Digital Workplace Trends 2012 report
January 11, 2012 at 10:16 am | Posted in benchmark, best practice, collaboration, digital workplace, engagement, governance, intranet, research | 2 CommentsTags: benchmark, best practice, collaboration, digital workplace, engagement, governance, intranet, research
If you are going to spend any of your own or your organisation’s hard earned cash this year then it will be difficult to find a better reason for spending it than on Jane McConnell’s excellent Digital Workplace Trends 2012 report. It is packed with great research, trends and insights on intranets and the digital workplace that will help you focus on what need your top priorities in 2012. It is impossible to do the report justice by covering it in any depth in a blog post so I’ll pick out three key findings that interested me most.
1. The intranet or digital workplace is the ‘way of working’ in the organisation.
Jane says “the essential place for accessing all or most of what people need to work” is the digital workplace for employees. As I have been saying during 2011 ‘work is what you do, not where you go to’ and recommended how you can achieve this with my digital workplace principles. This is a big ‘win-win’ for organisations saving costs and employees more engaged and a priority for 2012.
2. Internal social collaboration has become well-established
Jane says “social collaboration is well-established at enterprise-wide level or within some parts of the organisation”. It is good to see organisations accepting the benefits will come from this approach. I have said that engaged people who are able to communicate and collaborate more easily with other employees using these tools will prosper with the right culture and governance.
3. A fully functioning, high-level digital board making decisions
Jane says “the digital boards makes decisions for both internal and external digital channels ranging from the intranet to external web sites, and include collaborating and social networking”. This is great to hear. At last more intranets and digital workplaces AND the people who manage them are being recognised by their organisations and taken more seriously. The digital workplace strategy for how they are managed is critical.
Very few organisations achieve all three criteria so for most it is an aspiration which can be the focus for their improvement priorities in 2012 ready for the Digital Workplace Trends 2013 survey.
Have you completed your Intranet-Digital Workplace Trends survey?
June 27, 2011 at 8:15 am | Posted in best practice, digital workplace, research | 1 CommentTags: digital workplace, intranet, research
The 6th annual Intranet-Digital Workplace Trends survey has just opened. Now, I can’t take part this year as I’m no longer BT’s intranet manager but you are invited to participate. All participants receive a free copy of “Digital Workplace Trends 2012″ (published at the end of October) which gives fantastic insights into the latest trends you need to factor into your plans and priorities.
The topics the survey will focus on this year are:
- Mobile Strategies & Approaches
- Collaborative & Social Aspects
- Search
- Governance & Management
- Business Value
- Future Scenarios
There are also baseline questions the survey has been using for several years which gives a longer term perspective on maturity as well as trends.
The survey takes about 40 minutes to complete, and you can do it in several sessions. If you’re interested, send an email to info@digital-workplace-trends.com with the information requested here.
You can also read reviews of last year’s report from practitioners and NetJMC’s peers.
So, please take part and make up for me not being able to. 
Intranets Live: Functional designs
February 16, 2011 at 9:50 am | Posted in benchmark, best practice, intranet, research | 2 CommentsTags: benchmark, best practice, bt intranet, research, usability, value
A few days ago I had the great privilege to co-host the February Intranets Live show with Paul Miller from the Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF) and Marc Wright from Simply Communicate.
I was invited because BT’s intranet has been benchmarked by IBF in 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2010 for global best practice and its financial value. And (I hope) because I had some good views to contribute to the discussion too!
As usual it was an excellent blend of discussion and live intranet tours. With Heineken, who won a spot in the Nielsen Norman Group Intranet Design Annual 2011: Year’s 10 Best Intranets, and IBM showcasing their intranets and Amy Schade from the Neilsen Norman Group on the other top 10 intranet winners for 2010 it focused naturally on design and functionality.
IBM is celebrating 100 (wow, 100!) years since their creation and showed how they have integrated social networking into their intranet. The functionality was very strong and had great feedback from IBM people.
Heineken showed the intranet their marketing and communications people use. The branding was excellent – made me green with envy – and fitted what was needed for people using it.
Both IBM and Heineken’s intranets are very different but each are right for the purpose and type of organisation they support. The NNGroup’s top 10 intranets showed how intranets can be designed functionally to meet different needs and functions can be designed so they are usable to everyone.
My main takeaway from the session was the different types and models of intranets. You need to align with your business culture, connect with the strategy and listen to and meet the needs of people who use them.
Do that and you could be a winner of Nielsen Norman Group’s 10 Best Intranets of 2011. Go on…………you know you want to! 
5 tips for a great intranet strategy
December 14, 2010 at 11:21 am | Posted in best practice, governance, intranet, plan, research, strategy, value | 10 CommentsTags: best practice, bt intranet, governance, research, strategy, value
Strategies vary from one organisation to another. What makes sense for BT won’t necessarily do for others. Differences that influence this include purpose (online marketing company, charity or public sector) and complexity (global based in different time zones with many activities).
Here are 5 tips to help you create a great intranet strategy:
1. Find out what your organisation’s strategy is and how your intranet contributes to it
You must know what your organisation’s strategy is. Your intranet must align with the strategy and you can show how your strategy supports its achievement. Your intranet strategy must be clear in its aims, who owns them, how they will be measured and have senior buy-in.
2. Your intranet priorities must meet your organisation’s needs
Identify what your intranet does that has the biggest benefits for, and impact on, your organisation. Make sure you know what people use your intranet for. Research how they use the intranet to do their work. How can you improve it so people do their work better (quicker, cheaper, remove unnecessary barriers).
3. Include long term priorities
Your intranet priorities need to be stretching and relevant to your organisation’s success. They should be clear but not too detailed – an action plan can do that. You need to show how important your intranet is to achieving the organisation’s strategy. You should be looking at least 12 months into the future – around 3 years ideally.
4. Get stakeholders to approve your intranet strategy
You need to involve people who can make or break your intranet strategy and priorities. These are your key stakeholders who are vital to the success of your intranet. These will be senior people who represent large groups and/or heavy users of your intranet and decide on future investment.
5. Get the right culture and behaviour
It depends on the culture of your organisation for the best approach to adoption of your strategy. In an open-minded, informal, dynamic organisation you can share your intranet strategy at an early stage for people to contribute and develop it. It encourages joint ownership and engages everyone. In a highly regulated and command driven organisation then it needs selective sharing and senior buy-in and approval first before being communicated more widely.
Intellact: BT’s customer insight and information site
October 19, 2010 at 10:49 am | Posted in best practice, intranet, news, research, search, value | 4 CommentsTags: best practice, bt intranet, BT today, directory, homepage, killer content, research, value
There are a few ‘killer applications and content’ which have driven the usage of BT’s intranet. As well as the BT Homepage – our corporate portal, BT Today – our new sites and Directory – our people finder, Intellact, BT’s customer insight and market portal has been key to achieveing this.
Intellact provides a wealth of insight on the communications industry. Thousands of people in all parts of BT use these services to:
- Help understand customer needs and satisfaction.
- Monitor the global press – daily updates on business trends.
- Support business propositions.
Comprehensive, up-to-date, high quality research helps people make their decisions with:
- Business news
- IT research and advice
- BT commissioned market research
- Broker research
- Industry sector research
- Internet audience measurement
Business news is updated several times per day on Intellact. You can sign up to receive an email that reviews the days top news from UK and international newspapers, journals and newswires.
Intellact offers an unrivalled collection of published research covering ICT and other industry sectors with the option to contact analysts for further details.
Intellact can be searched in various ways and you can set up alerts so when a new research is available you are informed so you don’t miss anything.
Intellact helps BT give people what they need for their business needs and a competitive edge to BT.
Have a look at these Intellact examples.
Make a great user experience even better
September 28, 2010 at 1:03 pm | Posted in benchmark, best practice, governance, intranet, plan, research, standards | 2 CommentsTags: benchmark, bt intranet, governance, publishing, research, users
I have been invited to speak at the latest IntraTeam conference. It will cover how you create value through great intranet design and usage. Your well-functioning intranet can be the base for developing new ideas and improving your working relationships.
I have been asked to talk about how to ‘Make a great user experience even better’. I will cover:
I’m really looking forward to hearing from some great speakers on intranets. If you can’t make it, you can find my slides here.
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