If there is one thing that became pointedly clear when I spoke at the J. Boye intranet conference, it's that we are all experiencing different aspects of what it means to become a world-class corporate (social) intranet.
The typical shelf life of an intranet implementation averages about 18 months. You can easily extend this timeline when you add on the complexities of social layers. So, if you feel that your company has been struggling with not only the correct strategy but also the implementation tactics of a social intranet, don't feel bad. You are not alone.
And, if the attendees of the intranet track are any indication, you are most certainly in good company.
So what makes the social intranet your company's holy grail or holy mess? Is it because your company struggles with engaging multiple demographics? Is it because you're global, but you focus too much on local? Do you lack the infrastructure to support a social intranet? Do you simply not have the manpower or resources?
These are all issues that I hear about frequently, and to be honest, there is no tried and true answer. You can talk with peers who struggle with similar quandaries, but learning by example can only take you so far. At some point, the direction and actions you take must be tailored to your company's specific needs and goals.
Avoid the holy mess
It may seem like you've heard this before, but I cannot say it enough: To make your social intranet an attainable goal, start by asking yourself a very basic question—What is the purpose of your intranet?
Don't make your intranet social because you want to join the social business bandwagon. Make sure you have the right people, content and tools in place first. Do you want your intranet to be content-based for communications and/or HR transactions? Do you want it to be completely social? Do you want something that is a hybrid of the two? The only wrong move here is to make the wrong decision for your business needs.
One of my most memorable conversations from the J. Boye conference was with someone who questioned the deployment of a completely social intranet. The question was, "How do you balance social technologies with key business objectives and messaging?" Or put another way: "How do you balance social apps like Yammer with important (static) content such as company policies and forms?"
Don't confuse social with being sexy. Yes, your intranet should evolve, but no one ever said that an intranet that focuses primarily on content while also having a slick interface isn't sexy. A social intranet that doesn't have the infrastructure or resources to support it is not sexy.
Until your business is ready to jump into the social intranet pool, keep your site a value-driven destination for your employees by sticking with what works. Content is key. If your content works, then follow this favorite saying of mine: If it doesn't suck, then don't muck.
An intranet that fully embraces social technologies is, in essence, a virtual water cooler. I have not yet seen a company making its core intranet 100 percent social, but I have heard rumbles of some companies considering this.
A social intranet could be anywhere from entirely collaborative sharing to employee-generated content on wikis and/or microblogs. Admittedly, a lot of information managers would be hard-pressed to convince senior leadership to convert to a completely social intranet w
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