Intranets and Push Technology: Creating an Information-Sharing Environment

Paul Pedley

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2003
• Print ISBN: 9781138439382
• eBook ISBN: 9781135477202
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Library & Information Science
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

This guide examines the use of technology for sharing information, both within an organisation, and between companies and their clients and customers. It looks in particular at the use of push/ pull technologies for delivering current awareness services. The guide also discusses the pros and cons of the technology, particularly information overload, and suggests a number of ways of minimising the problems. The guide contains a useful list of books, reports, journals and other information sources. Contents: Introduction; Intranets; Extranets; Groupware; Case studies; Push/pull technologies; Information overload; Key players; Useful information sources; References; Further reading.

1.

Intranets

An intranet is a framework for creating and sharing corporate knowledge, the emphasis being on the word framework. Based on Internet standards and tools, an intranet focuses on content sharing within a limited and well-defined group. Here are a few definitions:

Definitions

‘An intranet—some people might call it a corporate wide web—is a private network that uses Internet technology to provide information to the organisation.’¹²

‘…the integration of an organisation’s information assets and communication facilities into a single, widely accessible networked environment using Internet-based technologies, such as e-mail, news groups, file transfer protocol (ftp) and world wide web technologies.’¹³

‘…a network connecting an affiliated set of clients using standard Internet protocols, especially TCP/ IP and HTTP.’¹⁴

‘…a TCP/IP network designed for information processing within a company or organization. Its uses include such services as document distribution, software distribution, access to databases, and training. An intranet is so called because it usually employs web pages for information dissemination and applications associated with the Internet, such as web browsers. It can also include FTP sites, email, and newsgroups and mailing lists accessible only to those within the organization.’¹⁵

Key Components

An intranet is made up of a number of key components. These are:

• TCP/IP—which stands for Transmision Control Protocol/Internet Protocol. This is the system which networks use to communicate with one another on the Internet.
• Browser—such as Microsoft Internet Explorer or Netscape Navigator. From a user’s point of view, the browser becomes a standard client to a whole range of information resources.
• Web server software—such as the server included with Microsoft NT or the Windows 95 ‘Personal’ server.
• Web authoring software—examples of software for publishing web pages would be Microsoft FrontPage 98 or Hot Metal Pro. The latest versions of word processing programs can also be used.

Deploying Internet technology inside an organisation to create an intranet desktop, the browser is the user interface of the intranet. A web browser is a software application that can make requests of web servers for documents. Such documents are most commonly written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), which is an industry-standard way of encoding a document containing text and graphics.

One of the key fundamentals of an intranet—platform independence—is the key to the technology’s success and widespread adoption: as long as you have a web browser on your computer, you can access information held on any server within an intranet or on the Internet. It should be pointed out, however, that an intranet does not have to have any physical or logical connection to the Internet.

The web laid down a common communications protocol, in the form of TCP/IP with all of the client and servers communicating using the TCP/IP suite; it also has a common transfer protocol, in the form of Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP); and a common address scheme, in the form of the Uniform Resource Locator (URL).

Beyond the Hype

Nick Shepheard says, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if every time you wanted to find information on your network you used the same piece of software? No more struggling with databases, no more having to ask someone where they saved a particular client’s letter, no more juggling e-mail, spreadsheets, presentations and cd-roms all with different commands to remember and a seemingly endless series of keystrokes. A well-planned intranet could be the answer you’re looking for. ’¹⁶

The key, of course, is that the introduction of an intranet into an organisation has to be carefully planned. The reality is that a number of compa-nies rushed into having intranets without fully appreciating their potential. Intranets are not the same as an Internet web site—the former is about managing internal information and communications, whereas the latter is often a marketing tool. For an intranet to work effectively, you need management buy-in, but you also need the support of key user groups and middle managers within the firm. Putting information onto an intranet is not simply a case of transferring huge quantities of text from word processed documents onto the intranet. Rather, it requires a radical rethink about how information is accessed. Reading from a screen is very different from reading from a page. Web technologies allow you to structure information differently, particularly through the use of hyperlinks. For an intranet, you need to have a site map in mind, even if you don’t actually include it on the intranet for the users to see for themselves. The site doesn’t have to be static, you could build in a certain amount of interactivity. But the design and content of an intranet are not the only issues that have to be taken into account. Indeed, perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind is that whilst an intranet is a vehicle that has the potential to greatly enhance internal communications, this can only be achieved if the culture is right; there has to be an information sharing environment in place.

At the European Business Information Conference (EBIC) held in Lisbon in April 1998, TFPL carried out a straw poll which ‘confirmed that many corporate intranets fail to support business strategy and, even worse, in many cases seem to make information problems even worse rather than solve them. Some 250 delegates attended the conference from 26 countries. Of these around 80% had an intranet, only 25% believed that their intranet(s) was well used and only 15% believed that they delivered business benefit.’¹⁷

One has to ask the question why this should be the case, and then also consider how to create an intranet strategy which will achieve the objectives that are outlined in that strategy.

Benefits of Intranets

There are a number of major advantages in having an intranet, such as:

• ease of use;
• single intuitive user interface (namely the browser);
• widespread industry support;
• ability to link up legacy systems (both applications and databases).

Commentators acknowledge that intranet equipment will outsell that used for the Internet by a considerable margin. This begs the question of why there has been such a huge take- up of intranets. The reasons why intranets are so successful are:

• Platform independence—web technologies allow a whole range of different platforms to be linked by a common interface.
• Quick wins—an intranet can be set up very cheaply, but if it is well designed it can make a big impact upon internal communications. Something as simple as putting the phone book onto the intranet can save a large organisation thousands of pounds on reprographics, and the end result is a list that is always up to date. There is no longer the danger of some copies being up to date, and others being six months out of date.
• Cost savings—there are a number of potential cost savings. These include user support. On an intranet, all the processing and applications sit on the server. It is only necessary to update the software on the server, instead of on each individual user’s pc. Another area of cost savings would be in network management, since there would be a move from a multi-protocol network, to a single protocol network, namely TCP/IP.

The ‘Emptynet’ Phenomenon

Just because people have discovered intranets doesn’t mean all companies should get one simply because their competitors have got one. Information Technology departments must enter into a dialogue with their firms’ senior management in order to try and understand what the key issues affecting the business are, because these should be what drives development, not IT issues. Unless this point is fully understood, businesses run the risk of failing to exploit the strategic and competitive advantages which are potentially available to them through investing in intranet technologies.

It is easy to envisage the chief executive of a company going along to lunch with his counterpart in a similar organisation. When he has lunch, his counterpart sings the praises of the wonderful new intranet that they have just installed in their organisation. On his return from lunch, the chief executive calls in the IT director and says, ‘We must get one of those’. And so, an intranet is duly installed, and the chief executive can now look his peers in the eye and say that his company also has an intranet. How many times do people find out that their competitors have a particular piece of software, so they must get it too? What is important, of course, is not whether or not an organisation has an intranet, but rather to what uses it is being put. Over and over again, when you ask people what their intranet contains, you find a remarkable unanimity amongst organisations, where the intranet basically contains the telephone directory and the menu for the staff restaurant, but nothing of any substance. I was amused to learn that this type of intranet has a name—they have been dubbed ‘emptynets’.

It is easy to mock such things, but it very much depends upon the future development plans that an organisation has for its intranet. If a company just puts up the phone directory and the menu, and thinks that it now has a fully-fledged intranet, then something is wrong. But if, however, that organisation has put up those applications deliberately as a ‘taster’ of what an intranet looks like, and as a means of getting people interested in the idea of an intranet then clearly there is the potential to ask the users what they would like to see on the intranet, and how they would like it to develop. It is vitally important for companies to realise that an intranet is something dynamic. It has the potential to grow into something that becomes a natural part of office life, just like using the photocopier or the fax machine. Once people grasp that there is a developmental process involved, then the intranet could lead on to an extranet, and indeed to electronic commerce (also known as e-commerce).

Stages of Intranet Development

Surfing the web for information about intranets, I came across an item¹⁸ which breaks down the stages of intranet development into four levels:

Figure 3: Stages of intranet development

In order to consider the possible ways in which an intranet might develop, it is probably best to try and illustrate the different stages or levels of intranet development. One of the first stages in the development of an intranet might be to use it in place of much of the tedious passing back and forth of static information such as phone lists, meeting schedules, announcements, appointments and so on. Indeed, this point is also made in a white paper on Netscape:

The focus of intranets to date has been to distribute company-wide information such as company news, corporate policies, employee information, internal job postings, bulletin boards, phone directories, press releases, and computing policies. The results have been dramatic. For example, General Electric is saving $240,000 a year in printing costs by using its intranet to publish a simple directory of company information.’¹⁹

According to KPMG, the problem is that many organisations stop at this point. In their report ‘Intranets: a guide for business users’, KPMG say that ‘perhaps the immediate benefits which an intranet can provide may be seen as reward in themselves and so dissuade the enterprise from further consideration of what intranets really represent in strategic, operational and organisational terms.’²⁰

But, as I said earlier, an intranet should be seen as something that is in a continual process of development. I believe that an intranet has t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Copyright
• Title Page
• About the author
• Contents
• List of tables
• List of figures
• Abbreviations
• Introduction
• 1. Intranets
• 2. Extranets
• 3. Groupware
• 4. Case Studies
• 5. Push/Pull Technologies
• 6. Information Overload
• Appendix 1: Key Players
• Appendix 2: Useful Information Sources
• References
• Further Reading