Intranet Focus

Intranet Focus Ltd has built up a substantial research collection of over 1000 reports,  papers and books on all aspects of intranet management and information management.  Each month weroutinely scan around 100 companies, organisations, consultancies and publishers. We also have access to the Digital Library of the Association for Computing Machinery, a repository of over 1 million research papers, reports and conference proceedings.

In 2012 we  launched a series of Research Notes on topics we see emerging from our consulting work. Each of the Research Notes is 10-15 pages long. Over the period to June 2013 we plan to publish Research Notes on the development of a search strategy, digital workplaces, assessing search performance, working with multinational teams and search usability.

Research Note 02/13 February 2013 Enterprise Search Strategy

A number of surveys have indicated that few organisations have an enterprise search strategy. The high profile of Big Data and the availability of a high-performance search application within SharePoint 2013 will both require consideration to be given to an integrated approach to enterprise search. In this Research Note a framework is presented for an enterprise search strategy that includes business objectives, user requirements, content (based around in information life-cycle management model), technology, governance and management.

Research Note 01/13 January 2013 Research Review 2012

This Research Note summarises 40 of the best of over 200 reports, briefing papers,  surveys and books that Intranet Focus Ltd. added to its collection during 2012. The topics covered include search, big data, SharePoint, intranets and digital workplaces, collaboration and team working, and mobile access to enterprise information. All the reports can (as of 8 January 2013) be downloaded from the internet though in some cases registration will be required.

Research Note 08/12 November 2012 The business of search

The recent furore over the acquisition of Autonomy by HP has focused attention on the search business. both commercial and open source. This Research Note provides a brief overview of the search business with a particular focus on enterprise search, providing a summary of the  history of search technology, a list of recent acquisitions, the importance of the search components business, the potential market for enterprise search, and the prospects for commercial and open-source search applications.

Research Note 07/12 September 2012 Intranet Stakeholder Management

There is general agreement that intranet stakeholders need to be managed but there seems to be very little guidance on how this should be undertaken. In fact stakeholder management is a core element of any well-managed project and there is a substantial amount of good practice advice available. At Intranet Focus Ltd we have been using this stakeholder management methodology for intranet and search strategy projects for some time. This Research Note summarises our approach and the lessons we have learned.

Research Note 06/12 June 2012 Enterprise search trends and developments

This Research Notes provides an overview of recent acquisitions in the enterprise search business and assesses the impact of the emergence of Big Data,  the use of search-based applications, the concept of unified information access,  the advent of  cloud-based search services and the challenges presented by federated search, people search and  mobile search.

Research Note 05/12 May 2012  Legal issues for Intranet Managers

It is important that intranet managers are aware of national legislation, regulations and guidelines that an intranet should be compliant with. Two of the most important areas are web accessibility and data privacy, but this Research Note also covers copyright, defamation, information security and records retention. The key maxim is that ignorance of the law is no defence. Intranet managers do not need to become lawyers but probably need to be as close to corporate legal staff as they do to corporate IT staff.

Research Note 04/12 April 2012  Managing Virtual Teams

Most organisations already make use of virtual teams to make the best use of employee expertise, speed decision making and reduce travel and other costs.  This Research Note looks at the benefits and challenges of virtual teams and offers ten recommendations that could improve the management of virtual teams and especially virtual team meetings based on over thirty years of  experience. A section on Resources lists some recent books, research papers and web resources.

Research Note 03/12 March 2012 Enterprise Mobile – Planning for 2013

The level of understanding about the potential of mobile access to gain competitive advantage is increasing rapidly, with organisations now recognising that the benefits will come from the adroit integration of smartphones, tablets and PCs. In this Research Note the results of recent surveys and research is analysed, including Apple’s enterprise strategy, the dark side of mobile and information security issues. Ten recommendations are offered to organisations starting to think about how best to implement mobile access in 2013

Research Note 02/12 February 2012 Digital Workplaces Implementation Checklist

This Research Note sets out a 20-point implementation checklist on some of the information, technology and governance issues that need to be considered if the vision of a digital workplace is to be achieved. Some of these issues may not be relevant to all organisations and others may already have been addressed, but even just one or two of these issues could make the difference between success and failure

Research Note 01/12  January 2012 Enterprise Search Team Management
Enterprise search support teams have to take on five different roles. This Research Note sets out the roles and their responsibilities, considers some of the issues around creating a Search Centre of Excellence and suggests a set of search logs that need to be reviewed on a regular basis. Seven recommendations are made which should help to improve search effectiveness and user satisfaction.

.