This is the last post in a series answering the question “Can collaboration tools improve internal communications?” covering the right culture needed within an organisation, the redefining of internal communicators’ role and how collaboration tools and features can help improve internal communications.

I now want to discuss how I believe discussion forums can add to the richness of existing internal communication channels and not be a threat that needs to be closed down. I’m going to illustrate this with three examples.

Source: intranet-pioneer.com Posted by markmorrell 13 days, 16 hours, 37 minutes ago

In my last post ‘Should collaboration tools redefine internal communications’ role?‘ I gave my view on the corporate environment needed to encourage internal communications professionals to welcome collaboration tools being used by employees. But which cooaboration tools can you introduce and improve internal communications too?

I recommend researching employees’ needs to find which are most needed and likely to be adopted. Some contact with senior managers to understand the corporate values will help too. Let’s start by increasing employees interaction with existing communication channels before we move on to new collaborative tools.

When a new article is published on the intranet employees normally have no easy opportunity to show how valuable it is, what their views are or the effect it has. Introducing a few features can help to change that.

Source: intranet-pioneer.com Posted by markmorrell 29 days, 16 hours, 39 minutes ago

In my last post ‘Is your culture right for collaboration tools to improve internal communications?‘ I gave my view on the corporate environment needed to encourage internal communications professionals to welcome collaboration tools being used by employees. Internal communications need to realise they are not the sole people who can communicate using the intranet. Neither are their official channels the only route to communicate with other employees.

If you threw a stone into a pond it wouldn’t just be the size of the splash the stone made but the ripple effect that went as far as the edges of the pond. Instead of success being the perfect execution of the stone being thrown, it is also the number and size of the ripples and how far they spread across the pond.

Source: intranet-pioneer.com Posted by markmorrell 35 days, 12 hours, 25 minutes ago

Intranets have developed over recent years from mainly being a channel for a few people to publish news to becoming places where any employee can collaborate and share knowledge with other employees. I find it ironic that it is internal communications who are hesitant, even resistant, to embrace these changes. Ironic because many intranet teams are located within internal communications. Doubly ironic as it is normally intranet teams who are involved with how collaboration tools are used.

Is this scenario something you are familiar with in your own organisation?

Source: intranet-pioneer.com Posted by markmorrell 49 days, 16 hours, 55 minutes ago

I will be at the IntraTeam 2012 conference in Copenhagen this week presenting on 5 ‘Must Have’ Principles for a Great Digital Workplace and running a workshop on How to Build the Right Governance Model for the Digital Workplace. For Twitter users follow #IEC12.

The digital workplace is a phrase that I have written about before and is becoming more frequently used for intranets that are developing beyond being a traditional communications tool.

Find out how five principles can help you to work anywhere, anytime, using any device in a digital workplace, how to use my experience to help you and how to contact me for further help.

Source: intranet-pioneer.com Posted by markmorrell 85 days, 16 hours, 11 minutes ago

As business increasingly becomes either knowledge-or service-based, constant communication is necessary for employees to collaborate. Social platforms, or intranets, have emerged as the leading technology for information sharing at companies. Social intranets apply the cross-communication capability familiar to us from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter to internal communication and collaboration platforms.

"Social intranets encourage wide authorship and involvement among workers," says Chris McGrath, co-founder and vice-president, sales and marketing, for ThoughtFarmer, a social intranet supplier.

Source: www.vancouversun.com Posted by admin 91 days, 5 hours, 52 minutes ago

So, what’s new in Interact Intranet Version 5?

We asked our VP of Product Development, Simon Dance to give us an insight into some of the amazing new intelligent features in the latest version of Interact Intranet software, Interact Intranet Version 5.

So Simon, tell us about Version 5 and why the new features will help Interact Intranet users

Well, Version 5 is a massive deal for us at Interact because we have spent many months listening to our customers and analysing how we can help them get even more from their intranet.

Source: www.interact-intranet.com Posted by InteractIntranet 112 days, 16 hours, 49 minutes ago

Intranet social media can be one of the most powerful tools for internal communication. Unfortunately, the adoption rate of social media within corporations is dismally low.

Long story short, employees simply rarely take up internal social media. In fact, 72% of employees use intranet social media networks less than once a month. In comparison, most will use Facebook several times a day.

Why is that?

Source: blog.socialmaximizer.com Posted by admin 154 days, 5 hours, 51 minutes ago

There isn’t one standard way to mentoring. From my experience as a mentor and running a mentoring programme, it is the personalities of the mentor and mentee (protegé), the needs of the mentee and the ways and frequency of contact between them which can create a dynamic, enriching and long relationship or quickly fizzle out to nothing.

Source: intranet-pioneer.com Posted by markmorrell 166 days, 17 hours, 12 minutes ago

Social intranet is a hot topic. With the rise of social software, the next step to the enterprise social nirvana is the intranet. Hopefully, nobody is considering Facebook as a model anymore (like in “our new intranet will be like Facebook“), but there is still some confusion in what “social” stands for in the enterprise.

So first of all, let’s try to find the correct definition for “ social intranet“. Wikipedia is providing the following definition: “An intranet is a...

Source: www.forbes.com Posted by admin 170 days, 4 hours, 3 minutes ago