It was an informal and relaxed atmosphere at Young & Jacksons Hotel in Melbourne, where around 50 people interested in improving their organisation's intranet attended the event 'Intranets that work: from hobby-horse to work horse'.
The event kicked off with a mystery ice-breaker game that was won by Michelle Goodwin from AGL. Michelle demonstrated her excellent networking and negotiation skills (both important skills in managing an intranet!) to win a signed copy of James Robertson's new book, Designing Intranets: Creating sites that work (highly recommend). Thanks to James for donating the book.
Before the presentations of leading intranets, I explained what the Worldwide Intranet Challenge is all about, what it measures, how to participate and listed the organisations that have participated so far.
Three excellent presentations followed from organisations with leading intranets, as identified by their own end users. Below is a summary of the tips and tricks provided by these organisations for building more effective intranets.
Tips from Brightstar (Katrina Marques) - Strategies for improving user adoption and contribution (rated highly in questions about content contribution)
- Get users actively involved in decision making process for your intranet
- Set up a distributed publishing model with your CMS
- Ensure intranet responsibilities are included in people's KPIs
- Provide the training and support needed to enable users to publish to your intranet
- Develop strategy/clear guidelines how you are going to manage, support and drive Intranet contributions
- Get feedback and implement changes based on feedback
You can read about Katrina's experience with the WIC in more detail and also view her presentation on her latest blog post, WIC Case Study – Part 1: Employee Publishing on the Intranet.
Tips from Hexaware Technologies (Shilpa Chengappa) - the interactive intranet (rated highly in questions about people interacting with your intranet)
- Consider your target audience - what will engage and interest them? An intranet for an people in their early 20s will be different than one for people in their 40s
- Provide incentives for people to participate - consider using a points system to reward participation
- Provide online forms - forms that people can complete and submit online without needing to print anything
- Make it easy for people to post questions and implement processes to ensure a response is provided within 24 hours
- List all your applications in a single location to facilitate easy access
- Make sure you include some fun
Tips from Bupa Australia (Josh Patel) - providing access to key content (rated as the most effective overall intranet by end users)
- Conduct regular audits of your content
- Pro-actively request feedback and implement improvements
- Ensure style guides and best practice guidelines are followed
- Provide training and continuous support to your publishers
- Keep your content fresh - news, features, regular updates
- Nag, chase, bribe, reward & acknowledge to motivate your authors
Event feedback
Here is what some of the attendees liked about the event:
- "Informal, great networking"- Simon Rawson, Synergy Corporate Technologies
- "Good venue, access to speakers in a relaxed environment, good variety of topics"- John O'Brien, Foxtel
- "Gaining a perspective on how other organisations operate their intranets, teams and authors"- Sue Falkiner, Australian Catholic University
- "Informal, fantastic to see other company intranets"- Michelle Goodwin, AGL
- "Informal & local, Great idea to hold it in a pub, great to hear from 3 different orgs with 3 diff intranets"- Rachel Vogel, Thinc
- "Insights and examples of leading edge intranets"- Arnold Florendo, GE Capital
Are you interested in presenting at an 'Intranets that work' event?
If you are interested in showcasing an aspect of your intranet and receiving recognition for your efforts, you will need to register and participate in the WIC. You may then be invited to present your intranet at a future 'intranets that work' event.
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