What do innovative intranets look like

Intranets

Four key purposes of an intranet
Content – done a lot with this and we’ve got a lot of content
Communication channel – we’ve done ok, we’ve got a clear focus, more work to be done but it’s a good start
Collaboration – big topic now, wikis or RSS or blogs. How do we do this that doesn’t make the intranet worse in the long run? We should be talking more about this topic.
Activity – the intranet should be a place to do things and not just read.

Most of our focus has been on content and communication. This is not useful enough and we need to work with the other factors to create true ROI.

We need to shift our focus to Collaboration and activity to close the gap in the difference. Get them to something and get them to complete a task.

A good intranet should have balance across all 4 aspects.

Fiat Example
Had problems and there were cultural problems
So they created “Fast and Forward” – a program to help managers and staff change culture. Learn and build leadership skills.
For instance, they earned credits for completing managerial tasks.
Had leader boards. This was not mandatory and there were no rewards or punishment. Just ranking.

They were able to point to the plan and credit it for the turnaround.

City of Casey Example
Small team and intranet team of 1.
Intranet has a brand and every site should. The brand matches the culture and it matches their physical team.

Has a quick staff directory. Use ajax to show staff on search using type ahead. Shows phone number, status and other details. Don’t need to click search to get basic information.

Has a map of staff directory. Users add their own location. Users can click on who’s near me and get the staff near including pictures and phone numbers. “Some of the best innovations are the ones you don’t notice.”

Environment Agency (UK)
Developed personas for their site. Thorough persona (showing desk, nice touch) Engaging persona. Targeted for authors to deliver better content. But they found out that it was great for stakeholders and managers. They acknowledge that they should have used them earlier.

QBE Insurance
They created a wizard for fraudulent claims. This process historically had been ad-hoc. The developed a simple application for the collecting of this information. Wizard was tables and changed based on their answers and then it spit out a form for them to print or e-mail.