Comments on: 7 principles for decentralized publishing

By: Jane McConnell

Jane McConnell — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 18:27:02 +0000

Nice to hear from you Mike, and thanks for the details about your support system.
Having the help desk manned on a rota basis by the central team is a very interesting idea. In addition to giving people faster response time, it also has the advantage of keeping all members of the central team in very close contact with the content editors and contributors. (It’s like having managers in a consumer products company working one day a month at the call centre listening to customer problems and needs.)
Sounds to me like your intranet is essential for the organization if people expect responses within one working day for content publishing issues.

By: Mike Chapman

Mike Chapman — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 16:52:18 +0000

We started decentralising 3 years ago and have 130+ ‘local editors’. All have gone through a 2.5 day training programme (3 sessions with a mini-project between numbers 2 & 3) and have access to an “editors’ corner” containing guidelines, training materials etc.
We are taking the opportunity created by a site rebuild to split the departmental network into two levels: editors and contributors. The reason for this is that we’ve realised that the “one size fits all” training approach means wasted time and effort when people need to be trained specifically for a one-off project to create a handful of pages for a specific activity that they need to communicate/share information on. It would be better for them to focus on the basics with the editor for their area trained up to provide guidance and support on usability, accessibility, etc.
The other big change for us is the introduction of a helpdesk manned on a rota basis by a member of the central team, Mon-Fri 9am-5pm. Until now we have tried to get editors who can’t find the answer themselves to send an email which we can respond to based on our own priorities but the demand for guaranteed help by phone at the time that the query comes up is too great to ignore.
The above changes in approach have come about following an editors’ survey we ran in the summer.

By: Jane McConnell

Jane McConnell — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:55:59 +0000

Ernst, I agree with you that new content publishers could need special support. Some might want pre-publication support, others post-publication.
Ironically, in a very large organization, even this support role would be decentralized.
What I think is really important is to have an understanding of what “content quality” means. I know of cases where the so-called quality standards are so high that only professional communicators with can meet them. That “paralyzes” the intranet and certainly does not encourage others to contribute. I realize this is not what you are suggesting, but I wanted to mention it because – for me – defining “content quality” is not an easy thing to do. Lots of flexibility is required in the definition to fit all publishing purposes in an intranet.

By: Jane McConnell

Jane McConnell — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:47:14 +0000

I agree with you, Mark and Richard, that the CMS and how it is deployed is a key enabler.
As I read through the comments from survey participants on the future role of the intranet manager (as I did a couple days ago while preparing this year’s report), I saw that many feel one major reason the role will evolve towards business support role and/or collaboration facilitation is because of the implementation of a CMS and distributed publishing.
The comments are thought-provoking as some people even think the role will disappear or be so devolved that it no longer resides in a single person/team.

By: Ernst Decsey

Ernst Decsey — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 23:15:09 +0000

We’ve just started decentralized content publishing and I think that another principle can be followed (alhtough this comment might be due to our early stage of decentralized content publishing).
Using a WCMS is one thing, laying down the right information in a good or right way is another and it takes time and experience to become proficient.
Setting up an Authoring Community can help but I think that having an initial temporary check of all the content published by new content publishers can help maintain content quality.
Ernst

By: Richard Dennison

Richard Dennison — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 10:37:44 +0000

Of course the ‘killer’ enabler is having a content management system that is intuitive enough for anyone to use and understand easily …
Richard

By: Mark Morrell

Mark Morrell — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:44:44 +0000

Jane,
Your 7 principles are pretty much what BT’s intranet goverance model has. I agree with what you say.
I would add enablers so it is more likely and easier for this to happen.
1. Templates – make sure as many standards are built into your templates so they don’t need to be added by the content publishers.
2. Training – make sure content publishers understand the context in which they are publishing and think of their audience’s needs not just their own.
3. Standards based on business, user and legal needs are used for any compliance tests for content published.
If anyone needs any more details you can find it on my blog http://markmorrell.wordpress.com/.
Mark