The future for BT’s intranet?
January 6, 2010 at 12:26 pm | Posted in application, blog, governance, intranet, news, publishing, research, rss, social media, standards, value, wiki | 7 CommentsTags: applications, blog, bt intranet, BT today, content, governance, intranet applications, oracle, publishing, research, social media, standards, usability standards, wiki
At the end of 2009 I posted about BT’s intranet being 15 years old and the progress made in that time.
BT’s intranet has constantly evolved to meet the changing needs of the business and how it best helps people to be able to do their work as effectively as possible.
BT’s intranet has always aimed to be simple and easy to use. People use it to complete an activity such as a room booking, check the latest news and more recently, publish and use opinions and views with people that have the same interests across BT.
So what’s my view on its future for 2010? It’s likely to see BT’s intranet:
- become even easier to use, wherever you are – at home, coffee shop or BT building – whenever you want to and with any device – your PC, BT’s computing kit or mobile – and the real difference will be the experience will be the same.
- ease of use will also mean you won’t need to keep authenticating to use applications and content protected behind passwords. Just login once and then loading up your browser will give you faster access to what you need.
- people will find it as easy to publish content they want to share or own as sending an email and be able to search for all the different types of information on BT’s intranet from one search page that gives you what you need.
Maybe these are not earth shattering aims? But I know if I can help achieve any of these people in BT will benefit more from using our intranet.
And that’s what my role as BT Intranet manager is. 
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I like that you focus on simple, and easy-to-understand goals for your intranet for 2010: Easy to use, easy to publish . It’s easy to get focused on toolsets and try to solve all the complex problems at once.
You say that publishing content should be as easy to do as to send a email – do you aim to eliminate email all together in the future?
Comment by Dorthe Raakjær Jespersen— January 6, 2010 #
Dorthe,
The more realistic aim is to reduce the number of emails sent by using different methods to communicate the information more easily or better than email.
BT has flattened the steep increase in emails by alternative methods for sending and receiving communications.
Email will always be used because it is so simple, easy and suitable for lots of informal communications.
Mark
Comment by markmorrell— January 6, 2010 #
Hi Marc,
Sounds like you’re emphasizing 3 of the 5 trends from the Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report. You seem to be working in these areas:
- place-independent,
- front door into the workplace web (only need 1 key to open the door!),
- and people-focused.
The other 2 are: team-orientation and real-time. Maybe you’re already well down the road on these?
Your “driver word” for 2010 is “easy” – that’s a great one!
Looking forward very much to our up-coming chats in Copenhagen at IntraTeam Event!
Comment by Jane McConnell— January 6, 2010 #
Jane,
Thanks for your comments. Yes, less than 2 months to Intra Team conference in (hopefully warmer) Copenhagen.
BT is already working on the other two and the three you mention are evolving from work in 2009.
If only it was easy to make it easy for everyone!
Mark
Comment by markmorrell— January 6, 2010 #
[...] The aim of the council is to cover the user experience and how future versions of software being released will improve it. It should also cover concerns like I have about the usability of their applications and making things easier to use. [...]
Pingback by Mark Morrell meets Oracle « Mark Morrell— January 21, 2010 #
Hello there. Thank you. I visit it regularly to read the most recent stuff. Extremely educational article.
Comment by Omer Laubscher— January 25, 2010 #
[...] Mark Morrell at BT has described his plan for making the BT intranet easier to use. [...]
Pingback by Make your intranet easier to use in 2010 | J. Boye— December 17, 2010 #