** Reply to note from [log in to unmask] Fri, 19 Feb 1999 10:30:15 GMT
> I'm interested in this thread but struck by a lack of one aspect. That
> is the very simple one of providing a place/mechanism for much of
> our day-to-day work to be made available on the web. Most of what
> I am talking about will be "intranet" by target (even if we don't bother
> to restrict by address etc) but the crucial point is that this must all be
> doable by people who have very little knowledge of web
> technicalities, who would not recognise an HTML tag if it bit them
> and who can come to regard the process as about as simple as
> printing a document.
>
> I'm thinking about committee papers, office documents,
> announcements, consultations, requests for information etc etc.
> (You all know the volume of stuff which we in the Registry churn
> out :-) )
Been there, seen it, done it etc. Very few people can generate a vast
amount of info that is primarily for internal consumption. As others
have already suggested if you have a few contact points (ie. capable
users who are KEEN) it will get going very fast. On our server 2 of us
have generatd 7500 pages in my case over a period of 2 to 3 years.
Here are a couple of the problems I have found:
1. You cannot change depts/offices and get them to put on an intranet
what they have always done on paper (even with new staff in place it
might be difficult);
2. If your senior management do not use computers (ie. they ask their
secretary to print everything that is on the www) you are on a looser.
(You will succeed in setting up an intranet, you will personally loose is
what I mean). The fact that an intranet is contributing to a better
managed organisation with the right information being available for the
right person is quite irrelevant. [Do I sound bitter?]
The easiest thing you got when you set up an intranet is between you, the
machine and the software. Whether you want IP protection or password
protection at various levels it is easy. Dr Bloggs is a problem though.
Leadership for what is (what should be) webmanagement should come from
above. I have yet to be convinced for the value top management put on
the www. They who hold the purse strings define correctly or wrongly
what a web manager is? [Am I a cynic?]
Regards
Charles
BTW. Brian, you must have touched a very touchy point with many p[eople
on this list. Good, at least web people are not yet brain dead :-)
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Charles Christacopoulos, Secretary's Office, University of Dundee,
Dundee DD1 4HN, (Scotland) United Kingdom.
Tel: +44+(0)1382-344891. Fax: +44+(0)1382-201604.
WebDad of http://somis.ais.dundee.ac.uk/
Home of the Scottish Search Maestro http://somis2.ais.dundee.ac.uk/
Happily using OS2 Warp.
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