Communicating to employees is difficult. There's the risk of overloading them with irrelevant communications that they don't need. SharePoint has tools that you can use to target communications. In this deck you'll find guidelines for how to build effective intranets.

1. SharePoint 2010: Set Employee
Comms Free, Cut Email Clutter, Drive
Intranet Traffic
Robert L. Bogue
(317) 844-5310
Rob.Bogue@ThorProjects.com

2. Agenda
• What’s the Problem?
• A Few Solutions
• Creating a Process
• What This Means to Me

3. The Problem

4. The Communications Problem

5. Fredrick Herzberg – One More Time:
How Do Motivate Employees? (HBR)

6. History of Written Communication

7. Sensory Overload
• “one or more of the
senses are strained and it
becomes difficult to focus
on the task at hand”
-Wikipedia.org
• “Filtering out extraneous
information is one of the
basic functions of
consciousness”
-Barry Schwartz, Paradox of
Choice

8. Information Overload
• “… the difficulty a
person can have
understanding an issue
and making decisions
that can be caused by
the presence of too
much information.”

9. Too Much Information
• In 2007 there were
– 281 exabytes (million
terabytes) of information
created.
– 15.2 trillion pages printed
worldwide
• In 2010 there were
– 171 billion pieces of direct
mail handled by the USPS
– an estimated 321 billion
Email messages received
Sources: USPS, IDC, LYRA, Radicati

10. Not the Good Kind
• 53% of people believe
that less than half of the
information they receive
is valuable
• 28% of the typical
workday is wasted by
unnecessary interruptions
• 650 billion dollars of
productivity lost due to
Information Overload
Source: Basex

11. Signal to Noise Ratio
• The amount of
meaningful data as
compared to the non-
meaningful data
• The greater the ratio
the more satisfied we
are

12. The Solutions

13. How News Has Changed
• Almanacs appeared
monthly then weekly
• Newspapers appeared
daily
• Radio and TV delivered
news daily – and
whenever it happened
• Email / Web Sites
delivers news to us
now.

14. What is an Intranet?
• News
• Articles
• Applications
• Navigation / Portal

15. Push / Pull

16. River of News
• News stories listed in
descending
chronological order
• Minimally targeted or
filtered
• The greater the flow the
more “alive” the site
will seem

17. Controlled Delivery
• One or more areas for
controlled delivery of
news
• Types
– Rotating Banner
– Fixed Positions

18. Rotating Banner
• Allows more content to
exist in the same space
• Provides elasticity for
content
• Means that content
isn’t guaranteed to be
visible

19. Fixed Positions
• Guarantees that
content will be visible
• Rigid so exactly as much
content as necessary
must be there

21. Targeting Information
• Matching User
properties to content or
application properties
• Targeting Options
– Content Targeting
– In-Part Personalization
– Web Part Targeting
– Personal Pages

22. Queuing Content
• Set Start and End Dates
• Prioritize Content
• Top priority content is
displayed on the page
• Insert content with a
high priority to “bump”
other content

23. Public Service Announcement (PSA)
• Low-priority content
that is used when no
other content is
available
• Long term “did you
know” type content

24. The Content Ad
• Beyond the landing
page
• Creates an opportunity
for long-term initiatives
to be well known

25. Common Targets
• Physical Area/Location
• Business
Unit/Department
• Organizational Level
• Interest Groups

26. Defining Targeting
• Keep It Simple, Stupid!
(KISS)
• Consider
– 20 Areas/Locations
– 20 Units/Departments
– 3 Organizational Levels
꞊1200 combinations

27. SharePoint Audiences
• SharePoint uses
audiences to define
targeted groups
• Content can be targeted
• Users are selected into
an audience based on
profile properties

28. Problems with Audiences
• One Audience per
“match” becomes many
audiences
• Post-compiled so not
appropriate for user
selected attributes

29. The Process

30. Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices
Practices
• Personal Commitment
Attitudes
• Close Connections
Knowledge
• Mass Media

31. Radio - Motivation
• What is in it for me?
(WIII FM)
• Describing the benefits
to individual users
• Difficult to find
individual, palpable
meaning for individuals

32. Emotional-Rational-Environment
• The Model
– Elephant – Emotional
powerhouse
– Rider – Rational control
– Path –Environment and
habits
• Implications
– The rider has the illusion
of control
– The path has strong
influence
CC Flickr mckaysavage

33. Build a Bridge
• Put all of the content on the
internet
• Send an email summary
with links to the content on
the intranet

34. Blocking the Old Path
• Start with existing email
options
• Slowly restrict large
email groups
• Eventually eliminate use
of large email groups

35. Breaking Bad Habits
1. Really want to change
(not just hope)
2. Make the habit
conscious
3. Bait and Switch – Find
something else
whenever you are
tempted
4. Stay Committed – Don’t
waiver or say “just this
one time”

36. LOOKING BACK

37. Target Communication
• Create a design with
elasticity for peak
communication periods
• Create a backlog of
communications
• Create PSAs to fill the
slow time
• Leverage Ads to relieve
pressure on the landing
page

38. Drive Intranet Traffic
• Make all content come
through the Intranet
• Reduce access to Email
distribution lists

39. Reduce Email Clutter
• Make targeted thinking
a part of the culture
• Post announcements –
don’t email them

40. THANK YOU
Robert Bogue
(317) 572-5310
Rob.Bogue@ThorProjects.com