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Posts Tagged ‘Client Stories’

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In the Midst of Change: An Intranet Case Study

Wednesday, September 8th, 2010

What do you do when you find out that your staff will be divided between two locations during a major renovation period? How can you unify employees at the two locations and ensure that communication remains consistent?

If you are BC Place – the venue for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympics – you decide that the best way to overcome the internal communication challenges is with an intranet.

BC Place launched their intranet, built on the Intranet Connections software, in July with the goal of improving communication, increasing employee involvement, and enhancing information sharing within the organization.

As this was BC Place’s first foray into an intranet project, the intranet roll-out had to focus on introducing the concept of an intranet.

BC Place wanted to ensure that their intranet caught on with all users and would become a dynamic and widely used resource for corporate information. User education was the way to do it. Their message included:

  • What the role of the intranet was to be within the organization
  • Intranet site usage policies
  • Content strategies
  • Boundaries to the type of content that should be included on the intranet

BC Place is currently undergoing major construction to revitalize and modernize the facilities, including the largest retractable roof of its kind in the world (!) so a lot of the information on the intranet is currently comprised of construction news. Other information and popular communities on the site include:

Live Construction Updates
A widget on the site Home Page that pulls a live web cam feed of BC Place so users can view the construction site in real time

Press Releases
An area for employees to see all the latest press updates about BC Place

Road Show Information
A central bulletin board for all the latest information and updates about the community tour going on throughout the province

Employee Directory
A central repository for employees to find contact and location information for their coworkers, across the different facilities. Particularly helpful now that many staff members have moved offices or been moved to the temporary offsite location because of the construction

E-Forms
Streamlines daily business processes as users can quickly find and complete popular forms right through the intranet

Department Sub-Sites
Provides each department with an area to store their dedicated departmental content. Granular access to department info

Job Centre
A central area for BC Place to post job opportunities for its large group of part-time, seasonal employees

Although the IT team at BC Place spearheaded the search for an intranet solution, an intranet development committee has since been set up to ensure that going forward the intranet keeps evolving. The committee plans to meet once a month to discuss content strategies, share ideas for the intranet and plan for ongoing development of the site.

For more information about the features mentioned above, check out Intranet Connections: Intranet 2.0 Software.

More about BC Place

BC Place is the largest sports, exhibition and entertainment venue of its kind in British Columbia, hosting the province’s most notable events, including the Opening and Closing Ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games. Upon re-opening in 2011, BC Place will be the new home for the Vancouver MLS franchise, will continue to be home to the BC Lions Football Club, the 2011 Grey Cup and many other exhibitions, community and entertainment events. Visit http://www.bcplace.com for more info.

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10,000 Strong and Growing: An Intranet Case Study

Thursday, May 6th, 2010

Over the past few years the microblogging platform Twitter has quickly gained traction in the social media sector with over 7 million users as of February 2009 (according to Nielsen Online). As Intranet Connections is entering our 2nd year on Twitter, we have had the privilege of reaching out to our customers via this popular social networking tool.

One client that stands out in particular is Yasser Ahktar. Yasser has been a member of Twitter since June 2008 and has established himself as a social media evangelist. His tweets are refreshing, informative, and provide great value to his followers. The majority of his tweets are focused on the benefits of social media and ways it can be used in a corporate setting.

In addition to his passion for social media, Yasser is an Intranet Manager for a large financial-market intelligence company. This company has over 10,000 employees and relies heavily on their intranet to facilitate the majority of internal communication. While email is predominantly used for one-on-one interaction, the intranet plays a key role in disseminating company news and data. Yasser freed up some of his time to chat with us on how they are using their IC intranet.

As a regulated company within the financial market, it is imperative that all policies and compliance documents be highly visible, easily accessible to all employees, and searchable so it’s not surprising that the Document Management tool within Intranet Connections is heavily used within their intranet. Other popular sections are …

Daily News
keeps employees abreast of press releases and media mentions for the organization

Find a Colleague
employee profiles and search facility to find colleagues by name, department, and skill set or job description

Finance Dictionary
an application to store frequently used terms in the world of finance

President’s Corner
a sub-site where the company President uploads his videos and webcasts, memos and announcements

Intranet Site Map
an A-Z look at all areas of the intranet & facilitates navigation and site search in content mapping

The Internal Communications department purchased Intranet Connections 5 years ago. Despite a large user base of 10,000 employees, the resources committed to on-going maintenance of the site is minimal. Yasser likes the ease of use allowing him to have a small intranet team comprised of himself as intranet administrator, and a handful of content publishers who help to update the intranet content on a daily basis. Because of turnkey nature of Intranet Connections, ease of use, and minimal on-going maintenance and administration of the software, ROI gains were seen within months of implementation.

Although the company is currently not using a lot of social media features on the intranet, Yasser is constantly pushing the issue within the organization and would like to see the intranet move towards being a more social and collaborative environment. He says that the tools are available within the intranet for them to use, but as he works for a regulated company there is some hesitation to move in that direction without proper policies in place. Knowing Yasser’s passion and drive for social media, there is no doubt that he will continue to be an evangelist for it until policies have been established and their intranet can start the social evolution.

Follow Yasser Akhtar on Twitter: http://twitter.com/yakhtar

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Community Based Hospital Cuts Costs with Enterprise Intranet

Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Mike Ward Profile Picture “Knowing what your employees use the intranet for can be very useful in promoting important news.”

Mike Ward from Anderson Hospital

Mike Ward is intelligent and easy going, with a quick wit and a subtle sense of humor. A minute into the conversation he breaks out a small joke: until recently, they were a small hospital in the middle of a cornfield. Mike is the IS Directory at Anderson Hospital. With 140 beds and 1000 employees, they are a community-based hospital located just outside of St. Louis, on the Illinois side of the river.

We asked Mike what goals were accomplished through their Intranet Connections implementation. Like most companies looking to streamline business processes and cut costs with intranet software, they started with eliminating their paper manuals that were stored in each and every unit throughout the hospital. By putting all of the policies and procedures on the intranet, they have seen considerable costs savings.

Also lacking was any type of corporate directory or phone book. Now with Active Directory integration, employees can quickly and easily look up staff profiles including their contact information, locations and phone numbers. When someone changes departments, the intranet is instantly updated through the connection between Intranet Connections and Active Directory.

Providing employees with service driven tools to help them in their daily tasks was a priority. The electronic Form Builder is used for documenting patient complaints. Other e-forms are used for fire alarm system tests to ensure they are working correctly. Committee minutes are stored and searchable via the intranet, and they have created physician calendars so everyone can see at a glance who is on-call throughout the hospital.

Mike points out that knowing what your employees use the intranet for can be useful. Like most hospitals, what is on the cafeteria menu is top of mind. Recognizing that the nursing staff isn’t fond of checking emails, they set out to share important hospital news by placing it strategically on the intranet home page … right beside the cafeteria lunch menu. Nurses now check the intranet to get updates on news affecting their day.

Anderson also likes to use their intranet as a launch pad to other web applications, including sharing how many patients are currently in the various units, a scheduling tool, and they feature a live webcam that publishes the weather from a camera positioned on the roof of the hospital.

Recently Anderson created a department page to house all H1N1 information, awareness and tips for nurses and other front line staff. It is constantly being updated and keeps the entire hospital informed of potential health issues.

Anderson Hospital tends to be on the conservative side of employee-driven content. Mike explains that their intranet has select areas where employees are free to publish and share, but that they like the ability to control content approval and to monitor contributions. This approach has provided Mike and his hospital the flexibility to evolve the intranet at their own pace.

Thank you to Mike Ward for taking the time to speak to us about Anderson Hospital’s implementation of Intranet Connections. The best part of our job is when we can share the successes of our customers and their intranets!

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