When, if ever, should we use the S word?

I hear you thompsonsimon. Yammer suffered the same stigma, even though it has improved and is now Viva Engage.

I think the typical person using M365 has mixed awareness of apps, tools and the names of products. Microsoft would love everyone to recognise an app and the name for it. But I think in reality, typical people will use the tools available and not think too much about the name. They know they use Teams for conversations and meetings. They have spent a good number of hours in Outlook.

I think an intranet is different. As some of said on this thread, it’s based on SharePoint, but we also want our intranets to have their own identity.

The counter point is that intranets in Microsoft 365 appear to be dissolving into other products. We can access pieces of our intranet within Teams via Viva Connections. Our Teams may use SharePoint pages in channel tabs to share information. Communication sites are popping up everywhere and when co-ordinated well, they are connected to the global navigation so people can find them.

We can’t avoid the ‘S’ word. But I would still lead with giving the intranet its own name, something the organisation can form a sense of ownership, and say it’s ’powered by SharePoint’.