Intranet information architecture: don’t reinvent the wheel
By Toby Ward The ultimate goal of the intranet manager, architect is to create an ‘intuitive’ ... [read more]
Consider for a moment some telling statistics:
By the numbers, the number of blogs to unique users is about 7.5%. However, many active bloggers have multiple blogs. The reality is, less than 1% of Internet users have an active blog. However, those that regularly write and contribute to a blog is a fraction of that 1%. Employee blogging statistics are far less impressive.
If only a fraction of individuals write and blog on the Internet, what percentage of workers are truly motivated to blog while performing their job?
Consider the results of The Intranet 2.0 Global Study 2010 (526 respondents):
Blog selection form; Thomson Reuters intranet (June 2010)
Less than one-fifth of organizations have made available blogging to all employees. IBM is one example, and less than one-quarter of one percent of employees are active bloggers (see Employee intranet blogs wanted). Thomson Reuters is no different. Unlike IBM, Thomson Reuters actively promotes blogs and blogging on its intranet home page, but less than 1% of employees have set up a blog (see Intranet blogs hit critical mass).
So, what’s up with that!? I thought blogging was so damned hot and revolutionary that everyone was doing it?!
Let me answer a question with another question: who said everyone was a writer? For every Dickens and Hemmingway there have been millions of failures, and billions who have no interest in picking up the proverbial pen and paper – or keyboard and blog. For every Bob Woodward and Huffington, there are millions who try writing, and fail (or simply drop it), and nearly 2 billion who are not even interested.
As I wrote in Intranet blogs hit critical mass the low adoption rate of blogs by employees shouldn’t surprise anyone: most employees are not writers, let alone citizen journalists, and have work to do when they are at work. Don’t be fooled though, employees do want to hear more from the executive suite, and they are eager to learn more about and better understand their business, and the direction of the organization. Employees want to read blogs, they just don’t want to write them.
Want to receive new Prescient articles automatically? Subscribe to our mailing list.
By Toby Ward The ultimate goal of the intranet manager, architect is to create an ‘intuitive’ ... [read more]
By Toby Ward, Founder, Prescient Digital Media To ensure great content on the intranet, your organization ... [read more]
[read more]
Some of the Intranet Case Studies at the Digital Workplace & Intranet Global Forum [read more]
by Toby Ward. Great intranets all have one thing in common – greatly skilled and ... [read more]
Two of the biggest areas of attention for today’s corporate intranets are mobile and chat ... [read more]
[read more]
The social intranet is nothing new, but advances in social computing, and a supporting cultural ... [read more]
Intranet news is one part people, one part process, one part technology. [read more]