Knowledge democracy: Developing a social media-based intranet

Gerard Bredenoord and Ben Rigby discuss how Linklaters developed '¨a social media-based solution to its intranet needs

 

1. Focus on why users need to use social media as part of the intranet.'¨

2. Consolidate separate platforms and agree a common intranet platform to minimise duplication.'¨

3. Align the platform to the search function to get the best benefits from both. '¨

4. Keep the platform as simple and easy to access as possible.'¨

5. Don’t get hung up on the technology or over-customise – make it scalable, repeatable and migratable.'¨

6. Take a uniform corporate-level view, while building communal engagement and encouraging creativity.'¨

7. Involve users throughout and facilitate best practice, but don’t underestimate the cultural challenges.'¨

8. Accept the democratic nature of wiki-based systems as enabling content generation within a clear framework in which control and empowerment are balanced.'¨

9. Content is king, but ensure quality '¨is managed in a trusted way. 

 

As law firms seek to make efficient use of technology, they must also ensure that knowledge flows seamlessly between practice area teams – horizontally (within an office), vertically (between management) and laterally (between practices spread across offices).

Such initiatives demand managing complex communication needs '¨and harmonising efforts in a streamlined system. A team-based approach '¨that integrates communications, IT and fee-earning staff with KM '¨expertise is needed.

We recently experienced the complexity of this process when devising a new global intranet, a wiki-based platform developed with SharePoint technology. We present here an overview of some key lessons learnt from '¨this ongoing process.

Historic systems

Linklaters possessed a variety of unconnected sites and platforms, ranging from bespoke sites to ones utilising SharePoint 2003 to those using other applications. The status quo was not user friendly: collaboration between systems was not possible due to inconsistent systems architecture, incompatible design issues and the like. Many of the products were reaching their end of life, showing their roots as ten-year-old software and making '¨them relatively difficult to use compared to contemporary software.

Key issues arising for the firm’s KM team were the number of different entry points into the systems, which users found confusing. This led to either a lack of use or the ineffective use of the systems on offer. Being responsible for knowledge management, it was the KM team’s role, in partnership with IT, to aim to simplify those systems as part of a firmwide KM strategy.

Senior staff agreed that having several platforms running firm information was leading to duplication and inefficiencies. It became apparent that they couldn’t always find the information they needed quickly, making the information potentially obsolete and the platforms out of date. So, the internal systems needed to change. In changing, the firm aimed to ensure it kept '¨what was good while consolidating worldwide platforms and content.

Platform plans

One of the earliest decisions was what form the new intranet platform '¨should take. We settled on SharePoint 2007, which offered a one-stop '¨shop, including the capability to revise navigation, utilise web 2.0 and '¨devolve content management, as well as, crucially, the right metrics, measurement and engagement.

It also offered opportunities that would enable the intranet to grow by improving aggregation and integration of content and meeting business needs in search and taxonomy development. That element – '¨the technology side – was one element '¨of the firm’s IT focus to consolidate existing platforms.

Given that curation of previous intranet material was unsustainable, the firm looked at solutions allowing for more self-generation of content, leading to the selection of a wiki-based approach for the main body of the content. The idea came from the simple question: what is the simplest way to allow people to contribute content? As a result of agreeing a common platform in SharePoint, the firm has decommissioned several other platforms and better focused the time spent by support staff.

The new intranet also enabled the deletion of significant volumes of redundant content, reducing duplication and business risks. It also enabled the consolidation of retained content, reducing the number of places that fee earners needed to visit to find information.

A key consideration was what the '¨new platform would be used to deliver. This needed to correspond to three '¨key design pillars around a central '¨precept of an intranet platform with consistent search as a function of capability. The aim was to facilitate greater information and knowledge sharing, collaboration and search in our internal expertise and knowledge, and to work with the new technologies available, in parallel with developing a firmwide knowledge search solution.1

The first key pillar was that it should provide a global corporate-level view, commensurate with the firm’s blue-chip client base and international reach.

To ensure uniformity, the project had be highly controlled and managed as well as provide structured navigation to reflect the corporate hierarchies in place across the firm’s various managerial and practice area groups.

The platform also needed to be clearly branded so that the ‘one firm, one platform’ identity was maintained throughout; consistency of delivery of services globally was paramount.

The platform also had to fulfil its design brief as a firmwide communal intranet, in gradual place of what it was replacing. Evolution was important, as was taking people with us as part of driving adoption and engagement. That graduation of speed meant that, as the firm consolidated its systems and content fitted together, '¨it was better placed to ensure that there was only one place to go for internal information and knowledge.

To be firmwide meant that the intranet had to be usable across the whole firm. It needed to be organic and devolved in approach and accepted by the whole firm, not just by IT, KM or corporate communications staff. So, we made sure to obtain proper input from practitioners who use the technologies and who were interested in improving them to help us to align them to the needs of the practice.

It also needed to be facilitated, rather than controlled, so that the new intranet was managed by staff in the firm as a whole and content ownership clearly identified. That required greater acceptance of the use of social media like wikis and blogs and, importantly, ease of use.

Sharing information

Since its launch, the new system has helped the firm to have a more immediate delivery of information in a better structured way to meet practice, local and personal needs, and to foster a culture of online knowledge sharing.

One example of this enhanced delivery can be seen in the delivery of internal news. We now have online bulletins in a blog-based structure. As a result, users can create, edit and comment on content in over 80 blogs used for communication, collaboration and newsletter generation.

Previously, departmental newsletters were created through a rather laborious process of going through various potential sources of information, copying and pasting these into a Word document and sending them out by email. Those documents had no free text search functionality, leading to an archive of newsletters but no searchable database.

The development of the intranet has acted as a springboard for the newsletters to become part of a searchable database. The process of sending newsletters out has become much easier: instead of having to create the newsletter from scratch, users can scan their sources, copy, paste and edit as appropriate, and drop individual items into a webpage bulletin. This functionality enables push-button delivery and considerably speeds up the information delivery process.

In addition to blogs, there has been prolific use of the wiki functionality. As at January 2012, the firm has 1,408 wikis supporting both legal and business services needs locally and globally.

The use of wikis helps content to be more accessible, with the ability to browse information by relevant categories. It has full text searchability and clear ownership, leading to greater teamworking, less repetition and better governance. This enables better access to knowledge and enables people to collaborate, communicate and share best practice. Content is developed and managed through real-time publishing.

The system also recognises the '¨work the firm actually does for clients in the structured work areas where services are offered, or where central or local services support legal work. For example, the firm now has an EU law intranet, which has a collection of wiki pages driven by partners and developed across a range '¨of offices as a central source of information and resources.

It has become a very useful way of sharing knowledge on fast-changing situations. Senior fee earners have been able to use the intranet to share information and analysis gathered in reacting to the fast-moving developments concerning the eurozone sovereign debt crisis. The real-time flow of information on the issue through blogs and wikis has consolidated inter-office knowledge about how clients may be affected by recent developments. It also enabled lawyers to respond to the impact those developments would have on clients, thus anticipating their queries – and agreeing, where appropriate – common responses across the network.

The wiki technology enables anyone to contribute in real time. It’s a complete resource for anyone to look at best-practice ways of developing knowledge and learning. It also applies to the firm’s business development activities. The firm uses wikis globally as a simple and effective way to improve access to fee earners, whether in improving pitching materials by practice, office, sector, office or region, or by acting as a single consistent easy-to-access source of information for all levels of staff, including the marketing team.

A new democracy

One aspect of the intranet development was the democratic, non-hierarchical nature by which content is generated. '¨This flows from the structure, so where there are little refinements, people could put those in without fear. It strikes a balance between being in control on the one hand and democracy on the other, which enables it to be a vibrant and ongoing process.

It helps to break down barriers between individuals, which is vital in this sort of work: practitioners seeking particular information don’t care who created it internally, they just want to find it.

In that respect, the goal for the development of the firm’s social media is the same as that of the global search function: to give ready access to the firm’s global intellectual capital and create confidence, removing barriers to entry and participation in sharing information across the firm in all directions.

The intranet now has information stored on it in an effective way. People are thinking laterally about how to refine it and users constantly refine the information, because they are empowered to do so.

The process is ongoing and, while well received, it marks an early stage in the development, evolution and basis upon which continual improvement to meet fee-earner needs will be built.

By encouraging a democratic approach to all levels of employee engagement, applying best practice in a communally satisfactory way, and focusing closely on the world of work, information can easily be communicated and searched for, assisted by a multidisciplinary, participatory approach.

Technology, tools, and time are used sensibly by fee earners, KM staff, IT personnel and professional support lawyers in making the firm’s internal '¨social media a successful and social information resource.

gerard.bredernoord@linklaters.com

Endnotes

1. See Global jigsaw, Gerard Bredenoord and Cora Newell, Managing Partner, '¨Vol. 14 Issue 3, November 2011

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