I’ve had my head in our public website for a while now and the intranet has been bubbling along in terms of content updates and section changes. But there has been no real development in terms of functionality or design. It’s been over two years since the last big bang release and things have changed in the workplace. Technology has moved on (at least outside the firewall). Culture, mental models and expectations have moved on. And, of course, we are now in a harsh climate where making savings is paramount and cutting back and consolidating resources is the way to go.
And so, after a period away from intranet and this blog being pretty quiet, my attention returns! It has been really interesting lurking on the sidelines for the past year or so, watching things progress on the intranet front, both in my workplace and outside.
To rejuvenate my own interest in intranets and the social workplace, I’m heading off in a few weeks to #SWCONF, the Social Workplace Conference to have a peek at what other companies are doing and to listen to some speakers from companies who are out there doing it. For me it promises to be a packed day with a broad range of topics that not only cover internal communications and social intranets but also look at social engagement outside of the organisation.
I’ve already got questions and ideas around what the new intranet could be like. Indeed I’ve been blogging about it for years. Curiously, Klout reckons that I am influential on the subject of Olympics, due to a blog post that I wrote back in March 2010 but which was actually about my vision for the workplace of August 2012. Don’t think we’ll make it in three months, but it starts here.