Why hobby-horse?
For too long now many intranets have been regarded by executives and staff alike as a 'nice to have' - a simple online company newsletter or staff directory... a hobby-horse for the communication, HR or IT teams more or less.
The average rating for intranet value from the 13,000+ intranet end users who have participated in the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) intranet end user survey is 2.632 out of 4 (where the options are: Not at all useful = 0, Neutral or indifferent = 1, Useful = 2, Very useful = 3, Business critical =4). This rates intranets on average about half-way between 'Useful' and 'Very useful' - far from 'business critical'.
The challenge for people involved with intranets is to transform these hobby-horses into valuable workhorses - intranets that improve the way staff work and how they interact with colleagues. Gerry McGovern makes this point in his article Intranets: getting senior management attention where he says, "The one thing that the intranet can truly deliver is time. It can make it quicker for staff to carry out basic tasks such as finding product information; finding experts; locating forms and processes."
How does the WIC help improve intranets?
Regular readers of this blog would know that one of the major benefits of the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) is that it offers organisations the opportunity to obtain feedback from their intranet end users and then benchmark this feedback against other organisations.
The other benefit of the WIC is that it makes it possible to identify those intranets that rate well in each of the questions. The techniques, tips and ticks used by these organisations for these questions can then be shared with other organisations.
Discover tips and techniques from leading intranets
The WIC is presenting a unique 2 hour gathering in Melbourne, Australia on October 28th, Intranets that work: from hobby-horse to workhorse. Hear from 3 organisations (from the 44 organisations who have participated in the WIC) who have rated highly in one or more of the survey questions and have kindly agreed to share their valuable insights. The presentations will be short, sharp and interactive. Drinks and finger food will also be included so it's a good opportunity to not only gain insights into leading intranets but to socialise and network with other professionals.
The event will cover the following topics:
'The interactive intranet' - Hexaware Technologies
Discover tips for building an interactive intranet. This includes facilitating the completion of work tasks using online forms and encouraging staff to get more involved in the intranet. The following graph highlights Hexaware Technologies number 1 ranking (from 44 organisations) in response to the question 'How often do you use the intranet to complete common work tasks'. Hexaware Technologies also ranked highly for a number of other questions related to making the intranet more interactive.
Providing access to corporate knowledge - Bupa Australia
Bupa Australia rated highly in many of the WIC questions and is in fact now the number 1 overall Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) intranet.
In this presentation you will learn how Bupa have built an effective gateway to corporate applications, documents, templates, reports and content. The following graph highlights Bupa Australia's number 1 rating for the question 'How would you rate the intranet's ability to provde access to business applications''.
Publish or perish - Brightstar Logistics
A challenge for many intranet managers is getting staff to contribute content. Brightstar Logistics will be talking about the approach they have used to encourage their staff to publish. The following graph shows Brightstart Logistics rating for the question "How often do you publish content to the intranet?'.
Interested in attending?
Seats are limited so book your ticket(s) early to make sure your place is reserved. If you are not from Melbourne, don't forget that the world famous Melbourne spring racing carnival begins on Saturday 30th October. So why not make it a long weekend and arrive early in Melbourne to attend this event.
