Vibrant MCSE BOOT Camp Notes :

Content Is the Key

All of these cases illustrate potential efficiencies that an intranet can help achieve. At least as important, they point out a critical factor in getting value from an intranet: content. Every successful intranet provides content-information-that users value. Of course, the nature of this content varies considerably, depending on the individual user groups and their priorities. However, a few basic principles apply to any consideration of content, and intranet sponsors and users alike agree that the site's information must include such characteristics as these:

• Relevance: This is in the eye of the user, not the sponsor. Organizations that use an intranet essentially as a passive forum for the party line may be disappointed in their investment.
• Timeliness: "Traffic jams" on intranets discourage usage; users quickly revert to conventional communications when their e-mail and message boards are slow or unreliable.
• Frequent updates: Many Web sites, public and private, suffer from static content, and interest and usage quickly drops. Intranets offer the capacity to consistently update changing information-a capacity that should be fully exploited through automation and other features.
• Accessibility: The best site content in the world has little value if users can't get to it quickly and easily. The point of the intranet is to make information available, and site design should take advantage of search engines and other features that improve user access.

In considering questions of content, it's important to keep in mind that intranets are uniquely user-driven and that user needs and preferences should be factored into the initial site design and engineering. As with any other construction project, it is almost always more efficient to engineer in at the beginning than to retrofit after the fact. Site features and functions that make content relevant, timely, and accessible-and allow for easy updating-should be incorporated into site specifications on the front end.

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