Organizations often talk about how they want their intranet to reflect the heartbeat of their organization. If the intranets I have seen in the last few years are any indication, many of those organizations are dead.

Any website is a living document but organizations often forget about the care and feeding required to keep the document alive. You have seen this before and you know the drill.  A great big noise is made about the intranet on its launch, but over time all goes quiet.  Not much of an investment is made in it because it is done.  The people assigned to update its contents have real jobs that keep them busy, and department execs are busy shepherding their units, concerned about budgets and priorities, not whether their department's info is up to date.

Go ahead; take a look at your intranet or even your organization's Internet presence.  How much of that material is from the launch?  How much of it is more than a year old, 3 months old, a month old?

I have always felt that organizations should devote to the intranet full-time people who could keep the content fresh and relevant to employees. Where these people come from and where they exist in the organization is entirely flexible, but they need to exist.

What do you think?  Has your intranet straight-lined?   If so, what do you think is wrong and how would you improve it?  If not, tell us how and why you manage to keep yours fresh.  Your peers I am sure would be eager to know!

Intranet White Papers

• DSF Case Study: Washington DC Intranet - Cimbrian
• Maximizing the Value of the Corporate Intranet and Internet - Reed Elsevier
• Public-Sector Intranets: A Small Sampling - Step Two Designs
• IQ Events: Group Scheduling for Government - Lockheed Martin
• Digital Cities 2002: Best of Breed Programs - e.Republic
• IQ People: Providing Superior Citizen Service - Lockheed Martin
• Intranets.com : Intranet Security - CM IT Solutions
• Information Technology: Issues Affecting Cost Impact of Navy Marine Corps Intranet Need to Be Resolved - Government Accountability Office
• TEG Federal Credit Union: Comprehensive Communication and Time Savings with Intranets.com - Intranets.com
• Government Intranet - Fiber Optic Net Work - Department of Information Technology (DIT)