I Wish I had an Intranet Mentor – Oh, I do!

Working as the editor of an intranet can be rewarding, and it can be hard. Many times, I have wished that I had a mentor who could engage in conversations regularly, and guide me when building an excellent intranet in SharePoint 2012 from the ground up. Until I have this mentor by my side, I can share some of the people who act as my mentors already, but without knowing me:

–          James Robertson and his team at Column Two including Rebecca Rodgers. Twitter: @s2d_jamesr  and @rebeccarodgers. Provides invaluable guidelines on how to take care of an intranet.

–          Gerry McGovern at Customer CareWords. Twitter: @gerrymcgovern . The Task-Based Intranet guru.

–          Scott Belsky at Behance and the 99 percent. Twitter: @scottbelsky. For providing new and inspiring ideas on how to make ideas a reality.

–          The Internet Time Alliance. Twitter: @jaycross, @C4LPT, @Quinnovator, @hjarche and @charlesjennings. Five very smart people guide us into the new work life.

–          Kurt Kragh Sørensen and his colleagues at IntraTeam  Twitter: @IntraTeam. For their guidance on handling intranets.

–          Michael Hyatt at MichaelHyatt. Twitter: @MichaelHyatt. For his guidance on how to become a better person in business and privately.

Patrik

Diving into the TermStore for metadata in SharePoint

It is time to fill SharePoint’s TermStore with useful tags, so people can find the correct material. Luckily TechNet has created an intro to metadata and the TermStore. Now, all I need to do is engage in meta discussions about the meta information.

Update: Metadata is now even more central to SharePoint 2013, and here is the intro to planning managed metadata in SharePoint Server 2013. Of course, this is only the technical walk-through of how to do it. The biggest challenge, for me, has been letting the organization understand the value of metadata. Such as leaving folders behind and using metadata instead.

You can also read more about using folders or metadata in SharePoint 2013, and see best practices for SharePoint 2013, including which 10 blogs to follow. Although I would definitely add Tobias Zimmergren’s blog also.

Five Things I Learned When Migrating Our Intranet

When moving from our decade old intranet, to a modern platform, there have been many lessons. Here are five of them:

1.  Being a Global Intranet Editor is a job closer to being an organizational psychologist, than being an engineer. Migration is far less about moving files, than it is about understanding a culture. People more seldom ask me “When will our files be moved, and which database feature is the best for us?”, but more “What will this change mean to us, what are others doing, and how should we go ahead?”. Always start with the business goal in mind, and the rest will follow.

2. Daily execution, and long-term planning are different animals, but they should like each other. Every day, I am often engaged in small and detailed work  – meeting and training  people, changing a website, adding a metadata keyword, creating a tutorial. But as long as I have synchronized this detailed work with the overall vision of the intranet, everything is fine. It is ok to do “just small things” all week-long, as long as they move you in the right direction.

3. I will feel totally out of my field, and I will like it. Sometimes, I exit meeting feeling more stupid than when I entered them, since I realized what I don’t know. I cannot and should not  know all the complex details a business unit is handling. But at least I then know what I don’t know. And as long as I have captured what they need from the intranet, we are on track.

4. Notice the patterns of what people ask you, and build on that. After a while, there will be a pattern in the questions people ask you. Convert the most frequently asked questions into tutorials, FAQ pages, recorded sessions, presentations, and more. Refer people to these right at the start, and then you can start your meeting with them on a higher level. This way, you do not spend the first 15 minutes of every meeting explaining why you are changing platforms, and where the edit button is.

5. Have fun, or go home. Migrating a company from one intranet to another can be really tough, and can involve heated discussions and demands which all are “super important”. As an editor, you must allow yourselves to have fun while working. Surround yourself with positive people who believe in your vision, and laugh when you can. The support from others, and the fun moments act as counterweights to the heavy rain that can strike you as well. And if it does, bring an umbrella, work with the details, and soon the sun will shine again.

/Patrik