The world around us is changing in so many ways. From work-from-home, to VR/AR, to our cellphones being some of the world’s most powerful computers that fit right into our pockets. Our communication channels, whether personal or at work, are also constantly evolving—with the rise and dominance of short form content (texts, videos, etc.) taking a priority. The next generation of the intranet, likewise, will focus on providing modern solutions to modern problems.
Intranet 3.0, the newest iteration of the intranet, is slowly making its way into the workplace. And, it brings with it, new features and evolutions to pre-existing ones. Intranet Connections has been one of the first intranet providers to begin to define what the intranets of the future will really entail. In fact, we recently hosted a webinar on this exact topic!
Let’s dive into some of the themes of Intranet 3.0, and use our psychic abilities* to look into the future.
First, where did we come from?
Intranet Connections was one of the first out-of-the-box intranets, launching in 1999! We emerged at the end of the Intranet 1.0 era and the beginnings of the Intranet 2.0 era. The history of the intranet is rich and shows how far we’ve come.
Intranet 1.0
Intranet 1.0 was a 1-way, in house, static solution, that was not much more than a document dump. These intranets focused little, if at all, on employee communication, experience, or efficiency. Findability was usually quite poor, and, being such a new concept lacking best practices, governance was lacking and these intranets were managed in isolation.
Intranet 2.0
Intranet 2.0 featured 2-way communication, and could be purchased out-of-the-box. It had a larger emphasis on social features, and as technology progressed, it became dynamic, featured automation, and had a set of best practices that internal communicators could follow. Most intranets currently on the market are of the 2.0 variants, as we begin to turn to intranet 3.0.
So, what is the next generation of the intranet?
Intranet 3.0 builds upon the pillars of Intranet 2.0 and takes them even further, to better fit the modern world. Our experts at IC have outlined three main pillars of Intranet 3.0 that will bring a new way to communicate and interact with the digital workplace.
More Integrations
This decade, the digital workplace has become more and more ubiquitous. From finance, to healthcare, to education—more employees are adopting remote work arrangements, and more field employees rely on their mobile devices to connect with their colleagues. The key to allowing workers to excel in the digital workplace is to have an intranet that integrates with their preferred tools.
Integrations will allow you to streamline and boost utilization of your intranet. A few integrations that are beneficial to your workforce include:
- A push messaging tool, to reach employees on their devices and pull them into other channels
- SSO, to increase security
- An HRIS
- Your pre-existing document builder (Office365)
Ultimately, there is no shortage of technology that can integrate to make your intranet more beneficial to your users. As we enter the era of the next generation of the intranet, it’s important to shop around, and analyze which vendors offer the best integrations for your organization.
Personalization
We discussed how the modern intranet needs to provide modern solutions to modern problems. But today’s world, our problems are more individual than ever. Collective problems do still exist, but we largely expect bespoke ways to solve them.
The future intranet will address these individual issues by being highly personalizable, allowing employees to chose how they want to interact with their digital workplace and internal comms. For example, IC’s Push communications extension allows each employee to chose the channel they want to receive their notifications on—from Teams, Slack, email, or SMS. When employees can personalize how they interact with their intranet and digital workplace, they’re more likely to be engaging with your internal comms. And more engaged employees = more productive employees!
Mobile support
Some of the most powerful computers ever built are in our pockets. We use our phones for almost everything, from communications, to getting the news, to tracking our workouts. Employees are now expecting to use their phones at work too, and your organization needs to be ready. The next generation of the intranet lives on mobile. Your workers want to access all the important info found on your intranet right from their pocket.
This is especially important for field workers. One of our customers, Sun Peaks, uses our Push communications extension, highlights how important it was to be able to reach their employees who were at various posts along the ski resort. In fast moving, physically demanding environments, like the alpines, mobile-friendly software can be a game changer.
Discover more by watching our webinar
Watch our webinar recording on YouTube, to hear IC’s team of experts take an even deeper dive into what the next generation of the intranet looks like.
Want to get ready for intranet 3.0? Book a call with our expert team and see how IC’s solutions can start solving the problems of tomorrow.
