Sydney Australia, Boston, USA-- CMS Watch, in partnership with Step Two Designs, today released "Fundamentals of a Successful Intranet," the first online course to lay out best practices for intranet teams. Designed for both existing intranet managers and those planning a new enterprise intranet, the course outlines the business case for improvement, and then identifies key factors in delivering a successful intranet.

Almost every organization has an intranet, providing access to key corporate knowledge, a channel for communication to all staff, and a gateway to enterprise systems. While many intranets are more than a decade old, they still struggle to realize their potential business value.

This online course has been created by intranet guru James Robertson, a recognized global expert on intranet best practices, and managing director of Step Two Designs, a vendor-neutral consultancy headquartered in Sydney, Australia.

"The challenge is that intranets are hidden away behind the firewall and intranet teams have few opportunities to learn from what others are doing," says James Robertson, "all of which makes it hard for teams to follow best practices."

"Fundamentals of a Successful Intranet" explains current state-of-the-art, as well as outlining emerging directions. Using real-world examples from around the globe, the course offers a strategy for delivering a successful intranet, as well as a straightforward approach to identifying practical improvements.

The course packs considerable amount of information into five hours, via digestible one-hour modules that speak to various professional needs:

• Intranet or web teams - to learn current best-practices and justify improvements in clear business terms
• Communications and HR team members - to obtain state-of-the-art intranet knowledge
• Intranet development project teams - to prepare for the work ahead
• Enterprise and IT managers - to better understand and support intranet teams and projects
• Consultants - to apply global best practices to intranet-related services

"I've seen James Robertson teach about intranet best practices and often wondered: how could people beyond that classroom take advantage this great material?" said CMS Watch founder Tony Byrne. "Well, this course answers that question."

The course is available for purchase on the CMS Watch website: www.realstorygroup.com/Education/Intranets/

Step Two Designs is a vendor-neutral consultancy recognized as global thought-leaders on intranet strategy, design and management. Having worked with hundreds of organizations, Step Two Designs has captured and disseminated best practice via 200+ articles, face-to-face courses, and reports. Current reports and resources include What every team should know, the Intranet Roadmap, 6x2 methodology for intranets, Staff directories, Improving intranet search, and the Intranet review toolkit. Step Two Designs also runs the global Intranet Innovation Awards, which is the source of many of the screenshots and examples used in the course. For more information, please visit: http://www.steptwo.com.au