Toby Ward of Prescient Digital Media has a couple of really good models on what it takes to have a successful intranet. Specifically:

• The Nexus of Intranet Success Model
• Intranet Project Methodology

You can read more about them in his article Intranet Planning: An Intranet Model for Success. Great stuff — and very close to home as well because, at MBS, we’re in the middle of rolling out our new intranet portal. In fact, the first phase of our project is in the Implementation and Marketing stages of Ward’s project methodology model. Exciting times, indeed.

Because I’ve been busy with exams and assignments for the the last couple of weeks, I haven’t had the opportunity to comment on some of the interesting blog posts that I’ve read. I still don’t have that much time so, instead, I’m just going to link to them here.

Interestingly, each of these posts addresses a different stage in a company’s social media adoption process:

• Let’s start with Chuck Hollis who wrote about Alternative Strategies for Justifying Social Productivity Software.
• Then we have Connie Benson who wrote about The Benefits of Having a Community Manager.
• A step beyond that is Jeremiah Owyang wrote a post on How to Deal with Internal Stakeholders.
• Finally we have Bill Johnston who wrote about some research that OCRN did on Online Community ROI: Models and Reporting.

Excellent posts all of them.

Update: Make that 5 online community articles. I can’t believe I forgot Chris Brogan’s awesome article Social Media – Talk is Cheap for Businesses. Another must read, that is.

Yesterday was a tough day:

• My Brand Management final exam (on Wal-Mart) was due.
• My Corporate Strategy syndicate had to make a presentation (on Bertelsmann).
• I had tonnes of reading to do for Corporate Strategy (a case on the Foster Group) and Business and Sustainable Development (on social sustainability and the Bottom-of-Pyramid concept).

The next couple of weeks (yes, I have just two weeks to go!) are going to be tough too. I have:

• One case analysis (for Corporate Strategy) and one critical analysis (for BSD) to write and hand in.
• Two big assignments (for BSD and Strategic Management of Intellectual Property) to write up and hand in.
• One big syndicate assignment (for Corporate Strategy) to work on, write up, and hand in.
• Two exams to prepare for and then sit (for SMIP and BSD).

On the job front:

• I’ve applied to three jobs — two in internal communications (with an intranet focus) and one in external communications (with a social media focus).
• I’ve received one rejection — one of the internal communications ones — and hope to hear from the other two either this week or next week.
• I have two more jobs to apply to — both in online strategy (one of which is really exciting) — and I should get those done by tomorrow evening.

Meanwhile, my work at MBS is keeping me busy too:

• I have to finish writing a major section of the training materials (for the new portal we’re deploying across the school) by this evening. That needs to get reviewed and approved by Friday.
• I’ll probably start conducting the actual trainings (mostly one-to-one since I’m pretty much done with the group trainings) for that next week.
• I’ve already sat with one of the departments and worked through their online communications strategy. On Friday I need to sit with them and actually start implementing that on the portal.

Yes, life is busy and exciting…and quite a lot of fun, actually (which, really, is the important part).

I considered commenting on the recent New York Times’ article on blogging but after reading what Mart Andreessen had to say I really don’t need to.

Two other noteworthy reactions/comments/replies: Larry Dignan and Bora Zivkovic.

As we’re learning in my Corporate Strategy course with Geoff Lewis at Melbourne Business School these days, corporations should constantly be asking themselves two basic questions:

1. Are we really adding value to the businesses that we own? 
2. Would some other corporate owner be able to add more value to these businesses?

And if it turns out that we’re actually making one (or more) of our businesses worse off by owning it, then why aren’t we divesting that business?

I know it’s a bit of a stretch but, at a very fundamental level, my job application philosophy is based on a similar concept. When I look at a job opening, I ask myself:

1. Can I really create value in this role — both for the company (can I do this job well) and for myself (do I want to do this specific job)?
2. Would someone else be able to create more value than I would?

If I am able to convince myself that I can do this job, I want to do this job, and I can do this job better than most others, then I apply for it. If not, there’s no point: I’ll just waste my time carefully crafting an application that matches my background, skills, and experience to the job requirements; I’ll waste the time of the recruiter who’ll assesses the application; and, at the end of it all, I won’t get the job anyway.

In fact, a couple of times I’ve liked a job opening; started writing an application cover letter that justifies why I should get that job; realized half-way through that I can’t or shouldn’t do this job (i.e. I can’t justify it); and stopped.

Of course, all this is a bit of a simplification since a lot more thought does go into each job application decision that I make but, fundamentally, that’s the thought process I follow.

FYI, among the other things that I take into consideration are: learning and career progression (short term and long term); company culture and values; company fundamentals (financial state, market position, etc.); details of the role that I’m applying for; and so on.

The View from the Other Side

The good thing is that my philosophy nicely complements the three things recruiters are looking for in an applicant:

1. Can you do the job? If yes, you get to the technical interview stage.
2. Will you do the job (and do it well)? If yes, you progress through the technical interview stages to the management interview stage.
3. Do you have a good ‘fit’ with the organization? If yes, you get a job offer.

My philosophy, then, gets me to work through a lot of this stuff before I even start my application. To give you an idea of how this works, here are some jobs that didn’t make it past one of these hurdles:

1. An internal communications job that required a lot of Knowledge Management theory and experience (that too with the latest KM tools and practices). I didn’t think I could do this job.
2. An external marketing job that had a good bit of online community work but a much bigger focus on print stuff, media liaison, and event management. I knew that others could do this job better than I could.
3. An interesting external marketing and community management job that was to be filled by a junior person (with 1-2 years of experience) and in area that I have absolutely no interest in. I didn’t do an MBA to get an entry level job and I don’t want a job in an area that doesn’t excite me (or, at the very least, one that I have a passing interest in).

In other words, when I do actually apply for a job, I am convinced that I am the right person for it. Which, I guess, is a good thing.

Any thoughts, comments?

Two Melbourne Business School (MBS) professors — Ian Harper and Joshua Gans — were among the 1,000 delegates selected to attend the Australia 2020 Summit to be held in Canberra later on this month.

They’ll be on the Productivity Agenda – educations, skills, training, science, and innovation panel for which the attendees list, according to Gans, “looks like a pretty typical economics conference”. I presume that’s a good thing.