Intranets in trouble

 

Over at a shel of my former self, Shel Holtz has a post called Intranets in Trouble which references a study by the Irish Computer Society.

As someone who concentrates on the people side of communication, I tend to be the one asking sceptical questions about technological solutions, but even so, the key results are rather disappointing:

Nearly half say they don’t use the intranet to support their everyday work

Nearly one in three say the intranet does not help with daily work

Half find their intranets’ search engines to be ineffective and 80% think both navigation and search need to be improved

35% of respondents cannot access the information they need on their company intranet

Fixing these problems won't solve all your communication problems, but if a third of workers can't get the information they need through the company intranet, then that's a serious performance issue.

To me, the results highlight a couple of things:

1) Too often, "the intranet" is purchased in the manner of a telephone system. No-one is given the responsibility (or indeed the resources) to ensure that existing content is kept up to date and that new information is chased down and documented online.

2) One oddity of the internet is that it puts cutting edge tools in our hands for free. As a result, people develop a reliance on tools like Google for navigating complex information landscapes. If you have a lot of information on your intranet, you either need to invest in replicating these tools or if you have a bespoke tool, you have to train people to use it.

Failing to address these issues simply means you won't get much out of your initial investment in the intranet. Of course, some people don't see the business value in better information and communication. It's true that if your main business is an automated widget production facility, the intranet might not be all that important. If your business relies on people working with information, collaborating with each other and keeping track of complex projects, then the quality of information exchange may be the difference between success and failure.

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