Interesting write up on how Wells Fargo goes about publishing their corporate newsletter. What amazes me in this story is the discipline that the team of 4 have to create a compelling newsletter over and over again. Now why can’t we follow the same model on our intranets? Mike Bares, editor, explains how the newsroom atmosphere works: "Sources pitch stories, and we make decisions on which ones to cover," he says. "We have story-planning sessions and spend a lot of time interviewing sources. It’s intense, as breaking news crosses our desks, but interspersed with periods of calm."

I found Jane’s list of things to consider when sorting out global content (common content) and local content (specific content) to be a really useful recap on good intranet practices. It is always an uphill task to convince departments used to working in silos that they have some really useful content that they should be putting up in the common content area. Here’s an example of Jane’s #2 Think of the global intranet as collection of spaces, with each space having a purpose from the user viewpoint. Examples of spaces: News, Workplace, Employee Services, About. These spaces will later become the components of the global navigation bar. Develop several hypotheses, each one with a combination of spaces. You should be able to make a simple statement about each space for each hypothesis: "This space is designed for (user) to (action)".

These 10 Commandments of Social Media are just brilliant. Thou Shalt Not Be a Narcissist Thou Shalt Listen to What Others Are Saying Thou Shalt Not Spam Thou Shalt Say Something of Substance Thou Shalt Not Abuse Thy Neighbour Thou Shalt Give Credit Where Credit is Due Thou Shalt Learn How to Spell (or at least use a spell checker) Thou Shalt Use Real Words Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness Thou Shalt Not Be a Friend Whore

Bill Ives: This is the first in a six part series on Booz Allen’s award winning implementation of Enterprise 2.0. "To meet these challenges, Booz Allen developed and implemented Hello, a suite of web-based enterprise tools designed to strengthen collaboration, connectivity, and communication across geographical and cultural barriers. It was created from vision to launch in under 6 months leveraging a blend of Open Source, COTS, and custom-developed products. Since August 2008, more than 80% of the firm has logged into Hello and more than 53% of the firm has contributed original content. There are more than 4,000 individual searches a day."

Nicely said by Mark Shead: We can be much more productive by focusing on doing the right things instead of focusing on doing more things.  What this means, exactly, is very dependent on your particular set of circumstances, your personality, and what you are trying to accomplish, but many people will benefit by trying to spend less time doing and more time thinking. [Via Michael Sampson]

Robert Swanwick writes about Lt Col Karuna Ramanathan of the Singapore Armed Forces and his 2-5-1 strategy of storytelling and conducting an after-action-review. 2 Who you are Summary of your experience 5 fingers Little finger - what parts of the effort did not get enough attention Ring finger - What relationships were formed, what you learned about relationship building Middle finger - what you disliked, what/who made you frustrated Pointer finger - what you would do better next time around, what you want to tell those who were "in charge" about what they could do better Thumb (up) - what went well.  What was good. 1 the most important takeaway from the effort via @DavidGurteen

The 2010 Intranet Innovation Awards are open for entries. Entries close on Friday 23.  I like this award. It highlights how teams are thinking of making their intranets useful and productive. It starts a discussion on ideas and themes. I met some of the winners at the KM World conference in San Jose last November and I could clearly see their enthusiasm and determination in making their intranets work. I walked away with more than a few ideas to try out.

After reading Switch (highly recommended) by Dan and Chip Heath I headed to their website to get more resources. I was pleasantly surprised by the range of resources they have there. From a short summary of the book to how-to guides on using the principles in different settings. The one that caught my eye was Teaching that Sticks, a resource from their previous book, Made to Stick. It is a wonderful article-length read that gives a handful of strategies that you can try immediately, such as using the unexpected to create focus and interest.

New series on Ethnography by Catapult Design: This post is the first in a weekly series called "The Ethnography of Design" about the relationship between anthropology and design and how the ethnographer’s toolkit can be applied to build more effective world-changing, problem-solving products and systems. Each post in the series will be paired with - and will explore - a video or article that highlights an innovative design solution or product that has taken into account (successfully or unsuccessfully - and why) ethnographic research methods and human-centered design thinking frameworks.

Patrick has posted an article on file naming conventions. Good. Now I don’t have to hunt for them every time!