Good intranet managers are able to slice and dice their customers in many ways. Thanks to all the work they have done with personas, they may even have pictures of them up on the wall of their office, or more likely, desk divider. Each day they will be worrying about the user experience of these customers, and it’s difficult to tell them that their customers are actually not that concerned by the user experience.

These customers are captive and clever. They come to work each day knowing every twist and turn of the corporate intranet, together with a list of quick dial numbers they can use when they need information urgently and cannot find it. Even if they are performing multiple tasks and multiple roles I suspect that these customers will only be using a small percentage, may be only 0.5%, of the pages on the intranet. Don’t be too depressed — that is still a lot of pages in most companies.

Source: www.cmswire.com Posted by admin 76 days, 5 hours, 47 minutes ago

2012 begins with a slew of predictions that this year will see the back of email. Back in November, multibillionaire foetus Mark Zuckerberg declared “email is dead”.

It must be true, I read it on Twitter. However, Zuckerberg is hardly an impartial observer; he’s got his Facebook Messenger to flog (a system which, ironically, has a user experience akin to using Yahoo webmail in the late 90s).

ATOS boss Thierry Breton is taking the whole business more seriously; he’s making it his personal mission to end...

Source: sharonodea.co.uk Posted by admin 146 days, 5 hours, 12 minutes ago

Most companies think publicity when they think social media. Usually their thoughts go straight to Facebook or Twitter, and the focus is on external audiences. Which begs the question, why ignore those closest to you – your employees?

In my experience, the “internal social” discussion generally begins when everyone agrees the intranet is a disaster. Many companies default to the path of least resistance, Microsoft SharePoint. According to intranet consultancy Prescient Digital Media, this may be a mistake....

Source: www.communicatto.com Posted by admin 176 days, 4 hours, 29 minutes ago

Executive blogs have the potential to be a genuinely powerful communication vehicle, but in our experience from countless intranets, they seem to frequently miss the mark. Here are a few observations which will help you improve the impact of blogging in your organisation.

*Observations from failing blogs

Source: intranetizen.com Posted by admin 189 days, 5 hours, 11 minutes ago

Ich kann mich nicht erinnern, jemals Buntstifte für mich gekauft zu haben. Vermutlich habe ich das auch nie, weil meine Eltern das damals übernommen haben. Aber diesmal hatte ich einen guten Grund, mir Stifte zu besorgen, denn ich wollte malen. Auch schon Jahre her, seit ich das getan habe und nicht wirklich erfolgreich, wenn man es genau nimmt. Nein, malen und zeichnen war nicht meine Stärke, aber auch das sollte ich wieder tun – und hatte bei dem Gedanken daran gemischte Gefühle. Da lagen sie vor mir: ...

Source: www.netmedia.de Posted by netmedianer 197 days, 13 hours, 11 minutes ago

In his book Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, Marshall McLuhan said “we shape our tools. Thereafter, they shape us”.

McLuhan’s focus was language; he argued that language doesn’t describe that which is in the world, but rather, we can only see the world through the medium of language. Language is limiting; our tools don’t let us do whatever we want, but instead limit and often dictate what we do.

His thesis is that while the way we work, think and communicate have led to tools being designed the way they have, once this design is finalised it closes the loop and that tool influences how you think or behave.

To take an offline example....

Source: sharonodea.co.uk Posted by admin 230 days, 6 hours, 47 minutes ago

Internal communications professionals are always looking for ways to get time-strapped employees to pay attention to company news.

Today, enterprise social media tools have turned internal communications into a two-way dialogue, allowing employees to participate in discussions, share ideas, and ask questions.

One of the best ways communicators have found to get people’s attention is video...

Source: newsroom.cisco.com Posted by admin 238 days, 6 hours, 19 minutes ago

Companies will only be able to respond to the challenges they are facing in an increasingly global, competitive, rapidly changing and interconnected business environment if they empower their knowledge workers.

To do so requires new ways of communicating and collaborating within and across organizations. We need to move from controlled communication flows on shared environments (i.e. top-down corporate communication on intranets) and siloed communication (i.e. email) where information cannot be accessed and reused, to an open and transparent digital workplace that enables spontaneous and rich two-way employee-to-employee communication.

Source: blogs.tieto.com Posted by admin 245 days, 6 hours, 1 minute ago

A while back, I was looking over the written comments from the annual employee survey for an organization I was supporting. The comments were stinging. They reflected an ethos mired in pessimism, unempowerment and closed thinking as a result of significant organizational changes the group had undergone a few years prior. Yes, I know change can be difficult, yet, as someone new to the group, I could see a lot of good resulting from the changes. As the employee communications manager supporting this group, I knew I needed to do something, and I knew it would take more than the traditional communication tools available to me. How would it be possible to impel a mindshift among employees so entrenched in seeing everything that was wrong with the organization?

There is a collaborative communication practice that I believe can make a difference because it treats organizations for what they are - human systems - and leverages recent breakthroughs in positive psychology.

Source: www.yourthoughtpartner.com Posted by admin 256 days, 6 hours, 48 minutes ago

WICly News #2 Intranet news for the week: 2nd September, 2011

The second WICly news is now out! Highlights of this edition include:

• Find out which WIC group member claimed the prestigious 'Contributor of the week' title based on only one article!
• Find out how you can keep up-to-date with latest intranet events and conferences
• Got a good story to tell about your intranet experience? Maybe you could present at a conference coming soon.
• Read about a real and very practical example of the future of work in the digital workplace age

Source: cibasolutions.typepad.com Posted by roowright 263 days, 17 hours, 29 minutes ago