Passageways Blog

Being based out of Indiana, I find myself with an interesting opportunity this year. In case you have been living under a rock, the Super Bowl is being held at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Indiana… or as I like to call it, my back yard. Those of you who have found yourself within close proximity to a host city will undoubtedly be able to relate to the sense of electricity that we feel in the air. There are ads on television and in the newspapers talking about all the events taking place in the city leading up to the big game. We don’t even yet know who will be playing, and already the excitement is palpable. I think it’s important to note that the Indianapolis Colts are not even in the Super Bowl this year. I can’t imagine what it would be like to be a host city with your team in the actual game! I attended a conference over the summer in downtown Indianapolis shortly after we discovered that we had won the bid for the Super Bowl, and already the increase in infrastructure work in the downtown area was astounding. The most impressive construct has to be the two or three block stretch of heated walkway that will house the “Super Bowl Village”. I won’t lie; I am almost as excited to try out those massive infrared heaters as I am to get into the game.

I don’t have anything to do with the Super Bowl, and in fact, if it weren’t just right down the road this year I wouldn’t really even be interested. Still, you can’t help but have at least one conversation with someone about it every day. It truly is amazing if you think about it, that an event can be put on in a state that won’t even have representation at the game, and the excitement will still make it an undoubted success. It just goes to show that getting people excited about a project is a brilliant way to ensure its success. You can’t argue with 46 Super Bowls!

Ensuring my client’s success with their portal is the core function of my daily job. One conversation I find myself having more and more is how to get users to buy-in to this new project. An intranet solution or Board Portal should be an easy sale for your users. The practical applications are clear from just a simple overview of the product, and yet, this battle seems to be one that is constantly fought. In drawing a parallel to one of our repeated solutions to this problem with the Super Bowl experience; I am only reminded that excitement is such a huge part of the process. The response to my encouragement to hold a naming contest, or lunch party, and other “fun” activities is almost always the same “we don’t really have time” or “we don’t want to put effort into something like that.” We understand that “fun” isn’t always something that bodes well with management in the workplace at first, but every customer that takes our advice and spends the extra effort to make their portal implementation process exciting has ended up being our biggest success stories. Ask Betty House at Circle Bank how much all of their users loved the little cakes and balloons they sent to all their branches to celebrate the launch of their portal, Blink? Or ask Amy Rector at Y-12 Federal Credit Union how happy the branch that won the naming contest was when they got to wear jeans to work for a full week! The examples of this practice are countless (though you can read about more of them at Community .Passageways.com). This is one reason we usually suggest that a Board Portal or other intranet solution be owned by a variety of departments as opposed to just your IT group. HR, Marketing, Accounting, Operations, all these departments are made up of individuals from different backgrounds and experiences that can be invaluable to increasing the internal excitement surrounding your portal project.

It is not a slight to the IT department; in fact it could probably be viewed as more of a compliment. The IT department “gets it”. They use a variety of software on a daily basis and typically aren’t the types resistant to change, primarily because you can’t be resistant to change in the tech world as it is constantly changing. It’s the nature of the beast. These groups are used to being presented with a new piece of software that is created to accomplish a certain set of tasks and then using it to complete those predetermined tasks. To the technical brain, there just isn’t really another way of thinking about it, that ideology just makes sense. The brilliance of an intranet solution or Board Portal, however, is that it isn’t just a clear cut set of tools to accomplish a specific set of activities. The possibilities are endless with just the basic tools, and the more you add to your solution the larger those possibilities grow. One of the best parts of my job is when a client shares a new use for one of our tools with me that I had never thought of. It is the other departments that are less inclined to just try to go from point A to point B with this project without any stops in the middle. Assemble a team that is willing to think outside the box and generate excitement, and the possibilities are endless. Not to mention that your team’s excitement will generate excitement everywhere. Like with the Super Bowl, the more excitement is generated around the event, the more people will be interested, the bigger the success of the event itself. I don’t have anything invested in the 2011 Super Bowl, but I can assure you that I will be taking part in the fun leading up to the big day.

Try the Super Bowl tactics with your organization. Excitement spreads like wild-fire and if you get a good portal team that is excited about what they are doing, and willing to put in the extra effort to add some fun to the project, you are sure to succeed. The excitement surrounding the Super Bowl creates opportunity surpassing just those on the surface apparent to the football stadium and the NFL themselves and a successful implementation will do the same for you. It’s no secret that the host city for the Super Bowl is a sought after honor for the business it brings to that town in the year surrounding the game. Your portal team positions should be sought after as well, because it is this team that will help show eventual success in every department of your organization.

What pre-launch marketing strategies have worked for your team? We thank you for sharing your nuggests here with us by leaving your comments!

With 2011 officially in the books, many have turned their gaze to the coming year. Here at Passageways we are no different. In fact, we have come up with some predictions for the new year. Here are the Top 10 trends we expect to either continue or start in 2012.

1. Mobile Intranets break through.

With the tablet crazy sustaining and executive suite increasingly walking into meetings with iPads, most employee intranets and (especially) board portals will be accessed using the mobile browsers. Mobile apps through itunes will also become more popular and start to be demanded by end users.

2. More blogging will take place.

The blog-o-sphere is an ever growing tool being taken advantage of by firms from all industries. Blogs are an essential tool to putting a face to your organization and creating a public persona. In an age when everyone from Target to Bank of America is being held accountable by the public for their alleged actions, the transparency offered by a blog is invaluable. Blogging creates a new level of communication that is much more real and accessible to the average client. The same rules apply within the organization as well, so Blogging on your Employee Intranet and board portals to communicate your mission, plans and key initiatives will become commonplace.

3. Increased use of video within the Employee intranet.

Either in the form of interviews with industry professionals or simple informative messages, video is becoming an essential vehicle for communicating internally. Think about recording a video with your C-level team to communicate news and initiatives to your staff and post them on the homepage of your intranet. This is especially relevant now with an increasing number of remote employees.

4. More resources added to intranet search.

One constant battle for the intranet team is the one waged everyday aimed at increasing traffic within your intranet. As more positions become more reliant on the internet as a whole for solutions to problems, we will see ground give in this battle as search options are added to the intranet itself. The customizability of an intranet search function will allow users to Google, or Wiki their questions from directly within the portal without visiting other pages on the internet proper. Recently Google’s Real-Time Search has even become assessable to Google Search Appliance users, enabling intranet owners to return real-time tweets related to search queries.  Demands  for such tools and additions to your Intranet and Board portals will gain momentum.

5. More intranets become cloud based.

According to studies conducted by TNS and funded by the CSC, 64% of companies that moved to a cloud based system report a significant decrease in waste and energy consumption. Besides the obvious “green” implications for your organization this result suggests increased savings from both of these areas as well. An even more impressive statistic from the same study of 3,645 IT decision makers from 8 countries shows 93% of organizations moving to some sort of cloud based application showed improvement in their IT department. It’s hard to argue with the numbers on this one. The cloud just makes sense.

6. Collaboration is a more popular term than web 2.0

Web 2.0 started as a term to include all new fangled tools, with any web technology invented in last 3-4 years. This set of additions generally allowed for user driven content.  With several of these tools now becoming standard collaboration tools, we are all set to jump back to the future and refer to these tools (like profile wall, commenting, status updates, blogs, etc.) as collaboration tools.

7. The use of microblogging achieves a break through.

Microblogging is not blogging. When we talk about microblogging we are primarily talking about Twitter or tools like it. Since its introduction to the world opinions on Twitter have landed most into one of two camps. You both love Twitter and find it to be a magical tool for collaboration, communication, and creation or you don’t understand the point. As 2011 came to a close you couldn’t turn on any program on television, including the news, without seeing “#blahblah” in the corner. You might not even have realized what this indicated, but essentially it is an instruction to those active on twitter on how to communicate on this topic via the social networking site. Sometimes you only need 140 characters to share your thought, and in 2012 more will realize the value of a short sentence and the wildfire like capability to spread your message.

8. Crowdsourcing to gather employee ideas.

Social tools have given a voice to the every-man. Thanks to Twitter and Facebook any Joe can directly communicate with a company or manufacturer by simply mentioning their name. In 2012 this power will be realized and harnessed within the portal by enabling those employees of yours that might not otherwise have a voice to chime in on issues. I’m not telling you that you need to let your employees have a voice in every decision you make, but why discount their voice on key initiatives if it could enhance your business? The portal’s social tools offer a perfect way to engage your employees in a controlled environment that will benefit both you and them in the pursuit towards increased revenue.

9. More on the intranet will be commented on.

Keeping with the previous predictions the social tools within the portal will give rise to new discussions. The ability to comment on a section of the intranet will allow employees to open a stream of positive dialogue that will undoubtedly lead to new discovery and certainly be a vehicle for change. Make no mistake about it, your employee’s do talk to each other and allowing this dialogue to take place within the intranet will lead to discussions on the topics you want, as opposed to those shadowy water cooler conversations. Sometimes you don’t have to set a policy to change a behavior, you need only provide the path for your employees to walk down.

10. The use of ‘My Pages’ on Employee Intranet increases.

With so much information on hand, employees will leverage the ‘My Pages’ section of their Employee Intranets a LOT more. An average user today has become quite savvy when it comes to piecing together their own view with ‘My Expense reports’, ‘My Help Desk Tickets’,  ‘My Forms’,  and ‘My Courses’ etc. Watch for an increased use of the age old 'My Pages' toolset.

So there you have it! What other predictions can you come up with?

Investing in technology products is always tricky. Waiting could be beneficial as the prices go down with time, but then there is a cost to using older technology as well. There are budget considerations, project time availability, and several other roadblocks that we all grapple with. We have been selling technology solutions for almost a decade now and thought we should share the secret on why this is the best time EVER to invest in portals technology.

Intranets, emails, and shared drives are old technology now. Your Customer profile is changing and your organization needs to start talking their language fast. You also want to employ the brightest and show the best results. To do all this, you simply have to think about new age tools. These tools developed over last 5-7 years have now become mainstream and your Employee Portals and Board Portals should leverage tools such as Blogs, Activity Feeds, Employee Walls, Alerts, Subscriptions, and Dashboards. Don’t be left behind, start leveraging the power of social tools built for the enterprise and see the positive outcomes!

Use the Entire Plan year: During the last quarter of 2011 every organization is engaged in planning for 2012. Once you finish the session and formalize the plan, the very first hurdle is keeping everyone informed and on the same page about your annual strategic plans and goals. The best way is to use Dashboards and share it with Employees and the Board. So start the year with a portal for your Employees and /or Board and don’t miss out on the opportunity to share a full-year with dashboards of your key performance indicators right on the home page of your portals

Annual planning also means finalizing the hiring plans for next year. It’s easy to get swayed by the countless requests from various departments for adding new employees. A viable alternative is to consider automation. While doing the analysis the following basic calculation has to be kept in mind:

Employee Portal solutions cost less than the fraction of the cost of 1 employee ($10,000- $20,000 a year) and become a great resource for employees you already have. Think about where the bottle neck is. Invariably your staff needs a better way to get organized rather than just getting another employee, and that’s where employee portals fit right in!

Board portal solutions, especially if you purchase in Q4, cost less than $50 per meeting (for every portal user).  Think about the efficiency gained by your executive support staff, your management team, your board members and various committee members and then this cost does look get dwarfed compared to the value you can get from it. The importance of a timely and secure delivery, with the ability to make changes instantly if needed cannot be truly calculated but should weigh in heavily in your decision.

Every technology company like Passageways is trying to end the year with a bang. Yes, the fourth quarter is the best time to look for the best deals. Every sales person, their sales managers and pricing strategies are willing to reward you if you make your decision before December 31st, even if you start using the solutions in 2012.

There are a lot many more great reasons for taking the leap and investing in Employee and Board portals. We would love to hear from your experiences. To share your thoughts on the benefits, please leave a comment here!

As we prepare to wind down a turbulent 2011 and plan for 2012, businesses still face a great deal of uncertainty in the financial marketplace. Although the Great Recession may have ended, many consumers believe we may yet be headed for a double-dip recession. As a result, consumers are still being extremely cautious with their finances. That fact, coupled with continuing increases in regulation and consolidation, has made it critical for organizations to adopt sustainable growth strategies that are measurable and adaptable as we look ahead to 2012. Growth strategies require teams to be focused and informed so that decisions and changes can be made faster than ever. They need to be able to actively track performance and see the impact of their efforts. They need a visual report card that keeps them all on the same page and instantly reveals their progress towards achieving the goals of the organization. As you plan for 2012, you need to consider the tools you need to have at your disposal that will make your teams highly dynamic – because the ability to respond to change will continue to be key.

Like in most downturns, a slower market has meant a heavy strategic emphasis on prototyping new products and services for some organizations. For others, it has meant a return to the basics of providing high quality customer service. In all cases, however, it has created a serious need for reliable, up-to-date metrics that are easily understood by executives and Board members.

After you finalize the plans for 2012, consider how these have to be communicated to your staff and board. Of course these plans have to be shared not just once but any updates, progress milestones and even setbacks have to be shared throughout 2012. In our experience, the most successful management teams have figured out the most effective ways to communicate and reinforce these plans through the use of technology. The best practices for well communicated Strategic plans and the most effective tools include:

• An Employee Portal set up with a Dashboard of all the Key Performance Indicators
• A Blog by the CEO or senior management to constant reinforce the strategies and tactics
• An activity feed set up to celebrate every victory and mitigate any setbacks on the plans
• An updated strategic plan, complete with document versions,  available to all the key employees

Visual data management is the key to bringing this information to the fingertips of decision makers. A single page dedicated to showing the progress of your organization’s strategic initiatives can be very effective for quickly determining strategic direction. Visual representation makes incredibly complex strategies easy to understand and, more importantly, easy to evaluate. Dashboards and graphic data displays have always held been valuable to strategic planning for Boards and managers, but in the modern business environment, they have become integral to tracking and adapting your strategy.

Organizations have more data available to them than ever before. We can (and do) track everything from individual customer accounts to various ratios by branch or region. What that means, however, is that Boards expect more data to make decisions – and we should do everything we can to make that data digestible. In almost every planning session looking ahead to 2012, we have heard Board members and executives dive deeply into remarkably complex data as they weigh strategic options. We believe that increased understanding of those complex numbers and trends help executives and boards make better decisions in the context of the broader strategic vision. Visual representations of data don’t make decisions for us, but they do make decision making about the synthesis of information. Given the economic uncertainties ahead, the more information we can intelligently funnel into our planning processes for 2012, the better.

There isn’t much room for debate; our nation is still in a bit of economic hot water. Despite our unwillingness to admit it sometimes, quite a few of our problems can be traced to problems originating in the financial industry. Despite how much you may or may not want it not to be true, the Occupy Wall Street movement is only gaining momentum, and popular opinion says that another recession might be just around the corner. For those that aren’t really sure what the talk is all about, the Occupy Wall Street movement originated in New York City when a group of motivated individuals decided to take to Wall Street, protesting financial injustice. Their website gives this description:

“Occupy Wall Street is leaderless resistance movement with people of many colors, genders and political persuasions. The one thing we all have in common is that We Are The 99% that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1%. We are using the revolutionary Arab Spring tactic to achieve our ends and encourage the use of nonviolence to maximize the safety of all participants.”

 Sounds pretty reasonable at first, right? Most of you reading this little opinion piece are more than likely not a part of that 1% these friendly protestors are talking about. Still, this group is creating some rather interesting potential problems within the financial industry. Public events are sprouting up on Facebook and other networking sites declaring that November 5^th of this year, if you “support the cause”, you should go to your bank and withdraw all of your money. The organizers aren’t telling you to go hiding your money in mattresses; instead they are urging supporters to take their money to credit unions. The credit union is, of course, the not for profit sister to the bank, and therefore that means that credit unions aren’t the “great evil” like banks. Already the events have thousands of supporters claiming they intend to “attend” this mass re-distribution of wealth.

The truth of the matter is if these spin-off supporters of OWS realized the implications of what they were suggesting, they would realize that ultimately they would be hurting the 99% more than anyone else if they were indeed successful at a mass withdraw. Regardless of the facts, the vast majority of people do not understand economics, and furthermore, that financial institutions are actually a necessary part of any successful economy despite popular media’s message to the contrary. So the question becomes, what can YOU as an employee of a financial institution or member of a financial organization do to combat the rampant negativity that many of your customers or colleagues might be carrying into your branch with them?

Across all industries there is one thing that can truly affect public opinion about your organization, and that is the public’s actual experience with your organization. With so much negativity and mis-directed anger floating around about financial institutions in general, your only choice is to combat these opinions head on. For better or worse, there will always be a large number of customers that have to patron financial organizations. Most everyone has to have some sort of account to function in our society. What most people don’t have to do, however, is purchase new products from your organization. Do you think an unemployed customer is going to sign up a new CD, or try for a new loan when they are really only forced to you’re your organization so that they can access their unemployment money? More than likely they don’t care about your amazing low rates. Managers take to the front lines and teach your employees the value of listening to your customers. Help your tellers, CSR’s, personal bankers, and branch managers understand the importance of their role at your organization. Set a standard of nothing less than top notch service. When the pendulum swings back the other direction, and your unemployed customer gets his job back, he will remember the teller that was always friendly, and polite, and how that teller made the customer feel comfortable doing business at your organization. Loyalty is hard to come by in our fast food society, the only thing that keeps customers coming back, is good customer service.

Now we have identified a solution to our problem, how do we get there? Good customer service doesn’t grow overnight. Everyone knows that there is much more than a policy change that is needed to affect something on a grand scale. There is an old saying that goes something like, “Fish rot from the head down”. Most of us have seen this statement hold true time, and time again. The thing that most people tend to miss out on is that this little saying also allows you to focus your initiatives. If you want to affect the whole fish, you need only start with the head. Using collaboration software like an Enterprise Portal Solution from Passageways you can bring together the leaders and managers of your company easily and with little impact on daily activities. Communication is the key in implementing any new initiative in your organization. A Passageways portal can give you the ability to push out forms or create easy to access Policies and Procedures to help guide your front line staff and managers in their pursuit for better customer service. Discussion boards and other controlled social tools allow your staff to communicate with each other in a monitored environment, thus greatly reducing the amount of wasted time on sites like Facebook or Twitter. Social interaction between employees has been shown to directly influence the moral of employees which directly affects the willingness of your employees to help bring a new policy to fruition, but allowing them to interact in a controlled environment keeps control firmly in your hands. All these tools are pieces available with various Passageways Solutions and are the ideal way to help make sure you do the most you can to make your organization succeed in fighting the battle against poor customer service.  

Sometimes in business… as with life, the best things to do is quit blaming everyone else for your problems and decide what you can do to solve your problem. The Occupy Wall Street movement is trying to solve their problem, what can you do to solve yours?

by Veronica L. Martinez | Project Manager | Organization Performance/Employee Development | AA Credit Union

After having the same intranet for a decade, the American Airlines Credit Union decided it was time for a change.  Difficult to find content coupled with a shaky search engine, resulted in frustration for end users.  A focus group of members representing every department throughout the organization was created to take part in user interviews, surveys and then a card sorting project.  Once the data was collected, the portal team designed a prototype to ensure content was well organized prior to usability testing. 

With the support of the Passageways Consulting Team, AACU was able to develop a brand new portal with an incredibly organized landing page.   First and foremost, it was essential that the landing page content reflected the value they place on their employees and contributions.  Not only did it exemplify their culture with impactful imagery and stories, it allowed their employees to find the information they needed to do their jobs quickly. 

Similarly, the portal administrators collaborated with Passageways to create as much efficiency and automation as possible.  Quotes of the day could be loaded over a year in advance while birthdays and anniversaries were populated from Employee Profiles to showcase photos of the employees celebrating milestones.  A virtual suggestion box titled “Give us your Good Ideas” allowed individuals to submit recommendations that would be automatically routed to the portal team, with an option for anonymity.

A strong, single search engine with drop-down categories separating products and services from internal P&P optimized overall search functionality.  An employee directory could also be accessed from the search, with contact information auto-populated from Active Directory.  For instance, pulling up “Loan Officers” would show all employee profiles with that title.  Additionally, employee profile fields were customizable; for instance, with a foreign language skill.  This would allow an employee to search “Spanish” and all Spanish speaker profiles would show up.  No more sending mass email blasts to everyone in the organization.

A horizontal drop-down page menu and another one with Quick Links (most frequently used websites) were constructed to preserve precious real-estate, eliminating scrolling down the page.   This also helped them hold true to their “less than 3 clicks guarantee” to find portal content.   A central resource tabbed section with links to the most important pages on their sites was neatly arranged toward the center of the page with the headings:   Communications, Toolbox, Calendars and About Us.  Short descriptions of each page provided basic information for ease of use. 

The formal unveiling of the new Landing Page was propelled with a series of “teasers” giving readers snippets of each section, highlighting features and benefits without ever uncovering the page as a whole.  This build-up conjured up an incredible amount of excitement – on the day of the roll-out, the  feedback was absolutely overwhelming.   

 Here are a few comments we received: ““I didn’t even have to use the quick reference guides to use the new Hub.  Thanks for making my job easier.  Now I can take more time with our members instead of going on a scavenger hunt!”

“I just wanted to say how much I loved the new HUB. Great look, much more intuitive than the previous version and for a still relatively new employee, I have a much easier time navigating it to find what I want and need, including a number of things I never actually saw on the previous incarnation. Great work on everyone's part.”

Remarkably, the positive accolades continue to roll in.  After an employee was diagnosed with Stage 4 Non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, the portal team used the landing page to advertise a Fund Raising initiative using the Passageways auction platform to raffle off prizes and forms builder to administer a “Kiss the Pig” contest.   This campaign resulted in enough funds to cover the employee’s chemo treatments, eliminating the stress of financial burdens.

Developing the landing page “with the user, not just for the user” maximized employee buy in.  Involving focus group members from the very beginning ensured content was both easily accessible and actionable.  Ultimately, the page disseminates knowledge throughout the organization to help it grow.  It also helped the American Airlines Credit Union nab Passageways’ “2010 Best Portal Landing Page” contest!

Integrating New Employee Orientation into an online environment  - by Andrew J. Ryback @ MECU

Using the Passageways Intranet Portal, we created a New Employee Orientation/Integration page on our intranet to assist with the new hire process. The portal enables us to move from a paper-based process to one that is fully supported in an online environment. Because of the ease of use of the portal software, we were able to create this feature without the help of outside developers or our IT department. Information can be updated regularly and we have ensured consistency throughout the new hire process. 

We developed the NEO section of our Intranet to create a positive welcoming experience for anyone new to the credit union. We realized that we only have one chance for a positive new employee experience. New employees can access relevant information at their own pace and from the comfort of their desk. Information is available to them whenever they need it and they can return to it at any point.  Essentially, this is a one-stop-shop for all things related to the new hire process. HR information, organizational philosophy, procedures, and training links are all completely accessible. No longer do new employees waste time hunting for information outside of their department, nor is there a need for managers and trainers to spend hours guiding new employees day-to-day.

Employees continue through the NEO process for the first 90 days of employment.  After 2-day face-to-face orientation is complete, the employee is released to their manager. From there, most of the on-boarding rests on our managers. With so much emphasis placed on the employee learning the skills needed to perform their specific job, the portal allows the manager and employee to work together to complete tasks and conduct weekly follow-up concerning things not directly related to the employee’s job. The NEO portal page becomes a roadmap for success of the employee that can be easily tracked by management. 

This new process has enabled us to save countless manager/new employee/trainer hours and focus on relevant on-the-job training. We estimate that we have saved, on average, $1800.00 per new employee during their orientation period. Considering costs involved with recruiting and hiring, that number jumps exponentially when factoring in employee retention.

 Key Highlights include:

• Disaster recovery/new employee emergency contact information collection

• Welcome video from CEO

• Organizational information

• Links to relevant intranet pages

• HR policies and procedures

 Key benefits include:

• Saves time and money with regard to publishing forms and paperwork

• Eliminates chasing down managers for new hire information

• Enables new hires to be able to access the most up-to-date information

• Encourages new hires to refer to the intranet as their main resource

• Creates a sense of “belonging” for new hires

Several other credit unions have reached out to us to learn more about this project. We know our staff and management is very happy with this addition to our intranet. It has certainly become an organization-wide best practice and continues to inspire other credit union teams across the country.

Leave comments and question below - Thanks!

The goal of every Intranet project is to make an employee’s life easier. However, most projects fail to accomplish this. Technology now allows you to make work easier, fun and also get an insight into your company’s work stream. The big idea that is making this happen is the introduction of social tools it’s changing everything.

By social tools I mean tools such as employee walls, status updates, activity streams, employee connections, tags, the “like button”, employee interest etc. I should mention that all these tools have no connection to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn , Google+ (or any social networks), but these tools have been borrowed liberally from these popular networks. Enterprise software offerings, including Passageways, now embed these nifty tools on witnessing how fervently people embraced these tools.

Many companies are now making intranets more social to allow employees to share and discuss information that was previously locked away in impossible-to-find documents or deep in the minds of employees. At Passageways we have seen a complete transformation of our own employee portal in the last 12 months and that triggered this blog entry.

These simple tools should be part of your intranet strategy, and should allow you to convert your intranet from a boring time wasting application into a fun and discovery-full productivity engine. Here are 5 exciting changes you should consider for your intranet and just watch it take-off :

1. Facebook like Rich Profiles

Employee profiles need to have some personality. They should include employees’ expertise, interests and any other information that helps determine who can help you when you are stuck. Over time you will see who is working with whom, and what your team’s strengths, weaknesses and skills are. You will also see peer recognition happen automatically on employee walls.

Social Tools: employee walls, employee expertise field, employee interest field and the “like button” for comments on their walls, employee pictures

 2. The Organizational Social Graph

An organizational social graph is a map of employee connections: who works with whom, when, how often and why. The social graph reveals an important, but normally hidden, “organization chart”—the informal employee network inside every company. Employees can use this graph to help new employees connect with the right people. You will also be able to see who the “expert” and “well liked” employees are within your organization.

Social Tools: ability to follow people, ability to see who reports to whom, expert fields

3. Strong Search Capabilities

With strong search capabilities, the social intranet is the go-to place to find people, experts, knowledge and other resources anywhere in the organization. Of course finding documents, procedures and forms will also be a big part of what they will go to the intranet for. But connecting with people and discovering someone for a certain project gives you the ‘aha moment’ you have been missing all along.

Social Tools: expert locators, tags, ability to follow, subscription to profile, product changes. All these combined with traditional search results

4. Comments and Activity History

By looking at the comments on announcements, activity streams, status updates and the conversations they spark, and products wikis you can see who spent time on which products and projects. These are the best indicators of what a particular employee is most passionate about. While this may be just fun on Facebook, it adds a whole different dimension to employee interaction within your firewall.

Social Tools: Activity streams, comments on announcements, status updates, Products and Services Wiki, subscriptions, change history on products info

 5. Competitive Products and Vendor Info

Which sales person wants to be ignorant about competitive offerings, right? Your portal should not only have information about competitive products but also allow you to post comparisons for a quick reference by sales people. Publishing an announcement, inviting staff comments about competitors is an easy and effective way to gather information. Your intranet should also have a profile for each of your vendors and just providing staff with a “like button” tells you which vendors are truly liked by your team.

Social Tools: product comparisons, vendor profiles, like button, comments on announcements.

This is just the beginning of what will be a full cycle of including social tools in your intranet portals. In fact, Passageways is now offering all these social tools on EVERY portal we support globally. Passageways continues to selectively experiment with several others social tools including tag clouds, questions and answers, portal points in some of the portals we have pulled together recently especially our customer community – Communitree. We are excited to share the immense success of these newer tools and assure you that there is more fun to be had in the months to come. So ask any Pathfinder to get your portal to be social today.

To finally making software that makes you happy – Cheers!

In November 2008, Genisys Credit Union was formed through the merger of equals, T&C Federal Credit Union and USA Credit Union.  The conversion of data from one core system to the surviving core system was completed in August 2009.  After the dust settled, Genisys employees began expressing frustration with the difficulty in finding much needed operational information.  Then in early 2010, it was announced that our CEO was retiring and our new CEO, Jackie Buchanan, would be leading Genisys into the future. It was a unique chance to shape the culture of this new combined credit union.

Passageways and Genisys partnered together and kicked off the first project that would help unite and define the Genisys culture.  Passageways provided Genisys with an Intranet web portal that was so easy to build and use that it freed up the full time database analyst from devoting 100% of his time on the old Lotus Notes system. This new project allowed a large number of employees from across the organization to participate in the development of information delivery for Genisys.

A portal team was formed and consisted of employees from all around the credit union.  This team helped shaped the vision of the portal and each team member took the lead on several sub teams used to build different sections of the portal.  The various teams consisted of employees of all levels from the CEO to part time tellers.  The Products & Services team was led by the Sales & Service Training Manager and consisted of various MSRs, Tellers, Admin Assistants, Management Trainees, Regional Manager, and an Assistant Call Center Manager.  The system was designed for optimal efficiency so a busy teller could access the information quickly and with minimal clicks.  The Help Desk team consisted of employees from Accounting, Electronic Services, Facilities, HR, Marketing, Public Relations, Training and Branch Personnel.   The Help Desk team came up with several new uses for this module, which proved uniquely flexible.  Help Desks were created to streamline the tracking of quality control errors for each branch, to electronically track team member task assignments, and password requests for products/services not owned by IT. We had just invented a new way to route requests to various departments in a transparent manner!

The portal was launched on June 23, 2010.  Over 75 employees from across Genisys participated in the project and took ownership of their own content management.  The employees found the Passageways product so easy to use that within a four month time frame, it was launched with over 400 procedures built in Products & Services, and over 75 different Help Desks.  The staff instantly found value in being able to control their own content, eliminating time to have someone in IT update the information for them.   The Passageways portal not only brought value in the way of efficiencies but also became  the first project that was uniquely Genisys and has left an indelible mark on the Genisys culture.

“Since the responsibility of directorship comes with significant personal liability, executive and non-executive Directors should receive relevant development and education to inform them of their duties, responsibilities, powers and potential liabilities in working at board level.“ - (King II Report)

Choosing a board portal solution partner is a decision that requires a number of considerations to ensure a successful implementation of the tool. In today’s economic environment a company’s Board of Directors and senior executive team face increased pressure, scrutiny and expectations. Today’s environment demands a more acute knowledge of company activities. The Corporate Secretary’s office is expected to provide more information, and do so more efficiently and much more quickly. With over 200 Portal solutions implemented here is a list of items to consider when choosing a board portal solution provider.

1. Enhance your governance process. We have discussed the increased pressure, scrutiny and expectations your board faces. A board portal ensures that your Directors receive their board packets on time, anywhere, without the hassle of having to receive a mailed or couriered paper version of the board packet. Read receipts, alerts and notifications are key considerations from a governance process.
2. Increase efficiency in your administrative department. Board portal users have experienced a reduction of at least 60-70% in the time it takes their administrators to create a board packet. A solid board portal solution reduces the unnecessary strain on your administrators and allows them to focus on improved reporting and governance processes.
3. Security.The Board material is sensitive to every organization. Do you have concerns about how paper-based archives and company policies are maintained by your Directors? A board portal eliminates these concerns by offering a secure, online repository of all packets and board materials. Due consideration has to be given when choosing to have a solution, do you want it hosted at a 3^rdparty location or installed in-house on your own infrastructure? A cost-effective board portal solution should provide you the flexibility of either configuration without sacrificing functionality, timelines, or cost for the application.
4. Alerts and Notifications.Addendums are a reality! Can you be sure that your Directors received the most recent update in advance of the board meeting? A board portal ensures you can! Ensure your provider offers good alert and notification tools to ensure your Directors are notified of the latest updates to your board materials.
5. Searchable Archives and Document Repositories.How often do your administrators receive request for old Packets for reference or a request to pull specific information from them? Your Board portal should allow you the choice to share archived packets with Board Members. Your solution should be fully searchable by keyword and key phrase saving members and administrators huge amounts of time.
6. Reduce costs.Notwithstanding the personnel cost savings having reduced the time it takes to prepare the board materials, consider the cost of producing those monthly packets! Compiling, printing, binding, distribution….it goes on and on. Don’t forget the inevitable addendums! Re-compile, re-print, re-bind, re-distribute….cross your fingers that your Directors received the addendums in time. Your Board portal should significantly reduce costs associated with packet compilation and distribution.
7. Go green! Is your organization looking to reduce your environmental impact? A board portal eliminates paper both at the packet and document resource levels. All board portal users are progressing towards a paperless environment. Encourage your board to set the example as your organization looks to reduce its carbon footprint.
8. Intuitiveness, ease-of-use. Have you tried this board portal thing before? Are you concerned if your Directors will embrace this new technology? This is a common objection among users. A board portal should be easy to use! Navigation must be simple. Directors with access to your board portal, should be USING your board portal!
9. Dynamic content.Are you tired of the static portal environments that seem to be the norm amongst board portal providers? Break the mould and offer relevant dynamic content for your users. Live web pages and RSS Feed Readers engage your Directors in a way that other solutions cannot. Consider providing dashboards with a quick analysis of some of the key indicators to your directors. Automated Expense Reports that provide greater visibility into this area are another key component you should look for when considering a board portal.
10. iPad Compatibility.The iPad is both a powerful and convenient tool that Directors would like to utilize. Consider providers that have invested in developing a dedicated iPad applet providing Directors online access to board materials via the iPad. Unlike some solution providers who simply allow users to use the iPad browser to access materials, an applet ensures an easy adoption process by your Directors.

There is no shortage of providers to meet your board portal requirement, you should be looking for a partner, rather than a provider. We encourage you to check the references of any potential partner and ensure that all end-users, administrators and directors, use the solution and are happy with the experience. Your board portal is the last solution you want to have to implement twice.