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November's intranet articles from Step Two Designs:

Over on the Step Two Designs site we've just published our latest intranet articles. This month they are:

• Intranet Innovations 2011: six key themes from this year’s awards by Steve Bynghall
• What intranets can do for … engineers by Stephen Byrne

As always, articles are free to read online and download as fully formatted PDFs. we're keen to hear your thoughts! 

Are you considering SharePoint, or anything else, 'out of the box'? Don't.

Michal Pisarek from Habenero Consulting:

As someone who has been involved in the implementation of many SharePoint Intranets, including BenNet the winner of the Intranet Innovation Awards in 2010, I will go on record to say that SharePoint is double edged sword for most organizations. Supremely powerful and engaging if done correctly, horribly detrimental to an organization if done incorrectly. 

This is in response to a Linked In question regarding Microsoft SharePoint 2010's out of the box capabilities, and the platform in general compared to other content management systems (CMS).  

As I've said myself in the Linked In thread, for a number of reasons it's bemusing how many people do this comparison, even as a starting point. Particularly, SharePoint 'out of the box' is something of a myth. It is one of the most expensive platforms on a per user basis (up to 9x the licence costs once ready to rock), it is complex, and its out of the box functionality is akin to 'jack of all trades, master of none'. The award winning Bennett Jones intranet Michal mentions had four organisations collaborating to build it.

It's not just Sharepoint, though. I would really like to see the near-elimination of this entire 'out of the box' intranet concept, because it is mostly a delusional term. Realistically, if requirements have been collected in anything approaching a sensible fashion, any CMS will take customisation to properly fit those requirements. SharePoint just happens to be one of the most costly and complex of all. SharePoint 2010 is also better than 'MOSS' 2007, but its still unlikely to remain vanilla once 'unpacked'. 

Even for a 100-person organisation I worked with last year there was significant customisation needed for a much more user-friendly CMS than SharePoint. One of its absolute killer features took several months to develop (but it was worth it!).

Whether it's minor or major development, don't count on any intranet platform to be ready to go 'out of the box' and meet more than the most basic of requirements.

Update: well worth reading the comments below for clarification on the original question, and expansion on the broader issue.

February's Step Two Designs articles

Last week saw the publication of this month's articles from Step Two Designs:

Tools for remote teams to keep in touch by Rebecca Rodgers

Needs analysis from a distance by Rebecca Rodgers

Custom code, CMS and portals by James Robertson

All are free and available for reading (or downloading as a PDF) on the Step Two Designs site

3 tips to sharpen up your intranet

Kicking off the new year (hope you had a good one!), the first Social Media and Intranets Newsletter looks at three starting points for progress on your intranet in 2009. The first tip:

1. Overhaul the homepage with useful information
It's a simple thing to ask people about the information they use and need to do their jobs. A client I'm working with currently is preparing for a homepage redesign – but without a single new graphic in sight. The redesign is primarily about bringing the most used and useful information to the surface.

For example, a set of critical data relevant to the whole department used to be five clicks deep – now it's in full view on the homepage. The response to this change was immediate and positive. Further improvements are coming, including data collected via a one-question survey asking "What's in your bookmarks?"

In combination with site statistics, asking colleagues about the information they use on a daily basis is a simple way to improve and fine tune your homepage content, and identify glaring omissions.

This point builds on the needs analysis aspect of intranet reviews, something I've written about before (Don't ask people what the want on an intranet and even Internal communication teams take note, which has some good comments from Liam Fitzpatrick - one of the UK's top internal comms consultants) and is an integral part of the work we do at Step Two Designs.

Read the full newsletter here, and all the best for a great start to 2009.