When will we be freed from the intranet?

January 9, 2008

From a knowledge management perspective Intranets are vital but so far inefficient. On one side, it is the only place where organizational information can be decentralized access 24/7. On the other side, the web behind the firewall is mostly top-down driven and hierarchical structured. The results are that only a tiny little fraction of social networking potential is possible and that most Intranets literally hinder possibilities to share knowledge.

Failure of Intranet
Well designed and managed Intranets cover most topics from an organization or company. However, if you look at the potential of social networking, knowledge sharing and learning, the internal web is in most cases failing terribly. Intranets represent top-down communication and no personal knowledge is offered, except for some neat yellow pages. Some companies already replaced their content management system with a wiki, where employees change things as they know better. Instead, the norm is content management system and useless work flows. So, person A writes a text, person B approves it, and person C publishes it. There is a higher chance to call some colleagues to get better information than finding it in the internal web. Thus, only a tiny fraction of what is really happening in an organization is offered. One consequence is that learning in an organization happens only outside the web.

The clash of cultures
There is a clash of culture between the Intranet sympathizers and those for open horizontal knowledge sharing. At the one end, there is the belief that information needs to be authoritatively managed and has to be standardized. Intranets often represent the wish of all relevant knowledge could be codified. At the other end, there is the belief that IT knowledge management solutions have to change, and emphasis should be on social networking. The read-write or collaborative web finally offers to the employees to use what fits best their needs. This, of course, changes the picture of what is happening in an organization. Intranets are planed mostly by small teams and too little focused is on the real needs of employees. Why do not let employees create their internal web then?

It will come anyway
I think the classical Intranet — a neat little homepage with different topics, a representation of each department, some yellow pages and maybe a document management system — is history in a few years. Having the three click blog installation, easy collaboration through wikis and web based office products, and be able to connect in own networks will completely burr the lines between the Intranet and Internet. For so many work related tasks, tools are already freely available in the internet and employees will sooner or later take use of that on a massive scale. It will come anyway and it surely might be a bit chaotic to some extent. But, which meeting is consistent, purely orientated on knowledge sharing and learning in your organization? Furthermore, it is a big chance in an organizational setting because it can deepen already existing work relations in an even more trusted environment.

Downsides

  • Obviously, one danger is that all information, conversation and ideas are spread over the internet. How can you find out about what your colleague is doing? The internal search engines does not grasp it and again the possible transparency and exchange is lost because of too many tools in too many places.
  • In the beginning it does need a learning phase of how to use each tool best. The key is to bring the right mixture of tools together, which fits best to the organizational culture.
  • A holistic approach is important, otherwise social software leads to an information overload. Therefore filters, feeds and consistency are decisive.
  • Social software depends heavily on its employee’s engagement, contrary to conventional Intranets. If there is no motivation, then better stick to the old Intranet.
  • Web knowledge sharing can be very efficient, but it does not replace direct face to face communication.

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Comments

5 Comments so far

  1. Joitske on January 10, 2008 9:54 am

    But there is also intranet 2.0 see the link in my blogpost here http://joitskehulsebosch.blogspot.com/2007/09/organisation-20.html

  2. Johannes on January 11, 2008 8:46 am

    You know how much I would like to agree with your vision, as I am meanwhile a strong fan of wikis and social networks. However, let me play devil’s advocate here. I think the top-down intranet will not die out soon, but will rather be accompanied by flat social software components. Because at some point everyone is just tired of making decisions and rating content and just wants to ‘consume’ authoritative information he/she can rely on. It’s probably similar to the prophecy of the extinction of classical TV programs in favor of interativce TV on demand (where users could even chose camera angles or vote on content). Some actually like it, but in the end, we just don’t have the energy to make decisions all the time. Of course we can see a culture change happening in theset times and maybe at one point we will indeed all be open and social. But I don’t think it’s a given and if it will happen, this is a change process that will probably take much longer than we as current Web 2.0 fans would wish for.

  3. ckreutz on January 13, 2008 11:47 pm

    @Johannes yes you might be right that classical intranets will continue to be that way because they are an equivalent to the organizational structure. But I contradict that only authoritative information is the one you can rely on. In contrary especially an organizational setting would allow to use a wiki because there is a higher trust and better mechanism to verify information. In a company with a wiki intranet I read about, the CEO found a great entry he liked very much. It was very innovative and so he tried to find out who wrote it. He was surprised it was a secretary. So when do we start to unleash the full potential of employees?

  4. Crafting an Intranet 2.0: If you build it, will they come? « Web Tastings on April 11, 2008 7:45 pm

    […] caused some to predict that the lines between intranet and internet will become blurred and that the “classical intranet” will become history in a few years. At IFPRI, we are banking on such predictions coming true, taking stock in the idea that if […]

  5. Katja on June 7, 2008 1:14 pm

    I agree with the former writers. I think you can have the classical intranet reflecting the organisational structure and presenting the policies, rules, missions and visions of the organisation. You can also have the free intranet where everyone can express their opinion, publish information, build up new pages, start new projects, find new partners, write articles and project plans collaboratively… You can have these two alongside in one intranet. In the organisation I’m studying, they have managed this with a wiki-intranet. It has made a tremendous difference for the internal communication and collaboration opportunities. I think these kind of intranets are the future.

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