In Part 1 of this three-part series I talked about Intranet Zero and in Part 2 discussed a model for a robust intranet 1.0 - the ‘Lean Intranet'. In this last of three articles, I will be looking at intranet 2.0 and surmising what the intranet of the future might look like - intranet 3.0.
What is Intranet 2.0 and do we really need it?
The intranet, being the poor cousin, always seems to slavishly follow in the footsteps of its more illustrious relative, the Internet. Therefore, if there is a Web 2.0 concept, it follows that there must be an intranet 2.0 based on the same premise. D. Best characterises Web 2.0 in Wikipedia (see Note 1) as having -
‘(a) rich user experience, user participation, dynamic content, metadata, web standards and scalability. Further characteristics, such as openness, freedom and collective intelligence by way of user participation can also be viewed as essential attributes of Web 2.0.'
Facebook, Flickr and Wikipedia are usually cited as good examples of the Web 2.0 approach.
Great. So now we know what Web 2.0 is, shouldn't we know what intranet 2.0 is? I'm not so sure. Intranets are not Internet sites and assuming that practices successful in one will automatically be successful in the other is a step too far for me. Collaborative approaches in the workplace, except for project wikis perhaps, have not yet proved themselves. Why is this? I believe it's because there is already plenty of collaboration going on - meetings, coffee machine discussions, emails, phone calls, the grapevine. Face to face human contact will always be by far the best collaborative approach because it is so information rich.
In my opinion, intranet 2.0 approaches won't be revolutionary for intranets and should be regarded as just another set of tools, tools that should be used sparingly and only in situations where they will add value. For me, the collaborative approach is more intranet 1.1 than intranet 2.0.
Toby Ward of Prescient (see Note 2) commenting on the intranet 2.0 Global Survey states that -
‘Satisfaction levels with intranet 2.0 tools are low:
Only 29% of organizations rate the tool functionality as good or very good; 24% rate them as poor or very poor
Satisfaction rates with executives is dangerously low: only 23% of executives rate the 2.0 tools as good or very good; 38%% rate them as poor or very poor'.
Such low executive satisfaction rates worry me. The perceptions of senior managers are generally not all that positive for intranets anyway and it now seems that the greatly heralded saviour of all things intranet, intranet 2.0, is rapidly going the same way. Without the full support of management, any new intranet initiative is doomed to failure.
So, firstly I would like to know what are the problems that intranet 2.0 is supposed to solve?
Secondly, if you haven't made intranet 1.0 work well what makes you think that intranet 2.0 will be any different?
Thirdly, might intranet 2.0 really be just another case of ‘toys for boys'?
I am not, however, saying that the concept is without value but it should be treated as one of those approaches that are only useful in certain situations and at certain times.
Considerations before attempting an intranet 2.0 initiative
If we take the view that the ‘Lean Intranet' is, in reality, not a single entity but a collection of information services, then intranet 2.0 approaches such as blogs and wikis become just another information service. James Robertson (see Note 3) hits the nail on the head when he states that there are three considerations that must be addressed before any intranet 2.0 initiative should be attempted -
Purpose. What is the reason for pursuing a particular solution or approach? How will it benefit the organisation? It's nice to help people to chat, and this may help to build a sense of community, but this is not enough. There are many business needs and issues, and our job is to find way of solving them.
Culture. As many have highlighted, solutions need to match the culture of the organisation (and perhaps move it forward by half a step). And this is the current culture, not the culture we may have when a new generation enters the workforce.
Motivation. Why will staff use of new solutions? This is the classic "what's in it for me" factor, and it's even more important for solutions that require bottom-up involvement from a wide number of staff.
... If you don't have a clear answer for all three aspects, the strategy is likely to fail.Of the three, motivation is the most important, and strangely, the least talked about.'
Motivation is indeed the key. I talked in Part 1 of this series of articles about the ‘quid pro quo', the ‘something for something' involved in transactions. The same applies to any interaction, web-based or not. There has been an intranet 2.0 philosophy mooted that some call the ‘build it and they will come' approach (after one of my favourite films ‘Field of Dreams'). Don't believe it for a second. If staff can't see a clear benefit to a voluntary activity, it just won't happen. It should be called the ‘build it and it will gather dust' approach.
James has also pointed out in the past that having a defined community might be another very important consideration. Motivation can be enhanced where a defined group is trying to solve or manage a common problem. Wikis especially might be more successful when used by project teams, expert groups and the like.
But to be honest, the question you really have to ask yourself when it comes to intranet 2.0 approaches is ‘Is it really any better than existing non-digital forms of collaboration?'
Intranet 3.0 - It's our call
The intranet, in my opinion, has more differences than similarities with the Internet and I really look forward to the day when intranet and enterprise information workers and managers can stand on their own two feet and finally start to realise their own discipline, best practice and communities. If we slavishly follow web trends, then intranet 3.0 might well be the ‘Semantic Intranet' which, as things stand, is a nonsense.
The whole idea of the semantic web movement is to link all information across the Internet using software and metadata schemes so that computers can become ‘intelligent agents' and actually be capable of consistently extracting meaning and relationships from any document or piece of text. Even if this could be made to work, about which some commentators are sceptical, I fail to see the value that the semantic web could bring to intranets in their present form, cut off as they are from the Internet behind firewalls. Anyway, organizations do a lot of things their own way, using their own terminology, which would undermine any semantic web initiative. Like a lot of intranet 2.0 approaches, I can't see the problem the ‘semantic intranet' would solve. Why don't intranet workers have some confidence in themselves and start agreeing their own definitions of what intranet 3.0 should be?
In engineering, and now software development, the moving up a whole integer indicates a radically new version of whatever it is you are designing. Therefore, an approach should only be labelled intranet 3.0 when it is new and radically changes the approach over the whole of the intranet system. As you can see ‘Intranet 2.0', while being new, fails miserably on the second test.
My candidate is the Enterprise-wide Information System (EIS) approach which is both new and radically changes the intranet paradigm through integrating the intranet with other enterprise information systems.
Intranet 3.0 - The Enterprise-wide Information System (EIS)
There is a plethora of information and knowledge transfers that take place in large organizations. You have the intranet, of course, but there are a lot more including -
Email
Internet site
Management systems (e.g. ISO 9000)
ERP systems
Collaborative systems (intranet 2.0)
Internal communications department (newsletters, press releases)
Relevant external information
Paper based systems
Informal systems
Tacit knowledge.
In many organizations, most of the above exist in their own silos or are not considered at all. In the system map below you can see that systems such as Internet sites, ERP systems and external information can be totally disconnected while other systems and modes of transfer are disjointed. Information architecture and user experience approaches (blue shaded area), essential in my opinion in improving any information or knowledge transfer, are generally confined to the intranet and only to transactions (sick leave, holidays, timesheets etc), management systems and other explicit knowledge. If used at all, that is.
The approach for intranet 3.0 that I'm suggesting is called the ‘Enterprise-wide Information System' (EIS) because it attempts to provide a method of considering all of these systems and transfers as part of a single system. This allows a single enterprise-wide team to manage all systems and transfers holistically. In order to accomplish this objective, the intranet must become the indispensible hub of the EIS. The intranet will contain the information related to each system or method of transfer and will also contain information about the processes and procedures that are used within the EIS.
As you can see from the graphic below, within the EIS all systems and methods of information transfer are now linked to the intranet and the blue shaded area indicates that information architecture and user experience approaches are used throughout the entirety of the EIS.
I won't say much more here about the EIS approach as I have posted three articles on my blog (www.patrickcwalsh.wordpress.com) which explain the approach in some detail, however, I hope that you can see that there should be some benefits in adopting such a holistic approach. Benefits should include -
Consistency of purpose and message across the whole enterprise
Reduction in duplication of effort
Enterprise wide information strategies can be instituted using different approaches to reinforce the message across the board
The ability to improve by holistically managing all information and knowledge transfers using ideas from all systems and methods of transfer
Feedback from users and stakeholders can be aggregated from all systems.
However, the most important benefit for many organisations may be in the area of innovation.
EIS and innovation
As the aim of the Enterprise-wide Information System is to consider all the major forms of information and knowledge transfers, information external to the organization and internal knowledge must be addressed.
External information that is relevant to the organization must be identified and creatively linked to internal information such as processes and procedures. Of course, there is an enormous mass of external information out there and the challenge to the EIS team is to identify the information that will really add value when combined with internal information. Examples of this might include external health and safety information, environmental information and legislation. Even these examples will go a long way towards ensuring that the organization stays legal and its employees and neighbours stay healthy. Other examples might include industry best practice, economic information, information about competitors and the latest in technology.
Knowledge that is contained within the heads of staff is what makes any organization work. Informal systems operate in every organization and these can often be the key to success. Ignoring knowledge in the workplace is to miss out on an incredible source of innovation and it can also damage an organization when valuable knowledge leaves with an employee. You can't manage ‘knowledge' but you can consider its effect.
If every move that an employee makes is written down and adhered to this will remove any freedom of action, stifle innovation and probably increase employee turnover dramatically. If nothing is written down then employees may not achieve their potential as best practice is not documented and all knowledge disappears from an organization when an employee leaves. There is a fine balance between the two ends of the spectrum and this must be carefully considered and a knowledge strategy agreed upon.
However, I think there is much more that can be achieved. The potential for information synergy to occur is encouraged within the EIS approach and this can only happen when all internal information, external information and knowledge is combined.
‘Information synergy' occurs when pieces of information are combined to produce a new idea or approach and whose product is much greater than the sum of its parts. In other words, it's more like 2 x 2 which equals 8 than 2 +2 which only equals 4.
For an example of information synergy, consider if a new piece of environmental legislation was on the horizon then an organisation would be alerted to the fact as external information is constantly reviewed. This would allow time for the documented internal processes to be reviewed and, if compliance was a problem, then the knowledge inside staff members' heads could be accessed in order to provide a solution. This is a fairly prosaic example but I feel that more exciting and original ideas may be capable of being generated through information synergy. Ideas that might improve and innovate our products and services in ways we cannot foresee at the moment.
We are all swimming in a sea of information. In the future, if we do not ensure that we are in a position to holistically consider all relevant information and knowledge, we will not be waving but drowning.
References
1) Best, D., 2006. Web 2.0 Next Big Thing or Next Big Internet Bubble?, Lecture Web Information Systems. Techni sche Universiteit Eindhoven, accessed via Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_2.0
Patrick has spent most of his working life in the automotive components sector. He was responsible for ensuring that the quality, environmental and health and safety management systems were integrated and placed online. Eventually, Patrick became more interested in structuring the online content than in the rest of his day job and this lead to him taking up an opportunity to raise an intranet from scratch for a large local government department. This was the experience from which the 'Lean Intranet' concept was born. Patrick now works at the BBC as an Information Architect and his main project remains working as part of a team improving BBC intranets.
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In Part 1 of this three-part series I talked about Intranet Zero and in Part 2 discussed a model for a robust intranet 1.0 - the ‘Lean Intranet'. In this last of three articles, I will be looking at intranet 2.0 and surmising what the intranet of the future might look like - intranet 3.0.
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