Your intranet is not a dumping ground. The intranet is not the recycling bin for newswire press releases.

I’ve seen more than a couple intranets that featured news content that was little more than a collection of external press releases reposted as internal news. Sadly, most of these press releases are not even rewritten for employees, and contain the same release formatting including the ubiquitous “for immediate release.” Even worse, I can recall several intranets where these press releases not only make-up the majority of employee news (with the odd United Way event announcement), but are just PDFs of the external press release!

Firstly, employees demand direct communications – not press releases. Ignore them at your peril. The Watson Wyatt 2005/2006 Communication ROI Study 2005/2006 study found evidence that communication effectiveness is a leading indicator of financial performance AND for improving HR and employee engagement and retention.Among the findings:

·         Companies that communicate effectively have a 19.4 percent higher market premium than companies that do not.

·         Shareholder returns for organizations with the most effective communication were over 57 percent higher over the last five years (2000-2004) than were returns for firms with less effective communication.

·         Firms that communicate effectively are 4.5 times more likely to report high levels of employee engagement versus firms that communicate less effectively.

There’s far too many resources on “writing for the web” and many, many articles and books. But just review very quickly:

·         Be succinct: text should be limited to 50% of the words you would write in print

·         Writing should follow the ‘inverted pyramid format’ with the most important content at the beginning

·         Use simple sentences and limit the use of metaphors

·         Use humor with caution

·         Correct spelling and grammar is a must

·         Plain English/French must be used when creating links, headings, site names, and forms

·         Task or scenario-based content should be used instead of organization jargon. (e.g. "Order a computer" instead of “CompuDesk”)

·         Avoid jargon

Read Writing for the Web for a more complete overview.

For those writing press releases, you need to do a better job too, but you’re turning out a lot of crap. But not to worry, so are most.

Read Reinventing the press releaseto learn about writing a better press release.

Finally, The Corporate Marketing E-Business team is looking to hire a User Experience Manager at Russell Investments in the Tacoma, WA area. This position serves as a Russell-wide consultant for user interface (UI) and usability issues to ensure that Russell's Web sites, intranets, and Web applications map to user needs and deliver a compelling user experience.

If you’re interested email Melanie <mlopez@russell.com> or visit Russell.com.

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