Government Intranets
Jakob Neilsen's analysis of government intranets versus private-sector intranets was interesting. His statistics that highlighted the increased efficiency of government operations within several U.S. and foreign government agencies does seem to suggest that government agencies are capable of reshaping and streamlining their practices even when market forces are not present to "encourage" then, like private-sector entities.
More government agencies should reshape their intranets, thus improving their efficiency. I agree with Neilsen when he makes this claim - the statistics certainly show it; however, I think that governments (especially the U.S government) need to increasingly take measures to simplify themselves and their operations. Nielsen's suggestions and illustrations should be adopted by more U.S. government officials. Our leaders need to rail against the common assumption that government agencies and the employees do not operate efficiently. Indeed, that may be the case in many of the U.S. government's many agencies, which makes it even more imperative that the examples of government successes on behalf of government agencies to improve themselves through an improves intranet are heeded by our government leaders.
2 Comments:
I agree that Intranets are a wonderful way to improve efficiency as it provides companies and organizations information and serves as an outlet to perform taks faster. Companies willing to invest, particularly the government, will see great return in the performance of staff and satisfaction of customers.
Intranets are great tools. They are the best means to aggregate inside information. I work on the hill and we've had an intranet in operation at the US House for a number of years. It is very helpful for finding forms and information, as well as a useful form of communication for a targeted audience.
We've been waiting since it has been stood up to use it as a means to really customize and direct content at the user level. This requires backend infrastructure improvements (such as a migration to Microsoft Active Directory) that we are still waiting on...
A number of things need to be in place in order to leverage the power of an intranet. I would guess that many organizations use it as we do (a simple information and announcement depot), but the potential to do much more is right around the corner.
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