I’m still a little amazed that security is such a big issue for so many organizations. The technology is there, what’s the issue?

Many organizations still employ large organizations with many employees that don’t work at desktops… think car manufacturers like Ford, or airlines like Cathay Pacific, or the U.S. Army. All of those organizations extend intranet access to remote people – employees on the road, in the field or at home. If they can do it, so can you. And yet there are far too many organizations still worrying about those employees that don’t have intranet access… give them access from home!

Many companies try and set-up kiosks or joint work stations. Many of those same companies have also found that they’re not used too well. (One exception is Dutch Railway company NedTrain with an employee workforce of 4,000, the majority of which do not have dedicated computers. Despite the limited computer access, the company encourages employees to use centrally located touch-screen kiosks to access the intranet. The result: an astounding 2.5 million quarterly visits – or 200 intranet visits per employee per month).

When recently visiting a client’s field office with workers that work outside and don’t have a dedicated computer, I heard a familiar tune. “We don’t use the intranet much and don’t really care… but I would if I could access it from home.”

Virtual Private Network or VPN has been the solution for many companies, for many years. I remember I was granted my first VPN access to the corporate intranet 9 years ago. For those still not familiar with it, don’t be shy – it’s largely a techie thing. You’re not alone.

VPNs are designed to provide access to the intranet and come with built in security – good ones of course have very strong security such as intrusion prevention, stateful firewall, and granular authorization. Authorization of course requires a password or a PIN. But as many of us know all to well, the most common security breaches are not because of hardware and technology, it’s because of people loosing or being cavalier with their password.

A VPN secured with “two-factor authentication” aims to overcome this problem.  Two-factor authentication has the user often use a PIN (a four or six digit number) in combination with a randomly generated number from a hand held token. You may have one or see these little badges that generate a new number every 30 seconds.

So really, security isn’t an excuse anymore. The security exists. If banks offer online banking and even the U.S. Army (with all its concerns about terrorism, etc.) can put it’s intranet on the public Internet (check it out at: www.army.mil), then you can too.

RELATED READING:

Kiosk access for non-desk workers

Home intranet access

Often overlooked, as I stated today in my speech at the 2006 Corporate Reputation and Communication Conference (Conference Board), is the power of the employee in representing the corporate brand and the necessity of employee communications and the intranet in maximizing the value of your brand.

So what does the brand mean to the intranet? How do you brand the intranet? Firstly, the intranet must reinforce and support the corporate brand. The intranet is one of the most visual representations of the organization to employees on a day-to-day basis. Therefore, the intranet cannot be designed willy nilly. It must adhere to corporate branding standards and creative including: 

• Use and treatment of the corporate logo
• Applications of color from an acceptable and complimentary color palette
• Treatment of images, icons and photos that align with the corporate image

Does this mean though that the intranet home page should look like the Internet home page? No it doesn’t. It should not be a replication of the external site – there should be some distinction. However, there is a fine line between replication and reinvention. If you adhere to corporate branding standards (I’m assuming you, like most organizations, have them) then there will be some consistency with the external website (e.g. colors) but it should be at a glance visually distinctive so employees know that the intranet is just for them.  

"Visual appeal can be assessed within 50 milliseconds, suggesting that Web designers have about 50 milliseconds to make a good impression," according to Dr. Gitte Lindgaard of Carleton University in a recent e-commerce Times article about a report published in the journal Behaviour & Information Technology. 

As I’ve said time and time again, there is far too much emphasis on look-and-feel and design. “We’re doing a redesign” is a common turn of phrase meant to convey a complete restructuring of the intranet or website, but it in fact emphasizes the look-and-feel. In my experience, the user, your target audience, determines what is important.

It goes without saying that building an intranet brand is far more complex than marketing. A number of key contributors must be carefully mixed and executed to create a valued resonation:   

• Site design
• Usability
• Site layout
• Content quality
• Application value
• Collaboration

This does not mean however that the intranet ‘brand’ should be left to chance and that it is not important. The intranet brand is very important given its profile as an ever-present representation of corporate messaging, goals and source of information and collaboration. While the design or look-and-feel of the intranet should never be done on a whim or without a plan that aligns with the corporate brand, it should not be forgotten that employees don’t go to the intranet for brand, they’re after content.

ADDITIONAL READING:

Building a web brand (Get Strategic)

Don't Shout, Listen (Fast Company_

On the Web, Branding Is Back (Business Week)

Web branding is more than skin deep (Gerry McGovern)

 

© 2006 Toby Ward - Prescient Digital Media

I’m amazed but no longer shocked at how many poor, broken intranets there are in the corporate world. There are a lot of organizations that need help. This of course is good for our business (Prescient Digital Media), but not so good for the folks paying for and running these intranets.

So, rather than just sit back and wait for you to hire us, we’re conducting a free seminar in Toronto in October… aptly named How To Fix A Broken Intranet. In keeping with the free theme, we’re co-presenting this seminar with Optaros who’s speciality and focus is open-source software. In short,Optaros is an “international consulting and systems integration firm that provides enterprises with best-fit solutions to IT business challenges, maximizing the benefits of open source software.”

You could say that this seminar is geared towards those organizations looking for the most bang for the buck!

In this 90 minute, information packed session, attendees will see real world examples of organizations that have fixed their intranets and achieved breakthrough performance with social networking. Attendees will also gain an in-depth understanding of how open source content management solutions are ideally suited to maximize the implementation of these features cost effectively.

WHEN: Wednesday, October 11, 2006

TIMES: 8:30am or 3:30 p.m. (90 minutes)

WHERE: Prescient Digital's Training Room 180 Bloor Street West Suite 1102
Toronto, ON Canada M5S 2V6