The Foreign Service Journal, April 2017

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | APRIL 2017 23 steadily growing each month since launch. Making It Happen Here are a few keys to upgrading an intranet at post: • Top-level sponsorship. A project like this can’t be a skunk works. Change is difficult and will inevitably face some institutional resistance. Strong sup- port from the top, in this case from the management counselor and regional information management officer, will be needed. • Planning. It’s tempting to make something that looks like a flashy com- mercial website. It’s better to keep it simple. Try to make important con- tent reachable with one or two clicks from the homepage. This is especially important in areas with low-bandwidth internet or latency issues. • Use what you have. MIX doesn’t use custom software code and was designed to be imitated. The depart- ment’s current application, SharePoint 2010, offers many features and widgets that can be used by posts without exten- sive modification. • Online content. For a successful intranet, content is king. Writing for the web is unique and potentially power- ful. For example, sentences tend to be shorter and more active, while bullets and white space help make text more readable. MIX includes brief articles about town halls, a new metrics-based management program, takeaways from important visits and other topics so that everyone can benefit from common information. A photo-sharing feature was designed to introduce new people at the embassy. Of course, developing a cadence of compelling articles and video—and deploying the right people to write and edit—remains a big opportunity. Ideas include analyzing components of the Integrated Country Strategy and providing updates that everyone should know, even if outside their day-to-day work. The best cables and ideas at post could also be showcased. If you publish meaningful content, people will come. • Dedicated staff. Someone needs to be in charge of the structure and maintenance of the intranet, as well as coordinating and encouraging content owners. Since an intranet is 10 percent technology and 90 percent content, the ideal person is a tech-savvy writer/edi- tor who enjoys the challenge of online communication. In Mexico City we ultimately cre- ated a new LE staff intranet manager position to ensure MIX would continue to gain momentum. Most companies have someone dedicated to running their intranet, and the role is also key to ensuring attention and improvement for a post’s intranet. Finally, content owners need ongo- ing training and support from their bosses and should include their intranet duties in their work requirements. Revamping an intranet takes more time than might be expected. But there’s huge potential benefit from helping make our processes more efficient and our workplace more collaborative. n We ultimately created a new LE staff intranet manager position to ensure MIX would continue to gain momentum.