8 ways SharePoint 2010 can help internal communications
July 9, 2012 at 8:41 am | Posted in best practice, collaboration, communication, engagement, intranet, podcast, rss, SharePoint 2010, wiki | 7 CommentsTags: blog, collaboration, communication, engagement, intranet, sharepoint 2010, social media, wiki
I have covered in previous posts how internal communications can improve with collaboration tools. I also believe SharePoint 2010 can help organisations’ intranets if applied well. This post covers 8 ways that SP 2010 can help internal communications.
I’m not saying that SP 2010 is the only way to improve internal comms or intranets generally. There are other technologies that can do this as well or better. It is how you use the technology that is critical to it being a success.
These 8 ways can help SharePoint 2010 make a difference to internal communications by offering more agile and tailored solutions to meet the organisation’s needs:
- Polls: you can use polls to ask for feedback on a subject with a menu of answers for people to choose from.
- News: you can tailor a section of a page to show as many stories as you want. You can give people the choice to see extra news and mandate how many news stories they must see and how many are optional.
- News stories: people can read these and show how they feel by using the SP 2010 features to like and rate the stories.
- Share news stories: people can also share a story with people who will be interested. This is usually by email like with internet sites.
- Tag news stories: people can also tag a story with words or phrases that group it with other information or news they can find easily in future. Tags can also be shared with other people and their tags can create a folksonomy.
- Discussion forums: people are able to extend their feedback on the news story by discussing it further with other people. Internal communicators can also join the discussion and help explain any points that are unclear to people.
- Blogs: people (including internal communicators) can give a personal view on a news story. Again it extends the original message if someone feels strongly about or offers an opinion to challenge another view. This can help tease out small issues that can be quickly resolved before they can become major issues later that are more complex and harder to sort out.
- Podcasts: internal communicators can show and tell how to do something to help illustrate a message better than using words. This is different from high quality corporate videos. The quality may be lower but much cheaper and normally accepted by people. It is the informal, personal, style that can make a positive difference to people’s perceptions.
The real benefits with SharePoint 2010 are when you use it on a major scale. If you create the content to be communicated once, then be able to re-use it across many channels, you can focus on quality of the message. You can communicate it as a news article, mobile text, video/podcast, etc. and get feedback from discussion forums, polls, rating, comments, shares and likes to it.
Have you found any of these have helped you?
Can collaboration tools improve internal communications?
April 3, 2012 at 8:57 am | Posted in blog, collaboration, communication, engagement, intranet, podcast, rss, social media, wiki | 14 CommentsTags: blog, collaboration, communication, engagement, intranet, rss, social media, wiki
Intranets have developed over recent years from mainly being a channel for a few people to publish news to becoming places where any employee can collaborate and share knowledge with other employees. I find it ironic that it is internal communications who are hesitant, even resistant, to embrace these changes. Ironic because many intranet teams are located within internal communications. Doubly ironic as it is normally intranet teams who are involved with how collaboration tools are used.
Instead of embracing this chance to engage with employees using these new tools and integrate them into an enhanced communications framework, internal communications reaction is more often a knee-jerk one that results in more and more ‘official’ news to try to drown out other voices.
I think that’s very sad when it happens. It’s a bit like an ostrich burying its head in the sand. It has to face reality at some stage. The later internal comms leave it, the bigger the challenge it faces to use these tools to the overall benefit of the organisation, employees and internal communications.
Over the next few posts I want to cover how tools like blogs, video, rating and RSS can be used more effectively. I will also show how I can help you if you need more information and support.
Is this scenario something you are familiar with in your own organisation?
What is a digital workplace?
March 5, 2012 at 3:02 pm | Posted in application, blog, collaboration, content management, digital workplace, intranet, mobile, news, podcast, rss, wiki | 34 CommentsTags: applications, blog, collaboration, digital workplace, intranet, rss, social media, wiki
Last week at the IntraTeam event in Copenhagen (Twitter #IEC12) there were many discussions about the digital workplace and what exactly is a digital workplace.
I thought it would be good to start a debate on what we mean when we say the digital workplace. Many intranet professionals want to find out more about the digital workplace. Here is my view for you to consider and comment upon.
What exactly is a digital workplace?
I define the digital workplace as “Work is what you do, not where you go to.”
In a digital workplace you are able to:
- Work in any location. This may be at home, in your own or anyone else’s office, on the train, or ideally anywhere that suits you at the time you need to.
- Do your work. This may making a room booking, checking a person’s contacts details, searching for information you need, or reading the latest news.
- Use any device. This maybe your laptop, a shared PC, a smartphone (iPhone), or tablet (iPad).
- Share information. This means being able to use collaboration tools to help other people.
- Search across all places where information is and you have permission to use.
What is the difference between a digital workplace and an intranet?
An intranet has a more limited role. An intranet typically has corporate news and documents e.g. policies. Publishing will probably use content and document management systems. A digital workplace will also have:
- Collaboration tools e.g. blogs, wikis, podcasts
- Micro blogging tools e.g. Yammer, Twitter
- Knowledge sharing/building e.g. team wikis and share workspaces
- Applications/tools e.g. HR tools, online training, sales performance
- Processes e.g. approving decisions, compliance checks
It will help me and other intranet professionals if you can comment to agree, disagree, amend, etc, to create a shared understanding on the digital workplace. Thanks in advance.
Increase intranet value by adopting social media
November 25, 2010 at 12:32 pm | Posted in best practice, blog, governance, intranet, podcast, social media, value, wiki | 1 CommentTags: best practice, blog, bt intranet, governance, social media, standards, value, wiki
I’m speaking next Monday about how BT has increased the value of its intranet by adopting social media tools to help improve collaborating by people solving business problems.
The conference is called ‘Employee Portal Masters Evolution’. I’m really looking forward to hearing from some great intranet speakers about:
- strategic business alignment & integration of social media
- evolution of intranets and employee portals into digital workplaces
- intranet lifecycle management
- benchmarking and KPIs of portals for a maximum on ROI
If you can’t join me, you can see my slide presentation if you are interested.
Social media: why bother?
November 19, 2010 at 11:28 am | Posted in benefit, blog, intranet, podcast, rss, social media, wiki | 3 CommentsTags: best practice, blog, bt intranet, governance, social media, wiki
On Wednesday I was invited to speak at an aspic communication cafe on Social media: force for good or fad? to a group of very interested communicators.
I really enjoyed presenting with Kim Willis – great presenter and presentation by the way! – about the benefits of social media.
You can find my slides on ‘Social media: why bother?‘ here.
How social media can make you more efficient
November 8, 2010 at 1:25 pm | Posted in benefit, best practice, blog, governance, intranet, podcast, social media, standards, wiki | 1 CommentTags: best practice, blog, bt intranet, governance, social media, standards, wiki
I will be speaking at the Intranett 2010 conference on Thursday in Oslo. I’m really looking forward to showing what value BT has gained from it’s approach to social media and how using tools like blogs and wikis have helped people.
My presentation will cover:
- What business needs drove our approach
- What tools create the best possible interaction and cooperation
- What governance model is needed for social media to be beneficial
- Examples of effective knowledge sharing and collaboration
- What value BT takes from collaboration
If you can’t make it, you can find my slides here.
Get a great intranet by involving everyone
July 14, 2010 at 7:57 am | Posted in benchmark, benefit, best practice, blog, intranet, news, podcast, rss, social media, value, wiki | 11 CommentsTags: benchmark, best practice, blog, bt intranet, BT today, rss, social media, value, wiki
When I posted about the latest results for BT ‘BT Intranet 2010 benchmark results‘ I promised to give examples the Intranet Benchmarking Forum highlighted as global best practice.
The first example was about our content. IBF said all pages across BT’s intranet contain author and date information.
My next example is about how involving everyone can make your intranet more valuable to your organisation. IBF said BT’s intranet supports our values to be open and straightforward in dealings with colleagues.
BT’s intranet builds on this by supporting collaboration with anyone in BT including senior managers. We do this in several ways with online chats, blogs, and collaboration tools including:
- Blog Central now has over 500 blogs with over 80% having posted at least once in the last month
- BTpedia now has over 2,500 wiki articles with new articles added every few days and the top article having over 125,000 views
- Podcast Central now has over 1,000 podcast episodes with over 20 added in the last week
- On our newsdesk site, BT Today can express their views on BT-wide subjects that anyone can add to as well as comment on news stories.
- BT’s CEO, Ian Livingston, has regular online chats where anyone can ask a question he will respond to for about one hour.
What’s your view on SharePoint 2010?
June 22, 2010 at 8:30 am | Posted in blog, governance, homepage, intranet, navigation, podcast, publishing, social media, standards, web accessibility, wiki | 8 CommentsTags: blog, bt intranet, content, governance, publishing, sharepoint 2010, social media, wiki
Like most organisations at the moment, BT is looking at what SharePoint 2010 has to offer and how it could meet our business needs.
I’ve read about SP 2010 in the blog posts for expert views, joined an IBF seminar last week, discussed it with other intranet professionals at conference and following #sp2010 on Twitter.
I still haven’t found all the answers to my questions around usability, accessibility, governance, integration, search, etc but I don’t expect to yet.
I have joined two groups on LinkedIn to ask these types of questions with other people who are involved with SP 2010. There is a group on Sharepoint Governance and Sharepoint User Groups. Anyone else want to join?
I really want to find a group of non-technical people who have the a similar view from a business rather than IT focus.
What’s your view on SP 2010? Have you any good information links or groups to share that will help?
Free live demo of BT’s intranet
May 26, 2010 at 9:21 am | Posted in benchmark, best practice, blog, intranet, news, podcast, rss, social media, wiki | 3 CommentsTags: benchmark, best practice, blog, bt intranet, rss, social media, wiki
I’ve just realised this is my 100th post (how have you suffered so many you ask yourselves?). When I look back at my first post I realise how much has happened with BT’s intranet that I have posted about.
Anyway, this is not a nostalgic post but a free offer. Yes, there is such a thing as a ‘free (BT) lunch’ on offer for you!
On 2-3 June the Intranet Benchmarking Forum are holding a free, online, 24 hour virtual tour of many organisations’ intranets. It’s called IBF24. You can find out more by clicking on the IBF24 link.
BT’s intranet will be the first shown on the tour. I will be demonstrating BT’s intranet and taking questions around 12:30 UK time for about 30-40 minutes.
So you have a chance to see how BT has benefited from the social media tools I have posted about before like BTpedia, Blog Central, BT Today, RSS and podcasting.
If you don’t get a chance to ask a question please comment on this post and I’ll reply.
I’m looking forward to IBF24. I hope you can join me.
Successfully transforming BT’s intranet using social media
May 25, 2010 at 10:32 am | Posted in blog, community, intranet, podcast, research, rss, social media, wiki | 3 CommentsTags: blog, bt intranet, research, rss, social media, wiki
I will be speaking at the Advanced Intranet and Portals conference in Amsterdam held on 27 and 28 May. It aims to ‘Connect your employees to anybody, anywhere, and drive business growth through social media, Web 2.0 and collaboration tools whilst increasing employee usability and engagement’.
I will use Twitter to share any nuggets of knowledge that I uncover while attending the conference. Already there is a lot of interest around Sharepoint 2010 which BT is planning to use.
My presentation will cover:
- Analysing the need to use social media tools and knowing how to get it adopted in your organisation
- Drawing up guidelines to minimise the information, security, legal and brand risks
- Selecting an effective governance strategy that minimises risk and increases adoption
- Studying whether a social media working group and/or Chief Social Media Officer will enhance internal promotion, adoption rates and general management
- Meeting the demand from younger and new users
- Overcoming internal barriers and resistance
- Weighing up the benefits from social media
If you are not able to attend you can view my presentation slides here.
How can I help you?
Mark Morrell-
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