A corn of wheat

Offering Digital Workplace solutions? Include tools for Modern Workplace Learning too.

In my work, I meet quite a lot of companies that offer solutions that often are framed as “digital workplace” tools or platforms. Most of them are built in Office 365, while there are others as well. Some products are not very well thought through, while others shine. I have written about such consultants before and about their products, and I still think there could be much more focus on the customer’s core business and culture. Many vendors still let their product offerings stand in the middle. Meanwhile, where you can outshine the rest is by focusing even more on the business of the customer. Your work is not mainly to help us install and launch Yammer. Your job is mainly to unveil the biggest hurdles and pains, and then offer technology as part of the solution to fix these.

One professional area that is neglected within the digital workplace discussion is tools and support for Modern Workplace Learning. I don’t think I have ever heard a vendor talk about this. Meanwhile, there is a whole movement of smart people working day and night to improve this. My advice to digital workplace vendors is to listen to these experts, and then see how their ideas can be merged with what you offer. According to the 70:20:10 framework, only 10% of what we learn at work comes from formal training. This leaves a potential for digital workplace tools to offer some solutions that can support the other 90%. For example, emphasize how your solution can establish nurturing mentor/mentee relationships over time, show us how you support the building of communities of practice and include tools for learning about your platform into the platform. There are of course many other ways, but here is a start. Also remember that only 33% of employees in average are engaged, while 51% are not engaged, and 16% actively disengaged. How is your solution helping your customers solve this alarming problem, no matter exactly which numbers they score in such measurements?

To get started with modern workplace learning you can visit sources like these:

10 myths about modern workplace learning, by Jane Hart
Top 100 tools for learning at work, by Jane Hart
Putting people back in control of their learning (video), by Harold Jarche
Work is learning and learning is the work, by Harold Jarche

So, dear vendors, please don’t just focus on how we should communicate and collaborate more just for the sake of it. Please also think about how you can help support the development of our employees and solve the core problems we face.

Confused by Bitcoin? Me too. Here’s some guidance.

Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies have me confused mostly. If someone asked me what it is, I would probably say something like: “It is a modern currency, distributed among people instead of banks and institutions, and people can get rich by investing in it”. But this, of course, doesn’t mean I understand what I am talking about.

Therefore, I started looking for other sources of guidance and found the following very helpful:

The ABC’S of Bitcoin and Everything You Need To Know About “Forks”, by James Altucher. A long article with all the ins and outs of what cryptocurrencies are.

Bitcoin makes even smart people feel dumb, by Scott Rosenberg at Wired. “Warren Buffett famously advised us never to invest in anything that we don’t understand. Bitcoin investors are paying Buffett no mind.”

Bitcoin vs Ethereum with Tuur Demeester, by Preston Pysh and Stig Brodersen at the Investors Podcast (We Study Billionaires). Preston and Stig talk to the cryptocurrency expert Tuur about how it really works.

So now, next time someone starts a conversation about Bitcoin, we all know a bit more about this mysterious complex mix of finance, engineering, and philosophy.

Remember to also not give a f*ck

Back from the holidays, it is far too easy to jump at any anything and everything that lies before you at work and at home. Everything you postponed until after the holidays just lays there and is waiting for you to Get Things Done and be awesome. But wait. Before you dive into a full schedule of to-dos, remember that you don’t need to give a f*ck about everything before you. Why the swearing, you might wonder? I just read Mark Manson’s The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Life.

First, question your goals and beliefs to make sure you are on the right path. Don’t wait for others to take responsibility for your life – it is up to you. Remove the tasks, meetings, and to-dos that don’t add value to the bigger goals in your personal and professional life. As Stephen Covey would say, put First Things First – if you pour in the sand first, the bigger and more important rocks won’t fit. Then prepare to meet hardships, since this is how you grow. At the end of the hardships you might find happiness and freedom, but more importantly you have grown as a human. No, not everything is in your control, but make sure that you are in charge of the things you can control and stop blaming others.

So, if you need a push in the right direction, I advise you to read Mark’s book. Then run off and make the world a better place, and prepare for some struggling. As he says: “Who you are is defined by what you’re willing to struggle for.”

Change Management – books for personal transformation

Change Management, in my perception, often entails showing step-by-step models by American authors on how to persuade people to accept change. The more scientific and tested, the better, and if they have been listed in the Harvard Business Review, even better. These models can be helpful, but often the change management literature is a bit dry and academic. Change is an emotional journey for many, and all the models in the world can’t help people see more clearly. They need a sense of owning their destiny no matter what happens.

The company I work for, Haldex, has been subject to great change the last years. Some of it has been driven by ourselves, such as a new cultural framework with our 5Cs and our updated strategy for the coming years. Some of the change is caused by outside conditions, such as another company wanting to acquire us. Here, we don’t know what will happen, since the European and US rules and processes for acquisitions are long and complex. Meanwhile, media is writing like crazy about the potential merger, while we have a daily job to handle professionally.

Two books that can be helpful for dealing with change on a personal level are Ryan Holiday’s The obstacle is the way and Katie Byron’s Loving what is. They are very different from each other but both focus on concrete actions to overcome fear and doubt, and find a way forward. Ryan is more focused on the Stoics and their way of turning obstacles into a way forward, with modern examples of people doing this. Katie draws spiritual lessons from Zen and Socratic inquiry and more, to help us stop arguing with reality and instead create the life we want. I found both books helpful on a more personal level, and as a great complement to the more strict, academic literature on change.

The next step after reading Ryan’s book could be Ryan’s book The Daily Stoic, which helps you practice the Stoic mindset every day. Of course, any book by Marcus Aurelius or the like also helps.

The next step after reading Katie’s book could be Eckhardt Tolle’s The Power of Now where you can leave our analytical mind and ego at least some of the time.

So, if you work with change management, or you are subject to changes too big for you to influence, the above books might help you and your colleagues. Don’t just throw academic books with 8 steps at them, saying we are at step one now so buckle up! Don’t forget that change management is an art and that it also includes winning the hearts of people. Once we are reminded about the fact that we are in charge of our own destiny, it gets easier to succeed in our daily jobs no matter what happens.

Choosing the best Karamazov translation for you

The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky is a true masterpiece, and I re-read it regularly. I also read it in English since many of the major Dostoyevsky commentators and scholars write in English. This book has many English translations, and I have gone back and forth between them before ending in the Oxford World’s Classics version, translated by Ignat Avsey as “The Karamazov Brothers.” There is, of course, no “best” translation of any book, but here I will show you why this translation works best for me.

I can start by comparing one of my favorite passages in the book, where they meet in the monastery, and Father Zosima sees right through Fyodor’s buffoonery. The original translation into English seems to be Constance Garnett’s:

Above all, don’t lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to such a pass that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love, and in order to occupy and distract himself without love he gives way to passions and coarse pleasures, and sinks to bestiality in his vices, all from continual lying to other men and to himself.

For me, who has English as a second language, this is a good translation although it feels a bit formal.

David McDuff has translated the same passage into the following:

The main thing is that you stop telling lies to yourself. The one who lies to himself and believes his own lies comes to a point where he can distinguish no truth either within himself or around him, and thus enters into a state of disrespect towards himself and others. Respecting no one, he loves no one, and to amuse and divert himself in the absence of love he gives himself up to his passions and to vulgar delights and becomes a complete animal in his vices, and all of it from perpetual lying to other people and himself.

For some reason, this translation feels a bit awkward to me, and McDuff has a choice of words and a style that hinder more than help me. I know McDuff appeals to many who have English as their first language, but for me, it doesn’t take me all the way to a good understanding.

A translation that has gained a lot of attention, positive as well as negative, is the one from Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. Their version of the same text is:

A man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point where he does not discern any truth either in himself or anywhere around him, and thus falls into disrespect towards himself and others. Not respecting anyone, he ceases to love, and having no love, he gives himself up to passions and coarse pleasures, in order to occupy and amuse himself, and in his vices reaches complete bestiality, and it all comes from lying continually to others and to himself.

Pevear and Volokhonsky are famous for reinventing Dostoyevsky’s translated language, and we can sense it in just this small text. Some people find this reinvigorating, while others shudder at the thought of translators trying to improve the language of Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and more. Initially, I found the Pevear and Volokhonsky translation to be the best, but all the sharp remarks about this translation destroying Dostoyevsky’s text made me look around a bit more.

Finally, I found the translation by Ignat Avsey which I have heard many positive remarks about. Yes, he omits using the Latin Pro/Contra and uses Pros/Cons for Book 5, he calls Book 10 “Schoolboys” instead of just “Boys”, and he omits ‘Brother’ in Book 11 so it is called “Ivan Fyodorovich” instead of “Brother Ivan Fyodorovich”. But no translation is perfect, and he uses a language that appeals to me and many others:

He who lies to himself and listens to his own lies reaches a state in which he no longer recognizes truth either in himself or in others, and so he ceases to respect both himself and others. Having ceased to respect everyone, he stops loving, and then, in the absence of love, in order to occupy and divert himself, he abandons himself to passions and the gratification of coarse pleasures until his vices bring him down to the level of bestiality, and all on account of his being constantly false both to himself and to others.

There is something about the rhythm and choice of words that appeal to me, and that helps me understand the characters.

A final version of the above writing is from Andrew R. MacAndrew and the Bantam Classic version, which also is pleasing to me:

A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying—lying to others and to yourself.

Another example is the last sentence of the first paragraph in the book, describing Fyodor’s muddleheadedness.

Garnett:

I repeat, it was not stupidity —the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough—but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.

McDuff:

I repeat: here there was no question of stupidity; the bulk of these madcaps are really quite sharp and clever – but plain muddle-headedness, and, moreover, of a peculiar, national variety.

Pevear/Volokhonsky:

Again I say it was not stupidity—most of these madcaps are rather clever and shrewd—but precisely muddleheadedness, even a special, national form of it.

Avsey:

Let me repeat yet again: this was not a case of stupidity—most of these crackpots are shrewd and cunning enough—but of muddle-headedness, and of a special, typically Russian kind.

MacAndrew:

Let me repeat: it was not stupidity, for most such eccentrics are really quite intelligent and cunning, and their lack of common sense is of a special kind, a national variety.

Put simply, Avsey’s and MacAndrew’s languages make the text more direct and lands in my mind in another way that the other translator’s texts do.

As a final comparison, we can hear the different versions of how Mrs. Khoklakova and her daughter Lise are introduced:

Garnett:

Mrs Khokhlakova, a wealthy lady, always dressed with taste, was still quite young and very comely in appearance, somewhat pale-skinned, with very lively, almost completely black eyes. She could not have been more than thirty-three years old and had been a widow for about five years. Her fourteen-year-old daughter suffered from paralysis of the legs. The poor girl had been unable to walk for about six months, and had to be wheeled around in a long Bath-chair on rubber-rimmed wheels. She had a charming little face, somewhat thin from sickness, but cheerful.

McDuff:

Mrs Khokhlakova, the mother, a rich lady who always dressed with taste, was a person still quite young and very pleasant to the gaze, somewhat pale, with eyes that were very lively and almost completely black. She was no more than thirty-three, and she had already been a widow for some five years. Her fourteen-year-old daughter was afflicted by a palsy of the legs. The poor young girl had been unable to walk for the past half-year, and she was wheeled about in a long bath chair. She had a charming little face, somewhat thin from her illness, but full of gaiety.

Pevear/Volokhonsky:

Madame Khokhlakov, the mother, a wealthy woman, always tastefully dressed, was still fairly young and quite attractive, slightly pale, with very lively and almost completely black eyes. She was not more than thirty-three years old and had been a widow for about five years. Her fourteen-year-old daughter suffered from paralysis of the legs. The poor girl had been unable to walk for about half a year already, and was wheeled around in a long, comfortable chair. Hers was a lovely little face, a bit thin from illness, but cheerful.

Avsey:

MacAndrew:

Mrs. Khokhlakov, a wealthy woman, always tastefully dressed, was still young and very pretty; she was rather pale, with very lively, almost black eyes. She was no more than thirty-three and had been a widow for five years. Her fourteen-year-old daughter, whose legs were paralyzed, had been unable to walk for six months and had to be pushed around in a wheelchair. She had a charming face, a little emaciated by sickness, but cheerful.

In this version, MacAndrew leads the way in portraying the mother and her daughter in front of me. The language is not a hindrance but his version is true to the original. For example, he describes the mother as “very pretty” instead of comely in appearance, or pleasant to the gaze.

Finally, an interesting remark from Avsey, is that the book should be called “The Karamazov Brothers” since that is the order of words English speaking people use:

One need go no further than the title, the standard English rendering of which is The Brothers Karamazov. This follows the original word order, the only one possible in Russian in this context. Had past translators been expressing themselves freely in natural English, without being hamstrung by that original Russian word order, they would no more have dreamt of saying The Brothers Karamazov than they would The Brothers Warner or The Brothers Marx.

Communication sites – as if pretty images solves it all

Microsoft just told the world that the so-called Communication sites are rolling out to 365 tenants. Here is a quote on the intended use:

Communication sites are perfect for internal cross-company campaigns, weekly and monthly reports or status updates, product launches, events and more. To help you jumpstart getting your message out fast, communication sites provide configurable templates for the sites and pages within.

Ah, yes! Everything we as communicators do is to create cool looking images, with action-inspiring text, based on templates. Yes, I know I sound a bit harsh here, but in all fairness: Anything you call Communication sites should be richer than this. I have written about the changing communications landscape before and anyone listening to professional communicators on Twitter or the like know that communicators have since long passed the times when pretty images were everything. Then we look at Microsoft’s own example from their site:

Microsoft highlights BI functionality in the launch article, but I expect more clarity and insight. If the Communications sites should really help companies, it would have been cool if Microsoft spoke to some professional communicators first. Maybe they have, and maybe more is coming. But given the message in Microsoft’s current material, I get the feeling that as long as you know Photoshop, you’ll be fine. I look forward to people proving me wrong.

My five ideas to improve Microsoft’s offering

Earlier, I posted about five ideas on improving LinkedIn, and now I have come to Microsoft. I use their products every day privately and professionally, and here are some ideas that could make them even better from my perspective:

Guide us on how to use all your apps. Sometimes, it seems you launch a new 365 app every week, and then post about how awesome it is. But you forget to merge it into a context where all your other apps live. When I and others ask about what to use when, you only say it is up to me, but that is not enough. You launch your product for a distinct reason I hope. Tell us this reason, and which app to use for what, and then we have an easier time selling them to our colleagues.
–>My suggestion: Gather a group of people who run 365 environments internally, and place them in a nice venue for a week. Let them design how to use your services based on real-world examples. Serve them double espressos during the day, and wine in the evening. You will come up with the best training material and guidance ever.
Build a better sync client for OneDrive. We all know that there is one company that leads here, and has been from the start, and it is Dropbox. I have never encountered problems with their sync app, but a multitude with yours. Yes, you ditched groove and rebuilt it, but still it is no way near Dropbox. Your client is far better than before, but it still complains about file types, creates unnecessary copies, and is slower.
–>My suggestion: Set a team of sync experts to rebuild a new sync client. Don’t disturb them – just let them do their magic. Serve them Bulletproof Coffee during the day, and make sure they sleep well at night.
Open your mail and calendar to 3^rd party apps. This is the main reason I use Google’s mail and calendar – it just works with any other Android app around. Adding the 365 mail and calendar to other apps can be done, but especially the calendar is too complicated and feels too proprietary.
–>My suggestion: Be more open and inclusive regarding how other apps can connect to your services. By letting your customers choose which Android apps to use, you show you want them as customers. You know you don’t always build the best apps in all areas, but that is ok if you are open to other apps talking to your services.
Create a much smarter email handling. Email is still the big dark monster that eats away at people’s days and minds, and it is time you acted on it for real. You have started this work, especially in the excellent Outlook app you bought, but online is falling behind. You have also started to include data in 365 on how much time is spent on email, which only will be depressing for the majority. Yes, I know why you do it, but this is more like treating the symptoms more than the source of pain.
–> My suggestion: Start to experiment more, and use an alternative UI which is based on AI and Graph. Google has its Inbox, and so should you. Tell people that it is an alternative way of using email, and make sure you treat the data will full respect regarding privacy even if you use AI.
Bring back the Sunrise Calendar. Sunrise Calendar was the most awesome calendar around and I loved how easy it was to use it. Then you bought it, promised that the calendar in Outlook would incorporate Sunrise functionality, and then… nothing happened. Don’t do things like this Microsoft. What if someone bought Excel, turned it off and then promised to incorporate it into the next version of the Supercalculator App (just choose a name), and never did. The bad will would be massive and no one would like it.
–> My suggestion: Get the Sunrise functionality up and running right away. Their latest blog post was 9 months ago, and you had lots of time before that to start adjusting. If you acquire an app that millions love and use, then treat it and them with respect. Basically, it’s rather easy: If you just plan correctly, you can have parallel development teams while you acquire the company. This way, once you launch the press release that the app is yours, you also launch an updated calendar app that is awesome. People would love it!

I have no hopes that Satya Nadella will read this but maybe someone else at Microsoft will listen. Microsoft sure does a lot of awesome things, but here are some ways to become even better.

The robots will take over, say Ray and Nick. But will they?

I just finished reading two fascinating books; The Singularity is Near by Ray Kurzweil, and Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Boström. Both send us into the future, where the exponential development of robots and more have changed our societies completely. As far as I understand, Ray works at Google and Nick works at Oxford University. Both have already done more than most others achieve during a lifetime, but their descriptions of the future make me wonder.

Ray describes a future where artificial intelligence (AI) has eclipsed human intelligence. Piece by piece, nanorobots and more will take over our bodies and transform us into cyborgs. This transformation will happen around 2045 according to Ray, meaning we have 28 years until humanity changes beyond recognition. According to the “Law of Accelerating Returns,” computers will be able to design technologies themselves to make the development move even further. Thanks to becoming cyborgs, we will also become super smart, Ray says. At the same time, nanorobots could rebel and quickly send us into oblivion.

Nick describes a future where super intelligence will arrive around 2105. By then, machines will be able to learn and perform without needing humans to guide them. Most, if not all, jobs will be handled by robots and machines. This will, in turn, leave the majority of all humans without jobs, forcing their basic needs to be taken care of by others. Meanwhile, the rich will be super rich since they control much of the production. A great thing about Nick’s book is that it reflects even more on the philosophical questions that surround these major developments. For example, when large teams built the International Space Station (ISS), it joined people from the US and the USSR showing others they could work together. We as humans also need such collaboration when creating a super intelligent future, says Nick.

Once I had read these somewhat bombastic descriptions of our future, questions arose:

Does the projection made by engineers create such a future, just by projecting it? Or will what they describe happen anyway? Given the massive amount of attention Ray and Nick receive, I am not sure.
Do we want to walk down this path just because we can? Yes, better treatment of diseases is welcome, but designing machines that are smarter than us?
What do we mean by saying that something is intelligent? Is it descriptive, or normative?
Does high intelligence equal happiness? Most probably not. Just look at some of the brightest people on Earth so far. Many of them led miserable lives or even killed themselves. Also, a lot of people suffering from depression do so because they see, know, and feel more than others who instead shut down their feelings. Therefore, I wonder what happens when we reach for super intelligence. Will we see Super Depression?
What happens when the machines start copying no only our strengths, but also our weaknesses? As described by The Verge and by the Guardian, AI can pick up racial and gender bias. As Tim Ferriss and many of his podcast guests have said: We humans are deeply flawed animals and sorry excuses for creatures living on Earth, but we have our highlights. Just pick up any history book to see with which brutal force we have destroyed our planet and other species. What if AI starts mimicking this?
Things don’t just happen by themselves. For each generation, we can train them to think ethically about what should happen.
Where are the alternative futuristic descriptions of everlasting happiness, art, wine, and music?

Ray and Nick have written two fascinating books, and now I will complement this by reading Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow by Yuval Noah Harari. Here, humans agree to give up meaning in exchange for power, and the development will create what he refers to as a “useless class” plus a new religion called ‘Dadaism.’ I am not sure this will feel uplifting to read, but maybe I will feel more intelligent after reading that book too. And perhaps therein lies all the difference.

Reporting from Intranätverk in Göteborg 2017

On May 16, I had the pleasure of attending the Intranätverk conference in Göteborg, Sweden. Intranätverk is a way for intranet and digital workplace people to stay connected and updated, and it has three conferences per year. This is a summary of what I heard in Göteborg, and I focus on the people working to create great intranets and not the vendors who presented. If I misheard something just e-mail me and I will correct it.

Mikaela Månsson from Kapp-Ahl, a fashion company with stores all over Sweden, spoke about their pre-study for a new intranet. The main goal was to also include the people working in their stores, so they quickly can find answers to customer questions and more. The current intranet is old but somewhat ok, with a rather bad search engine, no mobile access, and more.

The Communications department, where Mikaela works, owns the intranet but they have involved IT, Retail, and Human Resources in the pre-study. Their goal has been to provide support in the store worker’s daily jobs, and to strengthen the knowledge and connections among all. Soon, they are leaving the pre-study phase, and will go into production mode where they also will select which platform to use.

Main take-away for me: Make sure you involve a broad set of people from different departments when doing a pre-study for a new intranet.

Karl Brännström from Svenska Spel, which offers online and offline gambling, spoke about their intranet Hemmaplan, who has won a price as the best digital workplace. Is it based on SharePoint 2013 and has been described by researchers as a democratic intranet. As far as I understood it, they have avoided using special permissions all over the place, meaning all can use it on an equal basis.

They have placed a lot of effort on creating great profile pages. Getting people to add their own profile pictures can be a hassle, but Svenska Spel invites a professional photographer and a make-up artist on a regular basis so people look their best. Another feature is that people can nominate others as the best team players, which leads to recognition. Three things made sure they won the prize of the best digital workplace: It supports people’s daily work, it makes you more effective and saves you time, and it helps you feel proud of working there.

Main take-away for me: Instead of sending out nagging e-mails telling people to update their profile images, invite them to a great photo shoot.

Petra Graus from Pensionsmyndigheten told us how they moved from information stored in pdf files over to being stored on pages in their intranet. Pensionsmyndigheten handles all the governmental pension savings and more in Sweden, and receive a lot of calls an email about pensions and money. Earlier, the people working with supporting pension savers needed several clicks way down in pdf files each time they looked for an answer. By using Site Vision, they transferred all the material stored in pdf files, so everything about one subject was stored on one page.

Main take-away for me: Focusing on your important target groups and give them a solution that actually helps them.

Annika Lennstam from Transdev spoke about how to give the right information to the right people at the right time. Transdev drives and takes care of trains, buses, boats and more, to cover transport needs all over Sweden (backed by a global company). Many of her colleagues work as drivers and on the ground, and earlier they met a multitude of pages on the intranet depending on your role and location but mixed all together. This meant a search for ‘uniform’ could display a multitude of results, but none that was relevant for you. Therefore, Annika and the team created a matrix where they could see which role should find what based on their location. This role-based intranet helps people find information much quicker, and you can also switch roles to see the information aimed at other roles and locations. They meet the super users twice per year and have trained them to use their iPhones to record movies and then use iMovie to publish these movies. For example, they recorded “What are you most proud of during 2016?” which proved to become very popular.

Main take-away for me: Role-based intranets can do wonders for organizations with many roles, and movies are a fun and effective way to reach out.

Johan Simon from Sveriges Television spoke about their current intranet built in Site Vision as front-end and their 365 environment as back-end. It is currently in a beta release and is planned to go live in June. Sveriges Television is a governmental TV and media company in Sweden. Their old intranet was the third worst ever within Customer Carewords’ measurements and didn’t meet the end user’s expectations. Johan showed the upcoming “Nyttosidor”, which could translate into “Usefulness pages”. Instead of having several different pages about “Visiting Sveriges Television”, they created one single page for this but with several authors. Site Vision shows clickable “accordions” within the page which expand when clicked and if you click them again, they fold. Mutual hashtags between Site Vision and 365 hold it together. They also created printed how-to guides on how to use the intranet, since these are more tangible than pdf files or the like.

Main take-away for me: By using tools like Site Vision or Azure, companies can create a front-end that is built exactly the way they want. Then it can talk to Office 365 and other systems in the background. I think this is the way to move forward, since it gives full freedom instead of relying on the somewhat confusing AI offered in 365.

Elisabeth Lundholm from Malmö Stad spoke about their plans for building a digital workplace. Malmö is Sweden’s third largest city and Malmö Stad takes care of everything relating to running the city. Their previous intranet was built as a best-of-breeds intranet and mainly open source, but now they are looking at using Office 365 instead. The timing is right for them, since the old intranet needs to be updated, there are political decisions to support this, and there is a big need for better digital tools. Elisabeth and her colleagues are now matching which 365 tools can cover their old tools, plus grounding this work all over the organization.

Main take-away for me: Don’t be scared to change your platform and move way from earlier decisions, if you think that choice better supports your organization going forward. Legacy decisions should not decide where you should go.

Tobias Mossop from Martin and Servera told the story of moving from 250.000 files on a file server and sloppy use of e-mail, to today’s well-functioning intranet. Martin and Servera is a food and logistics company serving schools, restaurants, and more. The intranet development theme during the last couple of years has been “Koll på läget”, which could be translated into “Stay updated”. As much as possible the intranet should support the co-workers in knowing what is happening. Therefore, the search bar is really big, the lunch menu is always at the top since people look for it, and all corporate news follow a set content layout template which is easy to follow. So far they have published around 480 corporate news following this template, and every Monday they ask the “Question of the week” and let people vote.

Main take-away for me: Are people often looking for certain content, such as the lunch menu and train time table? Place it in front of them so they don’t spend time looking for it.

Thank you Intranätverk for creating this awesome meeting point, where we share knowledge on intranets and digital workplaces. Going forward, I just wish more presenters placed time on describing how their intranets supports their company’s strategies. What have you built that pushed you closer to the most central goals of your organization? We saw some examples of great applications at Intranätverk, but I wish more would mention their strategies so we see the clear connection.