The phrase 'trying to boil the ocean' refers to tasks that are clearly and heroically impossible. This is exactly what most teams take on when they try to get every intranet page up to the same high standard.

In the earlier article titled Intranet authoring: a hobby?, the role of intranet authors was explored, highlighting that many are required to maintain their content 'on the side', with little training or support.

Most intranets struggle to deliver consistent, accurate, readable and valuable content. Despite this, the goal of many intranet teams remains to deliver universally 'good' content.

This briefing will discuss common approaches to improving content, focusing on those that have failed. Suggestions will then be made on ways to target efforts for best effect.

Failed: content cleanups

Many teams attempt a content cleanup on a regular basis, perhaps every year or two. These involve reviewing most sections of the site, and the content contained within.

These reviews are looking for ROT (redundant, outdated or trivial), generating 'hit lists' of content that can be removed.

While these very easily remove hundreds or thousands of pages, the long term impact is negligible. As fast as content is reviewed by the central team, more is published by decentralised authors.

The process drains the energy of the intranet team, and often frustrates content owners. Even after a major cleanup, the intranet rapidly accumulates more content problems, and reverts to its previous state.

[CM Briefing 2008-06, read the full article]

The rise of enterprise search has put an increasing focus on searching ever broader collections of content and documents within organisations.

While enterprise search projects generally start with simple intranet search, attention quickly moves to searching document management systems, collaboration tools, business systems and fileshares.

Underpinning this work is the belief (or hope) that business value will be delivered to users by deploying a more extensive search tool.

Unfortunately it is often the case that searching more is not better than searching less.

This briefing will look at some of the challenges involved in implementing enterprise search, and provide practical tips on how to proceed.

Relevance and value

The fundamental goal of any search tool is to provide users with useful and relevant search results.

Within the enterprise, this means finding valuable information across the many different repositories, sources and systems.

The difficulty is that increasing the amount of information being searched almost always reduces the relevance of search results. Once called the 'Altavista effect', this was seen in the millions of hits generated for any set of terms entered into that search engine.

This is equally significant within an enterprise, and the challenge is to maintain (or improve) relevance as the volume of information grows.

Consideration also needs to be given to user needs and expectations. What types of queries are being entered into the enterprise search, and what sorts of results are expected? Gaining a deeper understanding of these questions helps to shed light on what to search, and how.

[CM Briefing 2008-05, read the full article]

So you're sitting at your desk and you have to redesign your intranet (or design one from scratch). Where on earth do you start?

By any measure, this is no easy task. The multitude of factors that need to be taken into account can be overwhelming.

Over the years, we have published a vast amount of information on intranets, offering the benefits of our experience and giving practical advice on intranet management, information architecture and content management.

In this article, we attempt to wrap up all the activities that form part of an intranet (re)design into one concise checklist.

Along the way, references will be given to our most popular articles, giving you more detail on particular topics. The goal is to give you an excellent starting point for undertaking an intranet (re)design and also to provide support throughout the process.

User-centred design methodology

As a basic framework for this article, a simplified intranet (re)design process has been devised, illustrated in Figure 1.

Before going through each of the steps in order, it's important to point out that best practice for designing interactive information systems -- such as intranets and websites -- involves using a user-centred design (UCD) methodology.

This simply means that input from the people who will actually use the intranet is given equal weighting with the business objectives and the information (aka content).

[May KM Column written by Patrick Kennedy, read the full article]

This is a photo I took late at night in the cemetary at the top of Wellington city centre. A beautiful and haunting place, even after they put the road through the middle of it. The highlight was created by a small LED torch I happened to be carrying.

By the way, I'm posting this photo from my new Flickr account, which I'll be using to share just my best work. My old account will still be in place, and you can follow this for my work-in-progress shots.

(I don't know whether having two Flickr accounts is sensible or practical, but I guess I'll find out over the next couple of months.)

Thomas Vander Wal has written about achieving success with enterprise social tools. To quote: Social tools require much more than just the tools for their implementation to be successful. Tool selection is tough as no tool is doing everything well and they all are focussing on niche areas. But, as difficult as the tool selection can be, there are three more elements that make up what the a successful deployment of the tools and can be considered part of the tools.

The last two days I've been running a workshop in Wellington, New Zealand. A great group, and very vigorous discussions and debates.

As ever, for the record, these were the "big questions" raised by participants at the beginning of the workshop:

• Homepage policy?
• Intranet vs document management?
• Process for delivering a business-effective intranet?
• Intranet redevelopment process?
• Conducting needs analysis?
• Collaboration tools?
• Web 2.0?
• Getting the launch right?
• Project management methodologies vs intranet team?
• Keeping momentum going?
• Governance?
• Managing scope?
• Working more effectively with business units re content?
• How to find the right "activities" to add to the intranet?
• Different needs for each area?
• Analysing research results? And choosing the right activities?
• Obtaining business buy-in?
• Usability testing and information architecture?
• Trimming fat?

Wikis are spreading like wildfire within organisations, driven by their quick setup and comparatively easy use. As yet, however, little has been written on how to make wikis work well.

That is why the new report from J. Boye, titled Wiki in the Enterprise is so valuable. Many have written about the potential value of wikis, but this work talks about what has worked in real-life (and what hasn't).

Drawing upon research done in a number of organisations, this report discusses the reasons for deploying wikis, the cavets, and how wikis meet reality.

Most importantly, this reports a range of practical and pragmatic recommendations on how to setup and use wikis. These will give teams a valuable leg-up when approaching this new publishing technology.

A recommended addition to the dialogue on wikis, and I'm looking forward to future reports from J. Boye.

Graham Oakes (based in the UK) emailed me a great perspective on my story about pilots and avoiding training. Here's his thoughts in full:

One thing to consider behind this is what is the real corporate objective? A lot of this sort of training is done for compliance -- if the corporation can demonstrate that their staff have done the course, then they avoid liability if anything goes wrong. Having the pilots pass the test at the end is simply their way of proving that the pilots have done the training.

From this, it flows that all the corporation want is a record that the pilot has passed the test. They may not care one iota what the pilot actually ends up knowing: they just want the box ticked so their liability is protected.

In this scenario, the corporation may be really happy that their pilots have found a way to tick the box without wasting time on the training. (But they don't want to know about it, because then the liability comes back.) And it's a very common scenario...

Cheers
Graham

(Graham is a down-to-earth expert on governance, so he's worth listening to on this topic.)

We were saddened to say farewell to Patrick Kennedy last Friday, as he is heading onto new opportunities. Patrick has been a truly valuable member of our team, and a real pleasure to have in the office. He's also worked tirelessly for the benefit of our clients, and for the industry as a whole.

Still, Patrick is destined to do more great work, just in an in-house role rather than as a consultant. So we wish him the best of luck, and give him our warmest thanks. (You can continue to follow Patrick's activities and insights on his personal blog.)

Just a quick note to highlight two of our upcoming workshops:

• Complete Intranet Management
  Melbourne, 9 May 2008

  Running in a few days, this is a unique opportunity to get "under the hood" of the Intranet Hive, our new methodology for managing intranets. This provides a view of all the ongoing activities needed to sustain and grow an intranet, something that intranet teams have never run before. (The workshop will also now be run by Catherine Grenfell, a former intranet manager herself, and now the manager of the Intranet Leadership Forum.)

• Information Architecture Essentials
  Brisbane, 18 June 2008

  Information architecture techniques provide a solid foundation for developing (or redeveloping) websites and intranets, and these should be core skills for all project teams. This workshop provides essential knowledge and techniques that can be put into practice. (This workshop will now be run by Rebecca Rodgers, who is based in our Brisbane office, and has many good experiences to share.)

It's not too late to sign up for either of these...

Jane McConnell has written about the importance of intranet IA. To quote: 1. Define top level categories ( level 1 navigation) in user terms, not in terms of the source of the content. This results in categories defined according to subject or purpose (user populations who have similar needs).

2. Ensure that clear mission statements exist for each : for example, this space provides these things for these people. Or even better, this space lets these people do A, B or C by providing them with X, Y Z.

3. Implement a double-ownership approach, with roles in charge of the spaces and thereby representing user needs, and other roles in charge of content, thereby ensure information and services of high quality and relevance.

4. Distinguish between content created "for us by us" and "for others by us". Departments and functions tend to want to put both in the same space on the intranet, and this is not logical for users.

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As you may have noticed, I've been working steadily to capture some of the key concepts that underpin our intranet work. Some of these have already been shared as articles, and most in workshops, but this is a good way of getting these useful concepts out to a wider intranet audience.

This slidecast explores the four fundamental purposes of an intranet, looks at where intranets have traditionally focused, and where they should be going next if they want to demonstrate ROI.

(The audio was recorded at the recent IA Summit in Miami, Florida.)

Desert fingers (II)

Flying out to Europe took me over central Australia in the middle of a sunny day. Whlie taking photos through the window of a plane is always fraught, the ever-changing landscape proved irresitable...

Mike Padilla has written an article on the design of faceted browsing. To quote: Just as it is important to choose the proper knife when slicing-n-dicing vegetables, it is critical to prescribe a suitable user interface to support faceted filtering. Faceted filtering allows you to narrow down a large list of objects to a manageable size by applying flexible combinations of attribute filters in any order. Rather than forcing you down fixed paths within a website’s information architecture, faceted filtering allows you to multi-dimensionally slice-n-dice the information in a manner that best accommodates your specific needs. A user interface that optimally supports faceted filtering must expose its robust functionality in a way that expresses affordances, controls complexity, and follows existing standards that have been pre-established across the web.

I was co-facilitating the Intranet Leadership Forum workshop in Melbourne today, and we started the day with a discussion around collaboration. We covered a variety of questions, but one key topic was: how do we make collaboration work well?

In five minutes the group had brainstormed the following list:

• involve key stakeholders
• training
• find out what people need
• single sign-on
• communicate
• define role of collaboration
• make it easy to use
• build trust via some security
• user testing
• when complete, get rid of collaboration spaces
• establish owner
• governance
• demonstrate successes
• ongoing remarketing
• get champions
• target ideas and opportunities
• value for users

Need I say more...

It's now only 16 days until entries for the 2008 Intranet Innovation Awards closes, on 16 May 2008. We're aware of a lot of organisations who are planning on submitting this year, so you don't want to miss out!

Winners of the inaugural awards demonstrated a wide range of ideas, and have been very generous in sharing these for the benefit of the wider community. In return, they gained much-deserved recognition, including YouTube interviews, writeups in major journals, and inclusion in the Intranet Innovations 2007 report (not to mention receiving a beautiful glass trophy!).

This year will be even bigger, with entries covering many individual improvements to intranets. These may include valuable staff directory enhancements, powerful search tools, delivery of information to Blackberries, interactive features on intranets, new ways of meeting frontline needs, or interesting intranet applications, just to mention a few ideas.

We also have an international judging panel this year, consisting of four intranet experts across four continents:

• James Robertson
  Step Two Designs (Australia)
• Martin White
  Intranet Focus (UK)
• Jane McConnell
  NetStrategy/JMC (France)
• Howard McQueen
  McQueen Consulting (USA)

Putting in an entry should only take an afternoon, or slightly longer if you want more time to polish. Full details can be found on the awards page.

A reminder of some useful resources:

• What do innovative intranets look like?
  (presentation from the recent IA Summit, including audio, talking through some of last year's winners)
• How to win an Intranet Innovation Award
  (tips on how to submit the best possible entry)
• Intranet Innovations 2007
  (report containing full details on last year's winners)
• Awards page
  (includes the entry form)

Good luck!

Iain Barker has written about 5 ways to improve customer service in call centres. To quote: Over the last few years I’ve conducted a number of contextual research studies in call centres. It is an interesting environment in which to conduct contextual research. Generally I’ve double-jacked in to calls, observing how the customer service consultants address the queries, and then asked a few questions of the customer service consultants.

Matt Moore has published his STAGS model for collaboration tools. To quote: I've been thinking about different collaboration tools for various groups recently and I was pondering on some of the different factors you need to consider and I came up with this (click to enlarge).

When in Melbourne this last week, we ended up in a crowded restaurant, sitting next to a pair of pilots. From one of the major international airlines, they were enjoying a 48-hour layover in Australia, between long-haul trips.

Inevitably, the discussion touched upon intranets, whereopon they exclaimed: "Ours is awful! We need to get you over to fix it!". That aside, they also told a very interesting story about their training systems.

Apparently a new "home study" program has been recently put in place. A fairly typical e-learning system, the pilots read through a number of screens of information, and then answer a short quiz at the end to verify their comprehension. All pretty standard stuff, and expected for a globally dispersed workplace.

What was very interesting was how the pilots had reacted to this. First off, they didn't like it, and thought it was pointless.

So some got their kids to click through the pages, rewarding them with sweets. The two pilots we were talking to used a tool called "auto click", which they'd downloaded off the net. This automatically fed clicks through to the web application, allowing them to go off and do something else while the e-learning system paged through.

They also talked about getting to the quiz at the end, and then deliberately dropping their internet connection. This would reset the application, allowing them to go back through the information screens knowing exactly what questions were going to be asked.

This highlights the huge gap that exists between corporate hopes and frontline realities. (I'm sure the e-learning program isn't cheap to run.) It also demonstrates the value of conducting "needs analysis" to understand the true issues and environment of staff.

As ever, I'm also amazed at how willingly people will volunteer their actual practices when asked, despite clearly being in breach of corporate policies. This story came out in the first 15 minutes of chatting, and all it really takes is someone showing a genuine interest...

George Dearing has listed more reasons that a CMS vendor will go out of business. To quote: The next five reasons on my list come from an ECM executive who asked to remain anonymous because he said it would be too obvious which company he's talking about, and he's already been accused of having a bad attitude. Because that was such an interesting comment, I've decided to add it in as reason 5-1/2 that a content management company will go out of business: