(CALGARY, AL) For many years patrolling police officers have had mini computers at their disposal. The mobile computers allowed cops to ‘run a license plate’, or run a name against a warrant for arrest. Most of us laymen were impressed, but for many departments, these computers were (and still are for many) simplistic and highly limited to a few tasks. I know personally a few cops that have not but a few choice words of frustration for everything these computers could not do.

In recent years, these mobile police computers have advanced impressively and lead the cutting edge of mobile computing and remote intranet access.

“As he prepared for a night patrolling the streets of Portland, Officer Frank Pellerin touched the screen of his cruiser's laptop computer, calling up a list of people wanted on arrest warrants,” writes David Hench in Intranet puts data at officers' fingertips ((Portland Press Herald). “With another touch, he checked the record of police activity on his beat in the past 48 hours, then looked for any alerts about threats to his safety.”

The system allows police to check on logs from the different beats, briefings from the intelligence unit, safety bulletins and special alerts, registered sex offenders, people who are on bail and on probation, and the names and numbers of probation officers. Information about individuals typically includes photographs and recent contacts with the department.

 

Officers also can look back at what has happened on the beat since they last worked, information that might come in handy as the shift progresses.

 

A safety alert might refer to a suspected drug dealer who has a pit bull, for example, or a suspected gang member who recently tried to purchase a gun. Or an officer may want to check on the victim of a domestic assault that occurred on an earlier shift.

Read Intranet puts data at officers' fingertips

HP has been an innovator for decades. With 150,000 employees in 170 countries supporting thousands of different projects, the intranet has to be solid and a unifying force in such a diverse and disparate company.

@hp is the unifying center of the employee intranet experience – the portal for all employees – with one-stop access to 1,850 intranet applications.

Please see the complete article on the Intranet Insider on Communitelligence.com: Intranet case study: HP.

Also note the next Intranet Insider World Tour stop is British Airways on February 21st... please see Intranet Insider World Tour: British Airways.

The world’s biggest intranet, the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet (NMCI, with a total price tag of about $10-billion) serves more than 500,000 users – mostly marines and sailors in the field.

The end users are happy with the intranet – whether its dependability, support, or the ability to find information – user satisfaction is about 70%. Mission accomplished. Or is it…

NMCI is viewed as a failing project. A report by the Government Accountability Office (see GAO-07-51) is critical of NMCI for never implementing a plan developed in 2000 to measure and report project progress. GAO says that NMCI intranet has met a paltry three of 20 performance targets set for the intranet.

"By not implementing its performance plan, the Navy has invested, and risks continuing to invest heavily, in a program that is not subject to effective performance management and has yet to produce expected results," auditors said.

But the real damning evidence is from management. In two different satisfaction surveys with naval and marine commanders, the intranet was shot to pieces.

“Specifically, on a scale of 0-3 with 0 being not satisfied, and 1 being slightly satisfied with the contractor’s support in meeting the mission needs and strategic goals of these organizations, the average response from all organizations was 0.65 and 0.76 in September 2005 and March 2006, respectively. The latest survey results show minor differences in the degree of dissatisfaction with the four types of contractor services addressed (cutover services, technical solutions, service delivery, and warfighter support),” says the GAO report.

Users can find information and do most of the things that they want, but the intranet is failing to live up to its purpose. If an intranet fails to achieve business objectives and deliver on the priorities of management, then the intranet fails. It’s money wasted, and opportunity squandered.

Design and usability are important, but both are tertiary values compared to planning, performance and content (including governance, process and resources). Despite the incredible hype and emphasis on look-and-feel and usability testing (specifically these ridiculous awards reports and ceremonies), colors, pictures, blogs, and podcasts are all for nothing if the intranet does not have well executed plan that supports management objectives.

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For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

Intranets don’t deliver good ROI; applications deliver great ROI. Or so we’re told.

Why do stores like the Gap, Target, Nordstrom’s, etc. locate in malls? Malls exist because they attract a lot of shoppers and therefore retailers like the Gap are willing to pay a lot of rent to realize the sales and ROI that come from those shoppers. If the shopping mall doesn’t exist, a lot of retailers lose out. The stores don’t get the sales, and they don’t get the ROI.

The intranet benefits applications as the mall benefits stores. Intranets drive traffic to applications which reap the big ROI.

One of my favorite application ROI examples is the fantastic SuperSleuth sales lead tool on the SodhexoUSA intranet (see Best practices case study: Sodexho USA). SuperSleuth is an intranet application that encourages employees to submit sales leads and prospective clients via the intranet. Successful leads submitted via the SuperSleuth intranet page generate cash rewards of up to $1000 for the person making the submission. Sodexho says it has contributed to a 100% increase in sales leads in the past year and led to US$90 million dollars in managed volume (net client sales including sales by client).

The Sodexho intranet home, compliments of SodexhoUSA

("Revolutionizing Employee Communication", Angelo Ioffreda, Sodexho USA)

SuperSleuth is an intranet based tool that would be no means receive that volume of leads nor generate the dollars it does without the intranet to drive those leads. The intranet home page promotes the tool and generates the traffic that reaps the reward.

It’s no longer acceptable for an accountant or techie to tell you that you can’t count the ROI on the employee directory, or online expense form, or sales lead generator as intranet ROI. The intranet begets the tool that delivers the value and as such should be recognized as a successful delivery platform that delivers ROI.

While some tools like online benefits enrollment might still generate a high ROI without the foundation that is the intranet, others like SuperSleuth depend on the intranet. It’s fair to say, based on my anecdotal and measured observations, that many applications owe 50% of their value to the intranet.

Without the mall, many stores would scramble for customers – many enterprises are without a business model. Like the mall, the intranet ensures the success of its application stores and makes possible a business model that wouldn’t exist without a supporting foundation.

To measure and increase the value of your intranet, please dowload the free white paper, Finding ROI.

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For more intranet news visit www.IntranetReport.com

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

The start of a new year brings a lot of hype – the promise of bigger, better, faster; predictions and prognostications for the future; and the annual Intranet Design Annual by Jakob Nielsen et al.

While we’re only 15 days into 2007, the report is hyped as “the 10 Best Intranets of 2007.” I’m not sure how that’s possible, but Nielsen is a master at hyping his own work – which is very, very good. Nielsen is a true thought leader and, by all accounts, a genius. Usability and design is his tapestry and laboratory. And marketing is one of his gifts.

But beware the hype. Only a small fraction of an intranet’s value is design and usability – tertiary aspects to the larger value delivered by content, planning and resources. This value appears to be an afterthought to the authors of the report in years past, but at least they are forthright in promoting the report for what it is: a ‘design’ annual.

The report though is very well written and there are some great case studies and screenshots. At US$179, the report is great value. (Funny, I promote this report every year and despite all my readers I’ve never  gotten a note for them… no response ever. Perhaps I’m too frank and not selling it hard enough… though I’d be surprised if this column delivers no less then a few dozens sales for them. Am I becoming an intranet snob?!? J).

This year’s winners (keep in mind that these aren’t really the best of the year, just the best of the submissions and screenshots that Nielsen Norman received) include:

• American Electric Power (AEP), United States
• Comcast, United States
• DaimlerChrysler AG, Germany
• The Dow Chemical Company, United States
• Infosys Technologies Limited, India
• JPMorgan Chase & Co., United States
• Microsoft Corporation, United States
• National Geographic Society, United States
• The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), United Kingdom
• Volvo Group, Sweden

Here are some interesting tidbits from the report offered up in Nielsen’s latest column 10 Best Intranets of 2007:

• Dow uses English for most global content, but translates the most important content into six other languages (Dutch, German, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish). It also translates selected content into Chinese, Greek, Japanese, and Thai.
• The most-used products were: Windows Server, Google Search Appliance or Google Mini, SharePoint, SQL Server, Google Maps, Omniture, and Vignette
• Across the first three Intranet Design Annuals (2001-2003), the winning intranets were 4.3 years old on average. Across the three most recent Annuals (2005-2007), intranets were 7.5 years old on average
• Across the first three Design Annuals (2001-2003), the average intranet contained 200,000 pages; across the three most recent Annuals (2005-2007), the average intranet contained 6 million pages
• This year’s intranet winners have the following owners: 35% were in Corporate Communications, 27% were in Information Technology or Information Systems (IT/IS), and 19% were in Human Resources (HR)
• Comcast's marketing extranet has reduced versioning and distribution costs by 50-60% and reduced delivery time even more
• Infosys has experienced a 65% drop in help desk calls since launching its redesign

OK here’s the big free plug you can bank on Jakob: you can buy directly online the 360-page Intranet Design Annual with 199 screenshots.

Not a lot of organizations are choosing open source software for their enterprise intranet. It has been seen as risky. But open source is changing and evolving – for the better.

Goodwill stores is an exception and they highlight their experience in an excellent case study that talks about the pros and cons of their open source selection and implementation in Enterprise Open Source Magazine (see Bringing Thousands of Workers Together with an Open Source Intranet Solution).

"While the selection process was no different or faster compared to selecting a proprietary project, implementation was dramatically quicker. Because there is no licensing involved in open source solutions we simply went to the vendor's Web site, downloaded the software and dropped it into our data center. Within a couple of hours it was up and running, although it did require some significant integration to get the portal customized to our needs, and that work continues today. Even so, the first beta release of MyGoodwill was made just eight weeks after the software was initially downloaded, which is extremely fast for an enterprise application."

If it's a proven solution, I see open source as less risky then many propietary solutions. I'd like to see more examples and case studies.

Read Bringing Thousands of Workers Together with an Open Source Intranet Solution.

Have a good story or case study? Post a comment or e-mail me at toby{at}prescientdigital{dot com}