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Thursday, May 28

Delivering a high-performing intranet (Case Study with Iron Mountain)
by
Toby Ward
on Thu 28 May 2009 09:54 AM PDT
“There is an enormous thirst for
communications... we really dedicate almost the entire home page of
the intranet to communications,” Cheryl Travis, intranet manager, Iron
Mountain.
Iron Mountain Incorporated (NYSE:IRM)
helps organizations around the world reduce the costs and risks
associated with information protection and storage. The Company
offers comprehensive records management, data protection, and
information destruction solutions along with the expertise and
experience to address complex information challenges such as rising
storage costs, litigation, regulatory compliance and disaster
recovery. Founded in 1951, Iron Mountain has 20,000+ employees and is
a trusted partner to more than 120,000 corporate clients throughout
North America, Europe, Latin America and the Pacific Rim.
The following is a summary of the
“Delivering a high-performing intranet (Case study with Iron
Mountain)” intranet webinar on May 28, 2009, with Cathy Mcknight
and Cheryl Travis.
6 stages of project management (Cathy
Mcknight, Prescient Digital Media):
1- Enthusiasm
2- Depression
3- Panic
4- Search for the guilty
5- Punishment of the innocent
6- Rewards for the non-participants
Planning:
“Failing to plan is a plan for
failure.”
“A good plan today is better
than a perfect plan tomorrow.”
“Ensuring you have key planning
documents in place (be it the style guide, or content plan)... it's
absolutely critical, and its saved my (intranet) project in many
ways,” Cheryl Travis, Iron Mountain
Planning involves understanding
Planning is done – now what?
Governance
Communications
Engaging leadership
Engaging content owners &
publishers
Pre-launch employee communications
Launch
Ongoing communications (keeping
momentum)
“We certainly need to engage
leadership because frankly these are the people that fund the
intranet,” Cheryl Travis, Iron Mountain
Content
Content audit
Content ownership
Approvals and publishing
Creating and repurposing
Translation
Archiving
Reviewing and updating
Technology
System requirements
Resource requirements
Ongoing support
(Note: Iron Mountain uses SharePoint
for their intranet, Scout)
Site Build
“For information architecture (IA)
and wireframes you can't rely on your own internal team because they
live the company everyday,” says Cheryl. “You want the IA to live
no matter how your organizations changes. To have a 3rd
party to structure your IA is critical.”
Lessons learned at Iron Mountain
Engage content owners at the start
Rely on your independent resources
Trust your sixth sense
Keep communications lines open
“The sooner you communicate with them
(content owners), the better,” Cheryl Travis, Iron Mountain.
The intranet gap
“What the business wants and what IT
delivers can be two different things,” Cathy Mcknight, Prescient
Digital Media. “An intranet is a process, not an event.”
“Its really good to have an outside
expert to apply best practices,” says Cheryl “They have the clout
and experience to do this (Prescient Digital Media).”
Wednesday, April 8

Planning for SharePoint success
by
Toby Ward
on Wed 08 Apr 2009 11:55 AM PDT
Like
the content of your website or intranet, planning and governance is
technology agnostic; whether its SharePoint or another portal or
content management platform, the necessity for and the approach to
governance is the same. Given its technology neutral status in the
realm of website and intranet evolution this module on planning and
governance is largely applicable to any technology platform and as
such is generic to start.
While
generic in nature, there are some components of SharePoint that
require specific consideration, and are discussed and addressed by
the interviewed subject matter experts and the included case studies
(see Planning
for SharePoint Success).
“Without
proper architecture and governance, I can guarantee you that
SharePoint will fail,” says Bob Mixon, President of Mixon
Consulting,
addressing the annual Enterprise 3 conference in San Diego.
In
particular, the powerful Team Site features and easy deployment
features (Site Collections) of SharePoint make it even more demanding
of a rigorous plan and detailed governance model. While
intranet governance provides clarity and rules: namely the titles,
roles and responsibilities of its owners, managers, stakeholders and
contributors.
Sadly,
very few organizations actually have a well-defined governance model,
and many of those have spent hundreds-of-thousands to millions of
dollars on their website or intranet – amounting to extraordinary
investments left to chance and execution on a whim.
According
to the Intranet
2.0 Global Survey:
only
47% of organizations have a defined governance model (32% have 6,000
employees or more; 11% have 30,000 employees or more);
of
the tools and platforms being used by survey participants, a
whopping 47% are using SharePoint (MOSS 2007) in some shape or form.
Intranet
Sprawl
As IP
technology has advanced corporate intranets have become more complex
and interactive including human resource and purchasing applications,
collaboration tools, business intelligence and real-time reporting
tools. Some organizations without intranet governance and enterprise
standards (for web page and content creation) have seen the birth of
individual intranets for every department and work team.
“Do-what-you-like” was the only rule and the corporate network
became the wild west or ‘intranet sprawl’.
'Intranet
sprawl' can be a poisonous side-effect of SharePoint Team Site and
site collection use without the proper “rules” for deploying and
managing sites. However, its not merely a SharePoint problem. At one
point at the turn of the millennium, IBM's network was choked with
approximately 10,000 intranet sites before they undertook a
governance process and federation (consolidation campaign) that saved
the company untold millions (IBM claims its saved more than a $1
billion).
Perhaps
more so than most, SharePoint (MOSS 2007 or WSS) requires a
governance model. I categorize intranet governance by four broad
approaches or models:
Decentralized
(no single owner; do-what-you-like)
Centralized
a single owner or department controls it all; highly bureaucratic;
common in small organizations)
Collaborative
(shared ownership via committee)
Hybrid,
centralized
(single owner, with collaborative accountability, decentralized
content ownership)
Learn
more about planning and governance for the corporate intranet, with a
specific focus on MOSS 2007, during our free webinar Planning
for SharePoint Success (April 13).
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Sunday, April 5

Intranet case study: Sprint
by
Toby Ward
on Sun 05 Apr 2009 02:23 PM PDT
Overview
“Sprint
Nextel offers a comprehensive range of wireless and wireline
communications services bringing the freedom of mobility to
consumers, businesses and government users. Sprint Nextel is widely
recognized for developing, engineering and deploying innovative
technologies, including two wireless networks serving nearly 51
million customers.”
Intranet:
i-Connect
HQ:
Kansas City
Owner: Communications
Vision
“Always
on, always accurate, always easy…wherever you need it.”
Purpose
The
online home for fast, easy access to the essential Sprint tools,
information and personal
connections you need.

Sprint
intranet home page, i-Connect
Intranet
Success Standards
Usage:
The primary resource for internal Sprint information
Content:
Content is relevant, accurate and updated
Navigation:
Navigation is simple and associates quickly find what they are looking
for
End
User Engagement: End users participate in the process of updating
content and
recommending changes
Client/Business
Partner Relations: Clients and business partners entrust us as the
stewards of i-Connect and its users
Overall
Satisfaction: End users are satisfied
Survey
Results Key Findings: Satisfaction
“In
the last six months, how satisfied have you been with i-Connect as
your online
home
for fast, easy access to the essential Sprint tools, information and
personal
connections
you need?”
Search
Navigation
(Department Pages, My Work & Our Company)
Consolidation/better
integration of web tools
Log-In
Customization
Outside
sources “scoop” internal news on occasion
Key
Intranet Features:
To
learn more about the Sprint intranet, and other top-rated intranets
showcased at The
Intranet Insider World Tour Live (NYC April 16 – 17). Register
now for the Intranet Insider World Tour LIVE (only $800 for 2-days of jam-paced learnings).
Some
of the other top rated intranets being showcased at this year's
conference:
Sprint
Nextel
Con
Edison
IKEA
Siemens
IBM
Deloitte
Thomson
Reuters
And
more!
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Monday, March 16

Intranet Insider World Tour Live
by
Toby Ward
on Mon 16 Mar 2009 09:41 AM PST
As
an intranet consultant who's seen hundreds of intranets, I've found
there's nothing better for learning about intranets than seeing other
intranets. This of course isn't easy to do, so the best avenue for
doing so is attending a conference on intranets.
If
you're in North America and didn't make the IntraTeam Event in
Denmark earlier this month, the next great intranet conference is
coming-up next month: The
Intranet Insider World Tour Live, New York City, NY, April 16 –
17.
Here
are some of the intranets being showcased at this year's conference:
Sprint
Nextel
Con
Edison
IKEA
Siemens
IBM
Delloite
Thomson
Reuters
And
more!
I'll
be co-chairing this 2-day conference in NYC (April 16 - 17) that
showcases some of the best intranets going. This intimate and
interactive conference event builds on the webinar and brings
together the experts and practitioners from leading intranets.
This
conference is taking into account the global financial crisis and is
AMAZINGLY INEXPENSIVE (only $900 for 2-full days!).
Don't
miss the best buy of the year and Register
now for the Intranet Insider World Tour LIVE.
Tuesday, March 10

SharePoint for Communicators
by
Toby Ward
on Tue 10 Mar 2009 09:39 AM PST
Microsoft
Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS) is becoming the dominant intranet
technology platform with nearly half of all large to medium-size
organizations using it (or the previous version) to power some or all
of an intranet’s components.
Here
are some stats:
55% of
organizations have implemented or are considering implementing
SharePoint (Global
Intranet Trends 2009 report - 227 participant organizations)
46% of those
companies using social media on the intranet are using
SharePoint(Intranet
2.0 Global Survey – 430+ participant organizations)
Only 47% of
organizations have a defined governance model (Intranet
2.0 Global Survey)
70% use at the
department level; only 38% use it at the enterprise level (AIIM)
Many
communications professionals have asked, “Is SharePoint good for my
company intranet?”
SharePoint
for Communicators is a webinar answers the question with
advice on how to proceed.
In
this five-week online workshop, we’ll examine MOSS as a technology
platform, and as a communications platform for managing content
including news and social media. MOSS is not known as a strong
solution for a large-size enterprise intranet. But it is good
starting platform in a Microsoft environment, and is very good for
team and group collaboration. This workshop will consider all of the
pros and cons of MOSS, with expert opinion and advice for non-techie
business users and communicators. Included in this Webinar will be:
Introduction
to MOSS—An overview of the technology in non-techie language.
Pros
and cons of MOSS for communicators—The good, bad and the things
Microsoft won’t always tell you.
MOSS
for content management—The elements and functionality of the
content management system and how it compares to other systems.
Planning
& Governance—MOSS can in fact create more problems without the
necessary planning and governance. We’ll tell you what you need to
prepare.
Plug-ins
and alternatives to MOSS—MOSS is a very complex platform, but
there are many additional modules and plug-ins that can enhance it
greatly… We’ll also compare MOSS to other alternative solutions.
Webinars
are asynchronous-you participate when it’s convenient for you. A
new text-based lecture is posted each Monday morning, but you can
take advantage of it whenever you have the time. Be sure to watch the
video demo of the webinar format to determine if it’s right for
your professional development needs.
Register
for SharePoint for Communicators webinar
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Tuesday, March 3

Marketing social media on the intranet
by
Toby Ward
on Tue 03 Mar 2009 12:16 AM PST
(COPENHAGEN, DENMARK) Full
slides from the “Integrating Social Media Into Intranets” with
added insight on marketing and promoting the intranet below:
A
couple of interesting questions from the seminar that deserve to be
shared with all including the issue of marketing and education. So, how do you market Intranet 2.0 or promote use of these tools?
Marketing
Intranet 2.0 is not unlike marketing the original intarnet –
emploeyes have to...
1-
know that the tools exist, and how they work
2-
understand why the tools are of value to them and the organization
As
I stated in Marketing the intranet, “If you build it they will not
come. Of course, there will always be the curious and keeners and
those that inherently understand it, but an intranet firing at
maximum value requires marketing.”
A
number of recommended insights come from Sodexo USA (thanks to Angelo
Iofredda and Eileen Daly) who were very active in marketing their
intranet, and shared their intranet marketing plan that focuses on six major
components:
Promote
ongoing SodexhoNet name recognition and key wins.
Highlight
the variety of useful content through on- and off-line.
Increase
essential content and applications available only online.
Increase
content – including fun content – that drives repeat visits.
Encourage
continued endorsements from senior leadership.
Support
content owners – increase skill level and enthusiasm, identify and
leverage best practices.
As
far as tactics go, tried-and-true practices are still relevant for
intranet 2.0 including:
E-mail
broadcasts
Home
page and newsletter stories
Cross link from blogs, wikis, discussion forums, etc.
Executive
promotion
Hosted
chats with the CEO
Posters
and mousepads
Premiums
(handouts)
Screensavers Twitter/Yammer, etc.
Not
to be underestimated, and probably the most valuable tactic would be
to create stories or features that quote your own executives that
relate to subject matters discussed on a blog, wiki, or in a
discussion forum, that links into the related social media tool while
encouraging employees to “join in the conversation” or to “agree,
disagree or comment” on the subject at hand.
Continue
reading:
Marketing
Intranet 2.0
Wednesday, February 25

Putting social media into your intranet strategy
by
Toby Ward
on Wed 25 Feb 2009 10:51 AM PST
The
biggest barrier for implementing and adopting social media inside the
organization (on the intranet) is not technology, but culture. Blogs
and wikis are very simple technology, but educating executives and
employees on the value of social media while promoting and motivating
use requies significant change management and communications.
These
are just some of the issues to be addressed in tomorrow's Putting
Social Media to work in your Intranet Strategy (February 26th,
2009, 12PM EST – it's free to attend but you need to reserve
your spot now).
The
real value of social media on the intranet are the relationships and
connections that are built and enhanced for unlocking tacit knowledge
and unleashing creativity and future potential. Consider the research
findings of MIT:
40% of creative
teams productivity is directly explained by the amount of
communication they have with others to discover, gather, and
internalise information.
Employees with
the most extensive digital networks are 7% more productive than
their colleagues.
And yet while most
social media represent simple technology (and some like discussion
forums and instant messaging have been around for more than 10
years), it is new enough that most employees have little experience
using it (particularly older generations) or struggle with
understanding the value it represents to the business. This cultural
shift or barrier is also explicit in the findings of the Intranet
2.0 Global Study (430+
organizations worldwide) where most organizations have implemented or
are planning to implement social media, but few really know or
understand how to make it work (or are able to convince senior
management or employees of the value):
41% have
implemented blogs, but only 11% at the enterprise level
46% have
implemented wikis, but only 15% at the enterprise level
47% have
implemented discussion forums, but only 20% at the enterprise level
Amongst the biggest
barriers to implementing social media on the intranet:
Lack of
executive support (33%)
Lack of a
business case (31%)
IT supprt (31%)
Addressing
internal policy concerns (29%)
If your executives
don't understand or see the value in social media, older generation
employees certainly won't flock to adopt. However, the pressure to
adopt and innovate comes from the younger generation, particularly
those under 40. Here in Canada, more than 90% of those under
40-years-old are on Facebook. You can imagine how eager those same
employees might be to use “employee networking” and other social
media tools on the corporate intranet if they were educated as to how
it works, and why it's of value to them.
Leading me to the
potential cost of failing to adopt social media into your intranet
strategy: 39%
of 18 to 24 year-old employees would consider leaving their employer
if they were not allowed to access sites like Facebook and YouTube; a
further 21% indicated that they would feel ‘annoyed’ by such a
ban (Telindus
study
of 1,000
European employees).
--
ATTEND THE WEBINAR:
Putting
Social Media to work in your Intranet Strategy (February 26th,
2009, 12PM EST – it's free to attend but you need to reserve
your spot now).
FOLLOW ME ON
TWITTER: www.Twitter.com/TobyWard
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Thursday, January 29

SharePoint: Truth or Fiction
by
Toby Ward
on Thu 29 Jan 2009 09:31 AM PST
An AIIM survey of 512 organizations has found that while a majority of organizations use SharePoint, less than half use it at the enterprise level. And while most use MOSS 2007 only at the department level, most deployments are quite shallow.
While MOSS is being used for its ubiquitous file sharing capabilities, it is very rarely used for more advanced functions including:
Of those tools and applications that are being used sometimes:
-
Search
-
Collaboration
-
Portal
-
Document management
Highlighted in an Oracle sponsored webinar (yes, that raised a few eyebrows) entitled “SharePoint: Truth and Fiction”, other survey findings include:
-
50% of participants found development of custom solutions required more effort than expected
-
70% use at the department level; only 38% use it at the enterprise level.
-
Some to no leverage in compliance, e-discovery, external website, complex authoring, archival/preservation
-
78% of participant users rank MOSS file sharing as good to excellent
-
#1 challenge to development: developer training and toolset (cited by 44% of participants)
Amongst the major recommendations conatined in the study's findings:
-
Focus on collaboration (internal)
-
Requires strategy, position, and planning
-
Develop or acquire expertise
ANALYSIS: This survey is highly biased by MOSS users; 70% of organizations are not using SharePoint (research by Prescient Digital Media, Forrester and Gartner peg it at somewhere between the high 40 percentile and low 50 percentile).
However, the research (conducted by Carl Frappaolo, Information Architected) has some good intelligence and findings. Many organizations are in fact not using MOSS at the enterprise level – a very telling finding. But while MOSS is an inexpensive solution for a small organization, it is in fact quite the opposite for a large organization looking at enterprise licenses – a scenario which can be outrageously expensive and even considerably more than the Cadillac of portals, IBM's WebSphere Portal.
LEARN MORE:
If you're in Europe I strongly suggest you attend my session SharePoint (MOSS 2007)-Pros and Cons on March 4 at the IntraTeam Event (conference) in Copenhagen. Readers of IntranetBlog.com also get a discount of 15%. Just use price code: "Prescient15" when you reserve on the IntraTeam website.
Reserve now for IntraTeam 2009 in Copenhagen.
In North America, be sure to attend the free webinar Planning for SharePoint Success, presented by myself and Prescient Digital Media on April 13th, 2009.
Reserve today for Planning for SharePoint Success.
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