Forget the look-and-feel. Put it out of your mind. The look-and-feel or design of your intranet or portal is window dressing – a distraction from what employees need.

I mention this as we (Prescient Digital Media) talk with so many clients and prospective clients that want to see ‘screenshots’ as fast as possible. Screenshots are important and serve a purpose, and I completely understand having run an enterprise intranet before; everyone wants to see what others are doing.

Fidelity Investments intranet home page

However, don’t ask me to produce a design concept in response to your RFP when I, and all other vendors, know virtually nothing about your intranet other than the very select information provided in the RFP itself. If I whip up a design concept it will be entirely flawed, pointless, and completely counterproductive because it’s based entirely on guesswork because I don’t know:

• The cultural preferences and needs of employee users to different design treatments
• The mandatory or necessary requirements of business owners and senior managers
• The subtle nuances of a preferred an optimized information architecture
• The optimal page layout (whether 2, 3, 4 or more columns) with the right ration of text to white space (which varies for every organization depending on their culture and level of web savviness of users)
• The necessity nor capacity for individual personalization and customization
• Political consideration for the use of the home page
• Strategic initiatives of the organization that must be hooked into the intranet
• The type, quality and quantity of content on the intranet
• Etc., etc.

If I know little or none of the above, to what end or what purpose is served by developing a design concept based on guess work? To qualify our design capabilities? If you’re choosing an intranet consultant based on their ‘design’ abilities then you have no business running an intranet (see How to hire an intranet consultant).

That’s not to say that design (look-and-feel) doesn’t play a roll and isn’t important to users. Design is important, but it doesn’t crack the top 6 or 7 priorities. On average, based on my experience working with dozens of intranet clients, design is equivalent to between 8 – 12% of the total intranet’s value. What is really important is content (20-30%), search (15-20%), information architecture (20-30%), and governance and planning (20-30%).

Unlike YouTube or an entertainment website, users don’t really care about design nor video, flash, and bells and whistles that distract and entertain. Employee intranet users want one thing: to complete a task or to find the content or tool they need to do their job, and to do it or find it as fast as possible. In short, employees want speed. On our roads, speed kills; on our intranets, speed wins.

The following represents our updated model (based on many years of experience), the Nexus of Intranet Success, which visually depicts the critical components of a successful intranet.

Note the importance of people, particularly executives (executive support) and end users (motivated employees). Design helps facilitate the process, but never should be the focus or centerpiece. Argue with me or debate me if you like, but you will lose (see the original feature, Nexus of Intranet Success).

Just as the intranet is evolving and in need of constant refinement, I’m still refining this model as technology, employee needs, and companies change and evolve. More to come in October...

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Wikis are indeed a powerful collaboration tool for employees. However, like any tool that requires participation from people, the success of an employee wiki requires highly engaged and participatory individuals.  In other words, a successful wiki has less to do with technology, and more to do with communications and change management.

Janssen-Cilag recently replaced their intranet with a wiki. The Australian pharmaceutical subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson originally had a static HTML intranet that was delivering little value. The original intranet (launched in 2001) was static, delivering limited value, and was plagued by many of the common problems associated with many young intranets.

“While some areas were lovingly maintained to a high standard, large sections of content were out of date,” writes Janssen-Cilag CIO Nathan Wallace in his blog case study Our Intranet, the Wiki: Case Study of a Wiki changing an Enterprise. “There was no search capability. Trust in the information was very low. News was distributed via email, not the web.”

JCintra, the Janssen-Cilag intranet home page

While most organizations would worry about the risk of employees being able to change and edit all content, this risk rarely materializes as reality. The Jannsen-Cilag intranet records a complete history of all changes and additions to all content so mistakes can be quickly corrected. This history workflow also keeps employees, who cannot contribute anonymous content, accountable for their contributions.

In the first three months, despite an employee population of only 300 people, 111 people had contributed more than 5,000 changes to the intranet.

“The adoption of JCintra has been remarkable,” says Wallace. “Our contributions per month have continued to grow since launch. People are engaging and collaborating more with time, they are not losing steam as you might expect.”

“People are engaging and collaborating more with time, they are not losing steam as you might expect. To drive adoption, we’ve primarily focused on owning the flow of new information. Early on, we established a policy that all announcements must be on JCintra. When necessary, they may be sent via email in addition to posting as news on the Intranet.

While I believe a wiki-based intranet has its time and place and will not work in all organizations, particularly larger ones where application integration and user personalization are key drivers, Wallace and team have demonstrated a wiki-based intranet can be very successful in the right culture.

“In a culture full of all the typical trust, transparency, workload and security concerns common to big companies; the simplicity of this system and its content ownership model cut through,” adds Wallace. “Problems of driving collaboration and content updates remain, but they are exposed as the cultural and people problems at their heart since the technical and workload "excuses" have been stripped away.”

(Thanks to Bill Ives at Enterprise 2.0.)

RELATED READING:

Also read how Intrawest Placemaking implemented a similar wiki intranet in a slightly larger organization. See Intranet case study: Intrawest Placemaking.

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MySpace popularized if not invented the new “social networking” website, but Facebook is revolutionizing the concept.

“A do-everything site with the potential to devour the whole Internet,” according to Christopher Beam of Slate magazine (see How Facebook could crush MySpace, Yahoo!, and Google).

Facebook started as a college alternative to MySpace, but has exploded in popularity and will soon overtake MySpace as the most visited social networking site. According the ubiquitously accepted Alexa.com website rankings, Facebook is now the 10th most visited site on the Internet – up 6 places since the rankings were last updated (MySpace is unchanged in the 6th spot).

According to an Aussie security firm, Facebook is now so popular that it is being used as the ‘underground’ intranet by many employees. Richard Cullen of SurfControl estimates Facebook may be costing Australian businesses “$5 billion a year.”

 "Our analysis shows that Facebook is the new, and costly, time-waster," says Cullen, quoted in the Sidney Morning Hearld (see Facebook labeled a $5b waste of time - Technology - smh.com.au

Read my complete article Facebook used as an ‘underground’ intranet (Communitelligence.com).

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I've done some writing on the intranet consulting profession over the past few months.

READ:

10 things to ask your intranet consultant

Avoiding dangerous intranet consultants

How to hire an intranet consultant

Hiring an intranet consultant or manager

Now it’s time to put my money where my mouth is. My company, Prescient Digital Media, is hiring. Although candidates who live in Toronto, Vancouver, Chicago, New York and Boston may have an edge, I really don’t care where the person lives if they’ve got the skills and the experience. The ideal candidate could potentially work from home.

Here’s the job description (feel free to poach this listing if your company or firm is also looking to fill a similar position):

Title: Senior Consultant & Account Manager
Status: Full-time Permanent (Part-time or Flex-time arrangement is an option)

Prescient Digital Media is a rapidly growing Internet and intranet business consulting firm. Based in Toronto, Prescient delivers strategic e-business consulting and planning services to organizations in both the private and public sectors throughout North America.

We are currently seeking a Senior Consultant who is attracted by the prospect of an exciting and fast paced work environment with great potential for career development.

Reporting to the Vice President of Client Delivery, as a Senior Consultant you will be responsible for managing all aspects of client engagements. You will employ superior analytical skills, proven project management expertise, excellent written and verbal communication abilities and a strong understanding of intranets and websites. You will be a member of a highly specialized team of consultants responsible for assisting clients to develop and achieve their business objectives for their Internet, intranet and extranet sites.

Major Responsibilities:

·         Communication excellence: There will be a high degree of communication with clients and potential clients. Written and verbal communications will be one of your key strengths.

·         Engagement: You will possess the ability to independently and efficiently manage a project from start to finish with minimal supervision.

·         Analysis & Reporting: You will be able to gather and analyze client business specifics, as well as user requirements and develop detailed reports and recommendations based on this information.

·         Planning: You understand the intricacies of strategic planning, modeling and facilitation including research techniques and tools such as surveys, and focus group testing, and are able to effectively execute these practices.

·         Marketing: You will have experience in delivering powerful presentations and demonstrations. As well, you will be called upon to contribute web-related articles to Prescient’s monthly newsletter.

·         Teamwork: Knowledge sharing and collaboration with colleagues, as well as our partners and clients is essential to your success as a Prescient team member.

·         Business Development: Identifying opportunities to extend client engagements to help drive Prescient’s growth.

Requirements:

You will have a BS/BA degree or equivalent work experience combined with 6+ years of relevant online business and consulting experience. MBA preferred. Candidates must possess a strong e-business understanding and be comfortable dealing with senior management within client environments.

The successful applicant will have well-rounded, multi-vertical business experience; exceptional executive communication, presentation, negotiation, analytical and conflict management skills; and a high commitment to customer satisfaction.

The Reward:

If you are a self-starter looking for a challenging, creative atmosphere, then Prescient is the place for you. Our leading methodologies and innovative corporate culture keep us on the cutting edge of our industry, and fuels our exceptional year-to-year growth. We offer a flexible work environment with great career advancement potential. Compensation will be based on a combination of salary and performance-based pay.

Location is flexible and working from home is an option for the right candidate. Interested candidates should email a copy of their resume. No phone calls, please.

Please visit our Job application form if you wish to apply or to recommend a colleague.

“A do-everything site with the potential to devour the whole Internet,” according to Christopher Beam of Slate magazine (see How Facebook could crush MySpace, Yahoo!, and Google).

Facebook started as a college alternative to MySpace, but has exploded in popularity and will soon overtake MySpace as the most visited social networking site. According the ubiquitously accepted Alexa.com website rankings, Facebook is now the 10th most visited site on the Internet – up 6 places since the rankings were last updated (MySpace is unchanged in the 6th spot).

My Facebook profile page

“MySpace, if you ask me, is a spam-infested state of nature,” writes Beam. “The average user page comes with a crapload of embedded music and video players, some seizure-inducing wallpaper, and a bunch of friend requests from "models" who want to "get to know you." Facebook, on the other hand, is much less customizable but also a lot more reassuring. The interface is comfy, sturdy, and attractive without being showy—the kind of social network you'd bring home to Mom.”

Here’s the wow factor: Facebook was only opened to the public one year ago. Previously, the Face was only available to party-hardy, horny and fun-seeking college teens. Last year, the owners of Facebook reportedly rejected a $900-million offer from Yahoo!

Read my complete article The Facebook Revolution on Content Matters.

Hey, if Facebook and MySpace work on the Internet, there's no reason why similarly styled social or enterprise networking sites can't work on the corporate intranet...

By the way, feel free to join our Intranet Global Forum group on Facebook (just go to Facebook.com and do a search on Intranet).

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