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5856 results in Facet Publishing

Page 226 of 293

  • 6 - Traffic and metrics

  • Mike Ellis
  • Book:
    Managing and Growing a Cultural Heritage Web Presence
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2011, pp 99-116

  • Summary

    Introduction

    One of the increasingly important things to take into account when developing a strategic approach for your web presence is – ultimately – to determine, measure and communicate how effective it is. ‘Effectiveness' is a highly subjective measure. It is subjective not only to a particular context but also to a particular user and occasion of use. For a user who is looking for opening times and nothing else, an ‘effective' web presence is one which provides this information in as few clicks as possible. For a researcher who wants to collect as much information about a specific topic as possible, effectiveness is about the depth of content available to them, the completeness of an archive. For a schoolteacher putting together a lesson plan, effectiveness might be something to do with the quality of downloadable resources that are available to them.

    The way in which you understand your audience is therefore crucial when it comes to building user experiences which are relevant and effective for them.

    Using metrics effectively is a cyclical process: it is about improvementof the service that you offer based on an iterative feedback loop in which you measure, compare and refine. This improvement only comes about if you understand what you are measuring and why.

    ‘We report our web metrics not only to our web team but to other places internally. We have a cross-departmental group, a Library Board, and will shortly be delivering these metrics to the public through a “zeitgeist” report.'

    Paul Bevan,

    National Library of Wales, UK

    In this chapter we'll look at web metrics generally and examine how you can get these, how you can interpret them, and how you can disseminate them. You should bear in mind, however, that these general approaches mostly just scrape the surface and only provide a ‘top-down' idea of how your site is performing. These figures are probably the only ones your stakeholders will be asking for or interested in, but you should always bear in mind that true insight requires an under - standing of your audience, and of your particular context and ‘success', whatever that may be.

  • 1 - Evaluating what you have now

  • Mike Ellis
  • Book:
    Managing and Growing a Cultural Heritage Web Presence
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2011, pp 1-20

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Before you can begin to understand how to move your web presence forward, it is important that you understand what you have now. This not only means having a full knowledge of your current website(s) – their size, scope, number of authors, amount of content and so on – but also having a clear view of the current landscape within which your heritage organization operates, both online and offline.

    The role of institutions on the web changes constantly, and has been changing since they first started being online. Initially, organizations often find themselves online almost by accident, usually as a result of an enthusiastic staff member spending some of their spare time uploading basic web pages to a server somewhere. Very often, the growth of a site follows an organic path, particularly in its early days: as enthusiastic and web-literate staff members arrive at the organization, interest and competency grows; then as they leave, the site stultifies.

    Typically, sites move from this early phase into one where organizational perspectives about the web shift from niche activity into something else – if not core, at least morecore to the day-to-day activities of the institution. As organizations began to understand the potential the web offered to widen reach and access to their assets, so the activity of ‘doing the web' became more central, too. The stakeholders in these institutions now mostly (although not always – we'll come to that later…) see a strong web presence as being an integral part of the other activities they carry out day to day.

    To make things more complicated, the ‘new organization’ online isn't any longer an X-paged walled-garden entity which has boundaries and well understood rules. Instead, with the advent of Web 2.0 and other third-party services, museums and heritage organizations are moving towards a much looser aggregate of pieces of content and functionality. Even if you don't actively engage in setting up these third-party sites, you'll probably find that someone else has – and here is one of the biggest challenges that the social web brings. Getting a handle on ‘external’ content like this is an increasingly important part of any web manager's role. Again, we'll look at this in more depth in Chapter 7 ‘The social web (Web 2.0)’.

  • Introduction

  • Mike Ellis
  • Book:
    Managing and Growing a Cultural Heritage Web Presence
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 April 2011, pp xv-xx

  • Summary

    About this book

    Running a web presence and making it grow in ways that benefit your organization is hard. Really hard. It is also one of the most fun and exciting things you can choose to do.

    One of the reasons it is so difficult is that it requires a huge array of diverse skills. In turn this means one of two things: you either need to employ and manage a big team of people, get them aligned in one strategic direction and then make sure that you're all working together; or if you are trying to do this with a small team – or even just you! – you will need to understand a lot about a lot.

    Both of these approaches are difficult in different ways. You either have a big team and it takes time to get them into shape and working together, or you have an almost endless issue with lack of resource. Cultural heritage website management requires a range of skills. The process isn't wholly technical, and it isn't wholly artistic. The best website owners are those who have a high level understanding of what the web can do for an organization as well as a good technical grasp of what can be done and the best way of doing it. Knowing what content is likely to resonate with audiences – and where to get this content – is also a vital skill.

    Cultural heritage organizations are equally diverse. The content is about as good as it comes: compelling, personal and rich. The people who look after this content – curators, archivists and librarians – are passionate about what they do, and are about the most interesting people you could hope to meet. At the same time, these organizations aren't always the best at moving quickly, at responding to what they often perceive as being ‘risky’. Out there on the web, small companies are born, grow and are sold on in about the same time as it takes to get a cultural heritage exhibition or collections management system commissioned, built and live on the web. Sometimes this can be frustrating, especially if what you're trying to do is actually quite simple from a content or technical perspective but made difficult by politics or stakeholders or just plain old ‘institutional treacle'.

  • Part 4 - Engaging readers with e-books

  • Edited by Kate Price, Virginia Havergal
  • Book:
    E-books in Libraries
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 199-200

  • Summary

    Overview

    E-books are rapidly becoming established as an important element of information provision across the spectrum of library services, and in this section a range of information and library professionals explore strategies to encourage users to embrace e-books as part of their reading practice.

    Martin Palmer (Chapter 11) of Essex Libraries explores this from a public library perspective, considering some of the early barriers to ebook use in the public sector as well as investigating the way that the technology has continued to mature and develop. He goes on to highlight how e-books can benefit certain groups of readers, such as those with disabilities, as well as the potential role of e-books within reader development programmes.

    The remaining chapters in this section focus on case studies from two FE colleges and a university in the UK. Sue Caporn and Lee Bryant (Chapter 12) of City of Bristol College describe the findings from a small pilot project conducted with Foundation Degree students and examine the attitudes of both students and teachers towards e-books. Meanwhile, Karen Foster and Emma Ransley (Chapter 12) of Yeovil College discuss the ways in which they have used the VLE to enhance the learner experience and increase the use of their e-book collection.

    Finally Anne Worden and Timothy Collinson (Chapter 13) of Portsmouth University examine the ways in which undergraduate students have embraced e-books at the institution and consider the factors that have made this format such a success.

  • 12 - Conforming to compliance requirements

  • from Part 3 - Operational planning
  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 145-152

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Intranet managers need to be conversant with a number of compliance matters where ignorance of local and international legislation and regulation is not acceptable as a defence. The commentary on these topics provided in this chapter should be regarded as being for the purposes of illustration only. Legal advice should be sought for the specific jurisdiction in which the intranet is being operated.

    Records retention policy

    A ‘record’ is evidence of an activity or decision and demonstrates accountability. It is not possible to define a record in terms of a particular category of documents, or by the age of the item. A comment in a blog or on a wiki could indicate that an action has taken place, and so becomes a record of that event having occurred. The use of social media in this example is deliberate: in the world of records management there is no such thing as a distinction between ‘formal’ and ‘informal’ content.

    A ‘controlled document’ is one in which the revision history is important, such that employees need to be aware of which version (not always the latest version) they should be using.

    It is important to distinguish between ‘records’ and ‘archives’. A record has a limited and defined life, which may range from seven years, in the case of financial records, to five years after the withdrawal of a product from the market. An archive is a collection of records that have a long-term and often indeterminate life. All too often the terms ‘record’ and ‘archive’ are used synonymously, which is incorrect.

    The issue about the extent to which information that is available on an intranet needs to be regarded as a corporate record is often overlooked because of a concern about the sheer volume of the content and the range of file formats involved. Often a document management system is used to manage corporate records, but such a system will rarely be used for the entire intranet, collaboration spaces and social media messages.

    Increasingly, videos are used to illustrate the way in which particular activities should be performed – for example, using a forklift truck to load a vehicle. In due course the video might be updated and the previous version deleted so that the ‘correct’ version is available on the intranet.

  • 9 - Providing guidance, training and support for readers using e-books

  • from Part 3 - Delivering e-books to library users
    • By Karen Gravett, Academic Liaison Librarian for the Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences at the University of Surrey
  • Edited by Kate Price, Virginia Havergal
  • Book:
    E-books in Libraries
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 163-180

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Information professionals have a long history of providing guidance, training and support to their users. In recent years, the growth of electronic resources such as online databases and electronic journals has meant that this support has become even more valuable, particularly as the users of these resources often expect simplicity of access and possess a limited awareness of how to search effectively.

    The way that e-books should fit into library training and support strategies is an interesting area for discussion, although little has been written on this topic. Whether we view e-books as an extension of our printed collections or as unique and more complex electronic resources that can only be partly understood from within the constraints of the print legacy will inevitably impact on the way that we present them to readers. As Cox suggests:

    Another point to consider is the positioning of e-books among other eresources offered by libraries. Do we, and should we, market them distinctively to users, or are they simply another source of content which happened to originate as printed books?

    (Cox, 2004)

    This chapter will discuss how, at the University of Surrey, experience has shown that the present delivery and design of e-books mean that accessing them bears little relationship to reading the printed text.

    As a result, support strategies are required to ensure that users understand how and when to access e-books. Interestingly, in their study Promoting the Uptake of E-books in Higher and Further Education JISC advises information professionals to ‘demand time’ for a dedicated range of training and support activities in order to effectively ‘promote and communicate [e-books] to users and patrons’ (JISC, 2003, 160).

    This chapter will discuss the wide range of training and support activities in place at Surrey to promote e-books to users and to guide them through this learning process. Further, this chapter will analyse the role of effective liaison with academic staff, and consider how this can be another important means of providing guidance to both staff and students alike.

    The means by which e-books are delivered, read and used are also developing and changing rapidly, and, as a result, this discussion will suggest some potential new strategies for training and guidance. Lastly, it will detail some wishes for improvements in the business models and technologies that underlie e-book provision.

  • 18 - From intranets to information management

  • from Part 4 - Governance and strategy
  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 207-222

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In the final analysis, the reason why intranets fail is because organizations fail to understand the value of information as a business asset. Imagine for a moment that your company has built a factory and fitted it out with all the machinery needed to manufacture a new product. For any company that is a considerable investment. Or perhaps your company has built a large new office block with a sizeable car park and a good staff restaurant. Again, a considerable investment. Now I want you to imagine that it has forgotten where it built the factory and where the office is located. You will say that it is just impossible to imagine that. No company would be so incompetent.

    Now imagine that over the last ten years you and your colleagues have been writing reports on competitors, market prospects, new products ideas and business strategies. All this information is stored somewhere on shared drives or in attached files on a Microsoft Exchange server, but the people who stored the information have now left the company. Will you say that it is impossible to imagine that, and that your company would not be so incompetent? Unfortunately, this situation is much more common than you might imagine or even fear. Even where an intranet exists, corporate information is stored in multiple repositories – among which the intranet is just one.

    There is now some hope that situations such as this will gradually become relics of the past. For much of the late 1990s, and on into the 21st century, there was considerable interest in (if little commitment to) the concepts and practice of knowledge management. Many considered that the post of chief knowledge officer was critical to the success of the organization. Few such officers now remain, though good practice in knowledge management is now well developed.

    The fundamental problem that organizations failed to recognize was that without effective information management gaining a competitive advantage through knowledge management was very unlikely. Now the focus is turning to information management for competitive sustainability.

    Information management and information

    governance

    The term ‘information management’ is becoming more widely used in management circles, but it seems to have no accepted definition. Indeed, while I was writing this book a search on Google for definitions of ‘information management’ yielded over two million hits.

  • Preface

  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp xv-xviii

  • Summary

    How many intranets are there that need the skills and vision of an intranet manager? It is a very difficult question to answer. In the UK, information from the e-business survey conducted annually by the Office for National Statistics indicates that at the end of 2008 there were certainly over 50,000 intranets in businesses with more than ten employees. There will certainly be more in other types of organization. Every intranet needs a manager, even if managing the intranet is only one of their roles. Scale the UK figures up to the European Union and add in North America, and the installed base might easily be of the order of a million or more intranets. That is a lot of potential readers for books on how to ensure that the organization is getting the best from its intranet. Yet look along the shelves of any major bookshop and only rarely will there be even one book on intranet management. A search on the term ‘intranet’ on Amazon.co.uk will, in the first 24 titles, include 12 published before 2000.

    Now that this book has been published, both I and Facet Publishing will be interested to find out whether this is an untapped market, or whether all the problems have been solved and no one needs any advice. We both hope that it is the former!

    I should say at the outset that I have never managed an intranet, but over the last ten years I have worked on nearly a hundred intranet projects and talked to a very large number of intranet managers at conferences and workshops around the world. I have learned much from these projects and encounters, including that there is still no such thing as best practice in intranet management. Almost always the objective of the projects I have undertaken, be they in the USA or Kuwait, has been the development of an intranet strategy.

    This book sets out how I go about developing an intranet strategy. One

    of my heroes is the Nobel physicist Richard Feynman, and his view of his work is that he was creating a tool-box of mathematical tricks that others could use in the development of something useful. This book contains some of my consulting tricks, which I hope that readers will be able to adapt to their own particular requirements.

  • 6 - Managing technology

  • from Part 2 - Technology
  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 79-94

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Intranet managers are often in the position of having to use whatever technology is available, and often this is a WCMS application, and even a search application, that is being used for the organization's website. Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (often abbreviated to MOSS07) has been implemented by organizations as a generic information management and collaboration platform, and is often offered to the intranet manager as the solution to all their problems. Microsoft SharePoint 2010 is now available and organizations are in the process of deciding whether or not to upgrade, and when to do so.

    Provided that the WMCS and search applications meet the requirements of the intranet then it makes good business sense to gain the most from the investment. If this is not the case then the future development of the intranet can be seriously affected. Another technology issue that faces intranet managers is that increasingly the intranet is a gateway into other applications, and this can give rise to not only technology issues (which can usually be solved) but also information authentication and security management issues, which can be much more difficult to solve.

    Even if the intranet manager is not in total command of the technology platforms available the intranet needs to have a technology strategy so that the implications of changes in the applications available can be clearly determined, and the risks and benefits assessed.

    Web content management

    Although there is some commonality between presenting content on a website and on an intranet, there are also some significant differences. That does not mean that a CMS designed for website use, with sophisticated graphics management and built-in e-marketing and ecommerce applications, will not be suitable for an intranet, but it is unlikely that this will be the case. The main differences between an intranet and a website are described in the following sections.

    Distributed content contribution

    Websites are usually maintained by a core staff of specialists, either within the organization or at an agency, who take content from depart - ments of the organization and add it to the website. They become power users, very familiar with short cuts through the application, and often have a significant amount of technical expertise in HTML and XML.

  • 4 - Developing a content strategy

  • from Part 1 - Foundations
  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 41-60

  • Summary

    Introduction

    All too frequently content contribution to an intranet is best described as a ‘hobby’. Content is added as and when there are no other jobs that have a higher priority, by employees who have ended up with the task by default. There are usually no standards for content contribution, limited training and no rewards. Is it any wonder that one of the most frequent criticisms of an intranet is that there are too many out-of-date pages and a lot of duplication? An intranet can only ever be as good as the content that it contains, so developing a content strategy and making sure that it is complied with is the best single way of enhancing the value of an intranet.

    There is a lot of investment in information creation in an organization. In the 21st century virtually every employee is an information creator, even if that information is a quality check on a product before shipment. That quality check gets aggregated into the quality-management process and may well end up in a business intelligence application which is being accessed through the intranet. The salary bill of the company will approximate more or less to the investment being made in information creation. That is a very considerable amount of money, and the reason why an information management strategy is so important for any organization.

    Less is more

    Few intranet managers are able to state with any confidence just how many pages of content the intranet contains, but there are highly likely to be some 80/20 rules in operation, along the lines of:

  • • Only 80% of the content has any value, but no one knows which 80%.

  • • 20% of the content is dangerous, as it is out of date or inaccurate, but no one knows which 20%.

  • • 80% of the people who are supposed to own content on the intranet now have different jobs with different responsibilities, or have left the organization, but no one knows who they are.

    • Those may seem some very depressing figures, but in many cases the truth is even more depressing.

  • Part 2 - Planning and developing an e-book collection

  • Edited by Kate Price, Virginia Havergal
  • Book:
    E-books in Libraries
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 69-70

  • Summary

    Overview

    At a time when library and information services are under pressure through budget cuts, the need to maintain highly relevant, accessible and innovative services whilst ensuring cost-effectiveness is a major concern for library managers.

    Whilst e-formats provide the potential to extend services far beyond the walls of the library, planning and developing an e-book collection introduces complexities over and above those associated with traditional collection management. The authors contributing to this section discuss the introduction of e-books into their library services and highlight some of the issues that were addressed in the process.

    Martin Palmer (Chapter 5) of Essex Libraries asks what relevance ebooks have within the public library sector, offering cogent arguments both for and against e-book provision. Palmer reflects on the over-riding requirement to ensure that public libraries provide value-for-money services whilst considering the ways in which e-books can reach new audiences effectively, as well as offering practical guidance on matters from promotion to staffing.

    Karen Foster and Emma Ransley (Chapter 6) of Yeovil College discuss the strategic drivers that have influenced the ways in which FE has employed technology in teaching and learning over the last ten years, and explain how this has directly impacted upon the provision of e-books by learning resources centres. Foster and Ransley discuss the practicalities of managing an e-book collection within the further education environment, from selection to budget management.

    Jim Dooley (Chapter 7) of University of California, Merced, discusses the acquisition of e-books from the unique perspective of a new HE library that was created after the internet revolution. Dooley provides a clear picture of how the Merced collection has evolved, and describes the strategic, budgetary and staffing considerations that have influenced the management of e-books within the collaborative environment of California University Libraries.

  • 10 - Managing intranet projects

  • from Part 3 - Operational planning
  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 129-138

  • Summary

    Creating an operational plan for an intranet

    The definitive approach to intranet development is the 6 × 2 methodology developed by James Robertson of Step Two Designs.1 At the heart of the 6 × 2 methodology is a focus on the coming six months. Rather than just steadily working on longer-term activities, this approach asks: what can be delivered in the next six months? The focus is placed on identifying concrete deliverables that benefit the organization, rather than on activities that only prepare for future improvements or address behind-the-scenes issues. In this way, activities are identified that will have the greatest impact on the intranet and on the intranet team. This is, in effect, the use of ‘agile’ project management, with a time box of six months.

    Detailed project planning is used to ensure that the selected items are actually achievable, and that a clear sequence of activities is defined. The possible activities for the following six months are also sketched out (thus the 6 × 2 name), giving the intranet team a roadmap for the year ahead. All of this is then used to create a compelling briefing for senior manage - ment, as well as a communications message for the wider organization.

    This is a cyclical process, with each six-month period of activity leading into the next. Underlying this is a steady build-up of momentum for the intranet, giving an ‘upwards spiral’ that allows more to be done in each six-month period. In this way, the intranet team can steadily work on ever-larger needs and issues, even when the starting point is extremely constrained. It no longer needs to wait for the ‘right conditions’ to arise – instead, the team can act constructively and proactively to build an increasingly effective intranet.

    One of the key principles behind this approach to intranet planning is to focus on delivering new functionality and content. One very practical way of ensuring that the intranet is steadily moving forward in its capabilities is to give the site a version number. Start by giving the current intranet a version number. While necessarily somewhat arbitrary, this version number will define a starting point from which to measure future improvements. The following version numbers could be used:

  • • Version 1.0, if the intranet has been recently launched

  • • Version 2.0 or 3.0, if the intranet is well established

  • 3 - Making a business case

  • from Part 1 - Foundations
  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 25-40

  • Summary

    Introduction

    Any internal investment made by an organization will always need to be justified by a business case, especially in the current economic situation. Many organizations have a pro forma approach to investment cases that can be very difficult to adapt to the delivery of what, in essence, is an information service. This was the case with a major hospital in the UK where most of the investment was targeted at meeting performance targets for clinical excellence set out by the government. The entire pro forma was based around patient numbers and treatments and it was totally unsuitable for an investment into new web content management software for the intranet. There was general agreement at all levels in the hospital that the intranet was a valuable support tool, but the intranet manager was placed in the situation of not being able to show an auditable link between the investment and clinical performance – the alternative being to persuade the hospital trust that the investment pro forma needed to be rewritten.

    In this chapter a number of different ways of making a business case for an intranet are presented, all of which will need to be adapted to the way in which investment decisions are made by the board. Indeed, the initial step has to be to establish any rules for investment decisions before starting to prepare the business case, especially where the investment is for computer hardware and software. There are often levels of investment that can be signed off by an individual senior manager without having to go to the finance director and the board. Sometimes it pays to be pragmatic and to pitch the investment at a level where it does not need full board approval, as almost always in the intranet business some investment is better than none at all.

    The focus of this chapter is on making a near-term business case, perhaps for the next 6 to 12 months. Preparing a longer-term, perhaps three- or even five-year, strategy is covered in Chapter 17.

    All or something?

    One decision to be made at the outset is whether the best approach is to write a business case for the entire intranet or to take some specific elements of the intranet and use those to make such a good business case that everything else can be wrapped into it.

  • 9 - Establishing the intranet team

  • from Part 3 - Operational planning
  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 117-128

  • Summary

    Introduction

    There is now good evidence from both the report Global Intranet Trends1 and from the work of the Nielsen Norman Group that, ideally, there should be one full-time intranet manager for every 3000 users of the intranet. Most organizations would see this as an unattainable and unrealistic target at a time when they are making efforts to reduce employee numbers in an attempt to reduce costs. However, these organizations fail to recognize not only the role that the intranet manager plays in ensuring that the intranet is fit for purpose, but also that there is a distinct role of ‘intranet manager’. Indeed, in many organizations the ‘intranet manager’ may well have additional tasks and a job title that does not reflect the work they do in managing the intranet.

    It does not help that there is no professional organization to represent intranet managers, there is no structured training for intranet managers that would lead to some form of certification, and there is no obvious career path for an intranet manager. If the numbers of people with intranet management roles were small, this might be an acceptable situation, but the reality is different. In the UK, CILIP: the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals, has a membership of around 20,000. With at least 50,000 intranets in the UK it is quite possible that there are more intranet managers (either full time or part time) than there are information professionals. The situation is probably similar in many other countries. Even in the USA there is no association for intranet professionals.

    Hopefully, this situation will change. Certainly the advent of many informal groups of intranet managers is helping to establish good practice, and from their meetings intranet managers are able to gain ideas that they can use in their own organizations. From my attendance at these meetings, it is clear that many intranet managers tend to find themselves in their posts almost by accident. When a vacancy occurred they just happened to be able to take on the responsibility, and now enjoy the work that the position requires. However, many are now wondering how to develop their careers.

  • 17 - Developing an intranet strategy

  • from Part 4 - Governance and strategy
  • Martin White
  • Book:
    The Intranet Management Handbook
    Published by:
    Facet
    Published online:
    08 June 2018
    Print publication:
    20 February 2011, pp 199-206

  • Summary

    Introduction

    In Chapter 3 some of the considerations that need to be taken into account in writing a business plan for an intranet were set out, but the focus was on a tactical plan to be supported from the organization over perhaps the next financial year. Chapter 7, on selecting intranet CMS and search software, highlighted the potential need for a two-year perspective on funding the deployment of new software. This chapter takes an even longer-term view and looks at the benefits and challenges of preparing a two- or three-year strategy for an intranet.

    Even quite large intranets may not be operating within a strategic plan, and yet employees rely every working day on information accessed from the intranet. Even if an individual employee has not accessed the intranet, their work for the day may well have been defined by a manager or a colleague who has done so. In most organizations, in terms of both the quantity and essential nature of the information, the intranet will have grown invisibly over its life, which may well stretch over many years. Now, the intranet and the organization have reached a tipping point.

    The current economic situation means that:

  • • staff are being made redundant and walking out of the door with invaluable knowledge about the organization

  • • staff who remain may well have to expand the scope of their work to accommodate the redundancies, and so have to access and trust information that they are not familiar with

  • • past business performance is no longer an indicator of the future, and new approaches will be needed so as to maintain and enhance customer relationships

  • • where new members of staff are hired, they will need to come up to speed and make a significant contribution to the organization as quickly as possible

  • • investment in IT applications will be under intense scrutiny.

    • All these factors play on the strengths of an intranet, which, compared with most IT applications, requires little investment in hardware, software or development. Intranet managers will be faced with some challenging decisions in determining how best to prioritize development plans.

    One of the complications that besets intranet investment decisions is that the intranet is owned by a department – usually internal communications, IT or HR – on behalf of the organization, but that department has to maintain the intranet within its own departmental budget.

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