Control

The 'corporate culture' of your company can affect the kind of information you will store on the intranet. Some organizations require information to be strictly controlled, but sometimes the level of management can affect any of the usability, employee take-up, fear of posting the 'wrong' thing. It doesn't take many unpopular decisions from management to transform a culture of 'we' as a company all pulling together to a 'them' and 'us' situation in the whole or part of the company. You have to be aware of this if at all possible so that you are not drawn into the mire - other people will decide for you if you're part of the 'them' or part of the 'us' very quickly. Some of the things you have to consider:

• Responsibility for control.

• Creating a knowledge base

• Do the employees see it as another method of management control? Is there a Trade Union that has to be involved?

How Controlled is Your Information?

If you are in an organization where there needs to be (or just is) a lot of control then you will have to make the case for freedom when using forums. Sometimes it's to do with office politics and power; maybe it's just the style of management that has been built up over the years. Both areas are maybe uncomfortable for techies who build web sites, but nevertheless even in the freest of companies you will come across it somewhere. If that sounds like experience, you'd be correct. A cynic would say that it's largely about power. I leave this part of the discussion to your own judgment.

If your management insists on seeing all postings before they are made then it's going to mean that your forum becomes very slow and stilted. The time that this is likely to be suggested is just after there's been a posting that has in some way rocked the boat. A sort of knee-jerk reaction that happens to the best of us. If control is overly heavy then this could really hurt the forums, people will feel like the Orwellian Big Brother is watching them, as in 'them' and 'us' mentioned above.

If your forums are loosely managed, what is the worst that can happen? Is it a life-threatening issue? Or is the control going to come through insisting that staff register and log in to the forum? The "Rules for Posting" should be clear and brief and visible on the launch page of the forum. A sample is shown below.

The forum is provided for the use of (company name) employees. Anything you post here can be read by the whole company, although you have to register to be able to make postings. We ask that you keep to the topics, and please conduct discussions in the manner of normal business. Each topic is moderated. Copyright of all posting is vested in (company name).

Responsibility for Control

Who within your company is going to be responsible for the forum? Is it going to be the responsibility of IT, of other management, marketing, or of experts in the field? Let's consider the pros and cons of each.

As you see, the number of cons outweigh the pros in my list above - this is intentional - it cannot be an exhaustive list - it's up to you to provide what's best for your company.

Problem Issues

Do employees see a forum as another method of management control? Is there involvement from a Trades Union?

In some companies everything has to be discussed and approved before implementation. If you work in one of those companies then you'll be well-versed in dealing with this issue, if it is an issue. As you've probably guessed I'm a great forum fan and see them as a great liberator of knowledge. By using a forum all employees can raise questions. Analyzing these questions will provide, as well as answers to do the job more effectively, the extension of the knowledge base so that others can benefit from everyone's experience.

One way of overcoming this is to provide a demonstration system. The next section illustrates one method of doing it for free.