Do you happen to have a list of pros and cons for a company that wants to, must or should switch from a basic intranet to a social-collaborative intranet? What does this improve? What does it mean for the company culture, instead of easy issues like technical changes?
Thatâs a great question. What is especially important to employees when companies are considering introducing a social intranet will be different for each employee in each company. But there are some aspects that are common.
1. Increased transparency for all employees
Upper management would often like to increase transparency throughout their company. However, middle management may see this as a danger, and are more likely to fight against it. The closer you get to the base of the employee âpyramidâ, the more transparency is appreciated. Atlassian Confluence and Linchpin ensure greater transparency in all applications.
2. Notifications and information actually get to where they need to
When the board has something to say, it will be able to reach everyone. But itâs not just the board of directors that need to communicate. Depending on the companyâs hierarchy and with well configured work spaces, everyone can say something and directly and immediately reach those they need to reach. That means fewer approvals, faster processes and clearer communication with modern media being supported (videos, images, text). And of course, it works on smartphones and mobile devices without limitations on accessing information (e.g. also from home or on the road).
3. To encourage collaboration and master complexity
An environment that is open, visible and transparent invites you to work on things that are relevant for customers, in and across teams, and on equal terms. Many companies have forgotten how to be truly committed to customers at all levels. Linchpin actively encourages this practice. Instead of being overwhelmed by complexity, and seeing sudden market changes as increasingly threatening, the company as a whole can act, react and move forward again, quickly. Small teams can achieve great things!
4. Safe areas must be established and promoted
Collaboration on an equal footing is not the norm in most companies. Often, it can seem to be impossible. Software does not change that. Therefore, modern intranets must have support and encouragement from above. At the beginning, managers need to create âsafe areasâ where the established processes and internal politics do not necessarily have to be followed. Innovation can then happen in these safe areas and then spread throughout the company. Companies already have employees that can support and encourage this. But the safe areas and the software to let them innovate and collaborate are missing. You can change this.
5. Whatever teams had to use yesterday can be questioned today
Sometimes, you have to break new ground. Linchpin and Confluence are not âtraditional corporate intranetsâ. Anyone calling for a pure âMicrosoft strategyâ in IT must also look hard at the results Microsoft has produced in recent years and decades. Documents are dead these days. They prevent collaboration more than they encourage it - static document creation and management gets in the way of teams struggling to meet the demands of an increasingly complex market, without burning out. That a Word document in Office 365 is now a web page and that backwards compatibility issues have been resolved is irrelevant. Word itself is based on an outdated concept. It was replaced by the internet and content networks such as Wikipedia years ago. Facebook networks friends. Google networks information. Apple and Google are developing the smartphones of tomorrow (and today). Microsoft has missed the boat, in a massive way, and in many areas. You donât have to rely solely on Microsoft these days. Atlassian Confluence and Linchpin integrate perfectly with cloud services from Google, Salesforce, SAP, and Microsoft, as well as all existing applications used in your company.
I hope these points answer at least part of your question. We have a PDF summarizing Linchpinâs features that may provide more of an overview.
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