Intranet discussion forums are an often used mechanism within organisations. While they are implemented using a variety of tools and technologies, they all serve the same basic purpose of supporting communication and discussion. In practice, however, many discussion forums fail to prosper, with few (if any) posts being made to them. In other cases, discussion groups are hailed as great successes. This article explores the differences between these experiences, and introduces two critical success factors for intranet discussion forums: a clear purpose, and a common community. Many names, same goal Intranet discussion forums may be called many things, including: bulletin

The intranet needs to have a strong brand, a sense of identity that, at a basic level, distinguishes it from the public website and other…

This article explains a quick and effective technique for assessing whether your home page is an effective gateway to site content.

Time and time again in my workshops, I see the same issues come up regarding the role of IT and the ownership of intranets. This is expressed in phrases such as: "We handed the intranet back to the corporate communications team, and it was a disaster." "We've tried handing back sections of the intranet to the business, but they just aren't interested." "We can't get business areas to take responsibility for updating their own areas." "Once we delivered the intranet to the business, we've had real problems." These all reflect a fundamental mistake made by some IT areas, which boils

Innovative Trusted Productive Useful Pervasive Usable Essential Collaborative Coherent Strategic [CM Briefing 2006-08, read the full article]

When an intranet isn't working effectively, many organisations attempt to tackle the problem with a full-scale redesign of the site or the implementation of a content management system. But these major projects can create as many issues as they resolve: they are time-consuming to specify and implement they often involve the acquisition of new technology there is no guarantee they will address the real issues major IT projects don't have a good track record of being successful Rather than embarking on a major project at the first sign of trouble, consider tactical solutions such as the redesign of the home

Rather than embarking on a major project at the first sign of problems, consider tactical solutions such as the redesign of the home page.

This article outlines nine steps that can be taken by all intranet teams to improve the effectiveness of search, covering both design and under-the-hood changes.

This article provides 10 words that describe successful intranets, including: innovative, productive and collaborative.

The goal of many intranets is to deliver high quality, up-to-date, accurate and useful information to staff. In practice, however, this can be challenging to achieve. Much is expected of intranet authors, and they are vital to delivering an intranet that is useful (and used). Yet, in many cases, intranet authoring is treated as a hobby within organisations. This briefing looks at the role of intranet authors, and challenges organisations to either take intranet authoring seriously, or to let go of unrealistic expectations regarding content quality and timeliness. Is intranet authoring a hobby? There are a number of clear signs