http://netjmc.com/intranet-strategy-governance/governance-publishing-approving-prioritizing Digital Workplace Strategy & Governance Sun, 20 May 2012 12:48:44 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.2 http://netjmc.com/intranet-strategy-governance/governance-publishing-approving-prioritizing/comment-page-1#comment-340 Jane McConnell Thu, 14 Jan 2010 18:22:34 +0000 http://wntr.org/tempjmc/2010/01/governance-publishing-approving-prioritizing/#comment-340 Brian, I agree with the spirit of your comments, but not with some of the specifics. Firstly, the intranet managers are not deciding to publish or not publish. Based on my research, I have seen that where intranets are becoming or have become workplaces for organizations (stages 2 or 3), publishing is part of the jobs of many people throughout the organization. The intranet manager is more of a facilitator than a publisher. It is in less mature intranets that the intranet manager does all the publishing. I would also say that the core business of enterprises is one aspect of intranets and is - I totally agree - often neglected. Fortunately, this is less the case today than a couple of years ago. What I feel is more important is that there are many activities that support the core business and they cannot all be related in quantitative numbers to increasing sales and decreasing costs. I find this too simplistic, a sort of "CFO-blinders" approach. There are other dimensions of enterprise activities that are part of the intranet landscape: networking, brainstorming, exchanging ideas, good practices, collaborative working on documents, etc. Task support is only part of what intranets must do, but there is much more. What do you have in mind when you refer to "debates about content and workflow"? Brian, I agree with the spirit of your comments, but not with some of the specifics.
Firstly, the intranet managers are not deciding to publish or not publish. Based on my research, I have seen that where intranets are becoming or have become workplaces for organizations (stages 2 or 3), publishing is part of the jobs of many people throughout the organization. The intranet manager is more of a facilitator than a publisher. It is in less mature intranets that the intranet manager does all the publishing.
I would also say that the core business of enterprises is one aspect of intranets and is – I totally agree – often neglected. Fortunately, this is less the case today than a couple of years ago.
What I feel is more important is that there are many activities that support the core business and they cannot all be related in quantitative numbers to increasing sales and decreasing costs. I find this too simplistic, a sort of “CFO-blinders” approach.
There are other dimensions of enterprise activities that are part of the intranet landscape: networking, brainstorming, exchanging ideas, good practices, collaborative working on documents, etc.
Task support is only part of what intranets must do, but there is much more. What do you have in mind when you refer to “debates about content and workflow”?

]]> http://netjmc.com/intranet-strategy-governance/governance-publishing-approving-prioritizing/comment-page-1#comment-339 Brian Lamb Mon, 11 Jan 2010 14:58:39 +0000 http://wntr.org/tempjmc/2010/01/governance-publishing-approving-prioritizing/#comment-339 The post triggers some questions for me. If intranet managers are trying to decide to publish or not publish why is this different from daily decisions any other manager in a business makes about activities under their control? Mostly these are made (or meant to be made)on the basis of cost and benefit. In our studies of Intranet tasks we find a low number of tasks that are directly connected to the core competence of organisations - tasks that connect directly to how they actually make money or define their special value in the marketplace. Senior managers often view the Intranet as distant from the real business and discourage teams from engaging too directly in case it wastes their time. Debates about "content" and "workflow" reinforce this perception. Does publication increase sales or decrease costs? How much? And how? Tough questions but they have to part of governance. The post triggers some questions for me. If intranet managers are trying to decide to publish or not publish why is this different from daily decisions any other manager in a business makes about activities under their control? Mostly these are made (or meant to be made)on the basis of cost and benefit.
In our studies of Intranet tasks we find a low number of tasks that are directly connected to the core competence of organisations – tasks that connect directly to how they actually make money or define their special value in the marketplace. Senior managers often view the Intranet as distant from the real business and discourage teams from engaging too directly in case it wastes their time. Debates about “content” and “workflow” reinforce this perception.
Does publication increase sales or decrease costs? How much? And how? Tough questions but they have to part of governance.

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