New BBC homepage

BBC Gateway homepage

So what’s been happening? Well loads actually. We go live with a redesigned Gateway homepage tomorrow at 8am, following lots of planning and activities behind the scenes. The result is very diifferent to what we currently have and this new design clearly meets three objectives;

• Communicate.

• Collaborate.

• Do stuff.

Now I could have provided you all with the extremely boring business objectives that we needed to meet, and were part of our business case and you can see them if you want, but these three sum them up. I don’t particularly like business bingo speak, so let’s not run unnecessary stuff up the flagpole and see what synergies emerge. Let’s keep it simple.

In addition we’ve done some content removal too. I have some impressive figures I could share, but won’t bore you with. Except maybe for one; we’ve reduced 78 glossaries to two. And that’s still one too many.

There are lots of other figures that I will keep to myself for the time being and use when the bosses ask how we’re getting on.

Now you’re probably wondering what the journey was to get to where we are, and what the end result looks like?

Well firstly we followed the established journey of research, design, refine, redesign, review and publish. Did we spend enough time and thoroughness at each stage? Probably not.  But you know what? It’s technology – if it isn’t right we can change it quickly enough.

What does the end result look like? Well I can’t show you that I’m afraid, not until after we’ve officially gone live. Over the past few weeks we’ve been sharing what we plan to launch with any BBC employees who were interested our work in progress so I wouldn’t be surprised if its already available somewhere on the internet, but you will have to wait another few days to see it here.

Once we’ve gone live we will go through a review period and invite BBC users to tell us what they think, then agree what we will deliver as part of the next phase.

Simple really.

Intranet content vs intranet strategy

Having been in the intranet business for over ten years, it’s always interesting to see advice such as this being made available to “intranet professionals.” “Intranet Content programming – Connect with your Audience”

As an “intranet professional” myself it never fails to amaze me that such basic advice needs to be provided to intranet people. Whilst I fully understand that not every organisation is at a similar level of maturity in terms of their intranet journeys, if “intranet professionals” need to be told such fundamental things as these, I would seriously question the recruitment policies in place in those organisations that account for the employment of said individuals in the first place. This is kindergarden stuff for intranet toddlers.

Because I’ve been doing intranets for 10+ years, maybe that makes me a grand-daddy of intranet (because we all know an intranet year is the equivalent of a dog year) and perhaps I’ve moved on from some of the basics, (and I suppose it doesn’t hurt to be reminded) but let’s be honest, if you don’t understand your audience needs and write content to engage them, then you may as well go back to whatever it is you did before you became an “intranet professional”.

But one point to remember. An intranet is rarely one entity/site. It’s usually a collective of sites all wrapped up in a convenient wrapper called the intranet – or whatever your title maybe. Therefore by definition of course each site/section will need to be written for it’s intended audience, but held together with a common approach. Just like a newspaper with all its different sections, each one is written for a specific audience, but with the same editorial style. But in the intranet world this can only be really achieved with extremely good governance (including training) and/or an authorising process that involves layers of management approving all content before publication; much like an editor’s role on a newspaper. And that to me, smacks of far too much centralised control. The beauty of a content management system is you can devolve responsibility to the right individual in the business – hopefully an expert in their field – and then get the audience to determine directly with that owner what content works and what doesn’t. As intranet managers are we really all that bothered with localised content? I don’t see that as my role – that’s the responsibility of the author.

The role of an intranet manager is to ensure the strategy is in place to take the intranet forward and meet business objectives, ensure there is adequate sponsorship from the correct stakeholders in the business and that all the support mechanisms are tried, tested and of use. That’s what intranet managers should be focussing on.

Oh and what criteria actually determines an “intranet professional”? The fact that I simply call myself one - is that sufficient?

I’ve been advocating for years the introduction of an academic qualification that recognises the value intranet people bring to their companies. A formal qualification that recognises our abilities and gives our roles far more creedence is the only way forward. Other industries have had them for years. And as I’ve already said the intranet industry has been around for the equivalent of 50+ dog years it’s about time we had the same.

I know the Intranet Benchmarking Forum (IBF) are working with Warwick University and exploring such opportunities. let’s hope something comes of it soon.