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Anyone who has ever tried to paddle a canoe, kayak, or raft understands that it's the water that dictates the general direction of the boat. And while logic suggests that it's easier to paddle with the current than against it, there's nothing stopping paddlers from trying to power their way up the stream. However, it will be very slow going and, in the end, they'll be completely exhausted and possibly left with a damaged boat.

Experienced river rats know how to read the water and its rhythm. They have a firm knowledge of how water moves and, consequently, how objects move within it. And despite the unpredictability of the currents, experienced paddlers manage to pick a path of least resistance — even through the toughest whitewater — without getting thrown against a jagged rock or pulled into a whirlpool.

But there are two important lesson to be learned here: Firstly, regardless of experience and planning, we never truly know what will happen until the boat is actually placed in the water. And secondly, there are times when we pick the direction of the boat, and there are times when the current picks the direction for us.

The Effects of Corporate Culture

One of the fundamental rules of intranet design is to develop a system to fit the needs of the audience, but we rarely consider how the audience itself shapes the outcome of the intranet. And when you ignore the influence — positive or negative — of corporate culture, the end result may look very different from your original specs.

Corporate culture is a subjective issue and its influence on project goals can often be unpredictable. In spite of all your efforts during initial project planning, you're never quite sure — without a bit of crystal-ball gazing — how an intranet will turn out until it's absorbed into the user community. This is because "paper planning" only accounts for about 75 percent of the final product — and things don't always go as you planned.

However, this is not to suggest that intranet developers should be relegated to mere spectators after system roll out. Your job, as developers and content owners, is to understand the mentality of your corporate culture and to determine whether this culture is able, or even willing, to support an intranet. Failing to do so will not only yield unexpected results, but will also place a premature expiration date on your intranet.

Understanding Your Culture

Determining how corporate culture will influence the design and outcome of your intranet should never be left up to fate. That would be like jumping into a boat with a blindfold on, pointing it downstream, and hoping you end up at a desirable destination. A more likely outcome, however, would be your family and friends staring woefully at the newspaper headline, "Boater Takes Header Over Falls, Kidnapped by Pygmies."

Before you even set off, you need to understand the mentality of your corporate culture and how it will affect the outcome of your project. It's these influencing factors that will determine how much user involvement — and the quality of this involvement — there will be during development and, subsequently, the management and support of the system.

For example, companies that foster a collaborative team atmosphere will produce a much higher level of developmental participation and content contribution than one that's based on a clock-in/clock-out, "just let me do my work and don't bother me" mentality.

Since intranets require an ongoing commitment beyond initial implementation, your user community needs to be able to maintain the integrity of the system throughout its entire lifecycle and not allow it to fall into disrepair. The ultimate success of your intranet will depend on it.

With this in mind, the most important decision you'll then need to make is whether to design your intranet to match the habits of your corporate culture or to design the system to best support the information and trust that the culture will be flexible enough to adapt to a new system.

So, should the system yield or should the culture yield? Or perhaps a little bit of both? The answer to this question will depend on your particular culture. Is it open to change or stubborn and stuck in its ways? Will you sail gently down the stream singing, "Merrily, merrily, merrily..." or struggle your way against the raging currents? Don't forget that the tougher the current, the tougher the struggle!

To help you gain a better understanding of the intricate subtleties of corporate culture and their influence on your intranet's outcome, we can dissect all of these influencing factors into two main categories: those we can control and those we can't control.