(VANCOUVER, CANADA) Placemaking (325 employees) is the real estate development division of resort developer Intrawest (25,000 employees). Placemaking employees are all knowledge workers and located across the globe developing resort villages such as Whistler-Blackcomb (British Columbia), Mountain Creek (New Jersey), and Tremblant (Quebec).
Tracy Hutton, Director of Learning at Placemaking, wanted to leverage the company intranet to create community at the recently re-organized company. She also wanted a better way to capture Placemaking’s intellectual capital online. The previous intranet, released in May 2004, was infrequently updated and poorly used (averaging 0.5 page views per employee per day).
Without a full-time resource to commit to creating a new intranet, Placemaking chose social software engineers Chris McGrath and Darren Gibbons, creators of ThoughtFarmer, a product of One Intranets Inc. and OpenRoad Communications. ThoughtFarmer is a wiki-type technology to create a self-sustaining intranet maintained by all employees.
In April 2006, the new intranet, the Portal launched on the ThoughtFarmer social software platform.
the Portal, Placemaking's intranet home page
The wiki approach
The Portal is built on the wiki principle of open editing. All employees have the ability to add and edit
content, even on the home page.
Unlike wikis, Placemaking’s intranet has a hierarchical content structure with autogenerated navigation. It was felt that non-technical business users wouldn’t be comfortable with WikiWords and free-form page creation. Instead, clicking the “Add a page” button creates a subpage of the current page.
The first social feature of ThoughtFarmer to resonate with Placemaking employees was Employee “Places”: a personal spot for each employee to add a profile and create pages. As employees uploaded photos of themselves, added amusing anecdotes, and revealed a little more of who they are, the popularity of People Places skyrocketed. Within 3 months, virtually all employees had added their own contact information, one-third had added a personal profile, and 15% had created pages.
Placemaking's president, Drew Stotesbury, has been an active user and proponent of the collaborative intranet, posting news articles, uploading photos, and starting new forum topics.
In September, Mike Hartigan, a Placemaking project manager in Vancouver, created a page about a method of finishing concrete floors that creates an appearance better than tile at a substantially lower cost. Using the method at the entrance to a resort saved $500,000 and reduced the project timeline. Other project managers in Florida and Nevada posted comments to the page, asking further questions. In response, Hartigan posted photos of the finished job and addressed their comments. The other construction managers planned on using this valuable knowldge in future projects.
Note that in the above posting the author includes photographs and information on the particulars involved in his money-saving idea. Not only are the pictures and details helpful, but any employee in the company can respond to the posting – and also edit the article, the details and even the photos. Many other employees responded with their feedback including additional tips and photos. (Notice how each employee has their own photo that is chosen by that employee. Some have even gone so far as to choose something a little more fun such as a shot of Magnum P.I. or his adversary and foil Higgins).
Despite the open freedom to edit and post, the company reports no misuse since the new intranet launched. No content can be posted anonymously, as Placemaking’s intranet software integrates with their Windows network and Active Directory. Employees take responsibility for their own postings and this self-policing seems to be effective.
Metrics for success
Placemaking manages dozens of multi-million dollar developments a year. These construction tips, if implemented on just a handful of projects, will save the company millions of dollars. Without the everyone-is-an-editor intranet, it is doubtful that they would have been shared.
Placemaking's total investment in their intranet, including customizations and information architecture consulting, was under $100,000.
At launch, intranet use immediately increased tenfold to 5 page views per employee per day. The increased use has held steady for 6 months. The success has translated into use outside the company by parent company employees. In fact, parent company Intrawest employee users now dominate the use of the intranet.
Planned improvements
In December, Placemaking will migrate to ThoughtFarmer 2.0, which includes email-based signals when a requested page changes. In addition, Placemaking’s updated intranet will include content tagging, social bookmarking, and "related content" links. It is hoped that these system enhancements, all part of McAfee's "SLATES" formula for Enterprise 2.0 collaboration, will increase participation on Placemaking's intranet.
One new feature to be added to Placemaking’s intranet in December is a simple social bookmarking system. Users can favorite a page with one click. Their lists of favorites are visible to others, and their favorites count as “votes” that impact search results.
Key Learnings
Instituting a collaborative intranet environment can be a challenge. More than issues of integration and technology a collaborative intranet tool is more an exercise in change management.
Currently, about 50% of Placemaking employees do not edit the intranet. 44% are occasional editors, and 6% are active participants. Although participation is high compared to internet-based social systems, Intrawest is still hoping to improve and look at new ways to get the 94% of low- or non-participators more involved.
(Source: ThoughtFarmer, Enterprise 2.0 Case Study, Intrawest Placemaking)
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ON A PERSONAL NOTE: Happy Thanksgiving to all those Americans celebrating (including more than half of my family)! I didn't have any turkey today but to celebrate I did have chicken and a non-alcoholic beer. I can honestly say I feel more rested than when over indulging on football, turkey and beer and/or other spirits.
It's been a big couple of days as well in Canada with Vancouver's own Justin Morneau winning the Major League Baseball American League MVP. That's three Canadian MVPs in three of the United State's four big major sports... yes, we're darned proud of that Justin, eh.
Does anyone think that Michael Richards apology on Letterman was sufficient? I do. It was an unacceptable mistake -- well frankly his rant was more than a mistake. But it's tough to be in the spotlight and most of us wouldn't hold up to the scrutiny. I believe the sincerity of his apology. I'm not so certain about Mel Gibson but since I don't know him I tend to give the individual the benefit of the doubt if it doesn't show a pattern of mistakes or abuse.
How about Celtic upsetting Man United? What a goal by Nakamura!
Hey, my baby girl has learned a new word (phrase) just short of 10 months: hot dog. Get em started on the BBQ culture early I say!! My eldest daughter is preparing a new calendar with her original art that we'll distribute at Christmas... order now
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© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media
