Organizations are beginning to experiment with Web 2.0 technologies and techniques inside the firewall – what some have called Intranet 2.0. I argued in a previous blog that organizations need to drive value from their Intranet 1.0 initiatives before exploring the world of social media. But I do not want to diminish the value that Intranet 2.0 can deliver.
We view Intranet 1.0 and 2.0 as deeply complimentary:
- Intranet 1.0 is a centrally planned means of gaining access to approved documents, forms and applications. It’s a top-down communication system.
- Intranet 2.0 is infrastructure that supports the spontaneous capture of corporate knowledge. It’s a bottom-up communication system.
You need both. You can’t “replace your Intranet with FaceBook.” (Actually, you can but it would be bloody foolish.) Most key business content is necessarily generated in a top-down process. Organizations have one vacation request form and one set of branding guidelines because having everyone invent their own form or guideline is self-defeating.
Features of Intranet 1.0 Versus Intranet 2.0
Intranet 1.0 Features
- Approved Content (think Forms, Brand Guidelines, Tutorials)
- Small group of authors and smaller group of approvers
- Secure access to key applications
- Centralized organization and structure
- User research can identify key tasks and processes – Intranet designed to support these
For Intranet 1.0 success equals providing fast, intuitive access to critical information (and the cafeteria menu)
Intranet 2.0 Features
- Spontaneous content generation – No approvals
- Many, many authors
- Ad-hoc creation and decentralized structure
- Seamless browsing through internal and external applications and content
- Support for tasks and processes is emergent, not planned
For Intranet 2.0, success equals capturing corporate knowledge (and embarrassing holiday party photos)
A Mixed World
Successful deployment of Intranet 1.0 and 2.0 techniques is going to leave you with a messy information architecture diagram. You will almost certainly have:
- A formal information architecture where officially approved documents “live”, ideally in easily recognizable content categories
- Ad hoc sites, created around specific projects by a specific team and then abandoned when the project is completed.
- Blogs – both active and abandoned – spanning everything from baby pictures to Lessons Learned to directives from the Executive Board
- Wiki’s that iteratively capture corporate understanding of important issues.
- Social bookmarks tagging external sites with information that is useful to employees
Bottom Line
Emergent knowledge management is necessarily messy. You can’t plan a static information architecture when you have no idea what content will be created.
As a result, effective search is critical. Without it, Intranet 2.0 techniques will quickly render your existing Intranet unusable. Invest in the implementation and iterative tuning of enterprise search.