Three approaches to Intranet Strategy

Intranets have become immensely popular over the past few years. While they were usually found only in large organizations five to ten years ago, the past few years have seen companies, non-profits, and institutions of all sizes beginning to see the value of creating a Web site specifically for internal use.

Often the drive for creating an Intranet is simply to keep up with the Joneses (because every other company is doing it) or because rogue departments set up their own internal Web servers and the Communications or IT departments try to reign them in. Unfortunately, it is too often the case, especially with smaller companies, that there is no real strategy behind creating, maintaining, and using an Intranet.

Every Intranet is different, and every section of a company’s Intranet can be used differently. There are a number of different methods to how an Intranet can be used to benefit a company. However, the three most popular and most valuable are:

• Knowledge Management
• Collaboration and Communication
• Task Completion

For companies just starting out creating an Intranet, or for companies that have an Intranet but are not quite sure what to do with it, one or more of these approaches may be appropriate.

Knowledge Management

Knowledge management deals with understanding information and knowledge within a company. Knowledge can be stored in someone’s head, on their hard drive, or on paper, whiteboards, or other artifacts. A knowledge management approach to Intranets is one that seeks to use the Intranet to find and organize all of the information that resides within an organization. The Intranet serves as a front-end to a large repository of knowledge. There could be document repositories, individual file warehouses, financial and statistical data, Web-based reports from legacy systems, decision support documents, vendor information, databases, and other information that previously was only available to one person or a limited group of people.

By allowing more people across the organization to access this previously-hidden knowledge, it eliminates confusion and duplication, increases productivity, improves decision making by decreasing instances of asymmetric information, and better prepares the organization for strategic shifts and organizational and personnel changes.

Collaboration and Communication

Collaboration and communication encompasses features that allow employees and groups to connect with others within the company (collaboration), as well as features that assist in creating essential one-way information flows (communication). In a system geared towards knowledge management, individuals contribute and have access to a wealth of information, but never interact with other knowledge creators. Similarly, there is no emphasis on proactively getting the information to the right people. An Intranet model of collaboration and communication promotes discussion, learning, and assists with offline communications. It is especially useful in largely decentralized organizations or groups, and when geographic locations can stand in the way of face-to-face communication.

An Intranet focusing on collaboration and communication would include features like discussion forums, internal announcements, surveys, corporate calendars, department publications, collaboration environments, and employee and project team pages. Distributing information electronically saves time and money (by eliminating printing and distribution costs), and assisting employees in collaboration is invaluable in preventing problems, exposing (and quelling) rumors, providing feedback, identifying opportunities for cost savings and revenue growth, increasing job satisfaction and reducing turnover.

Task Completion

Task completion refers to a model of interaction with explicit goals. While the two previous models were focused on information (either sharing it, in the knowledge management approach, or communicating it with/to others, in the collaboration and communication example), Task completion focuses on actions. Instead of using the Intranet to find things, people use the Intranet to do things. Organizations using this approach usually allow employees to go on the Intranet and reserve rooms, make purchases, change human resources information (beneficiaries, or 401(k) allocations, for example), fill out and submit timesheets, purchase supplies, take online classes, and complete necessary forms.

The main benefit to this sort of system is that it lets employees spend more time doing their job and less time completing these everyday tasks. By moving offline processes to the Intranet (i.e. converting a paper form to a Web-based form), it should be less time consuming to fill out and process the information, with the added benefit of having the information stored electronically for future use. It makes employees more productive and less frustrated.

Applying the strategy

While it is not required that an Intranet (or a section of an Intranet) only focus on one of these three models, most have a primary concentration, which is often supplemented by other aspects. For example, an Intranet used for knowledge management may have an area where employees can discuss and collaborate on documents; or, an Intranet may be focused on allowing employees to complete tasks online, but also providing them with a knowledge repository to assist them in completing their task.

The important element to understand is that all Intranets and Intranet sites need to have a strategy to be effective. There must be a purpose for the site, both from the business side and from the user perspective.

Intranet growth need not be restricted to these categories, but understanding their purposes, differences, and benefits can help to make an Intranet more useful and help a team, department, or organization more quickly and easily reach their goals.

http://www.digital-web.com/articles/three_approaches_to_intranet_strategy/

Intranet A Borrowed Explanation

While searching on the net, I found a nice site on Intranets. What was nice about this site was its outlook on the Intranet scenario. I would like to quote the definition as interpreted by this site.

Intranets are a compelling new way of looking at communication and information flow within your organization. As a communication infrastructure, an intranet is based on the communication standards of the Internet which include the content standards of the World Wide Web (WWW), e-mail, file transfer protocol (ftp), and news services. The tools used to create an intranet are, for the most part, the same as those used for Internet and Web applications. Access to information published on an intranet is restricted to users within a designated intranet group, usually accomplished through the use of local area networks (LANs) protected by firewalls (security devices that regulate traffic between an organization's intranet and the outside world).

Intranets can cover the enterprise or focus on particular workgroups, and they run the gamut from publishing applications to more traditional groupware-style discussion tracking. More recently, technology has begun to make restricted access feasible in shared environments. These extended intranets offer the ability to cost-effectively integrate the virtual enterprise--the company, its suppliers, distributors, and customers--through intranets that extend beyond the corporate walls.

Intranets springing up today generally consist of internal corporate Web servers made available to employees across the LAN or through private dial-up access. Through links to corporate databases, file servers, and document repositories, Web servers bring diverse kinds of information to users through a single front end--the familiar Web browser. This allows users to view information presented as text, graphics, sound, video and animation, which adds to the potential for rapid data assimilation. Employees use their Web browsers to access corporate Web pages that have links to corporate documents and data written in HTML (Hypertext Markup Language). Increasingly, new products are appearing to give intranets group discussion and other groupware features.

Unlike the Internet, where you quickly encounter the barrier of 28.8K modems, corporate LANs have a bandwidth 300 to 700 times greater on average than the typical consumer modem. That means not only that text and graphics can move faster through the pipeline, but that it is easier to add multimedia content types like sound, video, Java applets, and portable document files.

This was just to make you familiar with the concepts of an Intranet.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/intranets/39156

Bridges An Introduction

An intranet-especially one in a large corporation-can be a remarkably complex endeavor, consisting of many networks, including departmental local area networks, as well as larger subnetworks, which each are in essence collections of networks. Naturally, if you desire synchronisation, you have to connect these subnetworks.

Bridges connect networks. When bridges were first developed they could not connect incompatible networking architectures. But connecting divergent networks is an essential requirement for intranets. That's the reason why most modern bridges allow connection of diverse networks as long as they use the same protocol (TCP/IP or IPX).

Bridges are also used to connect networks indirectly by long-distance, usually leased, lines. Remote bridges on Ethernet networks use a transparent routing technique to handle traffic. It is the destination address of each packet that is read to determine the action to be taken. If the destination is on the same network, bridges ignore the packet; bridges pass only packets that need to go to other networks.

In order to determine whether to pass or drop a packet, bridges refer to a table, which is basically a list of addresses. These tables originally had to be built manually, causing considerable maintenance every time a replacement or additional NIC address was put on the network. This led to the development of learning bridges, that is, bridges with software algorithms that could build these tables automatically. Today's bridges build and maintain their tables by listening to cable traffic and checking packets for source addresses.

Bridges are relatively simple to set up and maintain, and they can operate fairly fast since they simply decide whether to pass or drop the packet. In the next chapter a similar but more complex piece of equipment, the router, is discussed. Bridges are often used to segment and reduce local network traffic. Routers are usually used for connecting entire networks and subnetworks together.

Bridges and routers are sometimes combined into a single product called a brouter. A brouter combines the functions of both bridge and router. It examines the outermost address to see if the data needs to be sent to another LAN over a bridge, and delivers information that way if possible. If, instead, it needs to be sent using IP technology, it will act as a router does.

The actual working of a network bridge will be discussed in the next article.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/intranets/38201

Bridges- The Methodology

Bridges are hardware and software combinations that connect different parts of a single network, such as different sections of an intranet. They connect local area networks (LANs) to each other. They are generally not used, however, for connecting entire networks to each other, for example, for connecting an intranet to the Internet, or an intranet to an intranet, or to connect an entire subnetwork to an entire subnetwork. To do that, more sophisticated pieces of technology called routers are used.

• When there is a great amount of traffic on an Ethernet local area network, packets can collide with one another, reducing the efficiency of the network, and slowing down network traffic. Packets can collide because so much of the traffic is routed among all the workstations on the network.
• In order to cut down on the collision rate, a single LAN can be subdivided into two or more LANs. For example, a single LAN can be subdivided into several departmental LANs. Most of the traffic in each departmental LAN stays within the department LAN, and so it needn't travel through all the workstations on all the LANs on the network. In this way, collisions are reduced. Bridges are used to link the LANs. The only traffic that needs to travel across bridges is traffic bound for another LAN. Any traffic within the LAN need not travel across a bridge.
• Each packet of data on an intranet has more information in it than just the IP information. It also includes addressing information required for other underlying network architecture, such as for an Ethernet network. Bridges look at this outer network addressing information and deliver the packet to the proper address on a LAN
• Bridges consult a learning table that has the addresses of all the network nodes in it. If a bridge finds that a packet belongs on its own LAN, it keeps the packet inside the LAN. If it finds that the workstation is on another LAN, it forwards the packet. The bridge constantly updates the l
  earning table as it monitors and routes traffic.
• Bridges can connect LANs in a variety of different ways. They can connect LANs using serial connections over traditional phone lines and modems, over ISDN lines, and over direct cable connections. CSU/DSU units are used to connect bridges to telephone lines for remote connectivity.
• Bridges and routers are sometimes combined into a single product called a brouter.

A brouter handles both bridging and routing tasks. If the data needs to be sent only to another LAN on the network or subnetwork, it will act only as a bridge delivering the data based on the Ethernet address. If the destination is another network entirely, it will act as a router, examining the IP packets and routing the data based on the IP address.

So after bridges, its the turn of Intranet Routers. But that, next time.

http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/intranets/38202/2

Options for setting up building an intranet or extranet

Setting up an intranet or extranet can be as easy as purchasing access through an application service provider (ASP), purchasing and installing third-party software, or building an extranet or intranet internally.

Here is a quick summary of the advantages and disadvantages of each approach:

1. Building it yourself
Advantages: Complete control of user interface design; ability to customize level of functionality for each client; integration into internal systems, and direct access to user activity.

Disadvantages: High up-front development cost; requires staff expertise in the development of intranets and extranets, commitment of internal staff for 6 months to a year for planning, execution, review and implementation; and an ongoing commitment of internal staff for internal and client support, hosting, maintenance and upgrades.

2. Purchasing/installing third-party software
Advantages: Proven track-record of packaged solution; ability to choose functions and to customize user interface, more rapid implementation compared to building it yourself.

Disadvantages: High up-front purchase cost; commitment of internal staff for customization and implementation; on-going commitment of internal staff for internal and client support, hosting, maintenance and upgrades; and extensive internal and client training.

3. Using a Service Provider (ASP)
Advantages: Proven track-record, often with expertise in the application of intranets and extranets in particular industries; low cost of entry and predictable cost over time; virtually immediate implementation; no commitment of internal staff for internal and client support, hosting, or maintenance; and upgrades at no cost by extranet experts, and savings on internal server use.

Disadvantages: Less freedom in user interface design, and fixed functionality.

In the final analysis…
The approach you choose depends on how you work, the technical and financial resources at your disposal, and how rapidly you need to move forward.

Intranet Guy is an evangelist for the use of intranets and extranets to promote more efficient collaboration among teams by harnessing the power of the internet.



http://articlenews.us/articles/node/63?PHPSESSID=64b4f31c7bb161a10d657c0de62e85aa

Intranet

Intranets What exactly is an intranet? It's one of those terms that's more thrown around than understood, and has become more of a buzzword than a commonly understood idea. Simply put, an intranet is a private network with Internet technology used as the underlying architecture. An intranet is built using the Internet's TCP/IP protocols for communications. TCP/IP protocols can be run on many hardware platforms and cabling schemes. The underlying hardware is not what makes an intranet-it's the software protocols that matter. Intranets can co-exist with other local area networking technology. In many companies, existing "legacy systems" including mainframes, Novell networks, minicomputers, and various databases, are being integrated into an intranet. A wide variety of tools allow this to happen. Common Gateway Interface (CGI) scripting is often used to access legacy databases from an intranet. The Java programming language can be used to access legacy databases as well. With the enormous growth of the Internet, an increasing number of people in corporations use the Internet for communicating with the outside world, for gathering information, and for doing business. It didn't take long for people to recognize that the components that worked so well on the Internet could be equally valuable internally and that is why intranets are becoming so popular. Some corporations do not have TCP/IP networks, the protocol required to access the resources of the Internet. Creating an intranet in which all the information and resources can be used seamlessly has many benefits. TCP/IP-based networks make it easy for people to access the network remotely, such as from home or while traveling. Dialing into an intranet in this way is much like connecting to the Internet, except that you're connecting to a private network instead of to a public Internet provider. Interoperability between networks is another substantial bonus. Security systems separate an intranet from the Internet. A company's intranet is protected by firewalls-hardware and software combinations that allow only certain people to access the intranet for specific purposes.


http://www.gotlinks.com/earticles/articles/32283-intranet.html

Human-Centered Intranet Design

Have you ever tried discussing Tolstoy with a vacuum cleaner? This is precisely how many users feel when trying to interact with their systems in a technologically driven work environment. And I do mean interact. Although the word is usually associated with social activity, interacting with technology is exactly what we're doing every time we sit in front of our computers.

There's an unfortunate disconnect between how humans naturally function and what a lot of technology delivers. Technology needs to function as an extension of our own abilities, but users are often left scratching their heads or pounding their keyboards in frustration. It's ironic that while intranets aim to bring workers together in collaborative effort they can also alienate individual users who struggle to decipher poorly developed or overly complicated systems. This makes about a much sense as creating more bureaucracy to eliminate red tape.

The human-computer relationship can be an uneasy one. But it doesn't, and shouldn't, have to be that way. Just as physical ergonomics is important to the health of the body, cognitive ergonomics is important to the health of the mind. Developers need to have a deeper understanding that regardless of what technology allows them to do, the end product must conform to the natural way in which humans work.

Human-System Disconnect

Users have always tried to reconcile the way in which they naturally work with how technology makes them work (or in some cases changes the way they work). For those not in a technology-driven field, or not used to working with computers beyond a word processor, this is not an easy task — especially when software is getting bigger; more elaborate; and consequently, more complicated.

We've all heard the same buzzwords associated with software — intuitive, user-friendly, easy-to-learn, ready out-of-the-box — but more often than not, users are in conflict, rather than in concert, with their systems. Simplicity is touted as a major selling point to convince users that what they're about to install or use isn't threatening. But user manuals end up longer than the code itself, system interfaces make users cross-eyed, and figuring out how to perform a task requires more effort than the task itself. This makes users feel as though they have to run a mile to gain an inch; and the payoff of technology, in the long run, isn't always apparent to those outside of IT.

This disparity in the human-computer relationship can be fueled by the manner in which software is developed. Too often solutions are created with technology as the primary focus, when it should be the users. This notion of human-centered design isn't a new one, but it's one that hasn't received the attention it should from developers.




http://www.intranetjournal.com/articles/200511/ij_11_28_05a.html