Intranet Blog

Written by Administrator | 06 February 2012
Posted in Intranet Blog

NetworkAbility Roll-out Basics

An effective collaboration software launch will affect both the short-term acceptance and the long-term success of the new applications. There are a number of key considerations that we would like to present, as you contemplate introducing NetworkAbility to your organization.

It can be beneficial to think of the launch as a single cohesive roll-out, usually coordinated by a small dedicated group or committee. The following points are provided as food-for-thought.

Give Your New Collaboration Platform a Personality

We are all aware of how important it is to feel comfortable in our environment and the image that your collaboration site projects will influence how your users accept this new technology. Think of this as a public relations exercise; how can you get people to accept and want to return to this new place? We have some suggestions for branding your new software.

• Name Your Platform: Come up with a unique name that personifies the organization, the culture, and what you would like to accomplish through the new platform. Ensure the name will reflect the culture of your organization; perhaps take the opportunity to gauge that culture by holding a contest and voting to select the new name.
  
• Familiarity: Design your collaboration space in-line with existing company branding; including logo and color schemes.
  
• Have Some Fun: Introduce some fresh new design modification to reflect special events, seasons, and holidays. Google is a master at this subtle ‘fun’ branding.
• Create a poll for the Home page that simply asks users ‘What do you think about the New Collaboration Platform?’ Most people appreciate being asked to provide an opinion and the feedback will be valuable.

Prepare Site Content

When launching NetworkAbility it will be useful to give users ready access so that they are able to view a site that has some content prepared. A large volume of content is not necessary though we recommend a particular attention to quality, as content will be one of the main factors forming a user’s early impressions.

Some ideas for NetworkAbility:

• Create an attractive Home landing page to introduce the Intranet and the features.
  
• Add the employee directory to the Contact Manager to provide a readily accessible contact database. (Note: Perhaps this is a good time to also introduce a policy to stop the distribution of paper copies).
  
• Upload the latest HR and Policy documents (Employees Manual, Health, Safety, & Environment Policies, Insurance Forms, etc); again, make certain to discourage the creation of paper copies.
  
• Create several discussion threads on the forum, including a thread that discusses the introduction of the new collaboration suite. This is a terrific tool for sharing information with all users and will form the beginning of a very powerful knowledge-base.
  
• Add some articles that address current company related topics; this may be a good opportunity to get into more detail about the use of a collaboration platform and related policy direction.
  
• Add events to the NetworkAbility events calendar; should include statutory holidays any other upcoming events to form the beginning of your Events Calendar.

Again, it is important to focus on quality over quantity. The volume will come soon enough, as the site quickly builds content.

Finding the Collaboration Tools

We recommend that one of the early priorities is to have organization members set NetworkAbility as the default landing page when they open their browsers and to bookmark as a favorite. If you can reduce the need to manually enter the URL, this will help ensure successful adoption.

Engage Users Early

Engaging users is important, especially at the early stages of launching a new system. People are social by nature and NetworkAbility provides the means for users to start interacting immediately and with very little guidance.

A logical beginning to roll-out is to ask all users to complete the user profiles in detail; including uploading their photo. It is likely, especially in a larger organization, that your employees do not know much about one another and the profiles are an excellent means to begin some internal networking. This is fun, invites engagement and will inevitably lead to stronger teams and a more close-knit company.

Building awareness of the collaboration platform can also serve to engage employees and ensure acceptance. Naming the new networking space was mentioned earlier and the concept of including employees in this process is a great way to build awareness. NetworkAbility polls can be used to further facilitate employee interaction.

Rather than focusing on the company when launching your new platform, focus on people. Perhaps write an article about the people involved in introducing the Intranet or start a Blog section featuring the company executives. Include images, have fun, and continue with efforts to keep your Intranet people centric.

NetworkAbility has been developed with a number of social media tools and the intent is to get employees actively engaged. Encourage users to rate and comment whenever they have an opinion on something. Upload photos and video that will be of general interest. Generate conversations about topics that are important to the organization and then invite all users to become a voice; use the new collaboration tools to empower your employees.

Continuous Site Improvement

As NetworkAbility becomes established, solicit comments from all users. Ask them for ideas and think of ways to improve. NetworkAbility is flexible and extensible and all that is required are ideas and ingenuity.

Continue to promote content that engages. Promote a Suggestion Box application where employees can give input about the features they would like to see on the intranet. Create different home page quick polls to learn more about the organization as a network. This shows employees that you’re interested in their opinions and feedback and reinforces their value.

One of the more important factors in a roll-out plan... allow employees to contribute ideas and content. Employees will want to be interactive with this new social tool, and by giving them a chance to contribute, you are ensured success in overall adoption.

Policy Considerations

Password Security
NetworkAbility has built in security features, such as password encryption, ability to monitor users and a log file that records user activity. NetworkAbility provides a single encrypted sign-on process for your Intranet and cannot be breached unless someone has that access information. We recommend that organizations introduce strong Password protocol (such as using a combination of numbers & letters) and that care is taken to protect confidentiality of user access information.

Ease Your Mail Server and Data Storage Loads
NetworkAbility will provide a single point of communication that can all but eliminate the need for global emails. Central storage of photos and video will vastly reduce email loads and PC storage requirements. The entire NetworkAbility system is built to promote internal networking and centralized document storage, this will also reduce individual email loads and the need for external communications platforms such as Skype or Facebook that, while useful, can also be an unwanted distraction.

Let your stakeholders know that there are certain expectations for the benefits provided by your Intranet system. NetworkAbility can be used to significantly lessen loads on bandwidth or data storage and this should be encouraged.

Cut Costs & Conserve Resources
One of the greatest advantages of an electronic collaboration platform is that your organization will have a place to electronically store documents and serve up-to-date information in a readily accessible format. This is a tremendous impetus to do away with masses of paper copies, publishing costs, mailing and distribution costs. NetworkAbility will change the way information is managed and will allow your company to set policies that will help the environment, as well as save considerable cost.