Participation was voluntary, yet eXo had nearly 100% of its employees—from sites around the world—using its eXo Platform-based social intranet within 15 days
SAN FRANCISCO — August 9, 2011 — If social network sites were boring, no one would use them. But they’re not boring; they’re hugely popular. Java middleware firm eXo then asked the question: What if we redesigned our enterprise intranet as an internal social network? Not only for Chatter-style updates/activity streams, but more as a place where employees throughout the enterprise could interact and engage with each other, where they could share content and ideas, and collaborate on projects. Would it be more popular and useful than the existing intranet that, like so many enterprise intranets, few people actually use?
The short answer is yes, and a more detailed and engaging account of the company’s experience can be found in “The Unexpected Benefits of the Social Enterprise,” a free white paper available at our website.
eXo executives had a straightforward if ambitious goal: create an intranet that employees around the world would want to use. It would not be the dumping ground for meeting notes, HR memos, and other static content, but rather the crucible of employee interaction and ideas. It would be a customizable, extensible intranet, one that employees could personalize easily using dashboards, gadgets, activity streams, and more. It would be a place where they could create and share content with co-workers, with content management technology behind it all to maintain order and ensure easy discovery.
Using its own eXo Platform 3, eXo built out this new intranet and made it available to employees on January 1, 2011. Use of this intranet, and participation in the social spaces it provided, was completely voluntary—yet within 15 days virtually every eXo employee was actively engaging with it. eXo employees work from sites in the United States, France, Ukraine, Tunisia and Vietnam, yet they all meet and stay connected on the new eXo social intranet. They discuss and engage around projects, customer needs, bug reports, travel plans, even sporting events. There’s a sense of unity that did not exist before, a sense of common experiences shared across four separate continents.
In “The Unexpected Benefits of the Social Enterprise,” eXo provides useful insights into the design and construction of its new social intranet. Key sections of the white paper include:
What becomes clear in this free white paper is that “going social” holds the potential for huge benefits for enterprises of all sizes. The tools exist today to create such an intranet, and the model can be replicated and expanded on the fly to meet the needs of virtually any organization.
Download “The Unexpected Benefits of the Social Enterprise” here to learn more about the success that eXo has achieved with this new approach.
The Modern Intranet: From
corporate website to digital hub
Employee engagement has become a central concern for organizations of all sizes. It is widely recognized as a key driver of performance, retention, and alignment — especially in increasingly distributed and fast-moving work environments.
intranet is a term used with abundance whenever the subject of internal communication and collaboration is brought up which makes defining it a bit challenging. In its simplest form, an intranet is an internal website for your organization. It is used mainly for top-down communication where employees can access corporate news, policies and announcements.
To gather a thorough understanding of intranets and their different types, let’s walk through its history from the early days up to now:
The main difference between intranets and extranets lays in the target audience. Intranets typically target users from a specific organization whereas extranets is the hub that can group users from multiple external organizations ranging from partners and suppliers all the way to clients
➝ Discover the real difference between intranet and extranet
Different types of Intranet solutions from the early days up to the intranet 2.0 (commonly referred to as digital workplace solutions) bring a host of benefits to businesses of all sizes and industries. Below is a list of benefits often associated with intranets:
Here are three different strategies for a successful intranet adoption:
( Your e-mail address will not be published)
I am a marketer and social media junkie. I work to optimise eXo’s online brand with content, social media technologies and digital marketing. I mainly write cartoons but I am also a big fan of topics related to internal communications in the digital workplace. I would love to connect with you, so get in touch and join our LinkedIn group ‘Intranet & Digital Workplace’.
