Globally local - locally global

Intranet managers and web monitoring

In the open thread last weekend, Zeb asked the following question:

".... what tools, services, etc are available for companies to track trends such as mentions about their company, their competitors, what's popular and what people are looking for on sites like Facebook, MySpace, Bebo & Twitter."

I gave a brief answer in my post 30-30-30-10 Watch the Trends saying that that it is important for intranet managers to have part of their time focused on external issues.

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In the meantime I sent the question to one of my virtual colleagues with whom I have worked on numerous projects, Anthony Hamelle,VP of linkinfluence. Anthony blogs here (in French) but he is more than fluent in English as you see below in his response to my query.

Anthony's response to Zeb:

"There are two main kinds of online monitoring services out there.

(1) Those that seek to capture and track as much data in as many languages as possible about your brands or topics of interest. They are like smart clippings services and are useful in an e-CRM fashion (hearing everything everywhere and, inasmuch as possible, providing timely answers to everyone).

Some better-known ones are  Radian6 (leading paid-for monitoring service), Sysomos, Attentio, Twitter Search or Google Blogsearch (that latter two being leading free monitoring services ;-)

(2) Those that seek to make sense of the data they track and capture. These tools are akin to market research solutions and services, filtering and organising data so as to reveal interesting trends that help decide upon strategies.

Some better-known ones are linkfluence (disclosure, I am VP of linkfluence), TNS Cymfony or Nielsen Buzzmetrics.

Although almost all providers work with some form of text mining, a line might be drawn between those that provide NLP (natural language processing, i.e. automated sentiment detection) and those that choose to rely on human analysts to interpret the data.

I for one think that NLP is not yet suited for the complexity and the heterogeneous aspect of language on the social web, meaning that human analysts still have to interpret and extract insights from the data..."

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Many thanks to Anthony. Do not hesitate to raise questions to him directly, or via Globally Local here in comments.

Will intranets become scientific?

These are exciting days for intranets!

Studies done by different organizations, in different parts of the world, with different populations and very different survey strategies are finding similar results.

I wrote about how JMC and Nielsen Norman found the same figure when looking at intranet resources: Size of intranet teams: Nielsen Norman and JMC agree. It has happened again with Prescient Digital Media and JMC.

Prescient Digital Media and JMC in synch on social media

Toby Ward, Prescient Digital Media, has published: "Intranet 2.0: Social media becomes mainstream on the corporate intranet."

Toby and I have talked several times over the past year when we have met at different conferences, comparing notes on the results we were seeing in the (1) NetStrategy/JMC Global Intranet Strategies survey and (2) the Prescient Digital Media Intranet 2.0 survey. (I'll refer to the first as JMC and second as PDM from here on.)

First, some background on the two studies

The JMC study is a yearly event (now in its 4th year). It targets intranet managers who must be pre-approved before they can participate. It deals with many intranet issues out of which social media is only one topic. It is a deeper survey, requiring from 45 to 60 minutes to complete. 226 organizations worldwide participated in 2009.

The PDM survey, also conducted on a global scale, was more open in inviting people to report on their 2.0 initiatives. Anyone could participate, but only those who identified themselves received a complimentary copy of the full final report. The survey, as its title suggests, was primarily focused on social media, although a number of questions on other intranet topics were included. It took place between autumn 2008 and spring 2009, and 561 organizations took part. It was a considerably shorter survey.

When looking at the usage of social media tools, the two surveys used different scales:

• PDM - 5 levels of adoption: "no plans and no interest", ""none but considering options", "not yet but have plans", "some, limited use" and "enterprise use".

• JMC - 5 levels of adoption: : "not currently used", "being tested", "used in some parts", "in general use", and "optimised".

Comparing PDM's "enterprise use" with JMC's "in general use" plus "optimised" , we see some tools where the two surveys are amazingly close, and others where the JMC figures are more conservative.

"Old-time 2.0 tools" - nearly identical numbers! 

What I call the "old-time 2.0 tools" got similar results in the two studies. By "old-time", I mean those tools that have been around for years, long before social media and 2.0 became hot. Although they have been put under the 2.0 umbrella by many people, they've been around much longer: instant messaging, podcasts, rss, photo & video sharing and discussion forums.

Instant messaging:
PDM: 29 % "enterprise use"
JMC: 27 % "in general use" plus "optimised"

Podcasts:
PDM: 6 %
JMC: 7 %

RSS:
PDM: 13 %
JMC: 11 %

Photo or video sharing:
PDM: 9 %
JMC: 11 %

Discussion forums:
PDM: 19 %
JMC: 18 %

"Hot" social tools: PDM higher, JMC lower 

"Hot" social media tools make user-generated-content widely available. They open up the enterprise. These tools require special governance, or so many organizations think. In fact, normal, professional code of conduct applies to them, but they still scare us. These are the ones that make management nervous.

Internal blogs:
PDM: 13 % "enterprise use"
JMC: 4 % "in general use" plus "optimised"

Internal wikis:
PDM: 17 %
JMC: 6 %

Social networking:
PDM: 6 %
JMC: 1%

Tagging:
PDM: 9 %
JMC: 4 %

Getting more scientific

It seems logical to me that a survey like Toby's which is directly focused around 2.0 will attract participants who are specifically interested in 2.0. On the other hand, the JMC survey targeted intranet managers in general, regardless of their interest in 2.0.
So, I conclude that the differences on the "hot" social media tools and the similarities on the "old time" 2.0 tools confirm that each survey is coherent within its targeted population.

Question to readers: Will intranet strategy and management become a science one day?
My take is that we are clearly building a more solid basis for analysis and decision-making.

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Note: the 2009 Global Intranet Strategies survey is currently open, and will close at the end of August. If you'd like to participate and get a complimentary copy of the Trends for 2010 report, get in touch. Signup procedure explained here.

2009 Global lntranet Survey goes live! Participate!

The 2009 Global Intranet Survey went live 24 hours ago!
Organizations who pre-registered and participants from last year all received their personalised invitation and link over the last 24 hours. If you didn't, please let me know ASAP.

If you're an intranet manager and would like to join, send me an email. More information here:
http://netjmc.com/survey/sign-up-JMC-global-intranet-survey-2009-2010.html

2009 is going to be a good year: why?
1. Because more organizations pre-enrolled than ever before. (The survey is in its 4th year).
2. And because the pilot site for the survey was tested by nine real intranet managers and two intranet consultants before going live. We got very helpful feedback in a very short time.

Thanks to all you testers for your time, your suggestions, your enthusiasm and your critical eyes.

The survey questions cover a lot of topics, and the Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report will answer the following questions (and others!):

(Note that organizations who participate in the survey will receive a free copy of the Global Intranet Trends for 2010 report. Publication date: second part of October 2009.)

The workplace

• Are intranets catching up with what people need to do their jobs? 
• How are they facilitating doing business? 
• Are they becoming the online workplace for employees or are they primarily communication tools? 
• How do employees access the intranet: from where, what devices 
• How customised are home pages and intranets in general? Is customisation increasing or decreasing?

Collaboration

• How does the online workplace support virtual teams and communities of practice? 
• What solutions are being offered to "mixed teams": employees and external partners? 
• Is real-time conferencing moving to the intranet and web-based solutions? 

Social media 

• To what extent is social media being used internally? What purposes do blogs serve? Wikis? Discussion forums? 
•  Are Twitter-like services being used internally? How? 
• Are enterprises beginning to play with "collective thinking" technologies? Prediction markets for example.
• How do enterprises let employees interact with traditional content: tagging, ranking, commenting?
• What concerns do organizations have with social media?
• How do these concerns evolve after an enterprise has implemented social media? 

Search

•  Is search still a big pain point? 
• What resources are being dedicated to optimising it? 
• What strategies are being put into place?

Ownership, governance, strategy

• Who owns the intranet? What ownership models are in place? 
• What types of strategies are driving the intranet? Are they documented? 
•  What decision-making models are used for development and enhancements of the intranet? 
• Are intranet-related roles integrated into job descriptions? 
•  How high up (or far down!) is the intranet manager in the organisation? 
•  How is the intranet team structured? Are intranet and internet teams being integrated?

Measuring value

•  What indicators are being used to measure the value the intranet brings to an organisation: adoption, usage, satisfaction, workforce coverage, reduction of risk, business value? 
•  How do senior management perceive the intranet? 
• What are the biggest remaining obstacles to overcome?

There are 4 open questions where intranet managers will be giving their views:

1. How will the role of the intranet manager evolve over the next 3 to 4 years?
2. How do you, or don't you, brand your intranet? Is it a utility? Or is it a special place with a special name?
3. How is user-generated information being integrated with information coming from traditional publishing tools?
4. And, last but not least, SharePoint: an invitation to share your experiences, pains and joys.

Get in touch if you'd like to have more information about how you can participate in the survey this year.

Why is enterprise search so hard?

Enterprise search is scary. We've all heard horror stories about how it does not work, how much it cost, and so on. Many of us have experienced this grief firsthand.
Just a couple of days ago, the intranet manager in an organisation I'm working with said to me "I wouldn't count on the search engine. I'll send you the links." That's exactly what he did as we visited his intranet and I identified things I wanted to go back and examine. This organisation is far ahead of many in that their intranet is accessible from outside the official workplace and authorised external people (like me) can get access within 24 hours. That's truly exceptional.
However, when it comes to enterprise search, they, like most organisations are in trouble.

The Global Intranet Trends for 2009 Report states that out of the 226 organisations who participated in the survey... "Only 10 percent are 'very satisfied' although another 40 percent are 'moderately satisfied'. That means half the participating organisations are dissatisfied with their search implementation. The figures are slightly more favourable than in the previous year's survey where 60 percent reported dissatisfaction. However, this situation is thought-provoking for organisations where access to the right information rapidly is a business success factor. " (page 49).

If you want to gain a better understanding of enterprise search, I highly recommend reading "Successful Enterprise Search Management" by Stephen Arnold and Martin White. Both are recognised experts in the field of search, and the cost and few hours required to read their book will bring you a good understanding of what's involved and what's required to succeed. There is more information on the Intranet Focus web site, and as you can see from the table of contents, you'll get a full view of search management from the introduction through to implementation.

Intranet 2.0 - hype, reality, future trends (2008)

The slide set I used at the Melcrum Intranet 2.0 forum in London last June has been viewed 3,131 times since I uploaded it to Slideshare. Nice number - (I like uneven numbers - what does that reveal about me...?).

Entitled "Intranet 2.0 - hype, reality, future trends" the slide set has attracted a lot of viewers. It detail on how 2.0 "stuff" was perceived and used last year.

I'm currently working on the consolidated data from this year's survey and will be publishing the report on November 25th. Social media was a key part of the survey.

At first glance, it seems that some of the 2.0 dust has settled. Enterprises are not experimenting more, but some are beginning to optimise. There are still a lot who say they are unable to find a business case for social media. Others - more rare - find business benefits.
More after 25 November.

Intranet Media Channel debut 4 November - free passes

The first week of November has two major events taking place in the intranet spaces. I'm excited to be part of the IBF initiative "Intranet Media Channel" - which in fact I think of more like an online radio talk show about intranets.
It follows on the heels of the very successful IBF 24 where for 24 hours we travelled around the world looking at intranets live and talking with intranet managers. I gave a short talk then about intranet trends, and will be doing a short piece on a regular basis for the new Intranet Media Channel.
You can read more about it here. IBF is offering free passes for the launch session, so take advantage and sign up.
The main items on the November 4 programme are:

• A live intranet tour by Kellogg's followed by a phone-in Q&A
• Studio guest Shiv Singh from Avenue A Razorfish in New York
• The Intranet Doctor: He’s there to heal your intranet pain!
• A day in the life of intranet manager (Catherine Murphy, Capital One)
• The TechWatch interview with David Sacks from Yammer will look at ‘how to get business value from Twitter’

I'll be doing a short 15 minute "broadcast" around some trends coming out of the current Global Intranet Strategies Survey from Denmark where I'll be for the whole week for the JBoye event, and - by the way - if any of you are there, let me know so we can be sure to arrange to meet up at some point during the week. I open the State of the Intranet track, and am running a tutorial on Making your intranet essential.

What every global company needs: a "Location Finder" like Syngenta's

Among the gold award winners in the 2008 Intranet Innovation Awards organised by Step Two Designs was Syngenta, headquartered in Switzerland. With over 210 locations in more than 90 countries, Syngenta faces the challenges all large global companies have in making it easy for their employees to find information about the different locations.

Many times I've worked on this issue with my clients. The main problem is that a typical intranet landscape will have a multitude of different intranets. Even if there is an over-arching enterprise portal, once you start digging down into the depths, you'll find local information in many different shapes and forms, in a variety of places within the navigation, and to inconsistent degrees of detail.

The Location Finder designed by Syngenta goes a along way in handling this issue, and is practically a mini Syngenta world itself! Employees can see what's going on in different places, get travel and entertainment details if they need to visit the location, and more.

"The Location Finder provides a one-stop shop experience to get to all information about a location. Employees now use this as the main source to prepare for a trip, or to “look in” on what’s happening elsewhere.....The Location Finder provides a rich directory of regions, countries and offices. Beyond the basic listing of office locations, the directory provides opening hours, site maps, hotels and restaurants nearby, travelling recommendations, weather, local news and more."

Full details on all the winners can be found in the 148-page Intranet Innovations 2008 report. (Cost: 189 US $.)

This includes screenshots and detailed information on how the innovations were designed and delivered, along with judges' commentaries and more. You can download the Executive Summary (immediate download, 2.6mb PDF) for an overview of the awards, as well as full details on two of the winners (Scottrade and Janssen-Cilag).

I was honored to be one of the international judges for the Intranet Innovation Awards, and was very impressed by the quality of the dossiers.
As I've said before, the legitimacy of these awards is that they do not pretend to award "the best intranet", which in my experience is a futile exercise. They zoom in on specific features that are outstanding on their own terms.
I encourage all intranet managers to consider entering the awards in 2009. Let me know if you are interested, and I'll put you in touch with the organisers at Step Two Designs. You can of course find more information on their web site.

Intranet managers and money: Talk money in order to get money

Very interesting post by Stephan Schillerwein on the IBF blog following a IBF Global meeting: The recession-proof Intranet.
Stephan lists 3 things any intranet manager should be able to answer about his/her intranet.
I quote:

1. State the current investment level

2. List current Intranet services and deliverables including their benefits to the organisation

3. List additional beneficial intranet services that can be added at low cost to help the organisation improve or cut costs

My own experience is that most intranet managers cannot answer the 3 questions above.
This is confirmed by the 2008 Global Intranet Survey data (collected from June - September 2008, report not yet published.). When asked what knowledge areas are important for an intranet manager, the "money related" points were at the bottom of the list: "Finances, return on investment analysis" and "Business cases".

The full list as rated by the survey participants from high to low:

• User-centered approach, design
• Information architecture (structuring information)
• Organisational dynamics
• Business and business processes
• Tools: e.g. search, content management systems
• Technology trends
• Needs analysis techniques
• Business cases
• Finances, return on investment analysis

I've often felt over the past couple of years that the "user first" mentality, which was sorely lacking in the past, has now become too predominant. We risk losing the attention or, more likely, not capturing the attention in the first place of the top management and decision-makers in the organisation.

Their main concerns are business-related. If we cannot related the intranet directly to business (in the large sense of the activity performed by the organisation), we will never get into the conversation.

Granted, the intranet manager role itself is unclear in most organisations. They cannot be all things to all people. But they can make sure that they get someone on their team, or have access to someone in the organisation, who can help them answer the 3 questions above.

(Note: The survey asked 2 questions: the first about "skills" required for intranet managers, and the second about "knowledge areas". More about the first one later.)

Inside Enterprise Search

Reality check

"Enterprise search - seen from the inside" is the title of an article I wrote for the Enterprise Search Sourcebook published by Information Today. Two quotes from the article:

• "You get the search you deserve"
• "Out of the 178 enterprises who participated in the survey nearly 3 out of 5 are “not really satisfied” or “not satisfied at all” with their intranet search. When asked how many people were dedicated to working on supporting and optimizing search, well over half responded “less than one person”. In addition, when asked if they looked at the search logs to better understand what users were searching for, just over 40% admitted they never did this and nearly 30 % did this only when they had time."

Trends
The article just before mine "Enterprise Search: Trends for 2008" is written by Theresa Regli of CMSWatch. She talks about analysing, navigating, uncrowding and socialising search, along with other insights on trends.

Do your homework
I recommend any organisation looking to purchase an enterprise search solution to first read Enterprise Search Report published by CMSWatch. (priced from 975 $US to 2925 $US depending on licence). I've seen so many cases where companies have created major search dilemmas by either having the wrong solution in place or by not realising what's involved in implementing search.

The money invested in this report will be well worth it. I recommend making it required reading for IT, communication and business managers working on search. Hopefully, all three functions are involved, because search is one of those things that is everyone's responsibility to get right.

The Enterprise Search Report should be used selectively. Here's a suggested reading path for your search team:

Pages 1 to 83 - everyone should read

Enterprise Rends for 2008
What is Search and How Does it Work
The Business Case for Enterprise Search
Entreprise Search Requirements (this is not technical) and includes a section on "asking the right questions"

Beginning on page 84, the discussion turns to Enterprise Search Vendors, and the first few pages are helpful for everyone on the team. After that, it is more relevant to team members making the hands-on analysis.

Beginning in page 322 "Advice, Pitfalls and Best Practices", it's important for all the team to read.

Using a team approach with this report is a good way to get everyone on the same page, to ensure that the technical team members approach the search project with users and business in mind, and that the non-technical people learn enough about the technology to understand implications of certain choices.

Reality check soon for 2009
The Global Intranet Strategies survey - currently open if you're interested in participating - has deepened its section on Search, and will provide data that will help us get another reality check in last 2008, early 2009.

(Get in touch if you'd like to participate)

What's hot now for intranet managers - "Global Intranet Survey" Quick Poll results

114 organisations (out of approximately 150 already signed up for the 3rd annual Global Intranet Strategies Survey) participated in a 5-minute Quick Poll. They gave feedback on which topics are the most relevant for them and suggested areas to focus on.

My observations on their feedback:

1. We are getting back to intranet basics - that is to say (a) users finding what what need and (b) raising intranet awareness in general.
The chart below shows the top 10 topics. You'll see that "search & findability" leads all other issues. It's followed by roles and perceptions of the intranet and obstacles holding the intranet back.
These fundamental issues risked getting lost in all the excitement about social media behind the firewall. It is reassuring to see that intranet managers have their feet firmly on the ground!

(click to enlarge chart)

2. User adoption is rising on the radar.
Do you remember that "usability and user-centered design" was the number 1 planned investment in the 2007 survey data? Not surprisingly, we see that "user adoption" becomes the 3rd hottest topic in 2008 if we combine "highly relevant" and "moderately relevant". (chart above)

3.  "Governance" is getting real: people + ownership + content + quality
Intranet managers are rightfully focusing energy on publishing models, ownership and quality;  engaging and motivating part-time content providers; and on how to get people to work together.
Comments from the Quick Poll participants:

"Related to governance, I'd be interested to learn about what kind of intranet publishing models (distributed, hybrid, centralized, other) other organizations employ as well as how they maintain the quality and consistency of the intranet (content audits, standards, etc.)."

"How do we ensure that all content has an owner and how do we engage those content owners to keep their content up to date. This is certainly an issue with us."

"A key pressure for me is getting business buy in, funding and ensuring people aren't working on their own "thing" in silos thus undermining efforts the Intranet team make."

"I would like to learn whether large organizations have in place programs or mechanisms by which to improve the overall quality of their intranet. Distributed authorship has taken off with content management systems - what are organizations doing to equip these 'part time webmasters' with the skills they need to create effective online communications? Who has editorial oversight for the whole intranet? Does this person or group have the authority needed to enforce standards? Do organizations even have standards? If yes, what format do they take, and what sort of success have organizations seen with their standards programs?"

4. "Intranet manager" is beginning to be perceived as a profession.
Both the 2006 and 2007 survey data showed that intranet managers in many organisations feel there is a low perception of the value of their role. The 2008 survey will attempt to provide a partial answer to what profile and skills are required to do the intranet manager job well.

"What are the top skills required, what are the barriers to entering/leaving the industry, what type of people are best suited to being intranet managers."

5. The value of customisation and personalisability is still being questioned.
The 2006 and 2007 survey data indicated that both customisation and personalisability are increasing. In addition, 2007 showed that organisations in Classes 1 and 2 had higher degrees of role-based customisation and personalisability in their intranets.  Yet...how far should you go?

"We also wonder about the degree one should customize the intranet. How many roles are good to handle and make sense. Does it work to let the author decide who is the target group of his information? Or should their be represantatives of the target group who decide? And after all, how much personalization makes sense? You often read, that most employees don't personalize their homepage. Is it worth the effort for the intranet team?"

6. Social media concerns are primarily on behaviour, not tools.
The buzz is decreasing and now intranet managers are looking at how organisations are managing their social media  implementations. For example, how do you encourage user adoption? How do you manage in highly regulated environments?

"On one hand people are requesting Web 2.0 features - and on the other hand it is very difficult to get people away from e-mail and shared drives."

"Regarding social networking, what is the general attitude of organisations to the use of social networking by employees on company time. My company blocks all social networking sites and I am interested to know if employees who are allowed to access these sites abuse the privilege."   

"You've indicated that you might focus on employee directories / profile pages / org charts -- please do, this is highly relevant and is a killer app that is often poorly done. With the new social media aspects to this -- seeing who is a colleague of your colleagues -- it's a timely subject for a lot of focus."

7. Defining priorities and keeping up the momentum is a major challenge.
Where are people spending energy and money? And how do they change the mind set from "an intranet project" to "a dynamic work tool"?

"Given that so many things regarding the intranet are important, where will companies focus their limited time and money?

"Breaking down projects is always an issue. It's easy to create a strategy, to develop requirements, to prioritize and to implement a first step - but what happens then? How do you create and maintain awareness of the big intranet picture in order to avoid repeating questions like "Are we there yet?", "We did already sponsor a project last year, why do you again need some money?", "Is it still not finished?" -> the image of intranets needs to be transformed from a static one-time-project (been there, done that) to a growing, living and permanently changing tool for daily work."

Total of 114 organisations of all sizes  participated in the Quick Poll.