Five Bullets

This is in response to a LinkedIn thread posted by Andrew Wright, Director at CIBA Solutions. Andrew’s question: “What makes a great intranet (in 5 bullet points or less)?”

Balancing Content and Tools

When users turn to your intranet, do they need to find information, or accomplish a task? The answer is both: A good intranet provides solutions to both of these challenges. So how do you strike a balance between these very different objectives? Here are a few ideas to spark thoughts and discussion among your team.

Intranet Charter

Writing a charter serves several important purposes. Among them are: It gets you and your team thinking clearly about what you are trying to achieve; it enables you to communicate your goals, governance and day-to-day operational strategy to your executive sponsor and other stakeholders; it can help you get sign-off to proceed.

Social Networking Ideas

Here are a few ways you can satisfy your users’ craving for social networking tools. I’ve listed a few pros & cons of adding various interactive tools to your site.

Calculating Costs

Here are a few considerations you should keep in mind when calculating the cost of implementing an intranet.

Managing Mindset

How is an intranet manager like a GPS unit? Well, both need to maintain the same calm, even tone and keep the ultimate destination in view while adapting to changing circumstances, despite the driver veering off course and ignoring directions.

Intranet Costs

Readers are asking about costs for implementing an intranet. This is a question with no clear answers. Here are some initial thoughts on the subject.

Implicit vs. Explicit Metadata

Asking authors to tag their work with keywords is frequently the way content is assigned metadata and classified in intranet content management systems. I recommend gleaning ‘implicit’ information about content wherever possible.

Taxonomy Gotchas

Taxonomies can certainly be an important part of the planning and design phase of developing an intranet, as well as potentially providing a framework for navigation and/or back-end structure. However, there are a few ‘gotchas’ to consider when implementing them. I have listed a few of these challenges here.

Ontario Accessibility Legislation

Under the Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act, the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services has proposed new rules governing a range of information and communications activities in the province. These changes will have a substantial impact on many intranets, in particular the requirement to ensure content is made available in a format that can be used by people with a range of disabilities.