Who uses WordPress?

I met with Janus Boye last week and discussed a range of intranet topics including BT’s plans to replace our existing publishing tools.

BT already uses WordPress as a blogging platform very well.  It is very easy to use and gives a great experience to bloggers, contributors and viewers.

BT is now testing WordPress as a publishing tool for micro intranet sites.

Have you used WordPress for this type of publishing?  Do you know anyone who has please?

I would love to hear about what your experience has been so far.

Thanks!

A big day out on BT’s intranet

Last Thursday (2nd July) I hosted a visit to BT Centre in London for 30 intranet representatives who are members of the Intranet Benchmarking Forum to demonstrate our intranet and give them time to surf our intranet and test it out for themselves.

I was very pleased (and a little relieved) they were really impressed by what they saw and tested out on BT’s intranet.

The areas covered include BT’s Homepage; Blog Central; BTpedia; Podcast Central; BT Today and RSS.  I also covered the full value of BT’s intranet.

It wasn’t all good news.  BT’s continuing problems with poor usability of our applications bought from vendors like Oracle was highlighted with one quote “You don’t need training to use Amazon” summing things up.

It was rewarding to see our efforts to make our intranet (one of ?) the best in the world be confirmed by 30 peers.  Thank you!

I now receive only the information I need

I’ve posted recently about how people in BT are using other social media tools that benefit both people and BT.  These include wikis, blogs and podcasts.  These are all available for people in BT to use even if they are mobile.

BT is reducing the amount of information people receive or need to find on BT’s intranet by using RSS, Twitter and grouping individual emails into one that summarises non-urgent news. 

It means I have the power to decide what I want to receive, when I want to receive it and when I need to read it and use it that helps me most.

Here’s what BT has done:

RSS

BT uses Feedreader as the newsreader on your PC.  It is able to capture all the feeds to information you wantb to know have been updated.  It saves you time checking and re-checking sites to see if anything has changed or new happen.  More and more intranet sites are using RSS for this purpose.  This isn’t just for blogs but more traditional content and news.  I’ve examples of some of the 100s of RSS feeds we have and my own Feedreader (your blog could be there!).

Twitter

BT encourages people to use Twitter for conversations with people and communities with the same interests.  BT also its own groups on Twitter.  For example everyone in the team I’m in has access to a group Twitter account to share information that can vary from business to personal stuff.  As we are a virtual team working from many locations it helps build that common bond between ourselves that limited face to face contact can prevent.  I’ve examples of my Twitter profile and some of our team conversations.

‘Round up’ emails

To reduce the number of individual emails that go to everyone about non-urgent but necessary information we need to be aware of, a ’round up’ email that summarises all the emails is sent out.  This means I know what is urgent, maybe more important than other emails, and have more time to cover what is summarised when it is sent once every 2 weeks.  I’ve an example of the latest ’round up’ email sent to me.

I’m on the move and still able to use BT’s intranet

Here’s another example the Intranet Benchmarking Forum identifed as best practice when benchmarking BT’s intranet.  You can find the first and second examples of best practice here.

IBF say “BT’s intranet is designed to support mobile workers so it is fully accessible from mobile devices.  Mobile users use a text-based interface.”

People in BT can use a variety of mobile devices – Blackberrys, iPhones, mobiles with media capability – on our intranet to:

• Access all content needed for their work
• Some applications like Directory can be used with more applications being enabled
• Listen to podcasts
• Collaborate on our corporate wiki
• Post on your blog.

This helps improve productivity while people are travelling or just in a different workplace for a while.  It cuts down on that ‘dead time’ while on a train for example.  It also encourages a culture of working remotely from your main place of work when needed.

Here are some examples of best practice showing what the content and applications look like with full and PDA – text only - versions for you to compare.

I know what BT’s intranet is worth. What about yours?

Last August I posted about BT testing out a new methodology that gives a fuller picture of the overall value your intranet gives your organisation and promised to update you on progress made.

Well, it has taken a long time BUT it has been successful!

I now know how much BT’s intranet is worth in £s, how that is worked out, the different levels of value and can start to use it for future investment funding decisions.

BT has measured the exploited and unexploited value of our intranet in terms of the business processes it delivers. It breaks down into three main types of business value:

• cash saved and revenue generated
• time savings converted into cash
• less tangible benefits such as risk reduction, increased satisfaction and emissions savings

I can’t reveal the exact figures as they are sensitive – sorry. What I can say is that for every £1 invested there is potentially £20+ exploited value achieved and £5 unexploited value still to gain. As BT invests many £millions you can see what a breakthrough potentially this can be in the value everyone can see in our intranet!

BT worked with IBF to develop their financial value tool and have shown the methodology to be sound. The results are as accurate as the information you provide on costs, etc, for the tool to assess.

In the 1990s methodology was developed to measure the value of brands and shown as an organisation’s financial asset. This can now start to happen in a similar way over the next few years with intranets.

Wouldn’t it be good to know what your intranet is worth and contributing directly to your organisation’s bottom line?

How to get and use a successful intranet podcast

In my last post about the right collaborative tools I said I would talk about how BT has been successful using podcasts.  How did we achieve this?

Why use podcasts?

BT needed a cheap and easy way for people to explain by ’show and tell’ with other people how to do something.  They say a picture paints a thousand words and demonstrating how to do something in a few minutes is much better than screens and screens of guidance and tips.

What did you use?

BT beta tested an open source solution with a few users who were keen to share content this way and helped them with their work.  Others wanted to find out how to do things using this approach rather than reading words or phone calls.  Building on the experiences of podcast producers and consumers we have developed it into what we call Podcast Central.

Podcast Central has grown in a year to over 300 podcasts.  In May alone we had over 22,000 page views and over 8,500 downloads. 

We have wider needs such as online training courses becoming shorter podcasts with a more friendly, informal, approach.  We are reviewing what to use in future so any suggestions you can share will be great.

How does Podcast Central work?

I have attached some slides on how we use Podcast Central.  They take you from the BT Homepage, our corporate intranet portal, to Podcast Central.  You can find out how we publish a podcast, how we view a podcast,  feedback comments and ask for a transcript. 

It is based on the You Tube approach of keeping it simple and easy and not trying too many ‘nice’ features that can over-complicate the user experience.

Using the right collaborative tools

On 9 June I’ll have the pleasure of taking part in a discussion group at KCUK 2009 with David Ott, Manager, Information Worker Applications, World Health Organization and Ben Gardner, Client Engagement Manager, Research Informatics, Pfizer.

We’ll be identifying the business purpose of using the right collaborative tools.  If you are not going to the conference but have some ideas to share with me on this I would love to hear from you.

We’re covering:

Comparing the business benefits of blogs and wikis over other web-based publishing models

Encouraging employees to share and communicate their business knowledge

Demonstrating the benefits of podcasts and RSS feeds to communicate your corporate message and employee insight

My view is covered in my previous posts on how to start intranet wikis and blogs and the more advanced steps.  You need to consider your organisation’s culture, strategy and needs to collaborate online.  Then you need to start small, test early and build or fail quickly.  It is important your users know the difference between opinions which can change and authoritative facts that won’t when using this knowledge for their business needs.

I’ll post in next few days about how BT has successfully used podcasts and RSS but let me have your views in the meantime.

More advance steps to a good intranet wiki/blog

I covered in my last post 5 simple steps to a good intranet wiki or blog using BT’s experience.  We have NOT publicised our blog or wiki and have allowed it to grow organically concentrating on the quality rather than quantity of user generated content.

Now I wanted to cover more advanced steps BT has taken so our wiki and blogs are now an integral part of our intranet.

Governance

In BT anyone can start a blog or create a wiki article internally about their views and opinions and can contribute to other blogs or wiki articles if they wish to.  To get started all you need to do is email the administrator and sign up to the terms of use – nothing slanderous; illegal; breaks BT’s policies – that are basic common sense rules.  We treat people as adults in BT and they have responded by behaving responsibly.

Standards

Our wiki and blogs are template driven.  BT provides all the navigation, features that meet standards; different colour global navigation bar; tagging options to make it as easy for someone to publish while making it the best user experience possible at the same time.  Soon wiki and blog content that has not been updated after a period of several months will be flagged as likely to be removed if no longer needed by any users.  If no one responds then it will automatically be removed.

Anonymity

This links back to the culture step in my last post.  In BT there are NO anonymous postings.  If someone has a point to make on a blog or wiki then they can say whatever it is BUT you must give your name so anyone can challenge what you say.  I can honestly say I am not aware of any ‘career threatening’ comments being posted, removed and person disciplined scenario happening in BT.  We have a healthy culture and want to learn how we can improve further by listening to people and acting on their feedback.

Findability

We have moved a long way from beta testing our wiki and blog platforms with a few users.  Users can now search all types of content – formal, crowd and personal – when a standard search query is made.  It searches social media content and presents them as part of one prioritised list of results with either ‘intranet’ or ‘user generated content’ by each result (we could have better titles I think here) to help users see the difference between authoritative content and a view/opinion which may change quickly.

Visibility

We don’t keep our wiki and blogs hidden in a dark corner of our intranet!  They are highly visible on our corporate intranet homepage where the three most recent posts and articles are shown.  Since we did this the frequency of updates has increased, quantity of articles and blogs has increased and views to these has also increased.

We believe all these has helped BT to collaborate in virtual teams to solve business problems and create business solutions much quicker.  Wikis and blogs are part of the mainstream of intranet activity and use now.

5 simple steps to a good intranet wiki/blog

While talking to people after presenting ‘Adding value to your intranet - Intranet governance at BT‘ at Intranätdagarna 2009 in Stockholm last week it made me realise some simple steps could help an intranet blog or wiki be successful or not so.

So, using BT’s experience, here goes:

Your sponsor

You need someone in an influential position in your organisation who will champion this. You need to be clear what their expectation is.  Is it the same or similar to your own?  You need to be clear what a wiki or blog will achieve…… and the timescales for achieving it too!

Your culture

If your organisation isn’t very trusting of communications; it doesn’t share information; unwilling to respond to any feedback that is critical but constructive then you will find it very difficult to introduce wikis or blogs.  You need an organisation willing to collaborate; responds to ideas and feedback from anyone; encourages honest communications to have a successful launch.

Your technology

You need to agree with your IT partners on the technology to use.  It should be free or very cheap.  Open source applications are ideal.  Without IT accepting and even better, agreeing, with what you plan to do it will be very difficult, if not impossible, to do.  If you haven’t got a good working relationship already with IT, now is the time to start!

Your plan

Start small with your wiki or blog.  Just have one template for users to contribute.  Invite people who you know have a need or interest from different parts of your organisation to test it out.  See what the feedback is for the future direction you need to take.  Don’t spend lots of time, effort and MONEY testing.  If you are it isn’t going right!  There’s more on beta testing in another of my posts.

Next

If the beta testing is successful and the objectives are being  met you then have the justification to develop it further for wider use.  If you need to apply for funding you have evidence to support from request.  Again, keep the next stage small to start with, publicise with users who will benefit or be interested and WILL contribute.  Sit back and watch it grow but……….make sure you respond to any feedback from users so that continues.

I’ll blog soon about more advanced steps BT needed to take to continue the success!

Adding value to your intranet

On May 13^th I will be presenting on ‘Intranet governance at BT – adding value to your intranet’ at Intranätdagarna 2009 in Stockholm.  I will show how:

• Developing a strategy that aligns to your overall business strategy and getting buy-in
• Governance model that shows who is responsible for each activity
• Defining different types of online content (formal, collaborative, etc)
• Complying with publishing standards
• Meeting the needs of your users
• Measuring the overall impact your intranet has on your business.

 ….can add value to your intranet.  I’m sharing my presentation I’ll be using at Intranätdagarna 2009.

I hope to meet many intranet people at the conference so please say ‘hello’ or ‘hej’ to me.