New trends in social enterprises in Europe 

Estimated reading time: 4 minutes

Editor’s note: As you already know, last week we were in Berlin, participating at INTRA.net Reloaded, an event that analyzed the trends, strategic approaches and challenges of managing intranets and enterprise social networks in the ever-changing digital environment of today, with top executives from all over Europe, including our CEO, Lluís Font.

The article we offer you today is by Philipp Rosenthal, participant in Intra.NET Reloaded and solution area director at Tieto, as well as an enterprise 2.0 enthusiast. In his blog DesireIT, he has written an account of the event, of which we are delighted to post a summarized version on ZyncroBlog. Thanks Philipp!

In an increasing number of companies, the ‘intranet’ is seen more and more as a starting point for creating an operational workspace. Optimizing information access and transparency, as well as motivating collaboration are the key drivers at this moment. Still, there is no blueprint to follow yet. However, the thoughts and beliefs are moving in the right direction and those in charge of companies start to be more persistent in their will to support employees in achieving their goals.

Bridging companies and customers

An increasing number of companies is rolling out services to connect their customers with the organization. Either for the purpose of service or in an attempt to improve and innovate together: the wall between corporate and customer seems to become less solid.

Increasing value and involvement with internal services

Although most internal portals still serve as information distribution channels and corporate communications, Having the right information at the right time and for the right user in order to create a real support for their work poses a challenge that some companies have started to pursue. Executives start to be more aware of the importance of renovation work of the information architecture and taxonomies within the company.

The tendancy is clear: current intranets must become workspaces with an added value.

Consciousness for active change management

Guiding employees through change with marketing actions or community managers is the order of the day. The change process in internal communication 2.0 needs active management and execution for it to be successful.

Asking the right questions

What is still a challenge is finding how to calculate the right starting point: throughout Intra.NET Reloaded, the feeling was that thinking focused on users continues to be overruled by the search for the right tool. The tendency, however, is definitely a step towards more user-centered approaches, towards people.

Summing it up

The future of information and knowlege workers looks brighter than three years ago. To unleash the potential that is currently buried in the heads of talented people; networks within organizations must create new ways of distributing, recovering and enriching information. Getting some inspiration from social and commercial media seems to be a good idea, as a lot of references were made in that direction at the conference.

To close: descentralize, simplify, advise and train… and be nice to your users.