A basic prerequisite for business success is to know — really know — your customers. There's a variety of traditional research methods aimed at better understanding customers: usage analysis, conjoint analysis, cluster analysis, roundtables, panels.

But there are a few reasons why traditional research sometimes fails to deliver:

1) Customers don't always say what is really on their mind;

2) Customers often don't know what they don't know; and

3) Those conducting the research may bias results with the types of questions they are asking (wrong questions mean wrong answers).

Source: blogs.hbr.org Posted by admin 43 days, 20 hours, 51 minutes ago

t may sound basic, but many intranet managers forget this: "It has to start with respect for the audience." That's the No. 1 rule of William Amurgis, American Electric Power's director of internal communications.

"You kind of need a bedrock philosophical foundation," he says. "Once you have that, grasp that, have defined it, and live by it, you tend to make promising decisions."

Lots of intranet managers get wrapped up in messages or technology, but they need to remember that the intranet is a tool for employees, not communicators. Remembering that will lead to an intranet that's cleaner, clearer, and easier to use, Amurgis says.

Source: www.ragan.com Posted by admin 44 days, 20 hours, 47 minutes ago

PepsiCo Russia is the largest producer of soft drinks and snack products in Russia, and the CIS states (the former Soviet Union). A consolidated consumer brand company that includes Frito Lay, Gatorade, Quaker Oats, that recently integrated many regional food and juice brands and companies such as ZKZ Lebedyansky and Wimm-Bill-Dann.

PepsiCo Russia intranet home page using WSS and SharePoint (2012) Of course, with many new companies speedily integrated under the PepsiCo Russia brand, and dozens of diffe...

Source: www.intranetblog.com Posted by admin 49 days, 21 hours, 4 minutes ago

So, there is a new version of SharePoint coming up, so you may be thinking about moving to the latest version. But there’s an economic crisis going on, so your budget may be under attack.

In any case, I expect some very interesting discussions will take place in many organizations on this subject. And if your management decides not to spend money at this time, please do not despair! There will be other opportunities to improve your intranet, and you will now have the time to explore them. Read on!

Source: mydigitalworkplace.wordpress.com Posted by http://ellenvanaken.wordpress.com/ 51 days, 16 minutes ago

The yearly Congres Intranet, organized by Entopic in The Netherlands, is said to be the largest physical gathering of its kind in the world. The 2012 (4th) edition was almost sold out. It comes therefore as no surprise that this is the Dutch Intranet Event of the year, where nearly all your intranet contacts can be found in person.

It was interesting to see that two of the three keynote speakers (James Robertson and Michael Sampson) were from the other side of the world. Also Jane McConnell was present for breakout sessions. There may be an opportunity for a Dutch intranet “guru”!

What was the main theme? Of course everyone will have a different takeaway, depending on their choice of breakout sessions. For me they were “traditional hierarchy versus modern democracy on intranet” and “an intranet should reflect your business goals”.

Source: www.ibforum.com Posted by admin 57 days, 19 hours, 27 minutes ago

Thank you to everyone who read my last post ‘What is a digital workplace?‘ and contributed to a great discussion helping to define it. Staying with the digital workplace theme I want to show you the views given in my workshop at IntraTeam 2012 event ‘How to build the right governance model for the digital workplace‘ which produced some great responses.

The workshop covered four areas needed for the right level of governance: Ownership, Consistency, Standards, and Integrity.

Read about the outcome and add your views to the discussion.....

Source: intranet-pioneer.com Posted by markmorrell 60 days, 6 hours, 51 minutes ago

Most large enterprises these days are likely to have specific online tools to perform different functions. Perhaps you use one system for T&E, another system for booking travel, and you use a different system for performance reviews.

Yet many intranet teams feel that the intranet has to be all things to all people. This one website should be your news center, your social networking tool, your collaboration platform, and so-on.

Source: designingtheenterprise.com Posted by admin 65 days, 19 hours, 57 minutes ago

Setting up a structure in an intranet can be a tricky business. Many organisations follow the organisation tree and decide to structure sites, folders, etc based on the established hierarchy of the company.

Others let it grow organically. In most cases the results of the former approach is that it turns into a data coffin because the only people who think along the lines of the org chart is the HR department.

The latter approach, while encouraging adoption, just turns into a mess where no-one can find anything. Instead of being a functioning society of information it turns into little pockets of activity which no-one outside of the people using it a) know even exists b) would know where to go if it did exist.

Source: socialenterprisetoday.com Posted by admin 71 days, 19 hours, 59 minutes ago

by @sharonodea

Last week your intrepid bloggers, Luke and Sharon, jetted off to Copenhagen for a conference put on by Scandinavian intranet specialists IntraTeam. The IntraTeam Event, now in its fifth year, brought together intranet specialists from across Europe and further afield for three days of talks and workshops – not to mention a lot of meat and beer.

Day one... Day two... Day Three...

Source: intranetizen.com Posted by admin 71 days, 19 hours, 53 minutes ago

Our friend and intrepidly practical intranet expert James Robertson has written a paper defining a concrete vision for the “digital workplace.” This is important because there has been much discussion and debate around what “digital workplace” means and how it’s relevant to the intranet.

Many well known intranet experts have weighed in on the topic, including Paul Miller, CEO of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF), who has actually written a book about the Digital Workplace.

Source: www.thoughtfarmer.com Posted by admin 79 days, 19 hours, 7 minutes ago