Via MicroPersuasion. You can also find the link to the paper on my del.icio.us account (on the right sidebar of the blog).
Despite all the changes in the environment brought by globalization, technology and other business catalysts, reality is that large organizations today remain awfully similar to the ones decades ago. Large hierarchical structures continue to be the norm and decision making power and resource allocations continue to be held by management. Companies and large Government institutions continue to be for the most part a copy of the companies, the church or the army.
The need to compete globally with a variety of rivals that do not necessarily share the same business model as you presents a formidable challenge to today’s companies. One very exciting possibility is to allow all of your employees to participate on the innovation of the company. Who cares if the latest product comes out of an idea from the chief scientist, a sales guy or a junior engineer? Everybody should be able to contribute to the organizational well being and the traditional model of heavily specialized work and its departamental silos have typically being in the way of that company wide collaboration.
Independent of the inertia of the past there are several factors that get in the way of allowing company-wide collaboration to actually happen: fear of losing control of the company information and the lack of tools to make company-wide collaboration effective.
]]>Via MicroPersuasion. You can also find the link to the paper on my del.icio.us account (on the right sidebar of the blog).
The survey also has interesting data for Wikis, Podcasts and other types of collaboration tools. You can find the survey results here: Emerging Mobility, Collaboration, and Business Process Technologies .
Intranet blogs, already start with at least two basic communities. The first community is that of all the members of the organization and the second one is composed by the people who work with the person who is starting the blog. In my personal case, my blog started to communicate people in my organization (Latin America Sales and Marketing) and also offered a regional point of view to anybody at Intel. Over time, my Intranet blog has evolved to have several communities in it, from the people in the Latin America team and people outside of it interested in Latin America, to people who share as similar point of view to me. Starting with a couple of communities ready for your blogs makes a lot of a difference. You are actually being red from post one, even if your audience is small.
A case that deserves special attention is the case of executive bloggers. High profile executives and managers of large groups tend to have a strong interest from the people working in their groups. The case of CEO bloggers has been widely discussed, but the same logic applies to Executive Vice Presidentes, General Managers and even middle manegers of large groups. People in the group tend to follow them, since their decisions are relevant to many people’s activities. Executive bloggers are a very important piece of any Intranet Blogosphere, they should be the role models of what good blogging is all about. An executive who makes a great use of a blog is both using a really strong communications tool to reach the organization as well as helping setting the tone of the whole Intrenal Blogosphere of his or her organization.
]]>Full Press release by Intel Corporation follows:
SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Intel Corporation today announced at the Web 2.0 Conference today that it is collaborating with several software companies on the launch of SuiteTwo, a business Internet suite.
The integrated suite, a family of interconnected services combined to improve productivity and enable high-engagement marketing, is comprised of business Web 2.0 capabilities from leading software companies, including Six Apart, Socialtext, NewsGator, SimpleFeed and SpikeSource.
Intel Capital, Intel's venture capital organization, pioneered the assembly of this suite. Intel's Software and Solutions Group plans to make the suite available through its extensive OEM and reseller sales channels as well as participating software partners.
Representing a fundamental shift toward open, flexible and participatory computing models, SuiteTwo is a foundation for communication that drives internal collaboration and external, high-engagement marketing. It includes advanced Web applications that incorporate blogging, RSS, search and Wiki capabilities into a single, fully integrated suite that operates on PC-based hardware. All services are integrated with a single sign-on and rich user interface. Future releases of SuiteTwo will include podcasting, business networking, mobility and other features. Initially, the software suite will be offered in English and Japanese.
"This was a unique opportunity to actively create an effective software suite that delivers heightened capabilities to the enterprise ecosystem," said Arvind Sodhani, president of Intel Capital. "Intel Capital is the only global venture capital organization of its kind that can spearhead a project like this by offering an engagement with Intel business units and international promotion through appropriate channels."
"SuiteTwo demonstrates the benefits of bringing together individual Web 2.0 products into a solution for businesses," said Renee James, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel's Software and Solutions Group. "The Intel® Channel Marketplace will help bring this solution to the broader enterprise community."
Worldwide sales and distribution will be available through Intel's global channel of OEMs, distributors and resellers as well as participating software partners. The suite will run on Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise Server and Microsoft Windows(1). More information about the product can be found at www.suitetwo.com.
Applications include:
About Intel Capital
Intel Capital, Intel's venture capital organization, makes equity investments in innovative technology start-ups and companies worldwide. Intel Capital invests in a broad range of companies offering hardware, software and services targeting enterprise, home, mobility, health, consumer Internet and semiconductor manufacturing. Since 1991, Intel Capital has invested more than US$6 billion in nearly 1,000 companies in more than 40 countries. In that time, about 180 portfolio companies have been acquired by other companies and another 155 have gone public on various exchanges around the world. In 2005, Intel Capital invested about US$265 million in about 140 deals with approximately 60 percent of funds invested outside the United States. For more information on Intel Capital and its differentiated advantages, visit www.intelcapital.com.
About NewsGator
NewsGator Technologies is the world's leading RSS platform company. Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, NewsGator develops and markets RSS aggregation solutions for individual end users, enterprises, and online content providers. Using NewsGator products and solutions, businesses and consumers can subscribe to news, information, podcasts, and other relevant content more efficiently and effectively than with traditional channels. With NewsGator, users have access to RSS information via the Web, Microsoft Outlook, mobile devices, and both Windows- and Mac-based desktop clients. All NewsGator products synchronize seamlessly, enabling users to read their RSS feeds anywhere, anytime, with any device. For more information, visit www.newsgator.com.
About SimpleFeed
SimpleFeed, headquartered in Los Altos, Calif. is the newest and simplest way for companies to implement, manage and modify customer communications programs -- all without needing any IT support. As a result, SimpleFeed has become the market leader for providing on-demand RSS marketing services to corporations. With SimpleFeed, customers subscribe using RSS to product updates, customer support, recent news -- whatever interests them. The result is a simple, persistent communication channel that respects the time and privacy of customers. In return, companies get more attention, more credibility and the ability to measure the results of their communication programs. SimpleFeed is being used by corporations to increase sales to existing customers, acquire new customers and increase customer retention. Customers now include Ad-Tech, IDG World Expo, Intuit, and more.
About Six Apart
Six Apart Ltd. provides award-winning blogging software and services that change the way millions of individuals, organizations, and corporations connect and communicate across the world every day. Founded in 2002 by husband-and-wife team Ben Trott and Mena G. Trott, Six Apart has grown into a global company with its headquarters in San Francisco, CA, and offices in Europe and Japan. The company continues to lead in the blogging and social media industry with the Movable Type (http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/) publishing platform, the TypePad (http://www.sixapart.com/typepad/) hosted blogging service, LiveJournal (http://www.sixapart.com/livejournal/), an online community organized around personal journals, and Vox (http://www.vox.com/), a free blogging service for friends and families. For more information visit the Six Apart corporate web site at http://www.sixapart.com/.
About Socialtext
Socialtext (http://www.socialtext.com/) is the first Wiki (http://www.socialtext.com/products/overview) company, headquartered in Palo Alto, Calif., enabling enterprises to be more productive with a Wiki, a commons-based knowledge tool. Socialtext makes secure Wikis used daily by global companies for daily project communication and intranet-like needs. A Wiki is a group-editable Web site that is private, linkable and searchable. Socialtext offers several deployment options, including hosted service, open source, on-premise and appliance-based solutions to suit customers' security, integration and configuration needs. 2,000 enterprises use Socialtext, including Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein, IKEA, Kodak, Nokia, and Symantec. http://www.socialtext.com.
About SpikeSource
SpikeSource integrates, manages and distributes open source applications through global network of trusted solution providers. The company certifies complete solutions with an automated test framework that performs over 300,000 daily tests. The SpikeSource portfolio of SpikeCertified and SpikeIgnited solutions includes a comprehensive software update and support service called Spike(TM) Net. For a list of SpikeSource solution providers, visit www.spikesource.com.
Intel and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. (1) Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others.
The answer is relatively simple and contradictory by itself. You cannot control what employees publish to the outside world using the Internet. It doesn’t matter if it is via blog, e-mail or any other type of electronic media, you simply cannot the flow of information 100%. Let’s picture the following: an employee wants to blast a confidential e-mail into the Internet. The employee can simple take his laptop home, cut and paste the e-mail into his home PC via a USB drive and then publish it via a blog or an e-mail under an anonymously opened account. And trying to track closely these types of activities can be even more costly than a leak of information. As the recent case from the former HP Chairman Patricia Dunn illustrates, an aggressive tracking of information flows is likely to either border with illegal activities or at the very least damage your reputation greatly.
If you cannot control information flows you have to make sure that you build a proper environment for those flows to take place formally. Allow people to communicate as freely as possible within the work environment. Allow them to express freely so they can tell you how they are seeing the organization, the market and your competitors without any sugar coating. You should have some filters placed, but those filters should be limited to the ethical principles of the company. Hate-speech, racism, discrimination, harassment and other types of behaviors should be placed out of the fomal dialogue. However criticism, even criticism to the top executives of the company should be allowed. Managed appropiately, blogs and other types of collaborative tools can be a wonderful thermometer of organizational climate.
]]>However, I had a bit of an epiphany last night and decided to change two things:
Now, if you were to read a book on Intranet Blogging. What topic do you like for it to cover? WHat will be a absolute must have?
]]>However, I was spending too much time trying to figure out PHP. Since this blog is about a discussion on Intranet Blogging and not about having the most stunning design I decided to move to Movable Type, the platform I am most familiar with. All the posts have been moved and soon I will move all the comments too.
A few changes, so please update your settings and links for this blog:
Main URL is now: http://intranetblogging.com
Feed is now under Feedburner, so URL is: http://feeds.feedburner.com/IntranetBlogging
Thanks for your support.
]]>I'd like to start with a series of discussions about the setting of Internal Blogospheres. First, I'd like to ask you all: What kinds of considerations do you think you need to have before setting up the internal blogging environment? Which Internal departments need to be involved on the discussions before the Internal Blogosphere goes live?
This is my first pass at the categories of issues that need to be addressed. We'll go deeper on them on later posts:
Despite the fact that the blogs are internal, I'd assume that PR also needs to be involved due to potential leaks.
What do you all think? Am I missing any points? Should the list be shorter?
]]>
An Intranet Blog is an online publication with its entries ordered on reverse chronological order that can only be accessed by people participating on a given Intranet. Access to the Intranet is usually restricted to people meeting a certain criteria (employees, members, business partners). Intranet Blog participants usually adhere to certain ethical, conduct and confidentiality standards in their participation.
This blog is Published by Ricardo Carreon, an Intranet Blogger at Intel Corporation. Please read the “About” Section for a detailed description of this blog and its content.
Welcome and Looking forward to great discussions on the topic.
My name is Ricardo Carreón and I am an Intranet blogger at Intel Corporation. I have been blogging within the corporate Intranet since September 2005, my blogs was one of the first four “Senior Leader” blogs at the company. My job at Intel is not to be a ful time blogger, I have a day job and that is to run the Latin America business for the company. I started to blog to improve the communications in my team, which is large and geographically distributed in many countries.
Blogging for me has been an experience that has allowed me to achieve my goal of communicating my team and has allowed me to communicate better with the rest of the organization.
This blog is focused on Intranet Blogging topics. Its intended audience are Intranet bloggers from all kinds of organizations, from Companies to Government Entities to NGOs. If you are an Intranet blogger or you are considering becoming one, join us for the conversation. I will go and post topics from basic to advanced ones and will rely on your feedback to shape the agenda of this blog. The blog will be updated with a cadence of about once per week.
This is not an company blog. The blog is to discuss techniques, ideas and tools to make your Intranet Blogging experience a sucessful one. All opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect the opinion of my employer.
Enjoy the ride!