The Social Intranet Infographic: 10 Steps to a Social Intranet

Truth be told, a successful social intranet is remarkably similar to an intranet. Not unlike like the high-performance sports car to the family car, a high-performance social intranet resembles the corporate, family intranet at first glance… but only when it’s not performing to expectations. A flourishing social intranet needs many of the requisites of a regular, run-of-the-mill intranet: well-defined governance and process(es), highly engaged people, and highly functional technology. But the devil is in the non-technical details: the process.

You’ve probably figured out by now that the technology behind a wiki, or a blog pales compared to most web content management systems… and can’t carry the dirty laundry of a killer portal or enterprise content management solution. The technology is terribly simple; what makes it ‘sing’ is people and process.

What makes Wikipedia the most trusted source of information on the planet? Is it the technology? The design? The name? Actually, all of the above are… quite awful, to be honest. The value is in the content; but more accurately, the people who contribute the content. Wikipedia’s technology is painfully simple – add to or an edit an entry and you’ll be shocked at the poor and pathetic state of its editing tool; there were better publishing tools in 1993. The secret sauce: the collective wisdom of the contributing crowd; the end contributors, and the process that encourages the all-too-simple, effortless contribution and peer reviewing of content. The collective wisdom of the crowd is transformative; so significant that it sparked a landslide evolutionary leap in user technology, and the Internet as we know it.

How does this translate to the intranet? It’s the same IP technology, the same browser, and the same users, but with a different focus, perspective and set of requirements. However, the intranet is not the Internet. A quantity of fundamental intelligence must first be applied before said technology can trigger a transformation of the corporate world behind the firewall. But when done successfully… the social intranet is the intranet on Starbucks: caffeinated, ubiquitous, and engaging.

A successful social intranet, though, is not easily achieved. If you build it they will not come… necessarily. However, if you understand the requisite process(es), you will attract the people, and the enabling technology that will help catalyze an antiquated business system into a dynamic ecosystem of collaboration and innovation.

Ten steps to a Social Intranet:

1. Business requirements
2. User requirements
3. Best practices
4. Strategic planning
5. Governance
6. Information architecture
7. Wireframes
8. Design
9. Launch
10. Change management

Learn more about the social intranet.
Download the full size version of The Social Intranet Infographic
Read the latest version of The Social Intranet White Paper (30 pages of intelligence and case studies)