By Bob Weinstein, Globe Correspondent, 07/29/99

Do you have fax machines, computers, cell phones, pagers and electronic organizers? OK, OK, so of course you do.

But how about this: Does your company have an Intranet? Not Internet, Intranet.

If you don't know the difference or, worse yet, don't care to know, well, that's simply the wrong answer in today's world.

An Intranet is a knowledge management system using Web technology so a company can better disseminate information to its employees via its Web browser, in the words of Ben Slick, president and CEO of Peoplescape, an electronic search firm based in San Jose, Calif.

An Intranet is simply a Web tool for communicating with your employees. Typically, it runs behind a company's firewall in a secure way so it's available only to your workers.

"Its purpose is to keep track of constantly changing information and put it in the hands of users the moment it's relevant," says Slick. "But it's also a way of helping employees keep track of or author new information that may be valuable to others in the company, or more specifically to workers in a particular department."

An Intranet is an interactive tool for communicating all kinds of information, according to Karen Osofsky, a principal at the Tiburon Group, an Internet recruiting consulting company in Chicago.

"Its benefits are that it saves time and improves efficiency, consistency, accountability, and communication. And it can be password-protected so some areas can be available to all employees while other areas are accessible to specific employees."

Remember the days when companies practically drowned employees in paper? If you weren't getting memos, you were showered with bulletins, newsletters, and updates. Most of it wound up trashed and unread.

The solution? An Intranet bypasses paper logjams by efficiently, and, most important, quickly communicating electronically.

Bob Norris, human resources manager of Wilmington-based semiconductor manufacturer Analog Devices, seconds that. Analog's Intranet has been up for about four years and gets better every year, according to Norris.

"It's like an amoeba that keeps growing and taking new shapes and forms," he says. "It's dynamic, fluid, and constantly changing."

Initially, Analog's Intranet was used for posting marketing material, the company telephone directory, and job openings. "It was pretty much the same stuff we published," says Norris.

But that quickly changed when staffers saw the Intranet's potential. "Now, each division has its own Web site and each product line has its own home page," he says. "The Intranet has emerged as an easily accessible repository of information. New product information and technical news can be instantly communicated. Engineers at regional offices, for example, never lose touch with developments at the home office."

In Slick's view, an Intranet is most successful when every department in a company works to keep it current, like at Analog.

For example:

The finance department might keep a list of its late accounts on its Intranet page so the sales force does a better job of helping accounting collect;

The marketing department could keep its people up to date about new products, market trends, and competition, and put late-breaking price information in the hands of employees about end-of-month promotional specials;

The engineering department can post new product features so the sales force can do a better job of selling them;

Sales officials can keep their sales force motivated by posting customer success stories.

Slick insists Intranets can provide a bottomless avenue for efficiently communicating with every level of an organization. Press releases, for instance, are routinely put up on a company's Web site so the outside world can learn about new developments. But "press releases can also be posted to the Intranet as well," adds Slick, "giving the internal spin of an event for employees. A release posted to the official Web site might describe details of a merger or takeover, whereas the release to the Intranet will explain what it means to all the company players - employees, vendors, suppliers, partners, etc."

Florida's Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel recently debuted an Intranet that is used as a daily editorial tool for newsroom staffers.

"The Intranet brings together the applications and World Wide Web sites used by reporters and editors in a single convenient easy-to-use location," explains Mike Meiners, an editorial systems editor and one of a team of six people who put the new technology in place.

Newsroom announcements, put up daily on the Intranet, take up about 75 percent of the screen. The rest of the page is made up of links to minutes of meetings, announcements, technological tips, and research applications, to name a few.

The best part, says Meiners, is a front-screen navigation bar, which lists all the daily news and updates, plus links to databases.

"If there is breaking news the newsroom needs to know about, we can post it right away," he says. "Our Intranet site is set to automatically refresh every hour." ufpibox

The uses for an Intranet are limitless. Osofsky goes further and breaks downs an Intranet's advantages into four categories:

1.General information source.

Company stock quotes and company event information (clubs, meetings), reminders to submit benefit forms, etc.

Employees can be linked into online information about their own benefits: make changes to 401(k) plans, check whether health care deductibles have been met.

2.Recruiting.

Internal job postings can be posted on the Intranet.

Employee referrals can be submitted through the Intranet. "Companies like Cisco Systems have a password-protected system whereby the referring employee can check on the status of their referral," says Osofsky.

Recruiting schedules can be posted on the Intranet. The recruiting department can post the blank schedule for each candidate so members of the hiring department can sign them up on the schedule. This way everyone involved will know who is doing the interviewing, where the candidate should be, and when. It keeps the process more organized and the people responsible for doing the interviewing more accountable.

Campus recruiting schedules can be posted on the Intranet so alumni know when their campus is being visited. This will help in recruiting current employees to volunteer to attend with the recruiting team to generate more interest for the company.

3.Standardization of forms.

Templates for any kind of form used throughout the company can be placed on the Intranet. Anyone who needs the most current version of a form can download it from the Intranet.

Expense reports can be completed and submitted via the Intranet.

4.Business Process Information.

Daily sales and inventory reports can be accessed through the Intranet so remote field sales and distribution centers can be kept current.

Intranets also strengthen corporate culture by not only providing an avenue for sharing information among employees, but also can be sounding boards for opinions and gripes.

Monsanto managers, for instance, encourage free discussion among employees by allowing them to express opinions on what it calls its "underground newsletter" Intranet page. Other companies have similar outlets on their Intranets, which serve to promote an open exchange among employees.

Slick and other experts insist companies are foolish not to exploit an Intranet's benefits.

"Big companies have been using them for a while because of the difficulty of communicating with their people," says Slick. Yet small companies have virtually the same problems on a smaller scale. The big problem is that information is decentralized, making it difficult to access.

"People store all kinds of documents and spreadsheets," says Slick. "They file stuff on the file server or their Novell LAN or their NP LAN. Depending upon who named it, it is impossible to find because it's disorganized."

An Intranet solves that problem. "But the Intranet is not an alternative to filing documents," says Slick. "An Intranet is not for file management, but knowledge management. There's a big difference. If you set up an area on your Intranet called 'product news,' then everything related to the topic can be stored there by creating WORD documents, for example, which can be filed to that server."

While the logic behind an Intranet is indisputable, it requires time and effort to maintain it properly.

"If you intend to publish documents to an Intranet, you need another level of management supervision and technical expertise," says Slick. "You need someone who knows how to publish on the Web."

Who should manage it? In a small company, the technology person or team should be managing it.

"In large companies, technology departments manage the care, feeding and maintenance of the system," Slick explains. "Or they may have departmental experts responsible for posting content to it. For example, an assistant of the marketing department may be responsible for posting information to the Intranet following guidelines established by the IT person."

Picking the right people to manage the Intranet is important. More important, stresses Slick, is that the Intranet be constantly updated.

"Ideally, Intranets should be living, breathing, accessible systems allowing employees access to changing company information," he says. "Information should be easily and quickly found."

Many companies mistakenly spend all their time keeping their Web sites current and neglect their Intranets.

"But in many respects, it's equally important to keep your employees abreast of new developments," says Slick. "The most efficient way to accomplish that is through the Intranet."

The trick is to first, maintain a fluid Intranet; second, establish rules and guidelines for posting material; and third, delegate responsibility for maintaining the Intranet. Depending upon company size, it could be one or two people or an entire department coordinating the posting of material.

Lastly, Slick passes on two critical guidelines for efficiently maintaining the Intranet. First, make sure there are procedures for naming and filing documents and second, there ought to be an e-mail tie-in so all employees can offer input and feedback.

Bob Weinstein is a freelance writer in New York. He writes a weekly column called TechWatch.