Corporate intranets are going social according to a report published by IBF. Many are incorporating social networking tools, blogs, favorites, presence information and network of friends features. Besides social functionality for employees they are also serving the company’s business units such as HR which has requirements related to employee performance and talent acquisition. “Corporate intranets have become more than just an employee directory with profile pages and information. The goal is to encourage people to contribute and collaborate to the community and turn their profile pages into their center piece for interaction”, said Reshma Kumar of Verisign.

The newer intranets are focused on content where as older intranets are focused on user. The next generation in about putting the two together and creating contextual relevance to the user and the company’s business units such as HR.

The report outlines the following as two core elements of new corporate intranets:

• integrate everything: integrate as many relevant systems as possible to provide a full and automatically updated picture of people and all their activities (as compared to people having to manually enter what they are doing or have done)

• link everything: connect and transparently link people, content and context in order to display every relation between them. Thus, multiple options and perspectives for every piece of information or person can be provided, serving many different information needs and ‘views of the world’

The report cites the potential benefits of developing the employee directory in this way:

• faster location of expertise leading to increased productivity
• enhanced collaboration, creating new ideas and value
• improved organisational ability to manage talent and change
• support for a corporate culture that encourages
• collaboration, knowledge sharing, trust and openness
• improved satisfaction and engagement of employees, especially those used to social networking on the web
• reduced email load
• employees can build trusted networks and communities, giving them greater control over the information and communication they are subjected to
• security of information because employees are not driven to use web-based social networking for work purposes.

As well as looking at the benefits and recommendations for deploying this kind of directory, the report also looks at the challenges that this may involve. One of these challenges is the management of privacy and data, that may vary across different operating countries for a global organization – a challenge that is addressed with a combination of clear policies, making some elements voluntary and a preparedness to follow through on any breach of the policy.