“Man looks in the abyss, there’s nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss,” Lou Manheim (Hal Holbrook), Wall Street.

It’s a telling and provoking quote that is an expansion on the famous quote from Friedrich Nietzche: “When you look into an abyss, the abyss also looks into you.”

While I’m tempted to debate the various interpretations, positions and philosophical arguments and positions for both, you’re likely reading this not to read Toby Ward the philosopher, but to understand the connection to the intranet. And where the hell is the woman while man is lazing about at the abyss?!? No doubt, she’s too busy running the world.

The essence of the philosophy is the nature of the mind’s eye, and our subjective interpretation of one’s self, and the world in which we operate (and shape, in part).

I’ll cut to the chase on the relation to the intranet: the intranet is a reflection of the organization, and the direct and in-direct team, including the man and/or woman who runs it. More importantly, the success in its current and future form is subject to the person looking at it (or into the abyss).

Another way to frame this picture or paradigm is to say that as great as IBM or Cisco’s intranet (or any other impressive intranet), they are not great in the eyes and minds of other organizations, and other employees. In fact, I test intranet designs, layouts and information architectures all the time, and frequently I’ll test the IBM design or Cisco design versus smaller, less complex intranet designs and the results are nearly unanimous every time: IBM sucks (it’s far too busy, with far too many links, and its far too complex). And yet, the IBM intranet is arguably the best intranet on the planet.

This is to say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder – or the mind’s eye. The IBM design is fantastic for IBM, but it doesn’t work for too many other organizations. But it doesn’t have to; the IBM intranet design needs to work for only IBM’s structure, culture and employees only. Every organization is different, has different needs, different structures, different cultures and different employees with different backgrounds, needs, expectations and tolerances. Therefore, while it is valuable to know what other intranets are doing, to adhere to best practices and to cherry pick winning ideas from those trailblazers that have preceded you, you cannot do so in the absence of input from both management and employees.

More to the point, here’s the crux of the mind’s eye: every organization is an ensemble of different cultures, structures, values and motivations, with different subjective interpretations of the world, the organization, and the intranet. Of course, even more granularly, every single person has their own culture, values and motivations. So it’s important to understand their mind’s eye and their subjective needs for design, navigation, content quality, etc.

Understand the benefits and best practices of IBM and others, while taking the time to understand the needs and motivations of both management and employees, and you can’t help but be successful with your intranet (taking into account all of the above, not the least of which is governance).

Woman looks into the abyss and sees nothing staring back at her. At that moment she knows man is completely over-rated and that she should be the rightful owner of the world (and the intranet). What’s in your abyss?