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]
An employee blog on ThomsonReuters intranet (Source: ThomsonReuters)
The Intranet 2.0 Global Study (526 respondents) reveals that most organizations have blogs on their intranets:
A further breakdown of intranets by size shows that blogs are common on intranets and organizations of all sizes, but are more common in the big organizations:
Despite their proliferation, however, most intranet blogs are penned by executives. Employees like to read them, but the vast majority aren’t ready to write them. Case in point: IBM.
Despite its massive size and web savvy population IBM reveals that only 5% of the employee population blogs on the corporate intranet, but only a fraction of those regularly post to a blog. In fact, although there are more than 16,000 blogs at IBM, fewer than 900 people (less than one-quarter of one percent of all IBM employees, or 0.25%) have blogged in the past 3 months, according to an internal IBM survey of employees (see Employee intranet blogs wanted).
These statistics hold true at other organizations. Thomson Reuters has more than 400 employee blogs, on their intranet, and a home page that encourage employees to “Create a blog.” However, Thomson Reuters has 55,000 employees. Despite the prominent placement of a “Blogs” widget or portlet and a “Explore Blogs” promotional link (where employees can create their own blog), both on the home page, less than 1% of employees are blogging.
Thomson Reuters intranet home with “Blogs” widget (bottom right)
This low adoption / penetration of employee blogs shouldn’t surprise anyone: most employees are not writers, let alone citizen journalists, and have work to do. 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.
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