How good is your intranet planning?

I recently went with my young son to a large local aquarium where they have scheduled attractions, such as shark feeding at 14:00. If you’ve experienced this in action, you know that it is an event that requires careful planning, preparation and practice. Mistakes can be fatal!

Unfortunately many intranets still does little more than serve the usual doze of daily internal news stories, which are published throughout the day. I would argue though that intranets really have a significant role to play in both expected and routine situations (e.g. updated earnings, new canteen menu, shark feeding) and even more so in unexpected situations. The last months have some very interesting examples for any busy intranet manager to consider, e.g. if the CEO turns himself in to LAPD, HQ is hit by a dawn raid, the firm is nationalised or something as ordinary as all of management is stranded at London Gatwick.

Events like these may seem very unlikely, but they definitely require more than careful communication planning. My colleague recently said that a website without statistics is just a hobby, I would add that unfortunately most intranets are still treated as a hobby, at least by management. Noted UK intranet expert Martin White brought this up at jboye08 in our expert panel, and I’ve since seen it confirmed by the Global Intranet Trends for 2009 Report. The report states that most intranets are not considered essential and “the intranet models as we know it must change”.

Is your intranet prepared for the unexpected? If not, perhaps feeding the sharks could be a wise career move for 2009?

Join our full day seminar, the International Intranet Day, on March 24 in Copenhagen, to learn from case studies from several organisations and network with other intranet professionals.