It’s quite extraordinary – and impressive – how long the word “intranet” has survived since I first heard it mentioned at (as was) SmithKline Beecham in 1994. The term and what it represents has been extremely resilient and enduring, shifting its meaning as the field of technology and work that it referred to evolved. It worked because it was simple. Outside was the internet. Inside was the intranet. Extranets….well no one ever quite understood whether they were within the firewall or outside and the term has largely passed into the ether.
So can the term intranet sustain or has the time come to move on? Yes and no. Intranets are still valid and meaningful but only if the treated as a metaphor for the world of work and technology within the enterprise. As news driven, communication focused, informational services they are in decline. Intranets are now in my view transforming and being absorbed into a wider world which I call the Digital Workplace. The Digital Workplace includes what we call intranets but also includes all the collaborative and online meeting and connecting services offered by WEBEX and similar tools plus what is called Enterprise 2.0. Some of the Digital Workplace is inside the firewall and some outside. Some is desk based and some mobile based. It is the wider world of modern work and technology.
In the Digital Workplace, its not where you work but how you work. IBF is about benchnarking, research and interaction – and always has been – but increasingly we are benchmarking the intranet plus other services and apps such as SAP HR and social media inside and outside, and we are including secure and open areas of corporate websites. This is an exciting and energising shift from intranets into the wider geography of what we call the Digital Workplace. The alarming fact is that we trademarked Digital Engagement and Digital Workplace in 2000 and only now – 10 years on – has it come to pass. Good to be ahead but the slow pace of change is shocking in major organisations.
In the past organisations designed phsyical workplaces – now they are designing Digital Workplaces……which designs will be more telling over the next 50 years I wonder?
Paul Miller, CEO and Founder, Intranet Benchmarking Forum
