Reach out, touch somebody

By Lynda Rathbone

I’m not a big fan of buzzwords but I’ve come across a good one. First, let me set the scene: I have been working on an intranet for a large media company that has an unfortunate challenge – nearly half of its employees are unable to access the intranet.

They range from field workers to studio employees and while they could get to an office location every once in a great while, it simply isn’t practical. Sure, you could put in shared terminals, as they have done for some employee groups, but this is still a challenge. The company also wants to use the intranet for a variety of human resource improvements, like employee and manager self-service applications that will reduce overhead costs for form and data processing, as well as cutting the volume of enquiries passing through its call centres.

Right now, a team of managers or assistants fills in forms for employees without regular intranet access. Unfortunately, by simply automating these processes on the intranet, they will still have similar problems and the assistant will still be filling in forms – just online versions rather than paper.

So, how can we address this problem? While it’s still early days with this client, we are exploring something that I am calling ‘reachability’, an organisation’s ability to deliver content to its users in the most appropriate and accessible way. Put simply, how best to reach them.

Various technologies and standards are finally coming together in a really interesting way, meaning you can wrap your content in a variety of packages, for a variety of different users, without much extra effort. It’s also getting cheaper and more accessible, so organisations can explore content reachability without breaking the bank.

Things we have thought of so far include podcasting, the subscription to audio (mp3) files via RSS, to deliver updates to employees on their mobiles or iPods. This way they know when to check the intranet to take a health and safety test or action a form. This is great for employees on the road as they can listen while in transit and use their precious-little time in the office more effectively. Podcasting is also being thought of for call centre employees who are used to listening all day – it’s how they work best. And this is where reachability can become really interesting.

When you start to revise your site or your content, not only should you be going through the standard processes of defining your target audience and its requirements, you should also consider how you reach them. Is it just through the intranet and its content? Or is it audio, mobile SMS alerts or e-mail? Which combination works best for certain groups?

I am still test-driving reachability and would love to hear your thoughts – are you doing this in your organisation? I’ll include any good case studies in the column next month, so let me know.

Lynda Rathbone can be contacted at lynda@foursquaremedia.net.