We employed an external company to install, design and train the intranet to key staff. Although we matched the old intranet for content and added some new features, probably the most important factor for the success was the training. It was such a huge concept and we felt the company did not deliver a good enough training scheme. Its only a few ‘switched-on’ individuals who have seen the potential and contributed some useful content. However, there’s still user apathy.

With help from a previously published blog entry regarding Web 2.0 collaboration and a 3 day workshop with Chris Addison from Euphoric, we hope to inspire our researchers and staff look again at the intranet and realise how good it is.

In response to the question posed in the title I would say: They will only come to the intranet if it is designed around the users’ perspectives, provides as good or better tools than they are currently using, and is provided with plenty of introduction & training resources.

At Oxfam America ((http://www.oxfamamerica.org) we are designing a user consultation and testing approach that fully engages users, in order to produce a new intranet that is easily accepted and clearly meets the prioritized needs of our users.

We are also looking at SharePoint (specifically, Microsoft Office Portal Server 2007 – MOSS) as one option. But a key priority is access to the new intranet by staff members in our regional offices throughout the world. Another product we are considering is Intranet Dashboard (http://www.intranetdashboard.com), which can be a little bit pricey, but offers a rather comprehensive set of intranet features.

Considering the close links between the work of IFPRI and Oxfam America, I’d love to discuss our efforts to build a new intranet.

P.S. Thanks for including the link to the KMdev online discussion of SharePoint, which seems like a useful forurm.

Robert Michel