Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC)

The WIC's most valuable intranets of 2012 (based on end user feedback)

       

by Andrew Wright

This article lists the most valuable intranets for 2012 as identified by the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC).*

This includes the 3 top ranked organisations for each category from a total of 50 participating organisations. The scores and rankings are based on feedback given by actual intranet end users. In addition, tips and links to case studies from the highly ranked organisations are also provided.

 

Top rated intranets for 2012

1. Aspen Technology, Inc - 115.39 
2. RSPB  - 109.75  
3. Medibank Hotwire - 107.35   

 

References

Slideshare: Success factors and lessons learned from more than 100 benchmarked intranets
Case study: Weston Solutions: Could this be the world's most effective intranet?
Case study: Discovery Health staff say their intranet is the best
Case study: Intranet users rank Bupa Australia's intranet number 1
Webinar: Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) Webinar: Weston Solutions Case Study
Case study: The Worldwide Intranet Challenge - Wyeth MENA is number 1 (Case Study)

 

 

Catgegory ratings (based on survey questions)

I like the intranet home page (score is out of 4)

1. Rijkswaterstaat - 3.04 
2. RSPB - 3.01 
3. NRMA Motoring & Services - 2.99  

Youtube: The Rijkswaterstaat intranet
Article: RSPB intranet scoops global award

Tips from leading intranets:

• Provide a continuous stream of fresh content
• Provide personalised content - eg. news, work tasks
• Make sure there is some fun on the home page

 

I can personalise the intranet

1. Rijkswaterstaat - 2.96  
2. IMS Health - 2.37  
3. Yorkshire Water - 2.37  

Tips:

• Make the personalisation automatic (eg. deliver news updates based on a person's profile)
• Give people the ability to add their own links to the home page

 

I can find the information I need on the intranet

1. Sulzer Metco - 2.67  
2. Aspen Technology, Inc - 2.67 
3. GS1 Australia - 2.62  

Tips:

• Provide access to the most important content from the intranet home page
• Do not confuse collaboration content with 'approved' and qualified content - ensure the two content types are clearly demarcated
• Be fanatical about archiving and removing redundant content and content that doesn't get used

 

Publish content

1. nSynergy - 2.20  
2. Aspen Technology, Inc - 2.02 
3. Rijkswaterstaat - 1.76  

Case study: Delivering an interactive intranet: case study from #1 ranked interactive intranet: nSynergy

 

 

Discuss work topics

1. nSynergy - 2.84  
2. Arup #2 - 1.68  
3. Rijkswaterstaat - 1.28 

Interview: With Faith Wainwright of Arup

Tips:

• Online discussion and collaboration is more cultural than technical
• Senior leadership MUST set the example
• Discussion tools need to be easy to use, preferably integrated with email

 

Collaborate with other staff online

1. nSynergy - 2.52 
2. Aspen Technology, Inc - 1.91
3. Nykredit - 1.28  

Case Study: Nykredit: Collaboration evolution delivers on vision

• Integrate different platforms  - eg. combine instant message, video conferencing, unified communications and desktop sharing into a seamless end user experience
• Ensure the right culture exists - staff not scared to collaborate, collaboration is encouraged 

 

Complete online forms

1. Virgin Media UK - 2.13  
2. Medibank Health Solutions - 2.09  
3. Energex - 2.00  

Tips:

• Implement the most popular forms first to obtain buy-in
• Integrate forms with job tasks

 

Find instructions for completing work tasks

1. Medibank - Client Pages - 2.94 
2. Medibank - Hotwire - 2.24  
3. Transfield Worley Ltd - 2.02 

Case study: Building a task based intranet using SharePoint (AGL case study)

 

Staff details

1. RSPB - 3.52  
2. Transfield Worley Ltd - 3.28  
3. Arup Group Ltd - 3.26 

Tips:

• Complete as many profile details as possible from existing HR systems
• Allow staff to update their own details
• Run a competition where the winner only gets a prize if their staff details are up-to-date
• Include photos of staff (if possible)
• Integrate 'linkable' staff names with other content types (eg. links to intranet pages, documents)

 

News about our organisation & industry

1. RSPB - 3.29 
2. Telecom NZ - 3.06  
3. Yorkshire Water - 3.00  

Tips:

• Most important is to have a regular supply of quality news stories
• Analyse effectiveness of news stories - which stories are popular, who are the popular authors,
• News items need to have clear objectives (eg. to improve employee engagement, to make staff aware of process changes)

A repository of re-usable documents

1. Aspen Technology, Inc - 2.81  
2. Domino's Pizza - 2.35  
3. Sulzer Chemtech - 2.24  

Tips:

• Don't just simply provide a huge list of un-indexed documents - ensure there is appropriate meta data assigned so staff can locate the documents they need to meet their specific requirements
• Archive old documents
• Index documents by the roles and activities they support eg. sales proposals should be indexed by Sales Team

 

Information about our products/services

1. Domino's Pizza - 2.79  
2. Aspen Technology, Inc - 2.68 
3. Fisher & Paykel Finance - 2.66 

Tips:

• Ensure front line staff have easy access to this information
• Ensure that if product or service information is updated, there is a way for staff to acknowledge that they are aware of the change and can ask for additional help if needed
• Maintain not only your own product/service information but also an overview of your competitors. This way your staff will know how your product/service is superior.

Information about our customers

1. Aspen Technology, Inc - 2.20  
2. Domino's Pizza - 2.15  
3. Energex - 2.04  

 

Information for new starters

1. Aspen Technology, Inc - 2.90 
2. RSPB - 2.81  
3. Fisher & Paykel Finance - 2.66 

Tips:

• Created a page specifically for new starters
• Create an electronic checklist of tasks to be completed within the first few days and make it available from the intranet

 

Content on the intranet is accurate

1. RSPB - 2.94 
2. Fisher & Paykel Finance - 2.78  
3. Sulzer Chemtech - 2.77  

Tips:

• Use automated reminders to ensure content authors acknowledge that their content is still relevant
• Conduct regular content audits - review usage reports
• Provide a feedback mechanism for staff to report out-of-date content
• Ensure collaborative and 'work-in-progress' type content is clearly separated from the 'official' quality intranet content. Use the analogy of the factory and a retail outlet to explain these different content types

 

I can see what's new or what's changed on the intranet

1. WWF-UK - 2.70 
2. Fisher & Paykel Finance - 2.67  
3. nSynergy - 2.56  

Tips:

• Provide weekly email updates about what's new or updated on the intranet - do not send more than one a week as staff will get sick of them
• Provide a dedicated page on the intranet where staff can see not only what items have been added or changed but also a brief description of the change

 

The intranet is always available (the following questions are out of 2)

1. National Audit Office - 1.93  
2. Atradius - 1.91  
3. Transfield Worley Ltd - 1.90  

Case study: ASHA: Collaborate, Combine, and Manage: Keys to Successful Intranet Adoption

 

Pages on the intranet load quickly

1. Yorkshire Water - 1.80  
2. National Audit Office - 1.75  
3. St Barbara - 1.75  

Case Study: Ros Business Consulting: End users and experts agree on what makes a good intranet

Tips:

• Buy the IT team a cappuccino every Friday morning
• Buy the best hardware available
• Ensure the intranet has it's own dedicated server

 

I can access the intranet off-site

1. RSPB - 1.82  
2. nSynergy - 1.80  
3. University of Manchester - 1.77  

Tips:

• Organisational culture needs to support flexible working and have trust in staff - more important than the technology

 

Access the intranet using a mobile device

1. Domino's Pizza - 1.32  
2. University of Manchester - 1.22  
3. RSPB - 1.14  

Tips:

• Implement just a few simple mobile intranet applications - don't expect staff to troll through 1000's of intranet pages on their mobile phone

 

Overall value (out of 4)

1. Medibank - Hotwire - 3.32  
2. Medibank - Client Pages - 3.21 
3. WWF-UK - 3.17  

Tips:

• Focus on helping staff complete business tasks more effectively
• Engage and interact with staff through discussion forums, activity streams and other interactive methods
• Have solid intranet governance processes in place that are embedded in the organisational roles and responsibilities
• Have visible support from senior management and the CEO

 

* What is the Worldwide Intranet Challenge?

The WIC is a free online benchmarking service that enables organisations to obtain feedback from their employees about what they think of their intranet. This feedback can then be compared with other participating organisations to identify those intranets that rate the highest in various topics. Read the FAQ page for more information.

So far in total over 32,000 intranet end users from 123 organisations in 22 different countries have completed the survey.

 

Register now to benchmark your intranet from an end user perspective

If you are interested in finding out exactly how your intranet compares with over 120 other organisations, why not participate in the WIC? The WIC is a free online benchmark survey that asks your end users what they think about your intranet and then allows you to benchmark this information against other participating organisations. So why not register for the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC).

 

 

Delivering an interactive intranet: case study from #1 ranked interactive intranet: nSynergy

A poll conducted by the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) LinkedIn group showed that 34% of the 305 respondents wanted a more interactive and collaborative intranet as the one improvement for 2012. This was the most popular response from the 5 options available.

This is backed up by WIC research which shows that interactive intranets are more valuable than those that simply provide static content.

So what is the secret to delivering a more interactive and dynamic intranet?

nSynergy, an Australian based global consulting company specialising in Information Management, recently participated in the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) (the WIC is an online survey that allows organisations to obtain feedback from their intranet end users and then compare this feedback with other participating organisations). 

Perhaps, not too surprisingly, nSynergy dominated the rankings for questions related to the interactivity.  In fact, of the 8 questions about intranet interactivity, nSynergy ranked either 1 or 2 (from more than 100+ organisations) in 5 of them.

The following list shows nSynergy's rankings for questions about interactivity:

• Publish Content - #2
• Upload or download documents - #2
• Discuss work topics (eg. Using discussion forums or blogs) - #1
• Collaborate with other staff (eg. Using online work spaces) - #1
• Provide feedback or comments about intranet content - #2

The WIC spoke to Peter Nguyen-Brown (left), nSynergy’s Practice Manager about what it takes to deliver an interactive intranet.

 

 

 WIC:

Were you surprised that nSynergy ranked so well in these questions?

PNB:

Specifically in relation to interactivity, we weren’t surprised, but we were certainly pleased to know that we ranked number 1 globally in this area against some highly reputable organisations.  Our core business includes delivering effective Intranets for organisations – and just like the advice we give our customers, we also have to incorporate a phased approach for our own Intranet. 

Connecting our eight offices globally with the best available collaborative tools was our primary focus, so we are very pleased to have achieved our internal goals.

 

WIC:

Why do you think you received such a good response from your end users for these questions?

PNB:

For our business to succeed we rely on maximising the expertise across our teams globally, rather than on any one individual or project team.  The culture we continually look to improve focuses on the power of team dynamics regardless of location, so I think our consultants really appreciate being able to call on others for their opinions and expertise wherever they may be located. 

Given we have offices in locations that enable us to provide 24 hour support to our customers, being able to interact and collaborate consistently and instantly via our Intranet and collaboration tools is vital.

 

WIC:

What was the process or steps you went through to improve interactivity of the intranet? Was there much focus on training, communication, or change management? Or was it case of build it and they will come?

PNB:

We identified as a business in 2009 that Enterprise Social Collaboration was going to be a hot trending topic in the years to come based on the way we saw social collaboration impacting people’s lives outside of work.  We implemented SharePoint 2010, and worked closely with our now partner Newsgator to implement their Social Sites add-on to extend the existinginteractive collaborative features of SharePoint. 

We certainly kept communications high leading up to the deployment, but the key to success of Enterprise Social Collaboration is in simplicity to ensure User Adoption, and providing a familiar User Experience which minimises the need for training– we achieved this very successfully.

 

WIC:

What do you think is the relevant importance of providing the technical capability for interactivity versus non-technical qualities such as culture, training, incentives, etc?

PNB:

We have a business philosophy which extends to our customer projects, in that the true measure of success of deploying a business solution such as Intranet is ultimately about User Adoption and interaction.  This makes the technology less important in our opinion, however we do feel that starting with a SharePoint platform is a great start. 

Users shouldn’t need to know what technology they are using to make the solution effective, users should feel comfortable in the solution and instinctively know how to use it.  As per our company vision, we believe that “enabling” technical solutions form a part of overall company culture, our people are absolutely the centre of our business and we constantly train, incentivise and encourage better use of our technology.

 

WIC:

What benefit or value to your organisation do you think this provides to nSynergy? Do you have any stories or examples of how the intranet has added real or measureable value?

PNB:

There are some great stories of how the Intranet has added real measurable value, but perhaps the best examples are by referring to scenarios we find ourselves in quite a lot.  Consultants often ask a question via our Intranet or search for specific expertise.  It is amazing the number of times this process has led to 2 consultants who previously didn’t know each other, to learn more about other people’s experiences and capabilities which has then led to other discussions about completely different topics than what the original process was intending to find. 

One of our Principal Consultants (Ali) in London has recently completed his Masters in Entrepreneurship, and when one of our Managers in Australia was searching our Intranet for people with expertise in Information Architecture, the search led him to Ali’s user profile page which highlighted his recent Masters completion - this then led to further discussion between the two which enabled them to solve other relevant business needs relating to Ali’s recent Masters program. 

A good Intranet is not just about helping to find information you are looking for, it is also about connecting you to information you didn’t necessarily intend to find that can be used for other purposes. 

 

WIC:

What tips or advice can you give other organisations who wish to make their intranet more interactive and dynamic?  Both from a technical and non-technical point of view?

PNB:

There are some really interesting trends in the modern Intranet, and they often focus on providing a comfortable and familiar User Experience.  In relation to technology, definitely consider the use of an Enterprise Social Collaboration tool - we however would not recommend using any tool that is free and cloud based as you lose the benefits of connecting internal information such as documents and tasks with the social collaboration elements. 

We would highly recommend the use of Newsgator with SharePoint due to the way the 2 platforms seamlessly integrate.  Also seriously consider a Unified Communications platform that integrates with SharePoint such as Lync for enabling Instant Messaging, Video Conferencing, Desktop Sharing and people search – in our opinion if you mix SharePoint with Social Collaboration and Unified Communications, you really can’t get much more interactive and dynamic. 

From a non-technical point of view, setting up an internal “Steering Committee” or similar is vital to continually review and improve the platform.  These are often the times when discussion on new ideas comes up for the creation of sites and content for areas such as internal Social Groups, fund raisers, company initiatives etc – keeping the platform evolving maintains interest with end users, but most importantly the Intranet needs to be relevant to the user and intrinsically linked to their productivity tools and solutions. 

Intranets should not be a burden, they should be relevant to how a user does their job.  There are many other techniques which we are happy to share with interested organisations.

 

WIC:

Do you have any plans for the future to ensure you continue to receive good feedback from your end users for this question?

PNB:

We continually ask for informal feedback, but we will be leveraging the WIC for further benchmarking and analysis.  The only true way in our opinion to measure the success of an Intranet is to ask the users and to look for both intangible and tangible impacts. 

To this extent, we are highly recommending the WIC to our customers before beginning Intranet projects to measure their current Intranet, and to re-survey users after we assist with building and deployment their new Intranet – this is a real tangible measurement of how we have improved the way our customers do business and service their teams. 

We also have persistent global icons from the Intranet that allows users to provide feedback at any time. 

And finally, we have implemented an Innovation Centre which we call “Think Tank”, which allows any person in the business to submit ideas on how they would like to see the business improve – others can then vote on these ideas and the business can then respond to what is most important to everyone.

 

nSynergy intranet - NewsFeed and Communities screen shot

Do smaller organisations really have better intranets?

Jakob Nielsen makes the claim in his 10 Best Intranets of 2012 article that 'Smaller Companies Still Have Better Intranets'. He says 'Smaller organizations are designing better intranets this year, and have been for the past 3 years. Of this year's 10 winning intranets, 6 support fewer than 15,000 employees' (4 with 11,000 or less).

Research from the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) indicates that this may not be the case.

Sharon O'Dea in her excellent article, Are these really the 10 best intranets of 2012? makes the point that this is an area for further study and would be interested to compare the findings of the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC). Taking Sharon's advice, I decided to analyse the feedback, by organisational size, of the 87 organisations that have participated in the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) to date. 

The WIC is a free online intranet benchmarking service completed by actual intranet end users. End users answer a number of generic questions about their intranet such as ease of finding information and the value of the intranet. Based on this feedback, it is possible to compare intranets and identify those which are successful in the areas identifed by the WIC. Over 25,000 people have completed the WIC survey (note: anyone can register for the WIC).

The size and number of the 87 organisations that have participated to-date is as follows:

• 0 - 1000 employees (35 organisations)
• 1001 - 10,000 (36)
• 10,001 - 50,000 (11)
• Over 50,000 (5)

 

Intranet end user satisfaction graphs, based on size of organisation

The following graphs show what intranet end users think about their intranets in a range of areas:

The above graph provides the average response to the following 3 questions, grouped by organisational size:

• Q1. I like the intranet homepage
• Q2. Information is easy to read
• Q3. Consistency of pages

The above graph indicates larger organisations have higher levels of satisfaction with the home page, ease of reading information and the consistency of page layouts. This could be explained by larger organisations having a greater number of content developers and therefore a greater need for standards and governance. Smaller organisations on the other hand may not see the need for the same level of detail.

 

The above graph provides the average response to the following 3 questions:

• Q1.I can find the information I need on the intranet
• Q2.The intranet menus help me find the information I need
• Q3.The intranet search helps me find the information I need

Again this graph indicates the larger organisations are having more success in this area, although the 0 - 1,000 group of organisations ranks second. Also interesting to note that intranet menus are a more effective way of finding information than seach. This is true for organisations of all sizes.

 

The above graph provides the average response to the following 3 questions:

• Q1.Staff details (eg. phone, title, etc)
• Q2.News about our organisation/industry
• Q3.Information about our products/services

Content quality appears to be even across the board, with the exception of product/service information. Again this appears to be more effective for larger organisations.

 

The above graph provides the average response to the following 3 questions:

• Q1.Complete online forms
• Q2.Publish content
• Q3.Find instructions for completing work tasks

Smaller organisations fair well in terms or enabling more of their staff to publish content. Organisations with 10-50K staff appear to be most effective at providing online forms and instructions for completing work tasks. This may be due to smaller organisations having fewer number of people completing tasks. For example, if only a handful of people are responsible for invoicing customers, it may not be worthwhile to automate or document this activity.

 

The above graph provides the average response to the following 3 questions:

• Q1.Content on the intranet is up-to-date
• Q2.I receive alerts, emails or RSS feeds when content on the intranet changes
• Q3.I have received training on using the intranet

Surprisingly, given that you would expect more content to exist, larger organisations appear to be better at maintaining content on the intranet and letting staff know about changes.

 

The above graph provides the average response to the following 3 questions:

• Q1.Pages on the intranet load quickly
• Q2.I can access the intranet off-site.
• Q3.I can access the intranet using a mobile device.

Performance of the intranet appears to be even across the board, with the exception of off-site access. This is more effective as organisations become larger. This would make sense, as larger organisations are perhaps more likely to have a geographically diverse workforce requiring intranet access from off-site and various office locations

 

The above graph provides the average response to the following question:

• Q1.Overall value of the intranet

Clearly employees from organisations with 10-50K people feel that their intranets add more value than intranets of other organisations. Based on the response to this question, it would seem smaller organisations do not necessarily provide better intranets after all. 

 

Conclusion

Based on the above data, it is difficult to draw any strong conclusions about the impact of organisational size on an intranet's effectiveness. It's possible to make a case either way as to why the size of an organisations may have a positive or negative impact on the intranet.

For example, Neilsen says a possible reason for smaller organisations succeeding with intranets is that "Technology offerings might contribute to the success of our current, smaller winners: as a very long-term trend, it's getting easier to implement designs with good usability, bringing quality user experience within the reach of ever-smaller companies."

However, you could just as easily argue that larger organisations should have better intranets because they have greater resources and a more urgent requirement to deliver an effective intranet. They have more employees depending on the intranet and greater economies of scale to be obtained. 

 

Whether the size of an organisation increases the chances of providing a more effective intranet or not is beside the point to some extent. There are other more important factors to consider ahead of organisational size, when deciding what contributes to a successful intranet. These include:

• Level of executive buy-in and support - is there an executive sponsor that can see the value of an effective intranet?
• Budget and resources - how many staff support the intranet?
• Quality of intranet team - are they passionate and skilled? Can they get the buy-in and support needed, at both the end user and senior management levels?
• Change management, communication and training - are staff aware of how to use the intranet? what functionality is available? what content is available?
• Organisational culture - is it receptive to technology, online communication and sharing of information?
• Employee engagement - are employees committed to the organisation? Are they likely to embrace the intranet?
• Technology - is the intranet platform easy to use? Does it support the organisation's needs?
• Vision - does the intranet support the organisation's vision?
• Industry - some industries will be embrace the intranet and technology more than others (a topic for another article I think)
• Intranet governance - is it in place? do people support the governance model?

 

 

How to get your SharePoint intranet to work like Amazon.com

Vistors to Amazon.com will be familiar with the relevant link suggestions provided when you search for an item.  For example, if I search for Malcom Gladwell's Book, Outliers, I will also be provided with suggestions for other books I may be interested in (see image below). Intranets built using SharePoint can also provide this functionality - and this has enormous benefits.

This article describes how to do this and the benefits that can be obtained from using this approach. 

Why is the Amazon approach critical to intranets?

Research from the Worldwide Intranet Challenge has shown the finding information on the intranet is the quality that is most important to end users and is also the quality that needs the most improvement.

A recent white paper released by Stephan Schillerwein also highlights the cost and difficulty of employees struggling to find information. For instance, did you know that: 

• Employees search for information for 0.5 to 2 hours per day – that’s up to about a ¼ of the full work time. This is nearly 3 months per year per employee.
• The U.S. economy loses $900b to $1.5t per year due to information overload and information related time waste - this is approximately $4,000 a year for every man, woman and child
• Information isn‘t reaching decision makers on time, therefore 63% make business critical decisions five times or more a week without having the right information.

Obviously something needs to be done to address this issue. Part of the solution lies with SharePoint's most useful feature - the Lookup column type. 

 

What is the Lookup column type?

The Lookup column type enables you to easily create and maintain relationships between two or more SharePoint lists. For example, you may have one list called Forms, another list called Department and third list called Roles. By using the column type function, you can identify:

• Which forms are relevant to which roles
• Which department owns which forms
• Which roles belong to which departments

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So how does this help us?

The importance of this function is that it allows you to provide a meaningful and "linkable" context around related content types - something that is sadly lacking in many of today's intranets.

How many of today's intranets simply display a list of forms, websites or tools with little or no context around these lists? Too many from my personal experience!

For instance, on many intranets an end user may be confronted with a bland list of forms such as:

• IT User Form
• Capability Assessment Form
• Key Transmittal Form
• 360 Degree Feedback Form
• Resource Request Form
• Project Code Request Form
• New Staff Request Form
• Obsolete Equipment Form

The end user may well ask questions like; Are these forms relevant to me? What are they used for? Who owns them? When should I use them? Is there anything else I need for these forms to work?

By adding Lookup Column Types linking the forms to Role and Department, it's easy to provide a more meaningful and useful list such as the following.

Role: Project Manager

• Resource Request Form
• Project Code Request Form
• New Staff Request Form 
• Capability Assessment Form

Role: Asset Manager

• Obsolete Equipment Form
• IT User Form
• Key Transmittal Form

Role: All Staff

• 360 Degree Feedback Form

End users can now see which forms are relevant to them. You could also provide a view of which departments own which forms so end users could potentially search by department if they wished (eg. show me all the HR forms).

 

But even more importantly... 

In addition to providing a more meaningful view, end users can now click the link to the Related Column Type (eg. Role) and this will show them a more detailed description of the role.

For instance, you could see what Department the role belongs to, what other documents, applications, tools, etc are relevant to that role. You could then click on Department and and see what other roles exist within that department... the possible relationships are endless.... 

Like the cement that holds the bricks in a house together, the Lookup Column Function is like the cement that holds your different content types together. Without this cement, your house is really just a pile of bricks.

The big advantage of providing context using the Lookup Property is that it makes it easier for your end users to find information they may not have known existed. Unlike search which simply finds items that match your criteria.

The article, Browse versus Search, summaries this concept nicely. It says '"a user relies on search to find specific information he or she already knows or suspects to exist. Rarely does a user search for something he or she doesn’t even know to search for." 

 

How the Lookup Property can help make your intranet like Amazon

This functionality is not disimiliar to many websites that provide contextual links. For example, when you search for a book on amazon.com, you will also be provided with links to other books or merchandise related to your orginal query. You may not have even known these books or merchandise existed.

The Internet Movie Database works in a similar way - you can locate a movie and he IMDB will list other movies that you may like. 

 

Tracking your relationships

When using the Lookup Column Type function, it's important to keep track of the relationships you create. Otherwise it's easy for relationships and content types to be duplicated and managing these relationships becomes a nightmare. The following diagram shows a possible mapping of content types for an intranet using SharePoint.

 

Summary

The ability to add context to related content types is a function that is not used often enough. Particularly with intranets.

It is one of the reasons organisations often complain that information is 'siloed' and difficult to find. If there was a context provided for each content type, this would give greater meaning, findability and coherence to seemingly disjointed and unrelated 'bricks' of information.

This approach would go a long way to addressing end user problems with finding information. It would help people 'know what they don't know'.

 

Related article

You may also want to read:

• Contextual integration: how it can transform your intranet

Prioritising your intranet improvement initiatives

   

Overview

These days intranet managers are swamped with ideas and suggestions for improving their intranet. These ideas can come from many sources - executives, senior managers, colleagues, intranet consultants, site visits to other intranet sites and a multitude of other research sources. It is easy to be overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information and it can be difficult to know where to start... How do you prioritize and schedule intranet improvement activities with limited resources?

Examples

I have just read a great case study about this topic - Save yourself £8m/$13m and 73 years- intranet case study. In the study, an intranet improved it's benchmark ranking from 36 out of 36 to 8 of 36 by implementing the following activities:

• Re-design of intranet publisher training,
• Creation of a community of practice for these publishers,
• Two conferences conducted for the publisher,
• Development of a governance structure, and 
• Clean up of content, removal of content that was out of date, duplicated or substandard. 

This case study highlights the need to decide how you are going measure the success (or otherwise) of any intranet improvement initiatives. I think it was Vince Lombardi who said you can't improve what you don't measure.

Allen Huish in his article, How to prioritize intranet developments, also talks about the importance of measuring the value of intranet initiatives. He lists 3 dimensions he uses to prioritize intranet developments:

• Benefits - is there a measurable benefit?
• Reach - how many people will benefit? 
• Influence - is it going to increase your influence within the organisation?

Another article - Managing SharePoint Feature Requests - asks 4 basic questions before approving a request:

• How will this feature help the business?
• How does this feature contribute to strategic goals?
• How complex is the feature to implement?
• How does the feature align with your overall portal strategy?

Relationship between intranet qualities and intranet value

 The Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC) provides you with a way of measuring the effectiveness of your intranet and then prioritizing intranet improvement initiatives. When participating in the WIC, end users indicate the value they believe a specific quality adds to the intranet and then also indicate an overall value of the intranet. With this information, it is possible to determine which qualities end users consider most closely correlate with intranet value.

Correlation Diagrams

 The following diagrams show the relationship between various factors and intranet value (calculated from nearly 7000 end user responses from 23 organisations).

The Correlation Value figure is calculated using the Excel Correl function. This function assigns a value that shows the relationship between two numerical lists. For example if the first list is 1,2,3 and second list is 3, 6, 9 - the correlation value will be 1.0. In other words there is a perfect positive relationship between the two lists.

The lists in the tables below are taken from the Worldwide Intranet Challenge (WIC). The first numerical list contains the intranet factor (eg. Policies and Procedures) and second numerical list is the overall value end users give the intranet. The correlation value reflects the strength of the relationship between these lists.

You can use these table as a guide to identifying activities which have the most impact on improving end user value. Note that these tables are a summary of WIC responses to date and each organisation will have different correlation values.

Content V Intranet Value

The following table shows the relationship between the value of the intranet and different types of content.
 

Intranet Maintenance and Change V Intranet Value

The following table shows the relationship between the value of the intranet and how the intranet is maintained.

 

Intranet Performance V Intranet Value

The following table shows the relationship between the value of the intranet and the performance of the intranet
 

Participate in the Worldwide Intranet Challenge

If you would like to determine the specific correlation values for your intranet, then consider registering for the Worldwide Intranet Challenge.

In addition to English, the WIC is also available in:

• French
• Spanish
• German
• Estonian
• Russian
• Danish