Intranets in 2011: A turning point - highlights from the Global Intranet Trends

A few days ago Jane McConnell of NetStrategy/JMC blogged on the highlights of her just released 2011 Global Intranet Trends report,you can read that blog posting here:


Intranets in 2011: A turning point


Jane says she has so many highlights to discuss, she has written 3 posts, but go to that link to start your journey.


To get your own copy of the report and make your own analysis of the trends, or to sign up for next years survey hop on over to: http://www.global-intranet-trends.com/


I will just give one direct quote from Jane's blog post: 

"An over-arching strategy for the intranet, collaboration and social media is a pre-requisite for ensuring a  coherent and effective “workplace web”"


Well amen to that ! As I have said for a long time, especially when I was a consultant working for clients who would normally hire us under the auspices of the internal communications group or department, your strategy must be holistic. If Communications 'owns' the "traditional" intranet (the publishing platform), IT owns the 'collaboration platform' and HR owns the 'self service' applications, then each has an important stake in the workplace web, and the governance structure must include all these departments (and possibly more, depending on the organization). 


This does not automatically mean analysis paralysis is the name of the game, with governance by committee tacking on a highly bureaucratic "we talk a lot, but achieve very little" feel to it. With a clear governance framework, a high level (VP, Director etc) committee should be able to agree on strategy, with the chair of the committee signing of on it and then passing down to those who do the work to execute the strategy. 


This links in to trends for intranet staff - and the questions about what exactly is the role of "Intranet Manager" and what is evolving into ? The Intranet Manager needs to be an organizer, a project manager capable of liaising between the different stakeholder departments, someone who can form the relationships needed to get things done and enable the holistic strategy - sounds like fun role to me !

Where ECM fits in the bigger information management picture

I have just spent a busy and very, very interesting week at the head offices of a global client, who of course can not be named, assisting in the formulation of their KM strategy by undertaking a review of thier ECM program. This prompted a little graphic artistry on my part, (well since I got my MBA years ago, I like to draw concepts......)

Anyway, Knowledge Management being a bit of a fuzzy term, it can depend on your personal business context to put it into perspective, but this diagram is meant as a summary of sorts, showing what I consider to be 4 main contributing factors, with just a few of the main factors added around the periphery (click on the graphic for a larger version and feel to share under the Creative Commons, the image is tagged):

So where does ECM fit into this picture. Well its in the conjunction of Information Management and Information & Communications Technologies, exactly where the arrow labelled "efficiency benefits" is pointing !

I look at this way, those that believe in Knowledge Management as a concept generally agree that it is enable by good information management. In its turn content management is about the stewardship of unstructured information, in other words that which does not easily fit into the rows and columns of a relational database. In other words, an ECM strategy can be a vital part of a broader KM strategy.

So should you be rushing out and investing lots of money in shiny new ECM software during the downturn? Well maybe, or you could focus on the management of your information assets, your intellectual property, which is often one of your most valuable sources of competitive advantage. You can do much to improve information management without investing in new platforms, by investing in staff development and education (note thats generic IM education - not 'training' for a specific piece of software!). However if you do have good enough cashflow to be able to invest in software, now would be a good to time to negotiate a good deal from vendors who also need to safeguard thier own cashflow. Of course developing a good business case and ROI arguements for better provisioning the management of your vitally important information is going to be even more important, but whether your ECM requirements are focused on up-front scanning, document and records management, or digital asset and web content (or all of them!) ECM technologies can also help you make the most of your storage environment and your investments in 'tin' via single instane storage, automated retention and disposal and even heirarchical storage management.

So whether your goals are improved efficiency overall, revving up a sagging ECM strategy, or 'knowledge enabling' your organisation, now is as good a time as any to consider your strategies and Prescient Digital Media can assist you in your strategising!