bridging the intranet adoption chasm

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Page 1: Bridging the intranet adoption chasm
Page 2: Bridging the intranet adoption chasm
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CONTENTS

1 AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY 3.

REASONS TO LOG ON:ENGAGING THE CONSERVATIVES AND SCEPTICS

13. 2

REASONS TO RETURN:KEEPING THE PRAGMATISTS COMING BACK

19. 3

REASONS TO LEAD:APPEALING TO THE ENTHUSIASTS & VISIONARIES

27. 4

REASONS TO SPONSOR:GAINING WHOLEHEARTED SUPPORT FROM MANAGEMENT

43.6

WAYS TO ADVOCATE:CREATING AND MAINTAINING THE BUZZ

35. 5

SMALLWORLDERS INTRANET ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK:PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

51. 7

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1AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

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WHY SO MANY INTRANETS FAIL

You have just launched a brand new site. All the bells and whistles are there. Every feature you could possibly implement and everything your research said anybody could possibly want to do. Plus a few extra cool things you once saw at a conference.

The first few days look good. Lots of people are logging on. Usage statistics are great. The stakeholders’ hopes are high that before long, this site will be the buzzing information and social hub of the company.

AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY 04.

FIGURE: SLOW ADOPTION CURVE

But after a week or two the usage starts to level off, and after a month it’s reduced to a slow trickle. By your first bi-annual review the usage remains low, and you are left wondering where to go from here.

So, what just happened?

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05.

To begin to unpack the behaviour of our usage curve, we start with Everett M Rogers’ 1962 Technology Adoption Lifecycle. This theory postulates that any new technology will follow a similar adoption pattern from Innovators through to Laggards.

In 1991, Geoffrey A Moore extended Rogers’ theory in the context of high-tech products, and associated five personality groups with the five adoption groups. In order of adoption speed, these personality groups are: Enthusiasts, Visionaries, Pragmatists, Conservatives and finally, Sceptics.

FIGURE: TECHNOLOGY ADOPTION LIFECYCLE

AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

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By applying these personality groups to our failed intranet launch, we can start to explore what happened.

During the first week or two after launch, the Enthusiasts, Visionaries, Pragmatists and perhaps even the Conservatives showed a bit of interest. The Enthusiasts and the Visionaries logged on, saw some cool features they liked, set up their profile, added all their colleagues to their contacts list and started working out how this new site would fit into their day-to-day jobs.

The Pragmatists logged on and saw a site packed full of features, assumed their intended use would become apparent over

time and then logged off, waiting for when they would be required to log back on.

The Conservatives may have logged on, seen a site full of stuff they see no point in and immediately logged off again, hoping nothing would interfere with their existing, comfortable routines.

A week or two after launch and the only people left using the site are the Enthusiasts and the Visionaries.

Moore identified this pattern of behaviour and called it the Adoption Chasm.

06.

FIGURE: ADOPTION CHASM

AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

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Let’s take for granted that the launch of any new intranet will be accompanied by an initial spike in usage. Let us then focus on the usage pattern after this initial spike. If usage remains nothing more than a slow trickle of Enthusiasts and Visionaries, you have failed to engage the Pragmatists and Conservatives and have fallen foul of the adoption chasm.

07.

FIGURE: UN-BRIDGED ADOPTION CHASM

AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

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So how can we stop this from happening? How can we turn our usage graph into this instead?

To do this we must find ways to engage the Pragmatists, Conservatives and Sceptics.

08.

FIGURE: BRIDGED ADOPTION CHASM

AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

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UNDERSTANDING HUMAN BEHAVIOUR

To bridge the adoption chasm, we must first understand a bit more about why people behave in the ways they do. With this understanding we can begin to formulate a plan to better engage the Pragmatists, Conservatives and Sceptics.

To help us we turn to Abraham Maslow’s 1943 Hierarchy of Needs. Maslow states we are all governed by a hierarchy of needs which must be satisfied in order to achieve personal fulfilment and wellbeing. Our most basic needs are at the bottom and our more aspirational needs sit at the top.

Maslow states that we cannot focus on a particular stratum in the hierarchy unless we have first satisfied all the supporting strata.

In 2013, Aaron Kim, Head of the Digital Social Collaboration Centre of Excellence at Royal Bank of Canada, made a connection between the hierarchy of needs and technology adoption. He noticed that the five personality groups in the technology adoption lifecycle could be loosely identified with the five strata in the hierarchy of needs:

09.

FIGURE: MASLOW’S HIERARCHY OF NEEDS

AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

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Overlaying the two theories highlights motivations behind adoption behaviour.

The Sceptics and the Conservatives will be motivated to use a site only when their survival or wellbeing are at risk. In other words, the site must offer functionality that is essential for their day-to-day work. Anything less and they are unlikely to log on beyond an initial visit at launch.

The Pragmatists will use a site if it’s useful and adds practical value to their day-to-day work. The site should contain functionality that makes their work lives easier or more enjoyable.

You can appeal to the Visionaries and the Enthusiasts by giving them opportunities within the site for prestige and recognition.

You should then use all the tools at your disposal to seed interest across the organisation. This is done with a mixture of traditional messages and a strategy to create and maintain buzz around the intranet.

Finally, you must ground the entire intranet project on wholehearted support from management. You can do this by presenting how the intranet will benefit the organisation, in other words, demonstrating return on investment (ROI). This will ensure proper resources and funding are made available for both the initial development as well as the ongoing maintenance of the site.

10.AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

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To summarise:

1. PROVIDE REASONS TO LOG ON For the Sceptics and Conservatives the

site needs to be essential for day-to-day business.

2. PROVIDE REASONS TO RETURN For the Pragmatists the site needs to be

worth returning to.

3. PROVIDE REASONS TO LEAD For the Enthusiasts and Visionaries the

site should provide opportunities for prestige and recognition.

These building blocks are the core 3 principles of intranet engagement.

You then need a communications strategy to spread the word to the furthest reaches of the organisation:

4. PROVIDE WAYS TO ADVOCATEPropagate momentum throughout the organisation by leveraging the Enthusiasts, Visionaries and senior management as well as traditional messaging techniques.

Finally, strong building blocks must be built on solid foundations:

5. PROVIDE REASONS TO SPONSORSecure wholehearted support from management.

SMALLWORLDERS’ INTRANET ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK

11.AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

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The key to bridging the adoption chasm is one of momentum: staff will use the site if they think that everybody else is using the site.

Capturing the natural buzz around a newly-launched site and turning it into ongoing enthusiasm is the key difference between a highly engaged intranet and a digital wasteland.

The SmallWorlders Intranet Engagement Framework represents a thorough, 360° approach to engaging all personality types within an organisation. If properly executed it will keep the momentum and excitement high enough to turn the post-launch usage spike into a healthy, increasing usage pattern for the future.

12.AN INTRODUCTION TO INTRANET ENGAGEMENT THEORY

ENTHUSIASTS

PRAGMATISTS

VISIONARIES

CONSERVATIVES

SCEPTICS

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REASONS TO LOG ON:

ENGAGING THE CONSERVATIVES AND SCEPTICS

2

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INTRODUCTION

ENGAGING THE CONSERVATIVES AND SCEPTICS

We saw in the previous chapter that bridging the adoption chasm requires an intranet built around the needs and personalities of various groups within the organisation.

As a quick reminder, the groups are: Enthusiasts, Visionaries, Pragmatists, Conservatives and Sceptics. Each group is progressively more resistant to new technologies. In this chapter I will discuss how to engage the most resistant of these groups: the Conservatives and the Sceptics.

Conservatives and Sceptics are instinctively resistant to change and won’t want to start using a new site. In order to persuade them to adopt the new technology, provide functionalities and features essential for their work which cannot be accessed anywhere else.

If the intranet is the only place to perform certain tasks, an opportunity is created to expose these resistant adopters to new ways of working.

14.

Business-essential functions provide the bread and butter of any intranet’s engagement potential.

In other words, give employees Reasons To Log On.

REASONS TO LOG ON:ENGAGING THE CONSERVATIVES AND SCEPTICS

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FINDING REASONS TO LOG ONA few features providing reasons to log on:

• Employee directory: An effective and simple to use person-finder makes an essential organisational tool. The key is to make sure it’s the only person finder tool employees can use. If this is not possible then it must be the most comprehensive, accurate and easy-to-use person finder tool in the organisation.

• Reference repository: Governance documents, codes of practice and other organisational reference material can be placed exclusively on the intranet.

• Employee induction materials: From the very outset, new employees can use the intranet as their basis for orientation and induction.

• Help & support: Technical support, support from other departments (Finance, HR) can be managed within the intranet environment. If an employee has a problem, “go to the intranet for help and support” should be the default response.

• Transactional systems: Booking leave, expense claims, meeting room booking, event registration, form submissions, and so on.

15.

FIND EMPLOYEE

John Do

Lorem IpsumCompany

REASONS TO LOG ON:ENGAGING THE CONSERVATIVES AND SCEPTICS

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COMMUNICATIONS: INTRANET VS EMAILS

Many organisations suffer from corporate email overload. Possible reasons for this:

• Senior Management have a lot to communicate

• Groups of employees are hard to segment, so emails relevant for certain staff get sent to everyone.

Key problems with communicating every message via email:

• Employees start to ignore emails (email “blindness”)

• Emails get lost in overfull inboxes, and there is no guarantee that the contents are read

• Communications managers spend all their time composing and sending emails to middle management, who then spend more time emailing their teams

• Relevant communications aren’t easily retrieved once buried in an inbox

Imagine if an organisation simply removed email as an internal communications channel. Instead, all messages and announcements are delivered via a newsfeed on the intranet homepage. This newsfeed is personalised to each employee, based on tags assigned to the news items by the author. The most important items are highlighted as banner content. Where appropriate, commenting is made available. New items link to older, related content to provide context. Questions are asked and

answered publicly on the site so responses only have to be provided once.

So now employees engage with corporate communications by logging on to the intranet. Furthermore, messages are available to all levels within the organisation simultaneously. It is now in the interest of management to monitor the intranet newsfeeds so that they remain as informed as their staff.

An internal communications manager once did just that: shut down all centre-out emails and moved internal comms exclusively onto the intranet. After a week, she had middle management on the phone asking why all their team members knew about things before they did. After a month, all middle management and employees regularly logged onto the intranet to stay informed.

In addition to the obvious boost to the intranet, she was able to spend more time on her other responsibilities and less time passing on communications from the top down. What’s more, by allowing for comments on articles she opened up a two-way communications channel with staff.

16.REASONS TO LOG ON:ENGAGING THE CONSERVATIVES AND SCEPTICS

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REMOVING BARRIERSOf all the different user groups, the Conservatives and the Sceptics will be the first to give up if a task becomes difficult. To avoid this, special care must be taken with Reasons To Log On functionalities to ensure visibility is high and access is as simple as possible.

Put key functionality into high level menus or shortcuts from the homepage. And use great UX to make it obvious how to use the functionality, rather than providing detailed user instructions.

Do this and the Conservatives and Sceptics will be pleasantly surprised. Fail to do this and their fears and worries about the intranet will be confirmed.

17.REASONS TO LOG ON:ENGAGING THE CONSERVATIVES AND SCEPTICS

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CONCLUSIONS

In order to establish a base level of intranet engagement, and win over the Conservatives and the Sceptics, intranet planners should seek to include functions and features that:

• Are essential for employees’ jobs (daily or otherwise)• Can only be found on the intranet• Are easy to access and easy to use

A case should be made to move other systems exclusively onto the intranet, including transactional or communication functions.

Do this and you will be well on your way to a highly engaged intranet.

REASONS TO LOG ON:ENGAGING THE CONSERVATIVES AND SCEPTICS 18.

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REASONS TO RETURN:

KEEPING THE PRAGMATISTS COMING BACK

3

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INTRODUCTION

Pragmatists are not actively resistant to new technologies, but neither do they gravitate naturally towards them. They will go to the intranet if they see a need to do so, but more importantly if they are given reasons to come back they will become loyal and regular consumers of the technology.

For these users we need to ensure that the site satisfies three rules:

1. The site must be useful2. The site must be interesting3. The site must be likeable

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MAKING AN INTRANET USEFULThis sounds like an obvious requirement for an intranet, but “useful” can be very subjective. It will mean different things to different staff members. For an employee to find functionality useful it must enhance their own work life in some way.

Some “useful” functionalities may overlap with Reasons To Log On, but in general these are not essential for day-to-day business.

Think about personalising the site structure for different types of users – not just personalising content. Personalised navigation and personalised homepage features will help provide different users with their own set of useful features.

If this degree of personalisation is not an option then consider which features provide the greatest direct benefit to the greatest number of users.

Some examples include:

• Team rooms or private collaboration areas• “Ask a question” areas• Best practice libraries• Corporate logos and basic design

guidelines• News feeds• Tools & toolkits• Acronym busters• Office how-to guides • Registration for internal events

21.REASONS TO RETURN:KEEPING THE PRAGMATISTS COMING BACK

TEAM ROOMS

BEST PRACTICELIBRARIES

ASK A QUESTION

TOOLS & TOOLKITS

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MAKING AN INTRANET INTERESTING

An “interesting” intranet is worth returning to regularly. There are three key aspects to creating an interesting intranet:

• Turnover• Relevancy• Evolution

22.REASONS TO RETURN:KEEPING THE PRAGMATISTS COMING BACK

REGULAR TURNOVER OF CONTENT

As a general rule, users should never see the same homepage twice. Assuming a typical user logs on to the intranet every day or two, then the turnover of content should be just as frequent.

This can be achieved in various ways: • User activity: An easy way to achieve an

ever-changing homepage is to include an activity feed. It needs no maintenance and will constantly provide something new to regular visitors.

• User generated content: Surface relevant user generated content on the homepage.

• Editorialised content: Some intranets have dedicated content producers creating high-quality editorialised content. If you are lucky enough to have this level of resourcing, feature the content prominently on the homepage. Regularly published, good quality content is a great asset to have. Flaunt it.

• News: If your intranet has a communications aspect then make sure there is a news feed, promotional feature

piece or carousel on the homepage. Use eye-catching visuals.

To turn good intentions into real content your intranet will need a content calendar. And this calendar should sit within your organisation’s broader internal communications plan to ensure it is both relevant and given due emphasis.

The schedule should show the expected frequency of regular content (blogs, news articles, editorialised content) as well as anticipated content peaks throughout the year (AGMs, awards ceremonies, strategic plan submission deadlines). The calendar should allow time for content creation and upload, not just publishing dates. It’s also advisable to add in dates for content coercion - i.e. reminding and motivating content creators! Adherence to the schedule should be monitored closely by the intranet manager. And of course the schedule should be available on the intranet itself.

A good turnover of content will reinforce the intranet as the source of the latest information within the organisation.

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PERSONALLY RELEVANT

Another way to make an intranet “interesting” is to make it personally relevant to each user. As well as personalising the navigation and homepage layout, the content itself can be personalised.

The degree of personalisation will often depend on your technology, but in general content can be personalised according to:

• Geography• Job role• Interests• Learned behaviour

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CONTINUOUS EVOLUTION

Not an option for every intranet, but the idea of continuous evolution has become the standard for websites in recent years. Think of Google or Facebook. On an almost monthly basis they make small incremental changes to their sites, meaning the site interfaces never feel outdated. In addition there is rarely any opposition to new features and designs because the differences between each iteration are so small.

In the intranet context, continuous evolution may mean adjustments to page layouts or navigational structure based on learnings from ongoing UX research. It can also mean the inclusion of new features and the removal of under-used features.

The removal of obsolete content is also important; there’s no need to display five versions of a policy document when only one version is intended for use. Regular content audits and content purges help prevent sites becoming bloated with superceded information.

One corporate intranet had a particularly brutal approach to this problem: every 12 months they automatically deleted the content across the entire site. The only way to protect content from this purge was for authors to re-validate their content in advance.

This method may appear extreme but it worked very well - only current and important content was renewed and the intranet was never encumbered with old, out-of-date information.

Evolution of the Heinken BrandPortal2008 - 2014

24.REASONS TO RETURN:KEEPING THE PRAGMATISTS COMING BACK

2010

2014

2008

2012

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MAKING AN INTRANET LIKEABLE

EASY TO USE

It’s all very well making an intranet packed full of useful features and interesting content, but if the presentation is poor it will not appeal to the Pragmatists. The intranet must have “likeability”.

Likeability boils down to two things. The intranet must be:

• Easy to use• Fun to use

Employ usability tools and techniques to make sure the site is simple and easy to understand. Users expect functionality to be straightforward and obvious. The site structure and the page layouts should also be clear and well thought out.

There are dedicated websites and books which cover this topic in detail.

FUN TO USEThe site should be nicely designed, easy on the eyes, slick and glossy. This will add sparkle and fun to the user experience and ensure that the site is well perceived. Your staff will be familiar with well-designed websites and apps they use outside of work, and the intranet should be no different.

25.REASONS TO RETURN:KEEPING THE PRAGMATISTS COMING BACK

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CONCLUSIONS

A vital component to any intranet engagement strategy, the Reasons To Return are designed to appeal to the Pragmatists within the organisation. If we give them a site that satisfies the three standards of:

• Usefulness• Interest• Likeability

Then we are providing a site that not only supports, but enhances their daily routines. Get it right, and we can be confident they will return to the site on a regular basis. With the Pragmatists engaged we can look forward to watching usage levels grow.

26.REASONS TO RETURN:KEEPING THE PRAGMATISTS COMING BACK

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REASONS TO LEAD:

APPEALING TO THE ENTHUSIASTS & VISIONARIES

4

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INTRODUCTION

Visionaries and Enthusiasts need little encouragement to become engaged In the first place, but if we provide them opportunities for recognition and prestige they will easily become the site superusers - i.e. those responsible for much of the user-generated content and visible activity.

So how do we appeal to these people beyond the measures outlined in the Reasons To Log On and Reasons To Return? To appeal to the Enthusiasts and the Visionaries, we should provide opportunities for:

• Contribution• Visibility• Leadership

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CONTRIBUTIONOpportunities to contribute are key to offering the prestige that Enthusiasts and Visionaries are looking for. Contribution helps establish them as a visible presence on the site (see next the section, Visibility).

There is a spectrum of opportunities to contribute on a platform such as an intranet.

The Visionaries will be quite happy with basic social features such as:

• Commenting• Liking• Rating/voting

The Enthusiasts may be tempted to engage in more high-level contribution features such as:

• Posting articles• Discussion forums

29.

KELLY MARTINS

JOHN PHILIPS

has commented on Annual Report 2015

has uploaded a new article Sustainability Report 2015

Jan 01

Dec 15

13

11

5

Dec 15

REASONS TO LEAD:APPEALING TO THE ENTHUSIASTS & VISIONARIES

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VISIBILITYTo appeal to the Visionaries and Enthusiasts, include the contributor’s profile picture wherever possible. Visionaries and Enthusiasts enjoy the recognition gained by their visual presence on news and activity feeds.

Opportunities to show the user’s picture include:

• Comments• Article authorship• Lists of most active users• Lists of latest posts

We work with an innovation community where a monthly email newsletter is sent to all members. In each issue we include a section called “Innovator of the Month”, where a prominent contributor is named and publicly thanked for their efforts and dedication.

30.

VANESSA MICHAELSPROJECT MANAGER

Vanessa has been a part of the ABC company for 25 years as a project manager for international clients.

Send Message Add to Contacts

Articles19 31

Comments12

Followers15

Following

This kind of visibility and recognition is extremely well received by the featured users, and they often go on to become even more prolific as a result of their special mention.

We also do something similar for a global marketing agency where an office is featured in “Office of the Month”. Besides helping the agency get to know their own network, the initiative encourages competition between the offices to ensure their office profiles, staff profiles, content and case studies are up-to-date, useful and entertaining.

REASONS TO LEAD:APPEALING TO THE ENTHUSIASTS & VISIONARIES

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LEADERSHIP

LEADING CONVERSATIONS

Enthusiasts will demonstrate leadership through offering skills, opinions or knowledge to other users on the site.

There are three main types of leadership opportunities:

• Leading conversations• Supporting other users• Being an ambassador

A chance to lead a conversation holds great appeal for Enthusiasts.

To generate such chances, offer ways to create self-service teams or groups around particular topics. The group creator can then manage their members and facilitate the conversations.

Blogs provide another opportunity to lead conversations. Give a knowledgeable user a blog and they will have a channel to start conversations and promote their areas of interest.

A community manager from Bosch offered blogs to staff who had an interesting proposal for a blog topic and were able to

commit a small amount of their time.

The blogs were limited in number so it was considered something of a distinction to have one.

Every month the community manager would encourage some of the senior management to read the blog posts and leave comments. The bloggers were suitably delighted with the comments from senior staff on their posts. And the managers enjoyed the opportunity to have conversations with highly engaged individuals within their organisation.

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32.REASONS TO LEAD:APPEALING TO THE ENTHUSIASTS & VISIONARIES

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SUPPORTING OTHERS AMBASSADORIAL OPPORTUNITIES

Enthusiasts with particular skills or knowledge will be happy to share their expertise with others, so opportunities to answer questions or post to forums will appeal.

As discussed previously, one reason to return for Pragmatists is the opportunity to ask questions, or view questions others had asked. The other half of this feature is right here with the Enthusiasts - answering the questions raised.

Our Enthusiast superusers are the perfect target group for ambassador networks. This will be discussed in Chapter 5: Creating and Maintaining the Buzz - Ways to Advocate.

33.REASONS TO LEAD:APPEALING TO THE ENTHUSIASTS & VISIONARIES

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CONCLUSIONS

The features described in this chapter will appeal predominantly to Enthusiasts and Visionaries. So while they might make up some of the more interesting aspects of your intranet, they cannot be relied upon for site-wide engagement.

A few years back when social features first became fashionable for intranets, I worked on a site where the focus of the homepage was a large activity feed. All sorts of social activities were encouraged: commenting, liking, rating, sharing, posting etc. The site launched with great fanfare and very quickly the homepage feed filled up with a constant stream of activity. However, despite the appearance of bustling activity, the visitor numbers were low. The actual visitors were an active but very small group of individuals.

We had successfully engaged the Enthusiasts and Visionaries with fun social features

and forgotten about the Pragmatists, Conservatives and Sceptics. A redesign of the homepage gave much more focus to Reasons To Log On and Reasons To Return, and after the relaunch we established a much more sustainable userbase.

When social features are used to enhance (but not define) a site, they are an effective way of fulfilling the Enthusiasts and Visionaries without dismissing the Pragmatists, Conservatives and Sceptics.

However, get the balance of social features wrong and you could be left staring into the adoption chasm.

34.REASONS TO LEAD:APPEALING TO THE ENTHUSIASTS & VISIONARIES

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CREATING AND MAINTAINING THE BUZZ

5WAYS TO ADVOCATE:

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INTRODUCTION

I have discussed how to engage the Pragmatists, Conservatives and Sceptics. However, we still need some extra help spreading the word to these users in the first place. This is where the next element of intranet engagement comes in: the Ways To Advocate.

The launch of a new site always creates a certain amount of buzz, primarily amongst the Enthusiasts and Visionaries. With an advocation strategy we aim to spread the word beyond these groups to ensure that the maximum number of people are encouraged to visit the site and see what all the fuss is about.

There are 3 parts to a good advocation strategy:

• Traditional communications• Ambassador network (YES! team)• Senior management involvement

36.WAYS TO ADVOCATE:CREATING AND MAINTAINING THE BUZZ

There has been a lot written on the subject of traditional communications, so I will not discuss this channel here. Instead I will focus on the other two channels.

Two points to note:

• The results of an advocation strategy should appear spontaneous and user-driven, even though they have been centrally choreographed

• Eventually the advocation strategy must evolve from creating momentum to maintaining it.

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YES! TEAMA YES! Team is a network of ambassadors or champions for your site, and a vital tool for the ongoing management of communities, especially within large organisations.

37.WAYS TO ADVOCATE:CREATING AND MAINTAINING THE BUZZ

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IDENTIFICATION & RECRUITMENT

Members of your YES! Team are recruited largely from the Enthusiasts and Visionaries, but could be from any of the personality groups. In fact, sometimes the greatest ambassadors are former Sceptics who have had the benefits of the site successfully demonstrated and subsequently turned into powerful advocates.

As a general rule, start your team with engaged users who regularly leave comments or contribute to the site. Users who have provided site feedback - good or bad - are also excellent targets.

38.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR THEM?

Offer your team access to exclusive content, particularly around advocation and their ambassadorial role.

Provide them rights to do more on the site - for example approve user generated content or moderate forums.

Give them access to a private community where they can communicate with other ambassadors. This community could be gameified - reward their ambassadorial activities with badges, points or ambassador levels. Set challenges around certain activities, for example “answer 3 questions in the support forums”.

Give ambassadors access to beta versions of new features and areas of the site ahead of a full company launch.

Finally, offer them exclusive opportunities to influence the direction of the intranet e.g. participate in card sorting for navigation updates, make comments on site re-designs and even run usability tests within their teams.

After identifying a potential ambassador, connect with them offering them the opportunity to join the YES! Team.

Membership of the YES! Team should be optional, and it is important to allow ambassadors to leave if they no longer wish to participate. To this end, membership could be reviewed annually.

WAYS TO ADVOCATE:CREATING AND MAINTAINING THE BUZZ

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WHAT’S IN IT FOR YOU?

AMPLIFICATION INSIGHTS

SUPPORT EVENTS

The main purpose of an ambassador network is to spread the word about the site throughout the organisation. Task them with this. Reward this. Activities could include:

• Casual interactions with colleagues• Proactive involvement in on-site

communities• Blogs • Guest articles in offline publications

Ambassador networks are an invaluable source of feedback about the site and its users. Set up an exclusive feedback loop between you and your ambassadors. Not only are they best placed to represent and relay the general feelings of users, but they should know that their feedback influences decision-making.

In a large organisation it is a time-consuming challenge to stay on top of communications with individual users. Ambassadors are well placed to take on this responsibility. They can be tasked and rewarded for answering questions in support forums, or they could even be a named contact for certain topics of user questions and queries.

Encourage and support ambassadors with events, such as training or localised events supported by the site. Support them with funding, materials or other resources.

39.WAYS TO ADVOCATE:CREATING AND MAINTAINING THE BUZZ

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40.WAYS TO ADVOCATE:CREATING AND MAINTAINING THE BUZZ

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SENIOR MANAGEMENT INVOLVEMENTThere are two ways in which senior management can assist advocation:

• Public Backing: They can publicly back the intranet in interviews, articles or newsletters.

• Site Contributions: If senior management contribute to the site, it can generate additional buzz and inspire others to contribute. As a general rule, management blogs or other time-heavy managerial contributions often lose momentum and become counterproductive. Instead, try and encourage senior management to make the occasional comment or status update (what they achieved today, thanking individuals, etc.). The overhead on this is much lower, and they will likely enjoy the direct feedback and comments from employees.

Bear in mind that as busy people they might want to post a comment on the go, so make sure this functionality is available from a mobile or tablet interface.

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CONCLUSIONS

An advocation strategy is an important component of a successful site and without it, we may fail to bridge the adoption chasm and reach the Pragmatists, Conservatives and Sceptics. Many of the activities outlined in this chapter can be choreographed centrally, particularly the early involvement of senior management and the YES! Team.

The key is to give the impression of a well-patronised and lively site, right from the outset.

I know a community manager who literally went from room to room after launch and stood over people’s shoulders, suggesting comments to post. This seeding of activity encouraged further interest, and it wasn’t long before users started commenting and posting content on their own.

Unlike the Reasons To Log On, Reasons To Return and Reasons To Lead, which typically require the most consideration during the intranet planning stages, the Ways To Advocate is a constant, ongoing concern.

42.WAYS TO ADVOCATE:CREATING AND MAINTAINING THE BUZZ

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GAINING SUPPORT FROM MANAGEMENT

6REASONS TO SPONSOR:

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INTRODUCTION

As previously discussed, in order to bridge the adoption chasm we must plan our intranet around the needs and personalities of the different groups within the organisation.

However, the long-term success of any intranet depends not just on the initial outlay to plan and build the site, but ongoing investment in maintaining it.

Launch day is often mistakenly viewed as the end of the intranet project; in reality the launch is the real beginning of the intranet’s lifecycle.

44.REASONS TO SPONSOR:GAINING SUPPORT FOR MANAGEMENT

To secure ongoing financial commitment from senior management we need to demonstrate and quantify the benefits that the intranet provides to the organisation.

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HOW DOES AN INTRANET BENEFIT THE ORGANISATION?All too often intranets are left to stagnate without any interest from management in ongoing investment.

If the benefits of a fully-operational intranet could be demonstrated, they might be more willing to invest time, money, staff or all three into its maintenance and future development. Furthermore, management support is a key aspect of the Ways To Advocate (see the previous chapter).

There are many other resources which attempt to put a literal value on an intranet, so here I will consider how a poor-performing intranet can hinder an organisation.

45.REASONS TO SPONSOR:GAINING SUPPORT FOR MANAGEMENT

If you can demonstrate that a poorly maintained intranet is losing the organisation money and time, then you can start to build a business case for more budget, time and resources. Put simply, you need a measurement strategy.

There are two metrics that are particularly useful when it comes to measuring the performance of an intranet:

• Intranet engagement• Key task completion times

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MEASURING INTRANETENGAGEMENT

Measuring the success of an intranet is an old problem. Typically organisations will use various analytics such as the percentage of employees visiting the site, number of page views and so on to try and inform their managers of progress.

There are three problems with this approach:

1. The Completeness ProblemMetrics are chosen for real-world reasons - often they are the easiest ones to extract from the data. The metrics are therefore arbitrary and do not cover all aspects of an intranet’s performance.

2. The Overview ProblemMetrics are unrelated and must be considered in isolation from each other. An overall view must be interpolated from separate graphs and tables.

3. The Comparison ProblemMetrics only make sense within the context of individual organisations. Attempts to “compare notes” between organisations lack meaning.

Thankfully there is a method that combats all three of these problems: the SmallWorlders Intranet Engagement Model.

With this model we can generate a single number that uniquely and objectively describes an intranet’s performance. The model can be applied equally and consistently to intranets large and small, allowing the resulting Engagement Score to be compared between any two intranets.

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PERFORMANCE BENCHMARKING

The model also allows us to solve another common problem - assessing how an intranet is really performing.

A benchmark of intranet engagement data has been collected using the SmallWorlders Intranet Engagement Model. By comparing the engagement score of a specific intranet against this benchmark we can easily see if an intranet is performing well or not.

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MAKING THE CASE

If the intranet is positioned badly against the engagement benchmark, then there is a good chance it is underperforming. The features and functionalities designed to make the organisation more efficient are not being used effectively. Therefore budget, time and resources are required to turn the situation around.

The Engagement Score will help monitor the improvement of that performance and is an ideal metric on which to base KPIs.

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MEASURING TASK COMPLETION TIMES

IDENTIFYING KEY TASKS

Top Task Analysis is a technique pioneered by Gerry McGovern in the mid 00s. There are two main components to this technique:

• Identifying key tasks for which the intranet is used• Measuring the success/failure rate and the completion times for those tasks

“The Stranger’s Long Neck” by Gerry McGovern covers this subject in detail, so I will just provide an overview here.

Show users a list of tasks and ask them to pick the 5 most important ones for doing their job on a day to day basis. The votes are aggregated to create a list of top tasks for that particular organisation.

Focus on the 5-10 most popular tasks and measure their success/failure rates and completion times.

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SUCCESS RATES & COMPLETION TIMES

Ask a sample of users to try and complete the top tasks identified previously. Watch their screens as they attempt to complete the tasks.

Record each task outcome as a success or a failure, and record how long they took to reach this outcome.

Search

15s

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MAKING THE CASE

For each of the tested tasks, now measure the completion time for a competent user familiar with that task. This is the expected completion time for that task.

Compare the average completion times with the expected completion times. Every minute longer than expected that a task took to complete is a wasted minute. So if the average completion times for the top 10 tasks were 2 minutes over the expected times, that equates to 20 wasted minutes per employee per day.

This data can then be used to make the case that the intranet needs investment in UX and possibly design and development.

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CONCLUSIONS

We have seen that the key to a successfully engaged intranet is more than just fancy features and a cool name. It requires time and resources to research Reasons To Log On, the Reasons To Return and the Reasons To Lead, and then it takes more time and resources to develop those findings into an intranet capable of appealing to all of the personality groups within the organisation.

It then needs ongoing resources in order to maintain the buzz around the intranet, as well as to ensure regular turnover of content and continuous improvement of the site.

This is a considerable investment, and in order to secure this commitment, wholehearted support from management must be sought. Gain it and the freedom to develop, deliver and maintain a highly successful intranet is there. Fail to gain it and the intranet adoption chasm starts to look very wide indeed.

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PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

7THE SMALLWORLDERS ENGAGEMENT INTRANET FRAMEWORK:

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SUMMARY

We have seen over the previous 6 chapters that the key to bridging the intranet adoption chasm is to appeal to each of the personality groups within the organisation on their own terms. These are the 3 core principles of intranet engagement. We also have a strategy to create momentum throughout the organisation, and I have discussed how to gain the support required to apply these principles.

This chapter will put together all the elements from the SmallWorlders Intranet Engagement Framework into a checklist of items to consider throughout the lifetime of an intranet, from conception through to delivery and beyond.

The checklist can be categorised in two ways:

According to the Framework:

• Reasons To Log On• Reasons To Return• Reasons To Lead• Ways To Advocate• Reasons To Sponsor

According to their execution:

• Technology• Design• Communications / Launch• Ongoing

Both provide useful ways of visualising the SmallWorlders Intranet Engagement Framework.

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INTRANET ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK – CHECKLIST

REASONS TO LOG ON• Essential functionalities (essential,

exclusive, easy)

REASONS TO RETURN

• Useful functionalities• Regular turnover of content• Personalisation• Continuous improvement plan• Good UX/Usability• Slick/Fun design

REASONS TO LEAD• Social Features• User profile pictures• Self-service groups/team rooms• User Blogs

Here is a summary of the considerations that should be made over the lifetime of an intranet. By organising them around the SmallWorlders Intranet Engagement Framework, we can easily see how each feature is designed to complement the other features in its category.

53.

REASONS TO SPONSOR• Realistic KPIs (based on engagement

score)• Measuring tools in place to gather data.

WAYS TO ADVOCATE• YES! Team strategy• Traditional communications plan• Management involvement plan• Good mobile interface

SMALLWORLDERS INTRANET ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK:PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

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PLANNING A SUCCESSFUL INTRANET - CHECKLISTBy rearranging items according to their execution, we arrive at the following checklist. This arrangement indicates how each consideration might fit into planning a new intranet. (This is a distilled checklist and it should not be used out of context or as a standalone representation of the SmallWorlders Intranet Engagement Framework.)

Note: The colour categories indicate the items’ original context within the Framework.

TECHNOLOGY

• Essential functionalities (essential, exclusive, easy)

• Useful functionalities• Personalisation• Social Features• Self-service groups/team rooms• User Blogs• Good mobile interface• Measuring tools in place to gather data.

DESIGN

• Good UX/Usability• Slick/Fun design• User profile pictures wherever possible

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COMMUNICATIONS / LAUNCH

• YES! Team strategy• Traditional communications plan• Management involvement plan

ONGOING

• Regular turnover of content• Continuous improvement plan• Realistic KPIs (based on engagement

score)

SMALLWORLDERS’ INTRANET ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK:PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

KEY: Reasons To Log OnReasons To ReturnReasons To LeadReasons To SponsorWays To Advocate

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CONCLUSIONS

A successfully engaged intranet requires consideration from conception through to delivery and beyond.

The SmallWorlders Intranet Engagement Framework can support and maintain a thriving intranet throughout its lifetime. It allows intranet planners and managers to understand their userbase in terms of their personalities, needs and requirements and then to specifically appeal to them in a targeted way.

It gives us a reference point for planning the intranet, and after decisions are made it allows us to validate the success or failure of those decisions.

Most importantly it gives us a clear strategy to avoid the common pitfalls of failed intranets and to engage the whole spectrum of personality groups within the organisation.

That is how to successfully bridge the intranet adoption chasm.

55.SMALLWORLDERS’ INTRANET ENGAGEMENT FRAMEWORK:PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER

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At SmallWorlders, we’re privileged to work with some of the world’s top brands, building some of the smartest intranet platforms around. In every case, the communicators we work with are passionate agents of change, eager to adopt new technologies to create a more collaborative, more productive – and more fun – workplace.

We adhere to one of the core guiding principles of internal communications: people first, technology second. No matter what cool new tools are available, the most important thing is getting people together to work smarter, better and more enjoyably.

Whether you choose to leverage your existing intranet technology or re-platform on SmallWorlders Sandbox we can build you an internal communications platform your whole organisation will love. Visit www.smallworlders.com and take a look at what we have done for organisations like Heineken, De Beers and the NHS.

Copyright © 2015 SmallWorlders

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