You think that it's a good idea to invest in cyperspace where your associates can communicate and share resources to accomplish great things for your company. Good. You are thinking ahead.

If you are going to invest money in an intranet¹ setup, don't you think that it should be at least as good as Gmail? Gmail is of course free. For me it often functions as a place where I can communicate and share ideas with others. Don't you think that any intranet set-up you purchase should be at least as good as Gmail?

What should the intranet have?

Search

Gmail is a great place to store thoughts and communication because you can find just about anything once you learn to search Gmail. With very little training, anyone can quickly learn how to find anything stored in Gmail. That's why I haven't cleaned out  my inbox in a year. What's the point? Gmail finds stuff whether it's in the inbox or stored neatly under some tag. The Gmail invocation, "Search don't file," is no bull.

Tagging

In a closed group, tagging can be even more powerful than in Gmail. That's because there can be pre-agreement on what gets tagged what. There is not faster way of dealing with aggregated material. In addition an intranet enjoys the benefits of an editor who has an overview and who can really leverage the benefits of tagging.

Rich media

Play video and podcasts anytime, anywhere.

Threaded conversations

As we all know, these can turn to junk when people change the subject without changing the subject line, but in theory, offer great insight into the evolution of ideas. Good intranet setups have safeguards to keep threads from coming unraveled.

Chat

Group members should be able to chat with each other just like they can on Google Chat. The chat should be archive-able and tag-able.

Email

Group members should be able to email from and into the intranet.

Of course a good intranet can have a lot more than Gmail. It can have a group wiki for example or a project management system. But it should have at least what Gmail has, don't you think?