Counterproductive intranets

16. oktober 2009Jørgen Dalen og Doris Amland

Recent research suggests that most companies have got their thinking wrong. Conventionally, an intranet is set up to keep outsiders well out of internal knowledge bases and closely guarded industrial ‘secrets’. The exchange of ideas is kept behind a wall of fire.

An intranet-solution is the usual way for making tools and content accessible to employees. The characteristic role of an intranet is to inform and facilitate collaboration and knowledge sharing in the company.  As the name implies, an intranet is typically a closed network, accessible only to employees. The most obvious reason  for keeping content safely tucked away behind a firewall  is to protect it from the prying eyes of ‘outsiders’ . But, research now suggests, that settling for a closed network behind an impregnable firewall, may well be counterproductive. This is especially true for knowledge intensive companies that depend on innovation – which is hardly good news.

The multi-networked approach

A company is not a closed system even if (they think) the intranet is. People tend to interact.  In fact, most new knowledge is brought in from the outside world, through relationships with people in other communities and organizations.  In fact most intranets only stimulate collaboration between people inside the organization, resulting in employees who tend to get more and more similar in the way they think. What on earth is the point of keeping your people safely tucked away – shut away from the stimulation of valuable exchanges with the outside world?

The enemy within

In his research, Sigvald Harryson shows that the most innovative companies’ successes depend on what he calls the “multi-networked approach”. This approach is the exact opposite of the conventional intranet way of thinking. It means that employees continually bring in new perspectives and knowledge through their relationships with knowledge workers in other organizations.

Time is ripe for a grand opening

We believe that companies should rethink the way they set up their intranets. The intranet should support knowledge networks that go beyond the company itself, and be opened up to specialists, partners and customers outside the company for mutual exchange of content and ideas.

Success factors: showing visitors the way to valuable content

It is true that plenty of governmental institutions have facilitated open access intranets for many years.  But open access alone is not enough to achieve the desired results. 

Firstly: the content must be of interest to external target groups.  Someone in the organization should therefore be responsible to guide the external users to the content of value to them.   

Secondly: the intranet should have a tool for establishing and maintaining knowledge networks that extend to visitors outside the company, (preferably without breaching security policies).

The end of the corporate web site era?

Rather ironically - extending the intranet to embrace external users may herald the end of the traditional corporate web site.  It shall certainly be interesting to see how the Intranet/Internet double act evolves in the years ahead. Will we meet a wide open gateway or a closely guarded (that leaks anyway) wall – or perhaps a more dynamic and prosperous compromise between the two?

References

Harryson, Sigvald J. (2002) Managing know-who based companies. A Multinetworked Approach to Knowledge and Innovation Management, Edward Elgar Publishing.