If you work at a medium-to-large company, you probably spend more time on your company's intranet site than on its external customer Website. Employees share content there that's too sensitive and secret for outsiders to see.
But the internal/external wall is breaking down, as companies need to share more and more content with freelancers, external sales reps, business partners, and so many other people who can't get inside the firewall but still need internal information.
Fortunately, today's Web technology allows you to solve these dilemmas, and might even save you some money you're spending on your intranet site.
Intranets grew up in the late 80s and early 90s, as (mostly) larger companies tried to harness the power of the Internet inside their enterprises. The free sharing that makes an intranet valuable also requires airtight security -- leaking trade secrets detracts from the collaboration value rather rapidly. So those secrets were locked up behind massive firewalls that were difficult for hackers to penetrate.
But nowadays, companies need a lot more people collaborating than just employees. The best companies are using a symphony of “musicians” from outside the enterprise to harmonize the company’s work. The most forward-thinking companies, such as Dell and Procter & Gamble, are even crowdsourcing product development with customers and other outsiders.
What’s more, the traditional intranet approach is collapsing under the pressure for information that must be available both inside and outside the organization. Sales information that customers should see is copied and enhanced with additional information behind the firewall for sales employees. Guess what happens when the information needs to be updated? Yeah, often only the version on one side of the wall gets the changes.
The firewall is starting to look rather antiquated.
What’s needed is a more holistic approach to security that mirrors how companies deal with secrets inside the enterprise. You see, once you get behind that firewall, even as an employee, you don’t get to see everything. Powerful data access systems control which content can be seen by which employees, based on their individual needs to know.
If you work in the CFO’s office, you might see this quarter’s earnings before the public announcement, but not if you work in customer service. The same approach can be applied to all information both inside and outside the enterprise.
In fact, the right way to think about this is that there is no “inside” or “outside” the enterprise. Some contractors preparing press releases might need to see the earnings information that most employees don’t. A company’s vendors -- and a customer in the beta program -- must be routinely briefed under nondisclosure terms on unannounced products, but most employees don’t need to know such secrets.
If every person who interacts with company information gets a userID that allows them access to the information they should see, why would we still need firewalls? A single Website could be open for the general public, with trusted customers, vendors, employees, and others having special clearance to see more. Some of this information would be shown to anyone, and other information would require that you log in to be authenticated to the data access system, the same way employees do on intranets today.
Companies could knock down the firewalls that artificially separate content into two classes of information, and they could end the pointless duplication of information that needs to be on both sides of that wall. It would cost less and it would foster more collaboration.
What are you waiting for?
— Mike Moran, author of Do It Wrong Quickly, is a speaker and consultant on Internet marketing.
I like the overall concept and your theory is sound. Trouble seems to be a lack of understanding of Enterprise 2.0 and how it actually improves productivity.
The majority of decision makers in companies today lack the initiative to change. As more and more case studies emerge we should see your vision realized. Probably 2011.
Inside & Outside was the old view of the enterprise data sharing. Today its not a boundary, its a spectrum where more than internal or external, the classification is defined upon the role, current location, need among other things.
Totally agree, TNT. I find the cool thing about being an old IT guy is that we can dredge up old solutions to what we recognize as old problems that other people have never seen before.
I remember the very first POS system I built in 1989... Dos and Realworld POS on LANtastic...
It was a retail application and what we did back then was to establish an information flow chart based on who (customer, retail clerk, stock clerk, manager, owner, or customer) needs to know in order to fulfil business priorities and customer/employee requirements and expectations.
I expect this model is similiar to what is being discussed and the "firewall" piece is simple one of the many components necessary to provide information on an as needed and as expected basis.
Fear often prevents people from making appropriate decisions. I actually have a current client who wishes to have zero internet access for any member of his organization and has a core proprietary application that works in DOS (remember 16 bit?). This client has a difficult time understanding the risks, safeguards, and benefits of having his employees utilize modern day technology to help the business run more efficiently. His company is established and profitable, but the writing is on the wall in terms of going forward into the larger marketspace his competitors have already embraced.
The intranet/internet question, to me, is simply a case of deciding what specific information needs to be available, and who needs access to it.
I don't know that all companies have no use for intranets anymore, but I certainly think they need to be more sophisticated about their approach than the old inside vs. outside pioneered over a decade ago. Thanks for your comment.
What's worse is when an intranet and Internet site are identical, yet an organization insists in still listing out intranet sites. Intranet is word a that should be put in a time capsule, really. Even though the word has been around for at least 13 years, there are plenty of people who don't know what it means anyway.
I agree Mike - I suggested (as a premium offering) why not give me the option to pay for something I can't get ANYWHERE else. In the case of YES, on demand interviews with players/coaches/fans. YES was talking about just b'casting games (ummm, nice but not really premium in our book since we DVR them/on demand them)
In the case of music concerts maybe, stream it exclusively to payers of electronic tickets, either at home or on smartphones. This idea was solid gold in my mini focus group LOL!
But we're not talking apples to apples - but I'm just saying... ... ...
Great questions, Steve. Personalization technology would let you do any of the things you point out and is the natural extension of the Web. Why get one-size-fits-all if there is something more customized to what you want (and are willing to pay for)?
Mike - Great post and great comments. I was speaking with a colleague in the advertising biz (yes it DOES still exist) and we had just sat through a discussion on paid premium content (ie, like what YES is doing with "broadcasting" Yankees games to your smartphone for a premium fee) and we started talking. "I wonder if people would pay for NOT having advertising in their webpages"
Aside from the "How could you do this" - it led us to discussing Intranet, how that's "supported" by background transparent to the user commerce. And soon, "Why is everything having to be monetized???"
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