ENGAGING AN UNENGAGED BUSINESS

Putting content at the heart of an intranet

Who am I?

Name: Breeana Webster (@bree_webster)

Job title: Digital Producer (Intranet Lead)

Organisation: Melbourne Water – a government owned authority that manages most of the water systems in Melbourne including reservoirs, sewerage, and drainage.

What do I do? Manage a SharePoint 2013 intranet launched in December 2014.

Interesting stat: We have over 130 intranet authors who help look after around 1000 pages of content.

What I am covering today

1. Intranet background (the common horror story)

2. Preparing content for migration

3. Engaging and training authors

4. Establishing an authoring community

5. Creating a governance foundation

Intranet background

• Old technology• Broken search• Out of date • Not trusted• Nothing more than a

phone list directory

But worst of all….

Preparing content for migration

Do a content stocktake

Build a content priority model

Tier 1 = must have full information Tier 2 = must have base level information Tier 3 = won’t actively chase up

Tier 1

Tier 2

Tier 3

Create content measures

• Helps people do their job

• Is for most employees

• Legal requirement

• Supports strategic direction

• Featured on the home page

• Can’t go live with just base information

Use the content stocktake and priority model to drive

your author strategy

Engaging and training authors

Engaging authors

4 keys things that worked for us

• Be an intranet cheerleader

• Get intranet champions

• Be able to answer their questions

• Training them to write AND use SharePoint

Training authors

4 keys things that worked for us

• Personally target authors of high value content first

• Prepare a training schedule

• Do training face to face

• Give deadlines

Establishing an on-going author community

What does your authoring community look

like?

Our authoring community

What we’re learning along the way

• Initial buzz died off after a launch

• Need to create a long term engagement plan

• Know author’s key support areas

• Build governance that is adaptive

Creating a governance foundation

Quick governance

Areas to score quick governance wins

• Content priority model

• Author responsibilities

• Your service offerings

• Request process and time frames

Service offerings

Request process

1

• Initial content request sent to Digital team via one of the below:

• webupdate@melbournewater.com.au

• intranet@melbournewater.com.au

2• Digital team respond to the request within 48 hours to confirm the job is in the work queue and to provide services.

• If request is urgent - Digital team must be contacted via phone or in person as soon as possible.

3

• The unique services provided by the digital team and the expected turn aroundtimes are based on what tier the content type falls in.

• Tier 1 = Full service / ASAP (+ initial 48 hours)

• Tier 2 = Part service / minimum 2-3 days (+ initial 48 hours)

• Tier 3 = Limited service / minimum 5 days (+ initial 48 hours)

Note: The expected turnaround may increase if the content is highly complex. If any Tier 2-3 content is urgent – a quicker turnaround can be negotiated directly with the team.

Long term governance

What we’re doing for long term governance

• Defining overarching site principles

• Intranet element ownership (e.g. news feed, IA)

• Content types and principles

• Technical & development roles and responsibilities

Key message

While content is at the heart of an intranet,it’s people who are at the heart of content.

Without the people – there is no content.

THANK YOU

au.linkedin.com/in/breewebster/

breeana.webster@melbournewater.com.au

www.twitter.com/bree_webster