Intranets East may be smaller than its more famous cousin, Intranets 2000, but it is definitely not a poor relation. Held for the first time this past October, Intranets East was free of vendor presentations and more proprietor/practitioner focused. The scaled-down, more intimate atmosphere allowed for less formal presentations, more audience interaction, and power networking. There were 183 registered attendees for a total of 202 participants, including sponsors and staff. Attendees came from 32 states and six countries outside the United States. Ultimately, attendees and conference staff were pleased with conference, and plans are beginning for next year's Intranets East. 
 

Network, Network, Network
Overwhelmingly popular with attendees were the scheduled networking times. Breakfast roundtables centered on communities of interest and facilitated discussions. Aptly named "Networking" lunches continued these conversations, as well as those that had sprung up in meeting rooms and hallways. The cocktail reception and dinner increased the networking opportunities in a more informal atmosphere. This type of interaction is nearly impossible in a gathering the size of Intranets 2000. Common comments were that attendees learned more from interacting with others than they did in the sessions and that they found this built-in networking time extremely valuable. 
 

What Are You Doing Here? 
Once again, the "divide" between IT professionals and library-related professionals was evident. More than once the comment was made by IT professionals that they were surprised librarians were at the conference or that they couldn't see why librarians would be attending. Similarly, librarians stated repeatedly that IT professionals did not value their input or recognize the expertise or value they bring to intranet-related projects. In one session, presented by a library professional, an IT professional commented to a colleague that the project was the result of a librarian with nothing to do. Hardly recognition of the speaker's expertise, but indicative of the challenge the MLIS community faces. On the flip side, other IT professionals commented that it was becoming apparent that they needed a librarian on their team or on their project. 
 

Universal Cure
Despite this divide, everyone appeared to be searching for the ultimate solution to cure their intranet ills. Unfortunately, the resounding answer was that there is no such universal cure. "Everyone is looking for a solution to their problem," one attendee stated, "only to be told that they should share it when they find out what it is." 

These problems united many attendees. Complete Intranet redesign was a large common challenge. Other issues included finding methods to obtain content from users; making users take ownership for their content; reigning in and standardizing intranets across the organization; creating controlled vocabularies; and linking with other systems. 
 

Session Highlights
Intranets East featured two tracks—information architecture and content—the "hot" topics from Intranets 2000. Presentations are available at http://www.intranetseast.com/presentations/presentations.html. Here are some highlights: 

Howard McQueen's 3-hour "Advanced Content Management Strategies and Killer Intranet Applications" opened the conference. Consisting mainly of case studies from McQueen Consulting projects, the talk highlighted the scope of content management and applications to support content management strategies. McQueen identified the seven components necessary for every intranet: information architecture, content management and integration, publishing, personalization, culture, portal component audits, and technology, and underscored the importance of taxonomies and controlled vocabularies for intranet success. Other themes were the importance of measuring intranet ROI, incentivizing and rewarding people for contributing intranet content, the lack of workflow capability in most content management systems, and the rising importance of XML. 

Alfred Grasso, vice president and CIO of The MITRE Corp., gave the keynote, "Common Knowledge: Casting Your Net." Grasso explained how MITRE has moved from a project-driven to a collaborative company through knowledge sharing via its intranet. From a corporate perspective, information sharing at MITRE was more important than anything else. Since 1996 the corporation has invested $10 million in its intranet and realized a tangible ROI of $70 million. 

Louis Rosenfeld, president of Argus Associates, Inc. and co-author of the information architecture classic, Information Architecture for the World Wide Web, gave an excellent overview of the topic of information architecture (IA). IA's main goal is finding information. Rosenfeld illustrated how a book is information architecture with elements and conventions that we, as users, have come to know and expect, such as a title, table of contents, and index. The format and structure are generally identical for each book; users know what to expect in its design and structure. With the Web, however, we do not know what to expect; there are many different options available, and we need to provide multiple views to the same information. This is why information architecture is so important and why users, according to Rosenfeld, "will only notice architecture when it's really, really bad." Some of his tips: Evaluate all content before placing it on the intranet; taxonomies must be created manually for finer detail; conduct usability testing every quarter. 

Sharon Hoyt is Webmaster for Cisco Systems' Cisco Employee Connection. With so many attendees facing a redesign of their intranet, Hoyt's presentation, "Redesign of Cisco Systems' Intranet," was popular. Hoyt emphasized the importance of a consistent user experience throughout the redesign. She conducted a baseline study before beginning the redesign to see what users felt worked in the existing intranet. Users were also asked to sort cards labeled with various information to see how they felt this information should be grouped or organized.  The results of the baseline study and card sorts were used in the final design. One critical finding was that users liked the icons used in the original intranet and did not want them changed. 

Kelly Doran, content management project specialist with Weyerhaeuser Company, focused mainly on the development of a taxonomy and metadata tags. Weyerhaeuser uses a Verity search engine and requires contributors to assign specific metadata tags to content when placing it on the intranet. Doran stated that intranet professionals wishing to create a controlled vocabulary should contact their librarian. While automatic indexing may be effective initially, she said, further enhancement by a taxonomy expert, such as a librarian, is still necessary for customizing the taxonomy to the user group's terminology, as well as other refinements. 

A Web developer/programmer for MSX International, Christopher Mahr described how attempts at intranet standardization at Ford Motor Company did not work. This was a follow-up to a presentation Mahr gave at Intranets 2000 about new initiatives Ford was undertaking in standardization. While many Intranets East attendees have been given the task of unifying and standardizing the myriad separate intranets within their organizations, Ford has moved away from global to departmental standardization. Conversely, the company is moving away from departmental servers to company-wide servers. This departmental standardization is ensured through the use of required metadata within contributed documents. For a page or document to be accessible via the search engine, it must be registered through the assignment of metadata tags. This enforces compliance if contributors want their information to be accessible.  Departmental standards are strictly enforced, but there is no attempt to ensure the non-duplication of intranet content across departments. Departments are organized on the Ford Web Hub as Global Excellence Centers, and a WebFarm process helps departments set up their own intranet presence. 

The disappointment in Chris Perretta's Tuesday keynote presentation was almost as large as the presentation's title: "Utilizing the Intranet to Ensure That Knowledge Management and Expertise Sharing are a Part of Your Everyday Business Process." Chief technology officer for GE Capital Corp., Perretta fell victim to the common problem of providing too much tangentially related background information and not enough subject substance. Thirty minutes into the hour-long presentation, Perretta was still describing the diverse range of business units under the GE umbrella. Ultimately, GE is focused on "digitizing the business," with GE Capital "putting an 'e' in everything they do." GE does not use the word Intranet anymore, since the intranet has become such a core fixture in how the company does business. Perretta stated the hardest challenge was in changing the way people worked. Tools used by GE Capital include the E-Boardroom and business dashboards. Perretta stated that knowledge management is a needed discipline, but that everything is really about hitting numbers; everything relating to information needs to affect the bottom line. Attendees wished that he had presented more information on the applications and methods being used, such as E-Boardroom, instead of on GE itself. 

Dennis Jackson, Data Services manager, Practitioners Publishing Company (PPC) showed how the company is using Microsoft's Digital Dashboard to unify its product information. Prior to this, product information was organized in different areas in a large, looseleaf system, causing customer support people to search several areas for information about one product. In the PPC Intranet, this information is digitized and integrated, with all information about a specific product available in one window. 

Lenny Liebmann, contributing editor for Internet Week, gave an excellent general overview of application service providers and what companies should keep in mind when considering an agreement with one. Application service providers are not hosting services, a common misperception. Among the items a company must determine before contracting with an ASP: acceptable downtime; the ASP's future viability; penalties for agreement violations; exit strategies; liability; control over the application; customer support; and customization. Liebmann stated that all companies will eventually deal with a form of ASP. He also warned that companies should "beware of the nines" regarding downtime verbiage in contracts—99.5 percent, a common figure, in fact guarantees a 5 percent per year downtime. 
 

Wrap Up
Overall, Intranets East was a rewarding conference that should enjoy much success in the future if it keeps to the current format: smaller venue, smaller audience, larger networking times.

The interaction among attendees was well worth the higher conference fee. Also, the emerging importance of controlled vocabularies, as stated repeatedly in the sessions, as well as user input in intranet design, will assuredly be themes that will be repeated more frequently in conferences to come.

Jan can be reached at jan.m.rivers@us.arthurandersen.com. 
 

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