1.
7 Things about intranets I learned the
hard way
Sam Marshall
www.clearbox.co.uk

2.
Sam Marshall
Director of ClearBox Consulting
 15 years intranet and digital
workplace
 Former global portal manager
at Unilever
 Consulted on & benchmarked
over 60 intranets
 Comms, KM & IT background
sam@clearbox.co.uk
@sammarshall
#IntranetNow

3.
In the beginning…

4.
1. Disappearing
sponsor

5.
Next time…
 Cultivate 2-3 champions
 Maintain a business case even if you’re not
asked
 Measure the ‘before’ so you can show the ‘after’
@sammarshall

6.
2. Relying too
much on the data

7.
Next time….
 Intranets need leaders not managers
 Identify who will actually take a strategy forward
 Test with “What if…” scenarios early

8.
Home
London Paris Rome

9.
Global
Rome
Global Global
London Paris

10.
Profile
Location = London
Global
London

11.
Profile
Location = Rome
Global
Rome

12.
3. Over-personalizing

13.
Next time…

14.
4. Carried away with design principles

15.
Some of your intranet should
look like your org chart

16.
Next time…
 Intranets should reflect how an organisation works
 If the company does a re-org, is it such a big deal
to change the intranet?
 Employee services are the exception!

17.
5. Forgetting the late-adopters

18.
Diffusion of innovation curve
http://blog.yammer.com/blog/2012/01/how-much-adoption.html

19.
Next time…
 Don’t rely on a business case that demands high
adoption levels everywhere
 Don’t assume enthusiastic pilots scale linearly
 Focus on specific communities and grow from
there

20.
6. Over-zealous governance

21.
You only need a 100 page
governance document if you
plan to hit somebody with it as
a means of enforcement

22.
Next time….
 Governance is about changing behaviour not a set
of rules
 Define the basic principles
 Governance is also about encouragement,
modelling & conversation

23.
7. Fixing everything at once

24.
Next time..
 Think big, but ensure every step adds
value on its own
 You can support organisational change
with an intranet, but not drive it

25.
sam@clearbox.co.uk www.clearbox.co.uk
@sammarshall

26.
Credits Original cartoons commissioned
by ClearBox from: Duncan Scott