Learning From The Best Of Business - And The Worst Of The Web

Seriously, is there really anything more irritating on the Web than those distracting graphical ads that rise over the Web page you are on, obscuring the text you are reading from view? Well, odd as it seems, the graphical overlay ads that drive most people crazy on the public Web turn out to be quite effective when incorporated into corporate Intranet sites, at least according Jakob Nielsen, principal of the Nielsen Norman Group. The Nielsen Norman Group, a firm that offers technology design consulting to corporate clients, released its annual "Intranet Design Annual 2006: The Year's Ten Best Intranets" this week, and with that exposed some interesting trends that are working effectively.So if one of your organization's Web designer comes to you talking about special brand names for your business' Intranet, the designer may actually be on the right track - at least judging from the study's findings. Other big trends include very effective use of blogs to provide employees with time-sensitive guidance on projects and other corporate information; an e-commerce system to order supplies, and Intranets optimized for access from mobile devices.

Somewhat surprisingly, only one tech vendor - IBM - took a top spot in this year's report. Big Blue was lauded for its "consistency and personalization" as well as for having a fabulously "robust" employee directory.

So do you think your company's Intranet helps encourage productivity in your organization or is more of a check list item for HR and the execs. Drop me a line at [email protected] and let me know what is going in your organization.