Working Together Online

NGOs and other civil society organizations have done a great job of putting up websites rich with information and resources related to their mission and projects accessible by the general public, and, of course, Google's search engine. Web Networks' web servers pass huge amounts of data every day, comprising millions of people accessing even more millions of website pages.

But what organizations have found more difficult and are less successful in deploying are private websites for their members/staff to exchange information, or to store and search through the knowledge base of the organization."Intranets" or private website area accessible only to staff or members with passwords potentially can function as an organization's own Wikipedia--certainly useful to orient new staff, and for reference on project and policy discussions.

Managers may be hesitant to allow junior or administrative staff access to committee minutes, or discussions about sensitive issues, but in fact such an "open source" organization can benefit from increasing access to all of its resources. If you move the informal discussions that occur in an organization online, thus making them transparent, there is a safety and ease as well as increased creativity and agility that can be introduced to an organization.

The technology of a private area can be simple and inexpensive--a mailing list, with a searchable archive of messages.  Any feature available on a website can be set up in an intranet, and the intranet can become an important meeting place and unifying force for an organization.

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***UPDATE*** November3, 2002

Since this post went ive, we actually have been contracted to deliver intranets in projects we for CMHA Toronto, C2D2, CEP 707, and CUPE 3904, and Toronto Community Housing. Perhaps as staff in organizations are flooded with e-mails, Facebook updates, etc., the  concept of an intelligently managed information base has become more attractive and useful.