Most intranets organize information into hierarchical trees — home page, top-level sections, subsections — mimicking how public websites work. But this metaphor misses a critical insight about how employees actually need information.
Understanding information types: the Rumsfeld Framework
Back in 2002, during the Iraq War, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made a famous (and much-mocked) statement about categories of knowledge:
“There are known knowns — things we know we know.
There are known unknowns — things we know we don't know.
But there are also unknown unknowns — things we don't know we don't know.”
This framework applies perfectly to how intranets function:
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Known Knowns are facts you’re aware of and understand their value. You know the periodic table exists and that gold is “Au.”
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Known Unknowns are facts you know exist but don't know their specifics. You know your company has a dress code, but you can't remember if pink neckties are allowed. You know Client XYZ has a Salesforce record, you just need to find it.
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Unknown Unknowns are facts you don’t even know exist. You have no idea the north parking lot is being resurfaced tomorrow, or that Congress is discussing a legislative change affecting your industry, or that Mary in Accounting had a baby and won't be back for 10 weeks.
Two ways employees use intranets
Known unknowns work with “trees” of content. Employees navigate hierarchical structures to find information they remember exists — policies, references, profiles. They’re doing “known item searching,” drilling down through layers until they find what they’re looking for.
But the majority of intranet value comes from unknown unknowns — unplanned discoveries. You can’t search for what you don't know exists. You can only discover it through a constant stream of fresh information.
News as the river
That stream is news. The announcements and updates flowing down your intranet homepage operate like a river — timely, temporal, and dynamic. Analytics consistently show news content vastly outperforms static departmental information. One client saw news access at 150% higher rates than department content, despite far less investment in that section.
News serves a deeper function beyond mere information delivery: It creates shared organizational identity and unity. Historian Mitchell Stevens noted that societies depend on a “flow of a shared perspective” to maintain cohesion. News is the lifeblood of collective awareness — the shared experiences that bind a group together.
