Everything is just great! Your corporate intranet is in excellent shape!

You know you have a superlative intranet when you can say that your intranet has…

• Great senior management support – your executives ‘get it’, use it, and are active champions
• Great cooperation – key stakeholders including HR, IT, and communications all understand each other and get along (hugs are optional)
• Great funding and resources – you have more than enough money and staff
• Great governance – well defined roles, responsibilities, and policies
• Great content – everything is well written for the web, updated and relevant
• Great content management – the CMS editor really is WYSIWYG! And everyone loves the workflow!
• Great HR section – you can actually get the information you need, and don’t have to download, print and fax a bunch of PDF or Word files
• Great usability – all links work, all labels are intuitive, and you are never confused
• Great personalization – not only does your intranet offer dozens of portlets to subscribe to (including those with personalized information), but the personalization is enabled and used by most employees!
• Great search – those search results are amazing! Google has nothing on us…
• Great design – no dog’s breakfast here! A smart mix of colors, images & design elements
• Great layout – employees aren’t inundated with too many links, banner promotions and irrelevant announcements (no one is screams #@*! when they visit the home page)
• Great executive communications – our executives blog, webcast and participate in discussion forums – and they’re informative & funny (but tactful)!!
• Great, measured success – you’ve quantified and demonstrated ROI, high user satisfaction, and high traffic

Wow! That is an enormously successful intranet!

Haha – April Fools!

Yup, it is too good to be true. In fact, show me an intranet that can prove they deliver only 5 of the above 15 criteria for a great intranet, and I’ll pay you $500 (large, global technology companies with names like IBM, Cisco and HP are not included – you guys are freaks… as in freakishly good, and extraordinary exceptions to the norm).

No seriously, send me a short case study or document detailing how your organization meets 5 of those 15 criteria and I’ll mail you $500 cash (I’m tempted to offer $50,000 because I know there are virtually no organizations that would qualify… but that would only promote scam artists!).

In the meantime, enjoy your dreams of great – and happy April Fools!

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How many times have you said, or hear, “I can’t believe they hired that guy…” We’ve all been connected to a bad hire (or sometimes been that bad hire).

CareerBuilder.com recently asked pollsters Harris Interactive to survey hiring managers about the worst resumes they’ve seen. Some of the interview comments heard and resume statements were quite zany to say the least. Among them, some razor sharp candidates…

·         Specified that availability to work Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays is limited because the weekends are "drinking time."

·         Drew a picture of a car on the outside of the envelope and said the car would be a gift to the hiring manager.

·         Listed hobbies that included sitting on a levee at night watching alligators.

·         Explained an arrest record by stating, "We stole a pig, but it was a really small pig.”

I suppose there are worse hires. I once had a client’s employee come to me (13 years ago) with a wad of cash that a customer used to pay (rather than a cheque or Visa) and said, “So, let’s split it.” My client was a charity.

HIRING AN INTRANET CONSULTANT OR MANAGER

In honor of these bright lights and some of our own favorites, I’ve compiled my own fictional list of those potential comments you don’t want to ever hear from a prospective intranet manager or consultant:

1.      “I’ve used the Web and that’s the same as an intranet.”

2.      “It doesn’t’ matter what management thinks, it’s users that count.”

3.      “The intranet is just a communications tool… like a newsletter.”

4.      “You don’t need Sharepoint, my cousin designed the local Hooters site for only $900."

5.      “I think it would be cool to take the Velvet Revolver website concept to the intranet.”

6.      “What’s IBM?”

7.      “What a CMS?”

8.      “Wiki…? Is that the hot receptionist in HR?”

9.      ”I write a lot better if I get a couple of crantinis in me!”

10.  “I personally believe… that U.S. Americans…. And the Iraq, and such…”

I wonder what Alberto Gonzales will say during his next job interview?

“If you prick us do we not bleed?” lamented Shylock (most recently portrayed, and brilliantly played by the great Al Pacino) in The Merchant of Venice. The answer is as certain as George W. mangling his syntax in a press conference on foreign affairs. But the answer confounds many communications managers who still wrestle with the question of whether to blog (or not).

A recent study by Bain & Company involving 1200 executives throughout the world (see Management Tools & Trends 2007 study) reveals that 30% of those companies (a cross-section of small, medium and large companies) use blogs. Those same executives report an underwhelming rate of satisfaction with their blogs of only 3.39 out of 5.

Clearly, more companies are blogging, but with mixed results, and causing many more to think about it, but wonder if they should or not. Huh?! Yes, some are as confused as Dick Cheney on a hunting trip.

Read my full article If we write do we not blog? (Content Matters).

When an intranet malfunctions, the ramifications can be severe. One such extreme example is the intranet of the Malaysian Meteorological Department of the Science, Technology and Innovation Ministry which, according to the Malaysian news website Sun2Surf (see Malaysia red-faced over mistaken tsunami warning) triggered a Tsunami warning and beach evacuation on the Malaysian coasts of Kedah, Perlis and Penang.

“The advisory issued shortly after 11am was on an earthquake/tsunami alert Level 2 with a magnitude of 7.0 on the Richter scale which had “occurred” at 10.45am near northern Sumatra, with the centre of the earthquake being near Pekan Baru, 250km southwest of Kuala Lumpur.

 

It also stated that tremors were expected to be felt in the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia with a small possibility of a local destructive tsunami which could affect the coasts of Kedah, Perlis and Penang.

 

It also advised people to stay away from the beach and to be on standby for further instructions from the authorities.

A seismology division spokesman said this was the first time that such an error had occurred.

 

“We apologise for the confusion that has arisen from this advisory but this is not due to a typo error. Whenever there is an earthquake, we key in the necessary information into our own intranet system which is then sent to the relevant agencies, including the media.

“However, our system had some form of failure and the wrong message was sent out through the intranet system. Our ICT department is currently running checks to determine how this could have happened,” she added.

 

She said a revision of the earthquake information was sent out later on an earthquake measuring 5.9 on the Richter scale which occurred south of Java, 225km southwest of Yogyakarta, 1248km south of Kuching at 10.44am with no tsunami threat. A Reuters report from KUALA LUMPUR:  Malaysian authorities mistakenly issued a tsunami warning today, and their embarrassment only deepened when beachgoers failed to receive it.

 

“It’s a technical glitch. The system broke down and it issued an old warning to everyone including the media,” said the science minister’s press secretary Ainon Mohd.

 

“We are asking the press to ignore the warning,” she said.

 

But one local media group had already issued the warning twice via its nationwide text-message service. The warning came from the meteorological department, part of the science ministry.

As I said, this is an extreme example of an intranet glitch gone wrong. I need not go into any rant about why executives should spend more money on their intranets because it may evacuate local beaches… but they should spend more money on their intranet J

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: I’d like an intranet that gave large wave notices for employees… so they know when best to ditch work for the surf. Executives should spend more on the intranet so that we can all have more quality surf time…

I haven’t seen much football this year (neither version), but I did watch the last half of the Colts-Patriots game. One of the best games you could ever see. Legendary. Of the other kind of football (the ‘real’ kind), I wish Arsenal could play Manchester United more times in a season. That was another extraordinary game with Arsenal and Thierry Henry beating the Bombers in extra time for the season sweep of their majesties from Manchester.

It’s birthday season with my 6-year-old having turned of age, with the party to follow in two weeks, and the baby to turn one in a couple of weeks. The carnage of present unwrapping since Xmas continues unabated… but the girls are worth it J Happy Birthday girls!

Is it wrong to keep heaping praise on the Phoenix Suns? 13 in a row… Also, how about those Vancouver Canucks over their past 13 games?

Anyone know why I can’t order Conn Iggulden’s last installment in the Emporer series (in Canada) until March 27th? I did find one site that will deliver Emperor: the Gods of War (Emperor) on February 1. Yeah, I know how it ends of course, but this is a great biographical series on Caesar and a worthwhile read. His new series is on Genghis and Kublai Khan. I’ve already ordered the first one, Wolf of the Plains …

Other books I’ve finished of late include For Whom the Bell Tolls (Hemmingway; great read), JPod (Copeland; an average read but very good in its mocking of Vancouver and the software industry in general), Creating Competitive Advantage (Smith; average but with a very worthwhile message and takeaway for entrepreneurs), and I’m halfway through A Complete History of Nearly Everything (Bryson; struggling with this one) and Crime and Punishment (Dostoyevsky; brilliant and maddening all at once).

Dostoyevsky isn’t necessarily bedtime reading (though he is brilliant in putting you inside the mind of a madman, hence not always good before bedtime) so last night I instead decided to unwind with a movie… the Exorcist II. Yeah, not my best choice. An appalling bad movie, but quite spooky in some parts if you saw when it first came out the original as I did some 25+ years ago. That movie scared the #$@*! out of me and still does. I put The Shining as a close second.

I’ve read a lot of classics in the past year or two: Tale of Two Cities, War and Peace, The Great Gatsby, The Old Man and the Sea, For the Good of the Cause, and a raft of others… given the above, can anyone recommend another classic that you’d think I’d like? I’m out of top-of-mind choices that move me to read it…

Any of you fellow parents out there know that the wish list letter to Santa is a big deal. My daughter Rachel had her letter in the mail on December 1. Anything Barbie or Bratz is an instant winner. Frankly, I think they all look like cheap harlots.

Anyhow, I am not as well organized as my daughter so I figured I’d skip the letter writing paper and hit the blog with my intranet wish list for Santa. Gone are the dreams of the ol’ G.I. Joe, or the subsequent Star Wars action figures (though that Jar Jar Binks action figure is an instant collectible!). I’ve even given up on the Porsche and hockey season tickets. Instead, I’ve prepared a most reasonable wish list – all in the name of clients.

Dear Santa, having been a good boy (mostly) this year, I would like to request the following for the intranets of my clients (past, present and future):

1-     Senior management support – as you know all to well, as the CEO of a flourishing elven manufacturing conglomerate, the success of the intranet is largely dependent on the level of support afforded by the executive suite. As your case study reveals, the success of Santa’s intranet largely flows from the big guy in the big red suit. Please impress upon the elves and in turn all of their customers and clients that their respective intranets deserve more support (and funding) from the other big fat executives.

2-     Measured value – successful intranets deliver a ton of value – almost as much value as toys in your sleigh. From cost savings to increased sales and employee productivity, the intranet is a virtual Christmas stocking chalked full of goodies. Please convince more companies to measure the value of their intranets – particularly ROI and employee productivity. If they refuse, a lump of coal should suffice.

3-     A decent RFP – Santa, please send a fleet of your elves out into the market to teach purchasing, IT and communications managers how to write an RFP. With the North Pole’s purchasing power and financial genius surely you can impart upon these souls that a successful RFP is more than one or two paragraphs of requirements and 15 pages of legal mulch and schedules. As Donder and Blitzen have oft said, a thorough RFP to reconstruct an intranet has some at least a dozen (if not two dozen) pages of requirements and should include information architectures, site metrics (including number of pages requiring migration), required functionality and integration, etc. If teaching fails, then send that new reindeer Knuckles.

4-    Loose the design – Please ignore any letters that ask for an intranet redesign. Even the half-wit reindeers Prancer and Vixen know full well that the success of an intranet has nothing to do with design. In fact, design doesn’t even make it into the top 20 most important aspects of an intranet. Please deliver each manager seeking to reconstruct their intranet a copy of Transforming your intranet so that they may shake this deadly design virus. Or heck, give them an RSS feed of IntranetBlog.com. It’s particularly good reading when washed down with some shortbread and egg nog (the real stuff, not that sickly drool called egg nog lite. Be afraid of any food that spells ‘light’ as ‘lite’… be very afraid.)

5-     A gun – Actually, all I want for Christmas is a Red Ryder carbon-action, 200-shot range model air rifle with a special sight, a compass in the stock and a sun dial. I promise not to shoot my eye out. But I’d settle for world peace – and tall glass of real egg nog.J

ON A PERSONAL NOTE: We’ve crawled from under all of the freakish storms that have pounded the Pacific West Coast in the past few weeks. We survived, but unfortunately, the equivalent of many forests were wiped out (see some of the windstorm damage to the world famous Stanley Park where thousands of trees were toppled).

I won’t be working much over the holiday except for the odd sign-in and missive on IntranetBlog.com so please, no e-mail! I’ll be too busy having fun with family, playing hockey, skiing a lot, catching up on my reading and mostly sleeping (if the baby lets me).

Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, Happy Channukah, Merry Kwanzaa and Happy (insert religious festival here)!! Special kudos to the Iraq Study Group, Steve Nash and the Phoenix Suns for winning 15 games straight, Stephen Harper for calling Hamas for what they are, Sidney Crosby for taking over the NHL, and to everyone and anyone who gives generously to the less fortunate this year (my cause continues to be Unicef – click to donate).

Boo! Okay, really, that’s about as scary as I’m going to get here. After all I am talking about intranets... dull, boring, uneventful intranets. Hell, I may be passionate about them but I’m also a realist...

On the eve of Halloween, and having seen so many hundreds of intranets, I thought it would be fun to relate my top 5 scariest moments in my intranet years. Of course, intranets can’t really be scary in the literal sense so when I say ‘scary’ I’m really meaning ‘stupid’.

Warning: the following contains scenes with little or no graphic violence, some suggestive language and only hints of nudity and explicit conduct. Caution: Stupid managers and executives who can relate to these should hide under a blanket or shiver with embarrassment. (Some of these stories I’ve related over the years but are too amusing not to relate again...)

·    A COO who berated me for making her intranet manager cry when I gave their intranet an evaluation score of 3.5 our of 10 (when asked to rate the intranet themselves, her senior management rated the intranet even worse: 3 out of 10). Man, I’m a cruel bastard!

·    A CEO of a major financial services company with a horribly pathetic intranet with a a zero-dollar budget and was looking to cut funding further... “I think we’ve invested too much in technology already.” Blood from a stone anyone?

·    An intranet manager who put an animated cartoon caricature of a jogging Bill Clinton on the intranet HR home page. Said the intranet manager when asked the value to the business of an animated U.S. President, “... he’s sooo cute!” I guess Dick Cheney wasn’t sexy enough...

·    A Director of Human Resources: “I don’t understand why we need an intranet... I mean we have a pretty good phone system that cost us a lot!” Forget the phones; I think ‘telegrams’ are due for a comeback.

·    Any company, at any time, that chooses an intranet consultant based on a blindly designed mock-up. Forget about a plan, employee productivity, or ROI, what kind of colors and stock images will you use?!?!?!

Any scary or stupid tales to relate? Let me know and I’ll give it ink!

RELATED READING:

The Thirteen Scariest Things in IT

(PARIS, FRA) Clearly I don’t have enough free time on my hands that I should spend any time thinking of this, but since this particular trip is completely subsumed by everything intranet (on behalf of clients and conferences), here is a randomly generated metaphor that springs to mind as I sit in a brasserie downing a quick and unremarkable verre de Merlot before my harried return to London on the Eurostar….

Paris is like a corporate intranet:

• Large and sprawling;
• Busy and bewildering;
• Noisy and vibrant;
• Culturally rich;
• Confusing and inconsistent navigation schemas (signs);
• Highly political; and
• Its citizens are highly demanding and passionate with extraordinarily diverse needs and interests.

There really is no other city like Paris (of course, Nice has always struck me as just a smaller, richer, sunnier version…) but the same could be said of some of the other great cities I’ve spent time in the past week: New York, London and Vancouver.

Landmark spectacles that Paris has that should be present on the average intranet:

• Fine museums (detailed historical and photographical archives);
• Large pointy towers that serve no particular purpose but to attract flocks of cash wielding people;
• Brasseries avec Kronenburg et Bordeaux;
• Sprawling artistic cemeteries with rotting, famous musicians, poets and actors; and
• A massively ornate, excessively expensive shrine to a formerly disgraced megalomaniac and war mongering dictator.

Oh wait, actually the intranet could do without the last two… but the Bordeaux would be nice.