InfoWorld: Toward an instant messaging policy
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THE ADVICE LINE: BOB LEWIS http://www.infoworld.com
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Wednesday, February 2, 2005
IN THIS ISSUE
* Toward an instant messaging policy
* How to talk to the board
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TOWARD AN INSTANT MESSAGING POLICY
Dear Bob ...
Your advice on the importance of creating a good IM strategy is sound. As
a private company of about 50 people, we probably face very different
issues to those faced by large multi-national corporations. Any
suggestions or pointers on what an IM strategy should entail?
- Got the message instantly
Dear Got it ...
I'm far from an expert on the details. Symantec has a pretty good paper
on the subject:
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=B38EF9:353CA35
My personal opinion: The single most important issue is making sure
desktop-level antivirus is installed. IM includes file transfer. You can
disable it, but why bother - employees can get files as attachments to
e-mail anyway; IM file transfers are probably more efficient.
The second issue is the extent to which external parties can participate.
This is thorny. If you're wide open it creates security holes beyond
employees chatting with the wrong people, since IM clients, like any
other software, aren't perfectly hardened. If, on the other hand, you
restrict IM to intracompany communication you're missing an opportunity
to improve collaboration with business partners.
My semi-literate suggestion is to make sure you have an appropriate
approach to extranets, and to restrict IM use to internal use and use
with business partners through extranet connections.
Another difficult question is whether to disable the logging feature.
Logging is handy in that employees can review the information later;
it's also a bit dangerous because it creates another opening for
discovery processes should someone take legal action against your
business.
A last item ... and it's critical: Employee education. Not on how to use
the software - it's ridiculously easy to use. But on how to hit the off
switch. Just as it's important for employees to know how to forward
their telephones to voice mail so they can focus on getting actual work
done, it's important to remind them that having the channel and having
it open all the time are two different questions.
This isn't a comprehensive list, of course, but it should at least
provide a start.
- ...
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=B38EE1:353CA35
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HOW TO TALK TO THE BOARD
Dear Bob ...
Our CIO has to report to the board. He has asked us to put together some
information that gives them a snapshot without boring them to tears. The
main points should emphasize the impact to customers and end users.
We are working on categorizing the projects under some main points with a
short description that relates how the project/task supports the main
point. We are also putting together some statistics since this has not
been done in a long time: number of users, PCs, Servers, printers,
amount of disk space, VPN connections, phone systems, telephones,
applications, etc.
We've categorized our expenditures into:
* Compliance
* New Functionality
* Improved Employee Experience
* Infrastructure enhancements
There was quite a bit of this last, which consumed a considerable amount
of time and money. To give you a few examples, we replaced a lot of old
PCs, upgraded our WAN and LAN infrastructure, migrated to Active
Directory, and upgraded Exchange.
Many of these changes were fairly transparent to the end-users because we
did a good job of minimizing disruptions. They also do not have the
appearance of end-user or customer benefits because they were back-end
changes.
I was wondering if you knew of some website(s) that may have some
business benefit translations already done.
- Need some phrases
Dear Phrase-seeker ...
Sorry - I don't know of anything along those lines. It sounds like you're
on the right track so far. A few thoughts that might help:
* Compliance and new capabilities - these are where I'd recommend
directing as much of the board's attention as possible. Compliance is
obvious - fail and you're out of business, or at least have large
penalties in store. New capabilities drive either revenue enhancement,
cost reduction, or risk mitigation - subjects boards have an easy time
with. Add enough description to the big ones that the board gets a
picture of what's changing and how ("With the new software we can close
business in half the time, meaning less time for buyer's remorse.")
* Active Directory - present this in the context of identity management,
not in terms of back-end infrastructure. That lets you cast it in the
context of improving both security and end-user effectiveness. The
impact on security is obvious; the impact on end-user effectiveness is
better administration, meaning employees have proper access and
privileges promptly and accurately.
* Improve employee experience - I don't know about your board; most would
have a problem with this as a business rationale. I'd go heavier on the
"improve employee effectiveness" angle and use the improved employee
experience as a fringe benefit.
* Back-end improvements - lump these together under the category of
"technical infrastructure management" or some such label that sounds
daunting enough to ...
http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=B38EE3:353CA35
Bob Lewis is president of IT Catalysts, Inc., http://newsletter.infoworld.com/t?ctl=B38EF0:353CA35
, an independent consultancy specializing in IT effectiveness and
strategic alignment. Contact him at rdlewis@issurvivor.com .
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