Four steps to cure a stale intranet

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Four steps to cure a stale intranet

Thursday, July 28, 2005

If employees feel their intranet is irrelevant, they stop using it. And if they stop using it, there's little incentive to update it. The intranet grows stale. Here's how to cure it:

STEP 1: Get fresh content
Until you complete steps 2 and 3, commit to publishing a new, relevant article to the home page every single day.

STEP 2: Build a killer app
A killer application is so useful that it brings users back again and again. It could be an employee directory, the weather forecast, a timesheet, or a cafeteria menu.

STEP 3: Make everyone an editor
To ensure your intranet is never stale again, give every single employee the ability to contribute content (see my articles on Collaborative Intranets and Bob Buckman)

STEP 4: Make the intranet the home page
Make the intranet unavoidable by setting it as the home page on every employee's web browser.

If this all sounds good, but you've got no time, I know a consultant who can do each step for you. :)

About the Author

I'm Chris McGrath, an intranet consultant in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. I've been working on intranets since 1997, and on plain ol' web sites for even longer. I run One Intranets, the firm that co-created ThoughtFarmer -- an enterprise collaboration platform for Windows-based intranets.