Intranets are difficult to see; you can’t just Google a competitor’s intranet, and start surfing. Intranet case studies, good ones (not merely marketing pitches or advertorials) are rare, and at best offer a fleeting glance (a glance that is usually projected through rose color glasses).

Conferences dedicated to intranets are fantastic learning opportunities for both newbies and experience managers in corporate communications (employee communications), HR and IT. At my annual conference in New York City (The Digital Workplace & Intranet Conference), we had several companies give live, unfiltered tours of their live intranet – insider access to award-winning intranets, without any marketing or PR filter. Intranet managers cannot get this from a book, article or awards made-for-purchase report.

Good case studies are also pretty rare, and become dated rather quickly. The best place to get these case studies are not the marketing driven articles online, but live in person presentations at conferences dedicated to intranets. Now not all intranet conferences are created equal (beware the intranet conference that has far too many consultants speaking). A good case study offers screens and details on the background of the intranet, and how the intranet is delivering success for the organization.

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