Loud vs. Soft Intranet Promotion

leelefever — Sat, 26 Jun 2004 22:25:43 +0000

I think James at Column Two was right to quote this as a teaser for this article:

An Intranet is not a marketing vehicle for a product; it is the product. Without proper system promotion, users won't know about the existence of an Intranet or the true value of the content contained within it. And the time, money, and effort expended to build an Intranet is far too great to hope users will simply happen upon it by chance.

This is true, and I think Intranet promotion can take many forms- and widespread internal marketing campaigns can be dangerous because of the perception that... "it's just another attempt to force something down our throats".

The makes good points about "loud" vs. "quite" Intranet roll-outs. I'm personally a fan of the quiet or soft roll-out. I believe that people are skeptical of marketing these days and when it comes from inside the company, it's even more east to dismiss.

But, if a worker hears about a cool new feature on the Intranet from a co-worker, it suddenly has an attractiveness that cannot be related in a poster or brochure.

People want to feel like they are in-the-know and part of a privileged group that has "found" something others don't know about. This word-of-mouth approach can quickly build a core of devoted users who can expand the network without spreading skepticism.

Personas and Intranet/Web Design

leelefever — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 17:07:15 +0000

Step Two Paper: An introduction to personas and how to create them

As I mentioned previously, I've been learning a lot about something called "Contextual Inquiry" which is similar to "Ethnographic Research". This article touches on the basics.

The premise is that you work directly with and observe users before making any judgements/assumptions about their needs. Using contectual inquiry, a team builds a reality-based model of how a group is really working together.

Part of this process is the development of personas. As the paper states:

Personas are archetypal users of an intranet or website that represent the needs of larger groups of users, in terms of their goals and personal characteristics. They act as 'stand-ins' for real users and help guide decisions about functionality and design.

I'm becomoing a believer in contextual inquiry -- I think it may be a key to assessing real needs through discovering the reality of how a group behaves and works together.