Posted by prac on January 30, 2003 at 19:13:45:

In Reply to: RE: Intranet Strategy posted by Phil Howell on January 27, 2003 at 08:29:15:

Hi Phil

Keep it simple. Use the Intranet as a cheap communication tool. Tell people where to find others, what others are doing, show what they look like, and how to contact them.

Share Marketing tips/leads/info. and product information.

Broadcast company policy and successes, as well as other relevant information.

Present training/sales/product/site results and CBT courses over the Intranet.

Publish lessons learned (technical as well as non technical).

Channel the right information to the right people at the right time. Too often the Intranet takes the format of a website, which just wastes time. Bear in mind the new, smaller, mobile technologies and the sizes of the screens, including WAP-enabled phones.

Use black-and-white photographs/graphics etc. to limit bandwidth utilization and conserve capacity.

Archive "old" information for research purposes. Ensure a good search engine is available. Centralize research by loading research material. Typically articles, white papers, and relevant publications can be scanned in, as well as pinpoint, CD-ROM research material can be made available in one go. Ask user groups to let you know what they subscribe to, and what they need to be informed about, by when, in which format.

Provide a tool for user feedback and requests.

Bear in mind people have to work, meaning they have to do their jobs, which should result in the organization remaining competitive and healthy in morale and deed.

Avoid people being clogged up by zillions of communiques. Use the Intranet to help them work more efficiently, and effectively.

Remember you are going to compete for mindspace. Enable the business via the Intranet. Don't create an "In The Bog" scenario, but aim for an "Out of the Information Mire" scenario.

Monitor/manage the Intranet to ensure the channel is used as per the strategic design.

Add a chat room for people in the same work area who are far away from each other. Promote chat room meetings as a cost-effective alternative to tele- and video conferencing. Manage chat rooms.

The beauty of chat rooms is that it often offers a straight look into the minds of those who avtively participates, and automatically logs a record for further analysis and referencing purposes.

Most of all, once the service is up and running, ensure it keeps on running, without fail. The service should be a 24/7 service, especially when working across timezones.

Too often I have seen the frustration caused by on-line services being offline for whatever reason. Users simply do not accept this anymore, and really don't care what caused the downtime, even if you inform/warn/tell them in advance. Get a backup machine, with a mirror site, on active standby. You'll require a technology-management strategy,or IT strategy for the IT side of things.

I hope some of these suggestions may be useful.

Regards,

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