The document provides 10 ideas for using Web 2.0 tools to keep company intranets fresh, including using Google Reader to subscribe to industry news and feeds, Flickr to share company photos, Google Video to stream videos, Google Apps for a turnkey intranet, Google Gadgets to add widgets, Live.com for custom maps, WordPress for blogging and content management, social networking, and Zocalo for internal prediction markets. It describes setting up each tool and its benefits for internal company use.

1. 10 Web 2.0 Ideas to Keep Your Intranet Fresh Daniel X. O’Neil Internet Consultant (773) 960-6045 [email_address]

2. Hello. Daniel X. O’Neil 10 years as an internet strategist, consultant, and project manager Worked on intranets for Sears, Allstate, Kimberly-Clark, and Bank One 5 years of working with Web 2.0 tools, starting with Salon Blogs and moving forward from there as a beta hound Currently the People Person at EveryBlock

3. How to Evaluate Emerging Technologies Separate the technology from the culture Separate the current utility from the generic utility Maxim: any piece of software with pop culture popularity has enterprise utility That’s what we’re going to do today– show the utility of popular application in the enterprise

4. Web 2.0 Principles: Technology Fast, iterative development on web-focused toolsets (Ruby on Rails, Django, AJAX, etc.)– means that users can affect features more closely Open standards, open source software-- leads to reduced cost and more reuse APIs– less cost to build

5. Web 2.0 Principles: Culture Collaboration: comments, trackbacks, frequent updates/ edits Openness: transparency in approach Crowdsourcing: Wikipedia is the great example, but there are many others (Yahoo! Teachers and Answers, for instance)

6. Security and Enterprise Use Based on the intranet audience, all ideas presented here are geared toward intranet usage Security: most of the tools here are stored on public servers behind simple passwords Enterprise architectures: most tools run on external servers I don’t recommend using public tools to store company secrets

7. Levels of Complexity Each of these ideas are prepared for communicators with little or no input from IT types However, as the skills of IT and cooperation with them increase, you can move into greater complexity RSS feeds run through Feedburner can be turned into direct APIs via Twitter, for instance

8. Essentials There are step-by-steps here, but you’ll have to figure some things out Use the “Help” button If you get stuck, Google the problem– chances are someone else has had the same issue The ability to copy/paste pieces of code directly into your intranet is key to most of these ideas Email tech support or the creator of the tool your using for help if you search and find no answers

9. 10 Ideas: The Platform Use Google Reader to keep up with employees, trends, and news in your industry Use Google and Yahoo! news & blog search RSS feeds along with Yahoo! Pipes and FeedBurner to create custom competitive intelligence Use Flickr for finding, publishing, and sharing photos relating to your company

10. 10 Ideas: Outside In Use Google Video to stream instructional videos and other corporate video assets Use Google Apps For Your Domain for complete out-of-the-box intranet (small businesses or independent-minded divisions) Use Google Gadgets for weather, world clocks, or just plain fun Use Live.com to create custom point-to-point maps

11. 10 Ideas: More Complex Deploy WordPress to for feature-rich, extensible content management system Use social networking sites such as Facebook as an extension of your corporate conversation Use Zocalo to create prediction markets and tap hidden knowledge

12. Google Reader This is one of the basics that every communicator should have– a full RSS reader Google Reader is the best– easy to subscribe, easy to share, great screen shortcuts Allows you to keep on top of all sorts of info and serves as a basis for more sophisticated things

13. Google Reader

14. Google Reader for Subscribing to News Electronic clipping service Subscribe to any news source that has an RSS feed Use the Firefox or IE 7 browsers for auto-detection of RSS feeds Firefox is best– faster, renders pages better, spellcheck

15. Google Reader for Corporate News Clippings & Content Fodder Reading lists– keep up on key industry publications and newspapers Do searches in your key executive staff, company name, and industry keywords in Google News Every search has an RSS feed Don’t forget the blog search, too Once you’ve got the feed, you can just click the orange RSS button or copy/paste the URL into the “Add Subscription” section in Google Reader on the left

18. Google Reader: Export Reading List Once you build a good reading list, you can share it with everyone in your company Settings > Import/ Export > Export Your Subscriptions as an OPML File Then upload it to your intranet Anyone can download it and import it into their feed reader

19. Google Reader: Export OPML file

20. Custom Competitive Intelligence Use Google and Yahoo! news & blog search RSS feeds along with Yahoo! Pipes and FeedBurner to create custom competitive intelligence Once you’ve got an RSS feed, you can trim it then publish it to your intranet

21. Custom Competitive Intelligence: Convenience Stores

22. Capture the RSS Feed

23. Get an account at Feedburner

24. Burn the new feed (step-by-step in Feedburner)

25. Then click “Buzzboost” under the “Publicize” tab and complete the form

26. The result? A script. Publish it to your intranet in a block that takes HTML <script src=&quot;http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConvenienceStores-GoogleNews?format=sigpro&quot; type=&quot;text/javascript&quot; ></script><noscript><p>Subscribe to RSS headline updates from: <a href=&quot;http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConvenienceStores-GoogleNews&quot;></a><br/>Powered by FeedBurner</p> </noscript>

27. Here’s the raw HTML in a webpage

28. Last Step: Customize the feed with Yahoo! Pipes http://feeds.feedburner.com/ConvenienceStores-GoogleNews

29. Convenience Store Raw Feed

30. Convenience Store Feed w/o the phrase “7-eleven”

31. Now it is

32. Custom Competitive Intelligence: Upshots Somewhat complicated, but powerful once you get it Be sure not to “publish” your feed– then only you know its URL Be sure to only use this tactic on feeds that you are OK to make public The feeds may be indexed by search engines If you’re afraid of the competitive intelligence searches becoming public, pick your content by hand using RSS feeds as in our first example

33. Flickr Use Flickr for finding, publishing, and sharing photos relating to your company Flickr has 25,017 photos of “Pepsi”

34. Flickr for Creative Commons Photos Available for use on your Intranet Creative Commons is a set of intellectual property standards based on existing copyright law Flickr supports search for Creative Commons images in their Advanced Search

35. 666 “Pepsi” photos on Flickr licensed under Creative Commons

36. Flickr for storing hi-res images Great for sharing with art departments Password-protected, but stored on the internet– so no trade secrets or pre-product launches Supports separate privacy settings for each photo

37. Extending Flickr Supports printing Third-party applications Integration with blogging software Publish to Flickr by email Publish to blog by email Publish by cellphone camera

38. Google Video Use Google Video to stream instructional videos and other corporate video assets Google allows for the streaming of private, non-indexed videos inside your intranet But again, only store non-critical items there– you never know Great for historical company videos or non-secret trade or instructional videos

39. “ Uploaded videos” screen

40. Advantages of Google Video Private No size limits– blows past all of the “server space” issues of the past Personal index of your videos– great for historical asset management Streaming onto your intranet is easy

41. Google video: Just copy/ paste HTML

42. Google Apps For Your Domain: One-Stop Intranet Use Google Apps For Your Domain for complete out-of-the-box intranet (small businesses or independent-minded divisions) https://www.google.com/a/smallbiz/

43. Google Apps For Your Domain: Start Page Click & drag modules News, weather, custom integration with other applications A great option for a small business or an enterprise with no intranet yet Or, the corporate division with lots of latitude The usage would be more of a shared homepage than the storage of any internal communications

45. Google Gadgets: Inside your intranet Use Google Gadgets for weather, world clocks, or just plain fun The same components that are available in Google Apps For Your Domain are also available as “gadgets”, or portable pieces of software, on your intranet There are currently more than 12,000 available: http://www.google.com/ig/directory?synd=open

46. Google Gadgets: Weather for every corporate location

47. Google Gadgets: Configure the Gadget to your liking

48. Google Gadgets: Then “get the code” <script src=&quot;http://gmodules.com/ig/ifr?url=http://www.labpixies.com/campaigns/weather/weather.xml&amp;up_degree_unit_type=0&amp;up_city_code=none&amp;up_zip_code=none&amp;synd=open&amp;w=320&amp;h=224&amp;title=Live+Weather&amp;border=%23ffffff%7C3px%2C1px+solid+%23999999&amp;output=js&quot;></script>

49. Google Gadgets: Other useful gadgets

50. Google Gadgets: Other useful gadgets

51. Google Gadgets Upshots Since the gadgets run on a server outside your intranet, it can function as a “back door” into functionality that could take months to develop internally Some IT types may have issues with possible script exploits with some gadgets– check with them if you must

52. Live.com for custom maps Use Live.com to create custom point-to-point maps Very useful for maps to company picnic, key suppliers, ad-hoc route maps Published to the internet and accessible with the right URL

53. Live.com maps– add custom “pushpins” Allows you to add “pushpins” (see right-hand side of screen after you log in) Each pushpin can be precisely placed and have detailed descriptions, URLs, images, etc.

54. Live.com– see the map here http://local.live.com/?v=2&cid=5973FA202DA62927!138&encType=1 Permanent URL for sharing Not indexed by search engines

55. WordPress: content management Deploy WordPress to for feature-rich, extensible content management system “ Blog” software that runs on your intranet, not on an outside server Highly extensible (can add outside functionality) Can be used as content management (more sophisticated databased relationships among content types) Has the simplicity and features of a blog

56. WordPress: Powerful Features

57. WordPress: Extensible

58. Social Networking Sites Use social networking sites such as Facebook as an extension of your corporate conversation Not recommended for every corporation (especially the larger ones) But can be highly effective to have informal, deeper relationships with employees Be where they are, gather more knowledge

59. Zocalo Prediction Markets Use Zocalo to create prediction markets and tap hidden knowledge Perhaps the most “out-there” suggestion on the list, and most difficult to execute But very rewarding for large organizations that seeks to get the low-down and dive deep into the collective mind of the workforce Great take on prediction market’s utility in the enterprise: http://wiki.commerce.net/wiki/ZMarket

60. Zocalo Prediction Markets Need an experienced IT person to implement this Advantage: completely internal Web-based source: www.inklingmarkets.com

61. Thank You Call me anytime (773) 960-6045 Contact me on MyRagan [email_address] Look for the launch of EveryBlock Questions?