Melcrum Publishing has just published a research report entitled ‘Transforming Your Intranet.’
I got an email about it yesterday and my first thought was: yet another expensive report about intranets with the same old late-90s view about them and the org-chart approach on how to use them.
But then I read the synopsis (PDF). And then I looked at who the authors are. And I concluded: this one looks very different.
This is the first report of its type I’ve seen which includes a significant focus on social media such as blogs and delivery mechansims like RSS:
[…] Helping you understand new technology such as RSS, wikis, blogs and social computing and whether you should include them on your organization’s intranet.
What you’ll take away:
* Expert advice on whether you should integrate new technology into your intranet, and if so, how to go about it.
* A weblog strategy used by a major consulting firm that interlinks five different types of blogs in order to disseminate employee, client and sales lead information much faster.
* Extensive lists of further resources – websites where you can download RSS, urls for best-practice CEO blogs or download and employee blogging guidelines that you can adapt for your own company.
* Case studies on implementing RSS at Siemens, and social bookmarking and wikis at IBM.
I know two of the nine authors – Euan Semple and Dave Wallace – both of whom I’ve worked with before in presenting workshops that address internal communication and social media. While I haven’t read the report itself, if Euan and Dave are involved with it then that elevates its credibility to a high level in my eyes.
The report costs £255/$395/€370. Is it pricey? Depends on how you look at it. If it gives you the knowledge that helps you make some smart decisions on what you can do with your intranet – the long list of blue-chip companies as case studies is impressive, too – then it would be a worthwhile investment.
(Disclosure: I have a relationship with Melcrum through presenting workshops for them. That relationship has zero influence on what I say in this post.)
Related posts:
This is exactly the kind of report I need for my audience but the price is a bit too rich for me.
The price does make you wince a bit, Dennis, I agree, especially if you’re an independent. Probably no prob for our corporate colleagues with large budgets!
Yeah – I’ll see if I can have a whip round at my blog (if it works it will be better than Adsense :) )