What is the #1 challenge you see facing intranet managers this year?
What tip or bit of advice can you offer to help intranet managers take their intranet to the next level this year?
We asked these questions of some of our speakers presenting at INTRANET INSIDER WORLD TOUR LIVE 2009. It’s happening April 16-17, 2009 at Con Edison headquarters in Midtown NYC. This mash-up of Enterprise and Web 2.0 will include tours of some of the best intranets, guided by the most knowledgeable intranet and internal communications managers. You can register here.
Now to some answers to our speaker’s poll:
• Beth Gleba, US Retail internal Information Manager, IKEA North America
What is the #1 challenge you see facing Intranet managers this year?
Letting go. I think the trick to these coming years will be to learn how to manage Intranet content much more by empowering others, by creating the systems and the rules, and then… letting go.
What tip or bit of advice can you offer to help intranet managers take
their intranet to the next level this year?RIGHT NOW your organization probably is looking to do things differently. Be on the lookout for new opportunities. Be ready with the business case for your next Intranet project. Make sure you have some ideas on how to get more out of what you already have. Firm up your Intranet relationships up and down your organization. You can use the current business crisis as a catalyst to move your Intranet forward.
Toby Ward, Founder and President, Prescient Digital Media (Conference Chair)
#1 challenge – Governance, funding (executive sponsorship), and governance
(especially if you’re using SharePoint).#2 advice – Enlist as many senior executives as supports and sponsors as possible. “Sell” them the value of the intranet by demonstrating your performance and success, and showcase to them other winning intrants so that they can see what a great intranet looks like. Once you’ve got executive support, finalizing or bolstering your governance model is so much easier.
Fred Leich, Section Manager, Corporate Communications, Consolidated Edison Company of New York
#1 challenge: In view of the current economy, funding is one of the top challenges for 2009. There is a high level of interest in trying new ideas, techniques, and technologies for our intranet, but everyone is more cost-conscious about their projects.
#2 advice: Many intranet upgrades can be made at low cost and driven from the bottom up, but for larger intranet projects, buy-in from higher levels of management is essential. My advice is to identify the correct level of management support needed for a project, involve the decision makers early in the process, and make the best possible business case for the proposed project.
James Lukach, Manager Online Communications, Siemens
#1 challenge: I think that staffing will be an issue and there will be a struggle to update intranets on the technical side and the ability to produce content. We are looking into a couple of ways to fight these problems and at the same time trying to take our intranets to the next level by experimenting with external tools such as Facebook and Twitter and how these external sites work with internal communications. I’m really into exploring how external trends like microblogging can be incorporated into employee communications…
Laurel Castiglione, Founder, Bridge the Gap Solutions and former lead of GM’s mySocrates intranet portal
- #1 challenge: How to demonstrate the business value of their intranets while reducing costs, updating user experience, exploring the latest social media tools and assuming additional workload brought about by increased demand for communications to address the difficulties facing employees during these challenging times. Communications leadership will be under fire to increase the value of the Communications activity while struggling with the need to reduce staff and eliminate cost. Intranets are gaining importance but may not be viewed as a critical need. Everyone will be fighting for budget allocation and the intranet manager will be under pressure to demonstrate the criticality of the intranet.
- #2 advice – Be proactive. Use your champion and intranet governance structure to focus efforts on critical business needs. Demonstrate how quickly and effectively you can respond to leadership requests. Provide ideas and content aimed at getting employees focused on the important deliverables and building employee confidence. Provide a forum where leaders can demonstrate their skills and communicate direction. Do not ask for funding but find a way to reallocate budget to deliver beyond expectations. Track key deliverables, become the gold source for information and use this as an opportunity to become the critical resource you have known you could be. Finally look for new ways to partner with suppliers, your IT team or your users to build capability and enhance business value for all concerned.
| Comments |
| RE: What is the #1 challenge you see facing intranet managers this year? |
| #1 challenge facing intranet managers in 2009 is how to demonstrate the business value of their intranets while reducing costs, updating user experience, exploring the latest social media tools and assuming additional workload brought about by increased demand for communications to address the difficulties facing employees during these challenging times. Communications leadership will be under fire to increase the value of the Communications activity while struggling with the need to reduce staff and eliminate cost. Intranets are gaining importance but may not be viewed as a critical need. Everyone will be fighting for budget allocation and the intranet manager will be under pressure to demonstrate the criticality of the intranet. Advice – Be proactive. Use your champion and intranet governance structure to focus efforts on critical business needs. Demonstrate how quickly and effectively you can respond to leadership requests. Provide ideas and content aimed at getting employees focused on the important deliverables and building employee confidence. Provide a forum where leaders can demonstrate their skills and communicate direction. Do not ask for funding but find a way to reallocate budget to deliver beyond expectations. Track key deliverables, become the gold source for information and use this as an opportunity to become the critical resource you have known you could be. Finally look for new ways to partner with suppliers, your IT team or your users to build capability and enhance business value for all concerned. |
Posted on Sunday, Mar 22, 2009 – 07:44:00 PM CST  Laurel GM |
| Elliot Luber, IBM Software Group Communications |
| At many companies that would be bugetary, but from my perspective it’s being heard above the din of employee communications we are working so hard to generate. In a Web 2.0 world we want to let new voices surface, but this could be threatening to our sense of control. I like Beth’s take on this above. |
| Posted on Thursday, Mar 19, 2009 – 08:01:00 PM CST eliottluber |
