[webproducers] Re: Intranet Functionalities, Do's and Don'ts
From: Andrew Horwitz <amhnyc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: webproducers@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Wed, 1 May 2002 14:09:00 -0400
that list of do's and don'ts seems pretty right on.
at my last company they built this huge intranet with all these
superfluous bells & whistles (humorous content, city guides, "for
sale" bulletin boards, etc.). It seemed like a cool idea, but since
there was no solid functional component nobody used it. The only
thing anybody used the intranet for was to look people up in the
employee directory (it had pictures, so you could finally see what
that guy in the London office actually looked like).
Everyone complained that it didn't have the basic functions it should
have: document sharing, project progress reports, scheduling,
calendars.
They put the employee guidelines up there (handbook, benefits,
philosophy) but it was very counterintuitive.
Also, the intranet looked a lot like the client extranet, which led
to a lot of confusion among people who weren't web-savvy (and,
surprisingly, there are still a lot of those people.)
The one thing they got right was having content managers for the
sections. While its good to have lots of people who are authors, some
sections will devolve into chaos without some sort of hierarchy about
who approves what ends up on the intranet.
Also, have you thought about file-naming conventions and so forth?
I found that it can be very difficult to educate users on how to take
advantage of intranets. People tend to stick with their idiosyncratic
filing systems and are reluctant to adopt something new.
So I'm thinking all your planning should anticipate chaos and try and
make it manageable.
Just my $.02.
-Andy
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