There is an interesting shift that occurs when developing an intranet as opposed to a public website. The primary project leader for a public site is a marketing director, however, the technology director is normally the primary project leader for an intranet project. Because of this shift, a company may not think to discuss their intranet with their marketing agency. This is an oversight that can potentially limit the effectiveness of the intranet. An intranet, while being lead by a technology director, needs the influence and involvement of others (such as marketing, HR, customer service, etc.). While the marketing and design concerns of an intranet may not be as crucial as they are in a public site, they are nonetheless important.

This newsletter will review ways in which strategic thinking about branding and positioning applys to intranets as well as public websites. We'll also give an overview of the technical aspects of intranet development, and how Newfangled's grayscreen development process and content management system can address a clients' intranet development needs.

Intranets are often grass roots efforts initiated from within an organization. This approach is appropriate because an intranet is ultimately for internal employees, and the more ownership they feel of the site, the better it will be. However, while a grass roots full participation approach is very important to an intranet, it also can cause some real problems when it comes to future growth and usability of the intranet.

Because full participation is so important, many companies have developed their intranets in a very loose and organic way, allowing content to be added spontaneously. Usually there is some attempt at establishing HTML and design standards. These standards tend to change and shift over time, and adherence is spotty. When intranet content is created by various individuals using PDFs or HTML tools like FrontPage, Dreamweaver, or the "save as HTML" features of Word and Excel, the consistency and organization of the intranet deteriorates over time. This deterioration can result in the needless duplication of content and poor searching capabilities. This approach makes the intranet like a library where each librarian files information according to their own method. As the intranet grows, these problems can become extreme. These problems are compounded because the tools used to create the static HTML pages mesh the design, navigation, and content together. Changes to the site then need to be retroactively applied to older documents. Fixing these problems can become as problematic as the "Big Dig." Anyone who has traveled through the Boston area is aware of the massive engineering project known as the "Big Dig." A tunnel has been constructed to run completely under the city. Part of the challenge of the Big Dig was trying to construct through an area that has developed haphazardly over centuries. At every stage of the project, an incredible amount deconstruction was necessary before any real construction can take place. Traffic and utility systems were re-routed, temporary structures were built, old structures destroyed, and only then could sections of the new tunnel be constructed. The complexity of this project was due to the complexity of the existing structures that have been built up bit by bit over time.

In cases where an intranet has grown haphazardly over time there may be a lot of deconstruction necessary to repair the flawed foundations. This is one good reason to urge a client who has not yet developed their intranet to do so in a carefully managed way with the appropriate tools for maintaining the integrity of the intranet's structure as it grows over time. The more flexible and well thought out the initial design, the less work (destroying and rebuilding existing pages and structures) will need to be done in the future.   next >