2009: Efficiency, Energy and Voice on the Intranet

2009 will be the year of efficiency, energy and voice on the Intranet. Here's my take for the next 12 months:

1. Intranets need to catch up to what virtual teams need.

Management will look to the intranet as a way to achieve greater efficiency. Work habits and behavior are changing and will change even more, accelerated by the pressure of economic constraints. Travel is already decreasing and will continue to drop. The intranet will become the hub for virtual teams even more than it already is.
However...both the intranet and people will have to change. People will need to learn to use virtual meeting tools such as web conferencing and shared document spaces effectively. There's a lot of awareness-building and training to be done here. In many organizations, the tools are not yet in place.
Intranets and collaborative spaces are struggling to serve teams with both internal and external people. If solutions are not found by business and IT managers, teams will find their own solutions "off the grid".

The intranet manager and team who can tackle collaboration and provide efficient, workable solutions for virtual teams will raise the importance and the visibility of the intranet straight to the executive suite.

2. Intranets should be used to help energise nervous workforces.

Some people are worried about losing their jobs, being "sold", being out-sourced. Others are more stressed out because of time pressure, lack of resources, demanding deadlines and the way work is encroaching more and more on personal time.
Management needs to use the intranet even more than before to communicate to employees during this time of change and doubt. There needs to be regular, real, non-corporatespeak communication top down. It will be taken seriously if it comes along with opportunities for people to ask questions and get answers.

The intranet manager and team who can offer these features (most likely using web 2.0 tools) will take a big step towards increasing senior management awareness of the intranet and bringing real value to the organization.

2009 - a turning point for the forward-looking intranet manager and team.

I see 2009 as a year to be dedicated to efficiency, energy and voice on the Intranet. Here's what two participants in the 2008 Global Intranet Strategies Survey have to say:

“As we roll out a series of collaboration tools, the role of the intranet manager is about to explode in terms of importance and impact on the organization.”
“I expect web 2.0 to reinvigorate our user base and present new opportunities for ROI metrics. This will give heightened awareness to the intranet as a mission-critical tool.”

What's your take on 2009 for intranets? Please jump in.

Comments

[Kurt Kragh Sørensen - IntraTeam.dk]

Jane, I fully agree and that is the reason why we at our intranet conference in March focus on making organizations more efficient and create value with intranet.

Register before January 10 and save money :-)

www.IntraTeam.com

[Frank Hamm]

Perfect! There is almost nothing else to say.

Therefore it will become even more difficult for enterprises with their Intranet in stage 1 to catch up. Fullfilling those requirements will be vital when more and more digital natives will join the workforce.

This especially will result in companies struggling with opening up the firewalls when the workforce wants to communicate open minded even with people outside the company like friends or contractors.

[Michael Hafner]

we already feel some of the effects: travel reduced to as little as possible, no more nice-to-have-features, no new expenses at all (if somehow possible), ROI and business cases are the # 1 criteria for whatever you want to start (even if its just about installing some freeware).
some trends I see coming up:
* ROI will be the new qualitystandard for media projects and even for software, we will need good answers for that (I started some discussions here: http://www.roi.dashboard.eu)

* the urgent need for virtual collaboration can turn into a big threat to intranets: we have a lot of new projects coming up (videoconferencing, teamrooms, standalone wikis) - which would be great, but people are used to see this as a replacement of the intranet; we have to invest a lot of work to convince them of the contrary

* investments you missed last year will become twice as painful this year: the need is still there, communication must be the better the harder your business is - and if you dont have a good basis in your intranet that allows you to act, you will be in quite a bad situation...

[Michael Hafner]

just a typo: it's www.roi-dashboard.eu

sorry for that