(short answer) more security, more features and the consolidation of a lot of existing but disconnected infrastructure tools… which could strengthen movement coordination, increase collaboration and calibration and sustain longterm engagement with the community.
Just like you can’t catch rain with a sieve, you can miss a lot of value with a fragmented ecosystem.
(longer answer)
An intranet would subsume under one platform a lot of current tools like… event sign-ons, the forum, EA hub’s directory, facebook groups, job/internship boards, the Wiki, various communication channels (twitter, discords, slacks, email etc), surveys and polls, chapter sites, separate application forms, the librarian project and organization newsletters.
An intranet can also provide a greater array of features that do not currently exist in the ecosystem including (but not limited to) spaces for sub-group discussions, tiered engagement levels, guided on-boarding for new members, greater analytics and much more.
I think the biggest benefit of all is concentrating the online activity of the movement in one place versus the present state of having to check a disorganized collection of websites, blogs, sign-ons and social accounts in order to keep up with what is going on with the community. The majority of our time should be spent on our work and collaboration—not trying to track down important or relevant information, trying to figure out how to get involved and meet people in the movement, and figuring out how to learn, grow and develop as an effective altruist.
Given the recent sunsetting of the EA Hub—and their comments that implied CEA may be attempting to develop a larger platform—this idea may be in progress. However, I still wanted to share and spark more discussion on the need for an intranet because I believe it would greatly improve movement coordination and strengthen the sense of community while significantly reducing the workload for meta organizations so they can invest more time and energy into their high impact programs.
Given the EA movement’s desire to grow more, and the inconceivable amounts of money currently floating around, it may make sense to invest in a pre-packaged intranet for now while also funding a team to begin building an in-house intranet platform that can be fully customized to the needs of the movement as it grows.
If you are interested in learning more about what a unifed platform for EA could look like here are some of the more popular intranets on the market: Sharepoint, Interact, GreenOrbit, Guru or Mangoapp (p.s. my favorites so far are Sharepoint and Interact).
[As someone personally interested in information architecture and digital taxonomy I started looking into this idea a while back and began drafting a proposal on how an EA intranet would operate and what benefits it could have for different roles within the movement. Let me know if you would be interested in reading a forum post on it—I have lots of articles in draft stage and it’s hard to prioritize which ones to work on, so an expression of interest in this particular piece would definitely push it to the top of my list!]
What’s the advantage of an intranet vs. a website with registration?
(short answer) more security, more features and the consolidation of a lot of existing but disconnected infrastructure tools… which could strengthen movement coordination, increase collaboration and calibration and sustain longterm engagement with the community.
Just like you can’t catch rain with a sieve, you can miss a lot of value with a fragmented ecosystem.
(longer answer)
An intranet would subsume under one platform a lot of current tools like… event sign-ons, the forum, EA hub’s directory, facebook groups, job/internship boards, the Wiki, various communication channels (twitter, discords, slacks, email etc), surveys and polls, chapter sites, separate application forms, the librarian project and organization newsletters.
An intranet can also provide a greater array of features that do not currently exist in the ecosystem including (but not limited to) spaces for sub-group discussions, tiered engagement levels, guided on-boarding for new members, greater analytics and much more.
I think the biggest benefit of all is concentrating the online activity of the movement in one place versus the present state of having to check a disorganized collection of websites, blogs, sign-ons and social accounts in order to keep up with what is going on with the community. The majority of our time should be spent on our work and collaboration—not trying to track down important or relevant information, trying to figure out how to get involved and meet people in the movement, and figuring out how to learn, grow and develop as an effective altruist.
Given the recent sunsetting of the EA Hub—and their comments that implied CEA may be attempting to develop a larger platform—this idea may be in progress. However, I still wanted to share and spark more discussion on the need for an intranet because I believe it would greatly improve movement coordination and strengthen the sense of community while significantly reducing the workload for meta organizations so they can invest more time and energy into their high impact programs.
Given the EA movement’s desire to grow more, and the inconceivable amounts of money currently floating around, it may make sense to invest in a pre-packaged intranet for now while also funding a team to begin building an in-house intranet platform that can be fully customized to the needs of the movement as it grows.
If you are interested in learning more about what a unifed platform for EA could look like here are some of the more popular intranets on the market: Sharepoint, Interact, GreenOrbit, Guru or Mangoapp (p.s. my favorites so far are Sharepoint and Interact).
[As someone personally interested in information architecture and digital taxonomy I started looking into this idea a while back and began drafting a proposal on how an EA intranet would operate and what benefits it could have for different roles within the movement. Let me know if you would be interested in reading a forum post on it—I have lots of articles in draft stage and it’s hard to prioritize which ones to work on, so an expression of interest in this particular piece would definitely push it to the top of my list!]
If anyone is interested here is a quick breakdown on differences in intranets, extranets and the internet and the value they provide.
If you write a post on this I would read it.
Two minor comments:
It’s possible to create a central hub platform without making it an intranet
I’m skeptical of the security benefits given how open EA is (vs. a normal company)