In a recent blog post, intranet guru Jane McConnell asked the question "why are so many organizations still in Stage 1?" [stage 1 is 'nice to have' intranet as opposed to stage 2 & 3 intranets which are "the way an organisation works"].
Irish intranet thought leader, Gerry McGovern has also written a recent post where he says that, "Most intranets are not seen as essential to the functioning of an organization. This is because management is not convinced of their strategic value."
And Canadian intranet commentator, Toby Ward, in another blog post says that "intranets are paltry when compared to the corporate website, and in fact, nauseatingly underfunded compared to the .com site."
It seems that three of the world's leading intranet figures all agree that intranets are not getting their due recognition within organisations. Why is this the case?
Why are intranets not fulfilling their potential?
I have a theory.... Malcolm Gladwell in his best selling book, Outliers: The story of success (highly recommended), talks about the 10,000 hour rule. Put simply, he says that research has shown that to become an expert in a particular discipline or profession, you need to practice for at least 10,000 hours or roughly 10 years.
And it's not enough to simply put in the hours - the practice needs to be 'deliberate practice'.... practice where you are continually improving your craft as a result of feedback from experts, mentors, industry leaders and your own experience.
In the book he gives many examples of people who have become recognised experts in their fields after completing their apprenticeship of 10,000 hours. This includes the Beatles who played for 8 hours a day, 7 days a week in Hamburg for 3 or 4 years before they had their 'overnight' worldwide success in 1964 (see a video of Gladwell explaining 10,000 hour rule). 
Which brings us to intranets. The term 'intranet' and intranets themselves have only been in widespread use since the mid to late nineties. So how many intranet experts are there going to be when the field itself has only been around for 10 years?
Accentuating this problem of the immaturity of intranets as a discipline, is the fact that intranets are by their nature internal and specific to organisations - making it even more difficult to share tips and advice around what makes a great intranet.
So in part, I think the problem of intranets not fulfilling their potential is due to:
- The intranet (or digital workplace) being a relatively new field (underscored by the fact that even the ownership of the intranet is still a hot topic of debate)
- A shortage of identified expert intranet practitioners - people that have actually implemented demonstrably successful intranets
- A lack of qualified & proven intranet guidelines and heuristics (eg. What is the pupose of an intranet? What goes on the home page? Should we have personalisation?)
Where can we find these leading practices and experts?
The Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) is one way that allows us to identify intranet experts and share leading practices. The WIC is a web based survey that asks end users what they think about their intranets which then enables those organisations that rate well in each question to be discovered and leading practices identified.
Over 20,000 people from 60 organisations have completed the WIC intranet survey. Given it takes about 5 minutes to complete, this represents around 1600 hours worth of research.
What are leading tips from the WIC?
The following SlideShare presentation is from the inaugural Intranets 2011 conference in Sydney and provides a few tips and advice from leading organisational intranets (as identified by their own end users).
These leading organisations include Discovery Health (South Africa), CVS Caremark (North America), Bupa Australia, Ball Corporation (North America), Hexaware Technologies, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA), Arup, Brightstar Logistics (Australia), Delta Dental of Michigan, Ohio, & Indiana, and Weston Solutions.
All of these organisations rank in the top 5% in one or more of the survey questions. Discovery Health is currently the overall number 1 intranet as rated by their own end users.
How can I get my 10,000 hours of deliberate practice?
In the last few years, the interest in intranets has increased significantly. More opportunities are becoming available for intranet practitioners to impove their skills and understanding of intranets by participating in a range of intranet improvement initiatives.
Participation in the WIC is one way to fast track your intranet skills development. By participating, you will not only obtain feedback from your own end users about your intranet but you will also benefit from the expertise of other organisations and people who have demonstrated leadership in particular facets of intranets.
Other ways to help you rack up those 10,000 intranet hours include participating in:
It is free to participate in all of these initiatives.
Summary
It is an exciting time to be involved with intranets and the digital workplace! With the huge interest in cloud computing, the phenomenal growth in mobile technologies, the greater demand for a flexible working environment, the savings to be made in reduced office space and travel expenses and the ubiquity of business tools such as LinkedIn, Skype, SharePoint, Google Docs and Twitter, having an effective, co-ordinated and functional digital workplace is only going to become more and more critical to the success of many organisations.
Those digital workplace practitioners who have been quietly building their 10,000 hours of deliberate practice over the last few years will be well placed to play leading roles in this workplace revolution.
