William is from American Electric Power. This is his first trip below the equator. He's come down with his wife and children.
American Electric Power – one of the largest power utilities in the US. HQ is in Ohio. Has a presence in 11 states. 19,000 employees. Serves 5.3 million customers.
William is keen to make his session interactive. Has invited feedback and questions throughout his session.
Key points:
– (Act 1) the psychological groundwork.
– … the intranet is built in-house. There's about 5 people on the team. Most of what they do is very simple. Everything is written in .NET programming language. Also use a Google Search Appliance.
– … there is an opportunity to do things better – there's an awareness of imperfection.
– … the foundational philosophy of how they manage the intranet is based on respect for the audience / staff / employees. The intranet belongs to them. Every interaction has to be done respectfully.
– … the role of internal communications – (a) to inspire people / employees – they are doing a great job, (b) to inform employees – that the key corporate messages are disseminated, and (c) to involve employees in communications with one another and with the leaders.

– … two inhibitors – (a) control – where leaders are not willing to allow people to respond, or where there's a desire to "control the message," and (b) fear – perhaps about giving a dissenting opinion. There needs to be an up-side for contributions on the intranet – eg., recognition, reinforced positive behaviours.

– … … this presents some challenges when working with External Communications – particularly about talking about things that don't paint the company in a good light.
– … William says that he reads all of the comments that employees give. There's been about one million comments over the past 7-8 years, "and I've read them all" said William. "It's my daily focus group."

– … some enablers – comfort with speaking out, making it convenient, what's happening on the consumer web, and protection from attacks.
– … expected outcomes – (a) context – that comes from employees sharing their perspective on something, (b) insight – what's the chatter about a particular topic over time, and (c) relationships ("the primary outcome") – establishing personal bonds between people, that become the basis for business relationships.

– (Act 2) what their intranet looks like – everything is built in-house.
– … on the front page, there's a photo of the day (with an "About this photo" link). For the one shown at the conference, it's of one of the employees with an energy stack in the background. Staff are encouraged to submit photos – in two years they have submitted 1600 photos.

– … … When you click the "About this photograph" link, you get an overview of the photo. If it's about an employee, there's something about the work they do.
– … … A story: "On the day that Fred was shown in the photo of the day, he called me and said, 'I've been with this company for 30 years. This was the best day of my work here, because lots of people have thanked me for my contribution.'"

– … everything on the home pages changes at least once a day – eg., performance measures, number of customers without power, featured items, and news and other material.
– … for the news stories at the bottom on the intranet home page, there's about five stories a day. Staff can sort by most recent, and other attributes. For all stories, employees can comment – the system automatically recognizes their login name.

– … reactions fall into four main categories – (a) expressions of praise and encouragement, (b) advice and assistance, (c) "attempts" at humor, and (d) political debates.
– … have a page that sets guidelines for proper use, eg., "we encourage you to participate, and we trust you to behave professionally."
– … clicking on a name leads to their profile page. Gives contact details, plus information about the employee.
– … "The Agora" link on the top goes to a play for sharing and collaborating. The Agora is greek for "meeting place."
– … The CEO has been blogging since 2007. Some other executives blog too.
– … … for the CEO – he's very busy, travels a lot, and doesn't type very well. So they set up a voice mail line for him to call in and dictate his blog post. This is then transcribed and published. But – "employees know how he talks; it's all his words; it's just a way of dealing with the challenges he faces."

– … … there's a new CEO, and he has a different style. It's forcing a re-think by the people on William's team.
– … employees can write blog posts too. It gives a sense of the people at the company.
– … show service anniversaries – how long people have been working at the company. There's a quick / easy way of sending a congratulations e-card to acknowledge people, "it makes a real difference."
– … there's a "current activity stream" that shows what's going on.
– (Act 3) some specific ideas on promise and peril, and a look to the future
– … when you are fighting on the behalf of your employees, you will get push-back from the executives.
– … there can be conflict with External Communications on some photos / external stories.
– … but employees love it – they feel valued and that they can contribute.
– … final advice:
– … … (a) restrict anonymity
– … … (b) choose relevant topics – people are responding to the stories we have published.
– … … (c) monitor what's being said ("the daily focus group")
– … … (d) provide positive reinforcement
– … … (e) be brave and persevere – "live to fight another day."
– … future perspective – (a) more participatory, (b) more immediate, and (c) greater mobility on smartphones and tablets.
– Other comments:
– … the intranet isn't based on SharePoint, but the IT department does make SharePoint available. It's positioned for team project collaboration. Williams says that he has a very good relationship with the IT people who run SharePoint.