Individual or team effort?

If the organisation that you work for has an intranet, then chances are that it has an Intranet Manager too. That Intranet Manager might even be you. But what does the title of Intranet Manager actually mean: does the job focus on communications, or tech, or are you taking care of both?

During the last few weeks on Twitter, we have noticed a lot of talk within the intranet community about the role of an intranet manager and how it might evolve in future: an interesting discussion, no doubt, but it also got us thinking about what the being an Intranet Manager means here and now.

Working with Intranet Managers is a large part of what we do as a company: we rely on them to take care of our software within each one of our client organisations, and over the years we have gained some significant insight into the roles and responsibilities that the job encompasses.

We regard the role of Intranet Manager as being vitally important to an intranet’s success: they are the crucial link between us, the provider, and our clients, helping to keep an eye on everything that happens with each intranet and telling us what the system needs from us to perform to its fullest potential.

We talked, or tweeted, to some of our intranet manager contacts on Twitter to find out whether they think that the role of an intranet manager should be focused on internal communications, tech, or both, and we got some interesting answers from our respondents.

ChristySeason told us that she has a solid background in the tech side of things, but that her role evolved to include a mix of both.

Christy provided an interesting perspective on the comms vs. tech debate when she told us that ‘you solve communications problems and needs with technology’ – which captures quite concisely the driving principle behind any intranet installation or project team.

We asked Christy if her tech knowledge made managing her company’s intranet easier when it comes to problem-solving; sometimes, intranet management teams include two separate roles for tech and comms but Christy seems to have both aspects well under control.  ‘I’m a translator – I explain tech solutions to non-techs and business needs to the very techie…’ Christy tweeted. ‘I’m the liaison.’

This provides us with an interesting insight into the role that Christy plays in relation to her intranet: not only does Christy offer a link between tech and business from a project implementation point of view, but she manages the entire installation on a day-to-day basis by acting as a mediator between the two elements that intranets are designed to bring together – business and tech. We saw Christy’s intranet tour during the recent IBF24 online event, and it is clear to us that she knows her intranet inside out; the strategic element of her role was absolutely evident in her in-depth knowledge of an award-winning installation that was recently voted 1 of Nielsen Normans 10 best of 2010.

In the case of Christy, the role of intranet manager (or, more accurately, intranet strategist) is an overarching and directorial role that draws on her aptitude for business management on a day-to-day basis, but one which reaps the benefits of this approach by drawing on her tech background to make internal communications happen flawlessly under her direction.

For a contrasting take on the role of an intranet manager, we talked to Jserramitjana:  Júlia is a journalist working in Internal Communications, and responsibility for her organisation’s intranet is a significant part of her role.

When we asked Júlia how intranet management works within her organisation she told us that it is ‘definitely focused on comms. We have tech support from the IT Department as it’s not the role of the intranet manager’. As a journalist, Júlia’s background is firmly rooted within the world of communication, and her organisation’s intranet manager role is tailored to make the most of her undoubtable ability in this area.

As most intranet implementations are about getting a balance between tech and comms, we assumed that her organisation must include a separate tech role or team to give Júlia the control over internal communications that her role requires.  Júlia confirmed as much when she tweeted that her organisation’s ‘IT team works in many projects, so we have to share the service with others. The Intranet team is internal comms. specialist’, reflecting her company’s diverse range of operations.

Keeping tech and comms separate creates a need for exceptional communication between the two areas, and this definitely seems to be the case where Júlia is involved; at the same IBF24 event, Julia’s organisation won the award for ‘Most Beautiful Intranet’, so clearly Júlia knows how to make the most of the technical resources available to back up her communications strategy. Dividing the comms and tech roles works well for Júlia and her organisation, providing her with a flexible, communications-focused approach that makes the most of her professional expertise by drawing on tech resource as and when it becomes necessary.

So, it seems that the role of intranet manager can mean different things: whether your company needs a single source of knowledge and guidance to co-ordinate both tech and comms, or whether you would suit a flexible approach with separate tech and comms roles depends on the way that your organisation works.

As we can see above, both roles have produced fantastic intranets for their parent organisations, and this is in no small way thanks to the quality of the people who fulfil those roles – their respective employers clearly recognise Christy and Júlia’s talents, and their roles seem entirely focused on reaping the benefits of their respective professional abilities.

For another strategic perspective, we tweeted at seanrnicholson; his website at www.intranetexperience.com provides a wide range of intranet tips, best practice and experience that represents an informative and authoritative resource for anyone with an interest in intranets.

When we tweeted at Sean, his advice was that intranet management ‘Depends on size, but ideal is 2 roles. 1 focused on content & engagement, other focused on tech.’ A very sound assessment, suggesting that the role seems to vary according to resources available as well as the demands of the company, so we decided to draw further on Sean’s wealth of experience in the field of intranets to investigate the issue further.

Given Sean’s suggestion of a 2-role ideal, we asked him whether the term ‘intranet manager’ was too wide-ranging for what it describes. Sean suggested that the ideal setup would comprise a ‘Manager of Intranet Systems & a Manager of Internal Communications. Both co-chair the Intranet Governance Team’. This is an interesting approach: we can see that again the comms/tech duality is still the case, and that both fall under the umbrella of an Intranet Governance Team.

Of course, as Sean stated in his first tweet, this is an ideal: to use a cliché, companies have to cut their coats according to their cloth. If you have two roles, make sure that you fill them – whether your Intranet Governance Team is one intranet manager overseeing both comms and tech or two people managing one aspect each is entirely dependent on what fits your organisation.

So what can we take from this? In addition to Sean’s solid advice, and Christy and Júlia’s contrasting approaches, it seems that a logical conclusion would be to say that being an intranet manager is about more than just a pre-conceived idea, it is about choosing the right people in the right combination with the right skills to fit the way that your organisation works.

Equally, you might say that knowing how your organisation works enables you to assess the resources available, which in turn defines whether the intranet manager’s role will be comms, tech or both, and enables your organisation to find the right person for that role.

Either way, whether the organisation or the candidate defines the role, or a mix of both, it seems the common theme is that each intranet manager is unique to their own organisation, and each role reflects the culture of its parent company; just as a good intranet is one that fits the company in which it operates, the right intranet manager is simply the one that represents the right match for your organisation.

Check back soon for the next Intranet Ideas blog post; in the meantime, why not visit us and see what we do at www.orchidsoft.com.