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Step 8: Make them use it. Once.

Why? Most people don't want to learn a new application no matter how easy it's supposed to be. Users have to be forced, just once, to try Intranet 2.0. Once they see how easy-shmeezy it is, they'll be off to the races.

How? In brief group training sessions, get every employee in your organization to click the Edit button. Get them to edit their profile, add a page, add a comment.

I was recently on-site at a 230-person web start-up to help them implement our ThoughtFarmer Intranet 2.0 platform. We installed it on Monday. We built scaffolding on Tuesday. We barnraised on Wednesday. On Thursday and Friday, we did a series of 12 training sessions that got almost half the company to click the Edit button. Their intranet 2.0 was an immediate success, with high levels of participation across the organization.

Step 9: Lead by example

Why? If you can get the senior team to participate in your collaborative intranet, people will pay attention… and imitate them.

How? Get one of your senior executives excited about the prospects of a collaborative intranet environment. Get them adding and editing early and often. The more senior the exec, the better - the CEO would be great.

Intrawest Placemaking, mentioned earlier, enjoyed the full support of their president, Drew Stotesbury. He took the lead in openly sharing information on their collaborative intranet. Discussions he initiated were often the most popular pages.

A discussion initiated by Intrawest Placemaking's president, Drew Stotesbury.

Step 10: Get the intranet "in-the-flow"

Why? Most intranets are "above the flow". They store the artifacts of production. But they're not used for production themselves. When you can use your intranet as a production tool, to get things done, you've reached Intranet Nirvana.

How? Use your Intranet 2.0 in the flow. Write documents in your wiki -- not in Word. When you're taking meeting notes, do it live, on your intranet. And if you can't use your intranet in the flow, change it till you can.

At ThoughtFarmer, we use our ThoughtFarmer-powered intranet "in-the-flow" - we use it to design ThoughtFarmer itself. Sometimes we find ourselves floating back to old ways of doing things, like starting a document in Word. When that happens, we try to discern what it was that caused us to fall back "above the flow."

ThoughtFarmer uses their ThoughtFarmer-powered intranet "in-the-flow" to design ThoughtFarmer itself.

Intranet 2.0 isn't easy to achieve. But once you're there, you'll never want to go back.

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