When the
Internet was invented, it was designed as a medium for researchers to share information
amongst themselves. Somehow, with all the rush to e-commerce, that original goals has been
ignored by many businesses. Now it's great that you've gone beyond using your web site for
simply displaying information about your company. You've gone interactive with
programs like our Ollie and WebSAFE. But I am constantly surprised at how few of you have
thought about using your web site to improve your own business processes. For
example, roughly 1/4 of our tech support inquiries involve information which is already in
our documentation. But we keep getting the same calls over and over. We used to say 'RTM',
meaning 'read the manual', which was fine if you have only one manual; but your company
now probably has lots of manuals. Manuals for word processors. Manuals for fax machines.
And not to mention all the office procedures that everyone 'just knows'. So you open a new
office. Or the one in-office guru gets sick. Now what? You have a bunch of people who
don't know what to do. The answer: use the internet as it was meant to be used.
Publish all your office procedures and you'll never have to worry about people knowing
what to do. Even if the guru gets sick. Even if you're on the road. Even if you have ten
offices.
How to get started? Well,
you could begin by publishing a single page of super important information that everybody
should know. Things like:
'Where are the backup tapes?'
'What's the phone number of the ISP for tech support?'
'What reports to print when closing the month?'
'How do I re-start the server?'
OK, you have your document.
Now publish it to your web site in a private folder (if you have a web site there is at
least one person in your organization who should know how to do this.) Next, give
the URL to everybody and ask them to open the page and assign it to one of their Favorites.
Presto! You're all sharing important information that will never again be lost.
But at some point, that one
document will get pretty long. So, you'll probably want to break it into several separate
pages. To do this, you can use the Personal Web Server which is included with Windows, or,
if you already have a copy of MS Office, you may also have FrontPage (even better). These
programs not only make it easy to create content (your pages of procedures, phone numbers,
etc.) but more importantly, they make it easy to link all these documents
together so that, as you add important bits of information, the new pages will be
automatically be available to your people from the single starting URL.
I cannot tell you how many
times this system has saved our collective butts. Knowing that there is a single place
where any appropriate person in our company can find:
Where spare car keys are to the truck
Who to call if the roof leaks
The phone numbers of our equipment leasing company
And so on. Having this type
of information in one place, that we can get to whenever (and wherever) we need to has
proven to be crucial to our success. I hope you will consider implementing a similar
system in your organization.
If you have suggestions of
your own, or need more guidance in setting up your own IntraNet, please do not hesitate to
contact me or any of our reps for tips or a helping hand.
All The Best,
---JC |
...I am constantly surprised at how
few of you have thought about using your web site to improve your own business
processes. |
