Category: Reflections

In the week or so that’s followed the wonder that was the 2015 Intranet Now Conference I have been mulling over my notes.

I have enjoyed going back through the presentations, trying not to forget the many things I heard, digesting things to become things I’ve learned and connecting with attendees over on the Twitter and on LinkedIn

I already wrote about 42ish things I heard there – with a morning full of lightning-quick talks and some longer debates, there are obviously MANY more than that – here’s a few more!

43-47ish We, like He-Man, have the POWER

While at times it may feel like our business systems are terrible aren’t up to the standard that we would like them to be, we as digital communicators, intranet managers, enablers of change, webmasters and/or portal wizards play a vital role in the success (or failure) of the projects we are part of.

48-52 Design adds value

It’s not about making things look “pretty”, but great design can be the difference between users loving, or grudgingly tolerating your site. Worry less about the technology and more about what you’re trying to achieve, make sure it works, and remember: good design saves lives*

_{*accidentally revealing sensitive user data}

53-58 Work together with other stakeholders to make a trustworthy intranet

For me, a common theme of the day was making sure you get the right stakeholders involved at the right time – I think it can be easy to retreat behind a PID/backlog/*insert other projecty term here* without getting out and building your gang.

59 – 64 – Do not build unless they bang on

Possibly the most beautiful story of agile I’ve ever heard, Shaula’s award-winning intranet shows what happens when you prioritise only what is wanted, and delight people by keeping their expectations low but delivering wonders!

65-70 The further from base, the less they comply

A great talk on the challenges of dealing with hard to reach workers. As well as discussing the ways of building a perfect business case, which hits the needs of employees at all levels of your organisation, Sara discussed an interesting study about compliance. The further away an office is from HQ, the less likely they are to comply with your rules. So make the time to get out there and see the outliers!

Reasons to be cheerful – Seventy One, Two, Three

Tailor your use-cases for the types of adopter to build your advocates network and drive adoption at all levels throughout your organisation.

74-78 Be more like Taylor Swift*

There will always be doubters, so getting your advocates on side is vital. There will be a point where you become curators, rather than curators of the majority of content on your site.

79-84 – Fortune favours the bold – turn off legacy sites

Assumptions, like cooked frozen peas, rise to the surface pretty quickly – make sure you identify the real pain points. Tom did a great presentation on the many tools available to help make your intranet a success…. be bold, and turn off old tools to get users on your site!

85-89 – Get thee behind me, satan team

It can feel like a pretty lonely job, where you’re constantly writing your own job description, trying to deliver change in the face of adversity. Susan Quain gave some excellent advice about making the project yours, and demonstrating its value and importance to the organisation you are in.

90 – Enter the UNconference – it’s ok to ask your peers how they cope

I found Susan’s speech so inspiring that I ventured up on stage to ask an audience comprised of friends, peers and complete strangers about THEIR coping mechanisms, for the unconference break-out sessions.

91-98ish Governance, training, workflows, find your family, wine

There were so many things we covered in the afternoon sessions, though my top takeaways:

• have a governance policy, but actually a process to follow it up, with people that are empowered to do it.
• make connections with people in and outside of your organisation and see them often, to remind yourself why you’re doing this
• try and get someone to have a look at your search logs and make some recommendations
• steal lovingly from other people – most intranet-types are happy to share what they can to help you
• one word search doesn’t have to be a problem
• always make time for wine

99-100 – Have the wisdom to know the difference

Now James Robertson is a pretty inspirational chap, and gave me some great advice in the bar afterwards. I managed to reel off a list of challenges, many of which are completely outside of my control, and he pointed this out and reminded me that there are things I DO have power over, and that we can achieve great things when we focus.

101 – Sketchnotes are a thing

Thanks again to Wedge and Brian for my prize copy of Jane McConnell’s The Organization in the Digital Age, largely for my tweet of Paul Zimmerman‘s talk on the Intranet of Things.

I hadn’t realised, until my first write-up was retweeted by Francis Rowland, that there’s an official term – sketchnotes – for scrawling visual notes.

I’ve seen them around, usually created by skilled illustrators, but didn’t realise they were, in themselves, a medium. So there’s an unexpected takeaway too.

Phew. Thanks for reading this far! I found the day was probably one of the most valuable conference/events I’ve ever been to, albeit packed with so many top-level learnings that I’m still compiling my own internal code of it all.

All of the things are available on the Intranet Now website – I’m going home to make use of #98!