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Written by Helen Day

This article is based on a joint presentation made at Online 2007 by Helen Day, Executive Director, Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF) and Mark Morrell, BT intranet manager. It combines the findings reported in an IBF research report into Web 2.0 use 'inside the corporate firewall' across large organisations, with examples of BT's use of Web 2.0 on their intranet; specifically discussion forums, blogs, RSS feeds and wikis.

Web 2.0 inside the firewall: worry or opportunity?

In the IBF research report 'Social computing and Web 2.0 behind the firewall', the author, Louise Ferguson, concluded that 'Reports of the death of the traditional intranet have been greatly exaggerated, social software can mean traditional hierarchies are short-circuited, new voices and debate emerges, and there can even be visible dissent.' She also asked 'Are such changes welcomed by management?'

Many of the managers involved in the research believed that, by deploying these tools ahead of their direct competitors, they had been able to pull ahead in knowledge management. Others warned that social software was a 'disruptive innovation' which should only be attempted if an organization is willing to change the way it communicates with its workforce.

BT and Web 2.0

Although many managers and organisations are concerned about such tools in the corporate environment, BT have a very positive attitude to trying these newer technologies, often testing them through small, lightweight 'beta' style implementations and letting the users drive the development and decision process. If a tool is needed, tested, used, popular and shows business benefit at beta stage, more substantial and supported versions can be justified more easily and implemented.

Below is a review of four types of Web 2.0 content currently being used on intranets, with an overview of advantages and disadvantages covered in the IBF research, plus a description of BT's experiences to date.

Discussion forums

Discussion forums can be used to open up debate and tap into the knowledge of colleagues. Open online discussion can be seen as an opportunity to maximise the benefits of collective intellectual capital and can actually reinforce a sense of community among groups of employees who may be geographically dispersed.

However, for forums to be successful, the IBF research showed that they do need to be driven by self-interest. Many users won't contribute unless they are going to benefit from it somehow (such as receive ideas and learnings in return), so most need the 'sense of community' before they start. Many successful starter discussion forums are based round an already established community of interest, a new project team, a new initiative, a social club, home workers etc. This common interest helps the discussion get started.

A critical mass of users is required to keep discussion live, interesting and interactive; this prevents initial discussion boards from becoming quickly stale.

It's also important to prevent anonymous postings. If people are identified, they are far more likely to be constructive and abide by the organisation's overall behaviour standards. Many managers are worried about open discussion boards for fear of abuse and disruptive behaviour, but most employees can be trusted if their names are attached to postings. Experience shows discussion also self-regulates pretty quickly. If someone appears to be out of line, other users will often 'manage' them.

At BT there are many informal groups with common interests, spread across different locations and time zones. They use discussion forums to exchange ideas, news, advice and knowledge, especially around new technology development areas.

Even the CEO has regular online chats. Any question can be raised, as long as it isn't a personal issue. The CEO will reply himself and his informal style means users know it is really him 'chatting' at the time and not a representative. This has earned the live chats a high level of respect across the business and they are closely followed by hundreds of users as each question is answered real-time. Questions that the CEO is unable to answer are followed up by other people responsible for the area raised if needed. Thousands check the complete documented version after the event. There are no anonymous questions allowed.

Blogs

Blogs are usually seen as a one-way publishing forum, but with the ability for readers to comment. They are good in the corporate environment for time-related information, project progress, market intelligence and so on. They are typically low cost to set up and flexible and simple in format.

Experience shows they work best where there are clear reasons for the blog; it's not just 'because everyone else has them'. Successful blogs often have a distinctive voice or clear personality. They typically need a trusting atmosphere to work well, where users feel they can speak out and make mistakes.

At BT the policy is to allow anyone to blog internally and externally and there are clear, common-sense policy and guidelines in place. The main one is no anonymous postings. BT employees have many external blogs, mostly addressing niche subjects and Andy Green (who was BT's Global Services CEO) had an internal blog which was keenly followed. Technology has been the issue here for BT, with a few platforms tested before settling on Wordpress.

RSS feeds

With RSS feeds, users are able to keep up to date on a wide range of content. They can build a selection of RSS feeds to exactly match their job needs and interests, resulting in highly tailored news and content delivery. Used effectively, they can help deliver increased information flow and organisational efficiency. Centrally an intranet team can also start to really understand audience's interests by looking at subscriptions, and this can lead to better focussed content development. The key challenge here is the lack of proven server side technology to really support RSS feeds well within a firewall, although many organisations are now developing their own solutions to this.

At BT there are many RSS enabled news feeds on the intranet. BT Today is the main Web site for any corporate news for people in BT and has over 35 separate feeds. Users are able to combine these with external RSS feeds, through client-based and Web-based aggregators providing their total news solution. The MyBT portal, currently under development, will further enhance this by using profile to prompt different RSS feeds to different users.

Wikis

Wikis can offer a major advantage over email, with discussion no longer 'lost' in an email thread, good version control and changes made immediately visible to all readers. Audit trails and roll-back functionality are also advantageous. Wikis are often cited as good for doing things like drafting policies or agendas, when a group of people need to quickly, and collectively, work on a document.

Again, experience shows that organisations must prevent anonymous posting, for all the same reasons as with discussion boards. Many report poor ease of use of some wikis, specifically the lack of WYSIWYG, although this is rapidly improving. The lack of an option to include spreadsheets has also been cited as a problem for some time with many wiki offerings.

At BT, wikis have really taken off in the last year. BTpedia is seen as a corporate source of knowledge, with over 600 articles 'officially' published. Everyone who wants it has full publishing and editing rights, and content is owned and managed by users. Many wikis have grown up to cover different publishing requirements across the business with Sharepoint helping short term team collaboration needs being very successful.

Finally: The challenge of governance of Web 2.0 on intranets

As many organisations are beginning to implement comprehensive governance models for their 'traditional' intranet content, the onset of Web 2.0 tools on intranets presents a new challenge for intranet managers.

For many years, organisations have been tackling unmanaged intranet content, often bringing it into a common content management system, applying good standards and approval processes and training authors to produce 'good' Web content. Although these Web 2.0 tools provide a route for some great user generated and user managed content, with the many advantages as described, this can also mean that new content can fall outside the content governance model intranet managers have fought for so long to put in place.

The governance of this type of content is a hot topic amongst forward thinking intranet managers, many recognising the need for a different 'light weight' governance model to be developed. There'll be much more about this in the intranet press over the next year…. Watch this space!

About the author:

Helen Day, Executive Director, Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF), works with IBF to develop and deliver products and services to IBF member organisations. She benchmarks global intranets in the areas of strategy and governance, metrics and performance, and culture and communication. Helen is a qualified information professional who, after heading up the Business Information team at The Boots Group, became Group Intranet Manager implementing a new CMS and redesigning the corporate intranet. She then implemented a new portal to Boots' 1400 stores. Helen is an International Information Industry award winner for Best Intranet Project 2004 and was runner up European Information Professional of the year 2005. She can be contacted at: Helen@ibforum.com

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