Keywords: Intranet, Social Intranet, Linchpin Social Intranet
An intranet is a private network used within an organization to create a centralized platform for a company’s content, information, and collaboration. The prefix “intra” means “internal” or "within" and therefore describes the use of an internal communication tool. Often questioned is the distinction of an intranet with that of the internet. Unlike the intranet, a private network with limited users, the internet is a public globally-connected network accessible to everyone. The prefix “inter” translates to “between” or “among”. Moreover, the internet is the underlying technology that allows an intranet to function. To access an intranet, employee’s need to connect to their organization's local area network (LAN).
Intranets have developed rapidly since their first introduction in the mid 1990's as a platform for information storage and top-down (from senior management to the workforce) communication. In recent years a new type of intranet has emerged - the social intranet. Social intranets are people centric allowing everyone to create content and participate equally. Overall, there is a collective responsibility to ensure your company’s information is up to date and relevant.
Functions of a successful social intranet include the capability to:
- Distribute and share files
- Search throughout your organization
- Create and build pages
- Collaborative work on documents, spreadsheets and slides
- Access mobile work
- Boost employee engagement
A social intranet has many benefits for your organization including:
A social intranet is not only a technical innovation, it is often related to change management. A social intranet can transform the structure, hierarchy, and overall corporate culture of a business. A social intranet can move businesses away from a hierarchical and centralized control towards an autonomous self-control of teams that are moderated rather than led by managers. Compared to top-down communication within an intranet, a social intranet combines top-down and bottom-up communication bringing everyone on the same footing and closer together. Moreover, social intranets make communication and collaboration easy. When you hear the word social, perhaps the first thing that comes to mind is social media? Common features of Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms are also core characteristics of a social intranet. All of a company’s employees – across all departments, locations, and hierarchical levels can connect. This is increasingly important and vital for modern companies as more employees, teams and departments operate in multiple locations worldwide.
Additionally, the digital workplace is closely linked to the social intranet. A digital workplace encompasses all the applications, tools, etc. used by employees. In the vast majority of cases, the social intranet provides entrance access into the digital workplace and at the same time is an important user interface.
There are many different types of social intranets that can be integrated within a business or corporate environment. When working specifically within the Atlassian marketplace there is a possibility to integrate Linchpin. Linchpin is a social intranet based on the Atlassian Confluence that has been developed by Seibert Media. Linchpin offers your employees a fully personalized user experience with the best conditions for productive teamwork, efficient creation and acquisition of information and structured knowledge management.
Connect people to teams and software to your digital workplace
Linchpin – your fully personalized central collaboration hub that connects teams, locations, tools, and people. Expand your Confluence Cloud experience by connecting it with your Linchpin Hey workspace.
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