You can use an intranet to give employees access to company documents, distribute software, enable group scheduling, provide an easy front end to company databases, and let individuals and departments publish information they need to communicate to the rest of the company. Typical intranet content could include the corporate directory, a calendar of events, a policies and procedures manual, the health plan and the company newsletter. The most important information will be industry-specific, such as supplier information and databases of products.

An Intranet is a way of thinking about and organizing the way we work with other people. It's a method for leveraging the people, and the tools they all use, to make something new and better than merely the sum of the parts within that group.

Those resources we link together are not merely the physical devices such as computers or fax machines. The data that is stored in or accessed through the physical devices are resources too; as are the software applications that can operate on and manipulate those data resources.

Most important of all are the people who themselves are connected by that Intranet.

An Intranet encourages the members of the organization to make better and more informed decisions. An Intranet encourages and supports more effective use of people by people and should support faster and more efficient decision making processes.

To repeat the point: An Intranet weaves together three essential components; tangible resources such as computers, intangible resources in the form of data and, most important of all, the experience and knowledge of people within the organization.

An Intranet achieves its purposes by providing a small number of common but very generalized software tools of great power and flexibility, rather than a large range of discrete specialized power tools that cannot work effectively with each other. Intranets are therefore mechanisms for harmonization and integration.

The key issues here are experience and knowledge. A well designed Intranet should make it possible for an organization to gain better access to its primary resource: the knowledge and experience of the individuals who work within it. A well designed Intranet should be an enabling technology.

A well designed and properly implemented Intranet is a creative and empowering tool for the entire organization that permits any individual to bring the entire resources of the organization to bear on any specific task they undertake and to bring their own resources and expertise to bear upon the general purposes of the organization with greater effect.