I’m a comms guy at heart and having the opportunity to broaden my horizon to include the intranet is a welcomed road to walk. I’ve been researching, listening, learning, meeting, discussing and dreaming all things intranet for a while now, so I thought I’d share what I’ve discovered…
The purpose of an intranet is to enable employees to spend the least amount of time getting tasks done. This makes sense – if an intranet allows employees to be effective and efficient they can spend more time on the customer.
Enterprise 2.0 – this is very interesting! There’s a general perceived need around ‘social media’ in organisations. I say ‘perceived’ because a large amount of intranet users are not social media savvy. They’re not convinced of it or understand its benefits and why they should get involved. Assuming the technology is in place, the cultural change of convincing employees to experiment with new ways of working and then wholeheartedly adopt these new ways is a big area of focus. The shift is inevitable, exciting and it’s just a matter of time.
My conclusion (to date) is the intranet is both a tool and a communications channel that has come of age.
For an organisation to be competitive it needs to be agile, adaptive and focus on the customer. If those responsible for the intranet truly embrace the role it can play in enabling these behaviours, they will add a huge amount of value to the organisation.
You’ve got to just throw yourself in there or simply be left behind!
If you’ve got further insights, case studies, etc to share please send them across, ’cause I am a sponge!
Filed under: Uncategorized, "communications channel", "social media in organisations", internal communication, intranet
