Intranets and corporate culture should go hand in hand. If your intranet is not reflecting the culture in your organization and the site is boring or dry, consider how good old fashioned brand marketing can change attitudes towards technology. Apple does a great job in providing catchy and friendly names attached to their technology that helps to engage. Combine a catchy name with a clever tag line on your intranet, build a strong brand design, and you can do a lot to attract employees and reflect your culture.
So what’s the big deal about what you name your intranet? As it turns out, a lot. Just ask Mary Olsen, VP of Marketing at Delta Community who recently talked to The Financial Brand regarding their highly-branded intranet site.
“The Financial Brand interviewed Mary Olson, VP of Marketing, Delta Community, and talked about the credit unions’ creatively branded employee intranet, affectionately named “Simon.” Simon is the portal for all employee communications — the guy who knows what’s going on inside the credit union. But Simon is more than just an intranet. He is a full-fledged internal spokesman and mascot, complete with a costume and foam head.”
Devon Cook, Assistant Vice President of Human Resources and Training at Deseret First Credit Union and an Intranet Connections client, explains why they decided to call their intranet TeamNet.
“We call our intranet TeamNet to reflect a part of our culture here at Deseret. We put a lot of emphasis on teams: how each team supports the individual in their progress personally and professionally. It all works together in providing the best possible products and services to our customers.”
An intranet name, or creating an intranet identity with personality, is a great start to building your intranet brand and can help spread the word about your company core values. Attaching a personality can make the intranet more approachable for your employees.
Some tips!
| Keep your intranet name in line with your corporate culture and style |
| Consider a friendly and catchy name that you can build a campaign around |
| Use a name that reflects the goals you set out for the intranet |
| Use a tag line to help explain the purpose of the intranet |
| Choose a name that will be applicable to future growth and technology |
| Engage your audience: run a contest with staff for the best intranet name |
Some ideas!
| City Buzz | The Insider | District Junction (DJ) |
| Lynx (mascot) | BUG (acronym) | Intra-Scene |
| Society | iConnect | One Hub |
| Inner Circle | TeamNet | Common Connection |
| Brutus (mascot) | The Watercooler | Intra-Zone |
| Inside Focus | The Edge | Community Lounge |
| FaceTime | Roc Worx |
Other Resources
For more ideas on intranet names, visit Stephan Schillerwein’s Intranet Matters Blog. Also check out Step Two Design’s post on Naming the Intranet. It’s a great resource and provides good information on what to consider when deciding on an engaging name for your intranet.
Update: another good article on intranet branding by Peter Richards on his excellent blog, Wheat & Chaff. Check it out here.
Tags: enterprise tools, intranet deployment, Intranet Success, Intranet tips
great post thanks for the info
Great article Carolyn
I really like the pictures you have here. 2 thumbs up.
This is a good piece of writing, im ecstatic I stumbled upon it. Ill be back again down the track to check out other posts that you have on your blog.
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You know, I gotta tell you, I truly relish this blog and the informative insight. I find it to be refreshing and quite informative. I wish there were more blogs like it. Anyway, I finally decided to write a comment on What’s in an Intranet name? Turns out a lot … Intranet Connections Blog – I just wanna say that you did a great job on this. Cheers mate!
At my company, our Intranet is called ‘Connect’. It has been so well branded that employees will often call almost every webpage or application viewed through a browser by that name.
Check out this collection of intranet-names: http://intranet-matters.de/intranet-names/
Thanks for your comments Martin. A few months ago I posted a question on Twitter about the importance of intranet design and brand. The responses all indicated that it’s critical for your intranet – I blogged about the results here.
Mark Morrell from BT Intranet sent me a tweet regarding this post, and indicated that while BT Intranet may not be the most creative name, everyone knows it in the organization and would be lost if they changed it.
I think if the intranet name is short and descriptive, you’re good, and employees will embrace it.
PS: your comment also brings up the point that many employees may not be all that familiar with the term “intranet” so choose a name that aligns with how they will use the site.
I can only agree about the importance of an Intranet Brand. Our intranet brand, My Workplace, has become so recognised that I have had conversations like this one a number of times:
“On the intranet you can…”
“Where?”
“On the intranet – My Workplace…”
“Ah! on My Workplace…”
We are getting a lot of criticism for various shortcomings – but a strong ‘Intranet Brand’: We got that one right.