Who is connected from where?

One important recent trend is working remote. While in the old days working at home was regarded at least as odd and obscure, nowadays it is becoming widely accepted. Obviously internet technology plays a large part in getting working from home more widely accepted. With the use of webtechnology (and other communication technology) we no longer are cut off from the organization, even if we work miles away from the office. Flex workers too are connected, regardless the location (inside or outside the building) they log in. It’s this logging in to the workplace that has changed organizations and will change it in the near future.
This gradual opening up of organizations to include people who work remote presents us with one simple new requirement for intranets: intranets need to comply to the international web standards set by the W3C. Previously intranets could be built with software supporting (only) the desktops inside an organization building or buildings. People could only login on the intranet by first entering the office building. People outside (on the internet) could not - and often still cannot - access the internal web of a company.
This set intranets apart from internet websites with regards to web standard. Intranets quite often used to be disconnected from internet websites. Internet and intranets have been separate worlds in communication thinking over the last decade. This offered another reason for communication decision makers to be more ‘flexible’ with complying to W3C standards while building internal online channels than they would when building external online channels.
At this moment in time tis produces a legacy of intranets that do not support remote logging in. Or to be more precise, many such legacy systems do not support logging on using other operating platforms than the one used inside an office building.
Here is a typical example of what you get if an organization uses an intranet that works only on Windows Internet Explorer, while people at home may use another operating system, like Linux or Mac OS.



Image: An intranet page that does not support other operating systems than Windows XP or Vista. Logging on to the digital working environment from a remote location is hampered by closed (instead of open) IT-systems. In environments such as this, IT-policy results in limitations for flexible workers.

The fact that internet is adding online workplaces to the offline spaces to work means that communication tools need to support this trend. Online internal communication should not be hampered by IT-restrictions that state a preference for system X over system Y. Such preferences imply that IT-policy prefers X-users over Y-users. While all users are members of the same organizational community. Internal communication strategy therefore needs to be very clear about who is part of the community and which restrictions apply. This is not something that should be defined by technical instructions and restrictions. Intranets are primarily about communication and not about technology and technological restrictions.