What’s doing in the state of Denmark?

By Kelly Kass

I recently caught up with IntraTeam owner, Kurt Kragh Sorensen, who’s busy preparing for his company’s largest event - their fourth annual intranet conference.

IC experts like BT’s Richard Dennison and popular seminar leader Steve Crescenzo will be making their way to Copenhagen in March to talk about best practices in corporate intranets - an area which Kurt says is in much need of improvement.

“I’m hoping our event builds some momentum since we’ve been struggling with intranets in Denmark. We’re in need of a major breakthrough.”

According to Sorensen, the challenge companies face is the rapidly decreasing attention spans of employees who simply don’t have enough time to log onto the sites.

What makes a good intranet?

Surveys which Sorensen and his 4-person staff sent to their 300 members have revealed that if you want to create an intranet which will strike a chord with employees, collaboration is the key.

“Offering interactive tools where people can better work together to achieve particular tasks works well with employees,” Sorensen points out.

However, he warns, you don’t want to build a site that fosters too much social networking. “It’s not about building a community where people can ‘hang out’ as they do on Facebook; it’s about creating an resource where employees can go to find out relevant information needed to do their jobs better.”

Another thing to keep in mind he says: less is more, which is a concept that Sorensen is seeing a bit more of, including one Danish company that reduced the news on their intranet home page from 15 stories to 5. They were able to reach a higher number of employees with lesser, more focused offerings.

“This more or less tells you that you need segmentation in your internal communications. It’s more effective to target communications and tools to smaller units in order to get through the clutter,” Sorensen advises.

One company getting it right is the COWI Group A/S, the Danish consulting group specializing in economics, engineering and environmental science. The firm is one of ten recipients of this year’s Nielsen Norman Group’s awards for top intranets and is also an IntraTeam member, Sorensen boasts.

Another company he feels exhibits best practices in intranets is SimCorp, the global financial software and consulting firm based in Copenhagen. Their site offers effective usability and a personalized, human touch including the use of smileys indicating whether or not information has been reviewed and updated.

Other Intranet Do’s and Don’ts

If you want to design an effective company intranet, Sorensen advice is simple: make sure it supports your business strategy. “Don’t just implement one because everyone else is doing it.”

One common mistake he sees are intranets which focus too heavily on the organizations themselves or on the leaders who are in charge. Instead of making them the center of attention, try focusing on the people who will be reading the articles and using the tools - the employees themselves, Sorensen suggests.

And measure; definitely measure. “If you can’t measure your intranet, how are you going to manage it?”

Sorensen feels companies should take advantage of the ability to find out the types of stories being read and which tools are being used, something they couldn’t do as easily with traditional employee magazines.

One way he and his team gather information on the type of content employees look for is by holding meetings four times a year where IntraTeam members in 16 groups compare notes on their almost 300 different intranets.

“The consensus is that companies need to be focused on the people who are actually reading the articles and using the tools - the employees - and target the content and tools accordingly. People don’t want to read about whether or not shares are up or down for the company; they want to know whether or not they’ll have a job tomorrow.”

Social media

When it comes to starting an internal blog, Sorensen says most companies in Denmark fail. He attributes it to the lack of thinking as to why the tool is actually being implemented and more often than not are only created “because everyone else is doing one.”

One exception is LEGO whose CEO started blogging which Sorensen feels partially helped turn the company around from nearly going under a few years ago. It’s that open attitude, rather than the usual bureaucratic approach to communication that will help transform companies, he points out.

Another issue he’s encountered is that much of internal comms is not associated with creating value and to managers, is a “necessary cost to save when times are tough.”

Sorensen hopes the IntraTeam conference will help spread the message about the value of intranets and strong internal communication, offering sessions with successful case studies from British Airways and eBay to name a few.

At the time of the interview, registrations were already up to 90 attendees. “Considering the financial crisis, I’m pretty happy.”

On that subject, he hopes the conference will give employees essential information that will keep them employed for years to come.

“At IntraTeam, our goal is to make our members create value with their intranets. By creating value, they will definitely succeed in long run.”

Register for the IntraTeam Intranet Conference, go to http://www.intrateam.dk/Default.aspx?ID=3707&utm_source=Samarbejds&utm_medium=Simply&utm_content=Tilmelding&utm_campaign=IE09