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Most of us have learned about the concept of gravity through our schooling in Newtonian physics. Although, most of us remember it as Sir Isaac Newton getting hit on the head by an apple. We know that objects draw other objects in. Despite the fact that we've learned this we're confronted with our daily observation where we see that two objects sitting on a desk don't appear to be zooming towards each other through this attraction.

This explains our challenge with understanding gravity as it applies to our Intranets. The concept is one that makes sense -- but it's difficult to see and get a tangible feel for. However, despite its elusive nature gravity does have a profound impact on our lives -- and it can have a profound effect on your Intranet.

In this article we'll talk about how gravity works on the scale of planets and galaxies so that we can see how we can make our intranets larger.

Gravity Concepts

In short gravity is the tendency for all mass to attract other mass. In other words, things are drawn together. This fact is quite handy as it keeps the Earth together, us clinging to its surface, and keeps the Earth flying around the sun. We know that the amount of gravity that one object exerts on all others is based on its overall mass (size * density). Thus larger objects exert more force on other objects and tend to pull them in faster.

Similarly large objects move less (because of their greater mass) than the objects they are attracting. If you look at the path of the earth, for instance, it's not one long ellipse (or circle for that matter) around the sun. The pull of the moon -- which is swinging around the earth at a relatively fast clip -- is causing small variations in the earth's distance to the sun. The moon, because it's smaller, is having is in orbit around the earth but the earth isn't impervious to the gravity of the moon.

Intranets are like this. When they're small they tend to be buffeted around by the forces and systems around them. As they become more and more massive they tend to be influenced -- and controlled -- by other systems in the organization. Thus the intranet getting larger helps it in terms of the ability to cope with outside forces.

With intranets the primary concern is for apparent size. That is to say that it isn't necessarily that the one true "intranet server farm" has to actually house the entire body of content but rather that the content and systems should be consistent in branding and navigation.

Leveraging the Gravity of Other Systems

Perhaps the best way to create long-term gravity for your Intranet is to leverage the gravity of other objects in your organization. Sure, you'll still have to work at creating a gravity for the intranet itself, but here are some ways that you can leverage the gravity of other systems to make it easier to create gravity around your intranet.

Large planet protection and leveraging other large systems In our solar system life was allowed to develop, it is believed, because the gas giant planets in the outer area of the solar system were able to protect Earth from cataclysmic events. They did this by deflecting and diverting errant stellar objects from getting too far into the core of the solar system. This protection allowed life on Earth to develop, or so the theory goes. Without the protection of the larger planets a stray comet, asteroid, or other stellar object might have come crashing into earth ending life as we know it. That isn't to say that the earth was impervious to random stellar objects as the dinosaurs can attest to -- however, it offered an extra level of protection.

In your organization you can leverage the protection of larger systems by successfully suggesting that the latest and the greatest plan of the week be implemented in another system. It may seem odd that while you're trying to build gravity in your Intranet that you may want to deflect ideas from becoming a part of the Intranet, but just like a large rock slamming into the Earth could end all life, one sufficiently large bad project can end the life of your Intranet.

So sometimes the right answer for helping your intranet is to leverage the gravity of these other systems to allow risky ideas to be captured by them instead of threatening the intranet.

Slingshot acceleration

Slingshot acceleration, or Gravity Assist, is used to accelerate the speed of an object, typically a space probe, on its way. It works by leveraging the gravity of another object -- typically a planet to increase the object's speed. This works because of the relatively low gravity of the space probe and the relatively large gravity of the object that's being used to assist in the speed. In Intranet terms you can leverage the popularity and limitations of another system to accelerate adoption of your intranet. The classic example is reporting most online transaction processing (OLTP) systems are designed to get things done and fall down at some level in their ability to generate reporting data for decisions. Data warehouses and Online Analytical Processing (OLAP) systems are designed to for reporting and analysis but often need a place to house those reports. Using the popularity of the existing systems in the environment coupled with a reporting an analytical system can push your intranet along its way towards growth.

The popularity doesn't have to be another system. It could be as simple as the company newsletter. Shifting the company newsletter from paper or email to an online presence can have a substantial impact on how people feel about the intranet. With an anchor piece of content that every employee wants or needs to read can help accelerate adoption of your intranet.

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