of her critics and called me directly to express her unease. Weil was polite and cordial, but notably upset with me and my piece.

Like Mark Cuban and I the week before (see The Internet is Dead, Long Live the Intranet), we agreed to disagree on some points, but agreed on a great deal of many things as it relates to blogging and my writings. Weil’s call to me takes guts, integrity and depth of character – traits well exemplified by her. It’s well worth noting that she could have sent me a flame email, responded with an angry comment to the blog, or launched into a verbal tirade. She did none of this and we had a very respectful conversation for about 30 minutes.

Weil was upset, not just with me, and very likely more upset with some of her harsher critics, in the blogosphere. She was very professional but passionate and I could her hear the depth of her dejection on the subject of her critics. I honestly wanted to just give her a big hug through the phone. She’s paying the price that all celebrities, politicians and writers frequently pay – getting hit by words that have made her a well-known entity.

The blogosphere is the ultimate tool and example of freedom of speech. Anyone can blog and influence many thousands. What makes the blogosphere so successful and powerful (universality), makes it dangerous and vicious too. You won’t find me slinging mud at other people, but you will find me disagreeing and debating others in what I hope is a respectful tone (beauty is in the eye of the beholder). But I could write just about anything I wanted – that is the nature and power of the blogosphere.

As I said in my writings before, I don’t know Weil… but after talking with her I’m certain she is a fine person and hope she considers me a colleague (as I would be honored to call her). And Weil, like Cuban and myself, also painfully knows that with freedom of speech comes great power, and that power has a double-edge that is both nice and nasty.

Flogs are funny. Flogs demonstrate just how dumb some people can be. How do these people ascend to the jobs they have?!? Do they really think they can get away with it?!?

Flogs are defined as a “fake blog” (as in a sales or marketing gimmick site masquerading as a fan site or genuine consumer blog, and authored by a PR or marketing hack).

Perhaps the most famous flog is the disastrous Walmarting Across America hack job, written by two Walmart “fans” who drove across America in an RV blogging about the Walmarts they visited. While two people did in fact leap from Walmart to Walmart, they were paid very well to do so (and this was not disclosed in the blog). It was a PR stunt allegedly cooked-up by Walmart’s PR firm Edelman PR (see Wal-Mart's Jim and Laura: The Real Story in Business Week).

Can you imagine a company pulling off a flog on the intranet, and getting caught? Tell me that wouldn't implode employee morale.

I express my fondness for the Trailer Park Boys, the "I'm Tom Cruise and I'm in Love" flog, and name drop a bit in my full column: Flogging (Content Matters).

PS - Mark Cuban was kind enough to email me aftter my last entry (The Internet is Dead, Long Live the Intranet) where I disagreed with his definition of intranet and his assertion that the intranet is ahead of the Internet. In short, we agreed to disagree. Mark, no hard feelings. Let the debate continue....

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(TORONTO, ON) When last I critically mused about the value of trendy buzz words and catch phrases and the next hype, Intranet 2.0, my musing turned out to be the most read article I’ve written on IntranetBlog.com (see Intranet 2.0).

Not to be outdone, Enterprise 2.0 is a buzz pharse that’s been around longer than Intranet 2.0. There are blogs and even a conference dedicated to Enterprise 2.0 (though I’m not cool enough to be included in either). And many more people cooler than I have mused and even postulized openly about the value and coolness of Enterprise 2.0. At the risk of sounding bitter and like a kid who ‘missed-the-boat’ on the latest craze (think the comeback rage of Hush Puppies that came and went and still left me baffled and feeling extraordinarily un-cool in my Basses), enterprise 2.0 is much the same as intranet 2.0 (note how I effortlessly and carelessly alternate between capitalized and non-capitalized versions of said buzz phrase) but potentially bigger (depending on which consultant or maven’s definition).

Blogging, wikiing, podcasting, social bookmarking – all within the confines of the enterprise, and usually on the intranet, possesses the power to make everyone’s life a little better, a little more empowered and informed, and a little cooler. Throw out your Sketchers and burn your tickets to the next MTV ‘unplugged’ show, there’s a new fashion sweeping the corporate world. Strip away my outwardly facetious tone and awkward outsider approach and you do have a trend, a means, a collaborative ecosystem and set of tools that could transform a poor or average enterprise into something that is good or possibly exceptional.

...

Read my complete article Enterprise 2.0 vs. Intranet 2.0 on www.PrescientDigital.com

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I really hate all of these 2.0 labels. And I frankly don’t understand why O’Reilly media gets so much credit for the Web 2.0 label in 2004 when I’m not sure it’s deserved. The magazine Business 2.0 was around for years before this label took hold, and I was a subscriber back in the 90s.

But what the hell, we have a lazy technology media that loves to jump on new, trendy labels like a wolf pack on a caribou… so if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

Motorola has drunk deeply from the 2.0 Kool-aid pitcher, but it has done more than just drink. It’s walking the walk, and proving to be a leader in what it calls “Intranet 2.0”, as reported in Information Week (see Motorola’s IT Department Takes On Enterprise 2.0).

“Motorola's initiative, which it calls "Intranet 2.0," has been wildly successful, with 70,000 people using it every day, including partners. The company now has 4,400 blogs and 4,200 wiki pages and uses, among other technologies, social bookmarking and tagging by Scuttle and social networkingby Visible Path.

"It actually does work," said Toby Redshaw, Motorola's VP in charge of Enterprise 2.0 technologies. "It's beyond the wisdom of the hive, it actually lets people see new relationships, to see maps of what smart people and like people have done. For any specific problem or opportunity area, there's a community that you can go and find that has the collective knowledge of the company."

At Motorola, Intranet 2.0 started fairly quietly and grew organically by word of mouth and through the use of 250 "knowledge champions" strategically placed throughout the company to evangelize the new technologies. Redshaw made it a point to keep the technology simple to use so that the evangelism would turn into actual use. E-mail used to have a lock on the company, and Redshaw said he's now seeing less e-mail use and more use of technologies like wikis and blogs to share information to wider audiences. "It has to be so easy to use so people vote with their clicks," he said.

As a former journalist, I really hate wolf-pack journalism. But the Motorola story is a good one and worth telling. IBM and Verizon also have good Intranet 2.0 stories too.

RELATED READING:

IBM leads corporate blogging pack

The digital workplace (Verizon intranet case study)

Case study: PNM Resources CEO blog

Blogging the intranet

Should you blog the intranet?