Worldwide Intranet challenge recently ran a poll on Linkedin asking the question “What is the one improvement to your intranet you would like to see in 2012?” Nearly 300 people responded, and the results make interesting reading, but as many commentators before us noted, this is a poll of what intranet professionals want. The 300 respondents are not representative of the average intranet user – they’re much more representative of people like us, and the answers they gave reflect that.

Here is some tough love. Your employees don’t want any of that stuff.

There comes a time when an intranet manager is faced with an intranet upgrade. Your intranet isn’t fit for purpose and the majority of your time is spent fixing things rather than developing and perfecting areas within. Does the thought of an upgrade excite you? Or make you break out in a fit of cold sweats? No matter what the reaction, an intranet upgrade is a big project that requires the right team internally and externally.

In a series of upcoming Intranetizen posts we will be looking at the different steps in achieving a successful intranet upgrade. This first post details the process behind securing an agency that understands your business and your project’s objectives.

Social intranets have been widely noted as the ‘next big thing’ in intranets, but many practioners, including us, have noted the obvious difficulty in reporting why social should be so central to our plans. Without tangible, believable return on investment numbers, it’s hard to justify why your intranet should go social. A gut feel, and a glutton of 2012 trend posts are rarely enough to convince CIOs and CFOs of the investment.

This month saw the publication of Neilsen Norman Group’s intranet design annual. Over the past 12 years, this annual snapshot has charted the evolution of intranets from the unloved stepchild of the web family to business-critical tool.

Intranetizen takes a look at some of the key findings in this year’s publication and finds the conclusions challenging.

New Year, new job? The start of the year can often bring a new professional challenge and maybe yours is a new venture into the world of intranets. If you’re the new head honcho of intranets at Anywhere Inc., or maybe you just want to take a long hard stare at the role you’ve been doing for a few years, here’s our top 7 tips for intranet managers.

Other Tips for New Intranet Managers are available and are also well worth a read.

Intranet Management can be a lonely occupation. Even in larger organisations, there’s rarely more than one or two people with Intranets as their sole responsibility, while in smaller companies it falls to internal comms or someone in the web team.

If you need others to learn from, bounce ideas off and share your intranet woe, you need to get out and about and network with your fellow intranet pros. By connecting with contemporaries, you can keep up to speed with developments in the tech world,  sneak a peek at intranets elsewhere (and nick all their best ideas), and find the occasional shoulder to cry on.

Here’s some ideas to get you started: