Change is happening

1. From communications to engagement

2. We can do stuff without IT…..

….. and they don’t like it.

3. Uses are emergent, and business benefit is emergent…..

….. so business case processes are inappropriate.

4. Communications people don’t understand it, so…..

….. they ignore it, or try to control it…

5. Users don’t understand it, so…..

….. they just use it….

Another bike

As a typical 'bloke', I love machines and gadgets. Also, in the last three or four years I've become an enthusiastic cyclist, using a bike both to commute to work and for leisure/training rides at the weekend.

Putting these two things together, means I am always on the look out for a new bike. Sometimes, the excuses are quite thin, however, sometimes they are genuine. This time its genuine. I need a new bike.

I'm in the early stages of planning to do LeJoG next year, and such a serious undertaking will require a serious machine. So I'm looking at Audax, touring and Cyclocross bikes as potential steeds for such a long trip.

If you have any advice on what would be most suitable, let me know! And if you know me and fancy LeJoG as well, give me a call!!

What is an intranet

Whilst preparing to present to the Intranet benchmarking Forum the other day, I started to think about what an intranet actually is. Of course, it's many things to many people, and for sure our definition has changed over the 16 years or so since the term was first coined. However, here is my stab for what it is. It is:

• A critical part of your organisation's landscape
• A platform for the paperless office
• A place to collaborate
• A catalyst for change

All of which are pretty obvious and probably not too contentious.

However, and intranet is also:

• Taken for granted (or at least it should be)
  
• The battlefield between technology and business
• The place where people can have personality, opinions and express themselves.
  

These are not so obvious, and are certainly not so comfortable for the organisation. However, as has always happened, intranets are once again challenging the old paradigms - and that can be quite threatening for those affected. The one thing we can be sure of though, is that change in this space is pretty much unstoppable as an intranet world is a democtratised world and has an organic life of its own. The most successful intranet managers will be those who can harness that development and growth through the various phases.

I am a Philistine

This week, I went to see Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellan and Simon Callow in Waiting for Godot at the Theatre Royal Haymarket. I'm afraid I didn't get it.

No story line, juvenile character development and a pointless production left me feeling I'd wasted my money. As it's such a famous play, put on by famous actors and watched by a theatre full of people who laughed at everything, even though none of it was funny, I can only conclude I am a Philistine. Or maybe I'm just too superficial and it was all over my head.

I can't wait for the panto season ;-)

Tiger Tales

Yesterday I had the Tiger on track at Brands Hatch. It was a track day organised by Focused Events. Although it was very hot, the car was impeccably behaved and the event very well organised and run. It was a ‘sessioned’ evening (as opposed to an open pit lane), however, this was probably a good thing as limiting drivers (and their cars) to 20 minutes of track time at a go was very sensible in the heat. As is often the case, it was an eclectic mix of cars – a couple of TVRs, a Porsche GT3, several 7-type cars (including a guy in his brand new Caterham, and someone in a yellow Tiger), a Radical, and a few racing saloons. A good mix, and plenty to talk about in the pit garages. We were on track right after the Formula BMW series cars had completed testing, so they were also around to chat to.

The marshals at Brands Hatch are excellent, but last night there were several novice drivers who seemed totally oblivious to the correct racing line, or other cars behind them trying to get past. In these circumstances, drivers need to be extremely patient and not take any risks trying to overtake. The marshals could have helped the more experienced drivers in the faster cars by using the blue overtaking flag a little more often. I only saw it being waved once.

Other than that, it was a great evening.

Informalisation

Tomorrow I’m hosting the Intranet Benchmarking Forum meeting looking at our intranet. In putting together my 15 minutes of fame, I started to think about a potential clash between the increasing centralisation and formalisation we’re seeing in business right now, which is a natural consequence of the economic challenges many businesses face, and the increasing ‘informalisation’ of the intranet. We face a surge of user generated content via wikis, blogs, microblogs social networks and so on, most of which is spontaneous and informal. However, over the past 15 years or so, intranet professionals have focussed on governance of content, making sure it’s up to date, accurate, owned and so on. As the balance between this legacy ‘governed’ content and the new wave of informal content changes, so our governance approaches will have to change. Not only that, the governance we managed through the early days of intranet was necessary because users weren’t particularly savvy and we needed to take care of the content on their behalf. The user is much more aware these days and doesn’t need us to cosset them in quite the same way.

Does this therefore mean the end of intranet governance as an activity? Can we just leave it to the network to organise itself and the crowd to keep content up to date? Well, possibly yes, but also, no. Some form of governance will still be required – people in business still need reassurance that the information they are using is valid and accurate. That cannot be left to chance. However, as there will be many, many more content providers than before, we’ll see a few power users emerge in the information farmer role. They will assume responsibility themselves – in other words we won’t ‘appoint’ them – to look after content. These farmers will need our help and support. That will be a vital role for the intranet professional going forward.

The tools we use will also need to change. Content management systems have grown up supporting this formal world. They are entirely inappropriate for this new wave of less formal content, where users neither have the time, nor the desire to be trained on how to use a system. They’ll be looking for a user experience closer to that of Facebook, Blogger and the other social media platforms. They’ll just want to start using it. However, in our corporate worlds, change of this type is not comfortable for our programmes and projects. IT projects in particular have long lead times and there is a very real danger we won’t be able to reap the benefits of this greater knowledge base and collaboration because we can’t get the right platforms in place.

A final thought. We mustn’t get too precious about our governance processes. They are a means to an end. If we can achieve the same ends in a better, cheaper, faster way, then we should do so. Change affects us too!

London to Brighton Bike Ride

Sunday saw Tom and I (and a couple of friends) complete the London to Brighton bike ride in aid of the British Heart Foundation. This was my second time on the UKs largest bike event, and it was Tom’s first. We caught the train up to Waterloo, then rode the three or four miles to the start on Clapham Common. The weather was perfect for cycling, not too hot, not windy and the atmosphere was pretty friendly.

The riders were a real mix of hard core cyclists for whom the 54 mile trek to Brighton was just a warm up, through to charity riders for whom it would be a real challenge. With so many cyclists, the going is always a little slow. However, this year was pretty bad. We ran in to at least 5 spots (mostly hills) where we had to get off and walk as people were queuing up the hill. The event organisers would have done well to have put marshals at the bottom of these hills reminding people walking to keep left and give room to those who wanted to ride up. These delays served to slow the pace down for everybody and that was a good thing as it meant people being forced to take breaks, giving the less well prepared a chance of making the finish.

I saw a few more accidents than last year – only one looked serious though – and there were plenty of people in fancy dress or on unusual machines. I particularly admired the unicyclist, the couple on the back to back tandem, and the people on roller blades!

Once again I managed to conquer Ditchling Beacon, where from the top riders can catch their first glimpse of the sea. And by popular demand, I did of course wear the full bright-orange lycra of the Euskaltel Euskadi cycle team, which drew quite a lot of comments. Maybe not for the right reasons though !!!!

We all made it safely to Brighton - a great achievement for Tom who isn’t a regular cyclist. All in all, a good day out and I was able to raise over £200 in support of the BHF thanks to all those people who sponsored me.

I’m now preparing for the London to Southend bike ride on 19 July, but I intend to ride to the start and then ride home afterwards, which will make it a round trip of about 100 miles. Wish me luck! And if you want to join me, let me know.