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21 Pass It On: Newsl. Gov't & Pub. Sector Law. Div. 1 (2011)

handle is hein.journals/passit21 and id is 1 raw text is: Part One: Set Up and Design By Jerry Lawson ew Platt, former CEO of Hewlett Packard, once observed that if HP only knew what it knew it would be three times more productive. An intranet is one way to help a government law office know what it knows with the desired result of increased pro- ductivity. A private website for use by members of a particular organization, an intranet uses the same technologies as the public internet, but restricts access to members of the host organization. Intranets may house a variety of information including memos, briefs, forms, check- lists, citations to law review articles, significant cases, or links to useful web sites-just about anything that will help lawyers perform their jobs more effectively. This article will discuss the nature of intranets, the challenges they pose, and some key points in designing a successful intranet. Part Two, in the next issue, will discuss rollout, training and operation tips. Intranet Basics -A I r An intranet could be as simple as an organized collection of folders on a shared network drive, possibly supplemented with a static HTML page containing hypertext links to key resources. It could also be based on a com- mercial product like Microsoft Sharepoint, or be custom designed. Some organizations are deciding to base their intranets in the cloud (i.e, on the public internet, but with access restricted through the use of passwords or other security techniques.) Google Apps is a popular cloud-based intranet host. In addition to the items listed above, intranets could include: collections of resources related to particular practice areas, CLE and other training materials, wikis (one of the most powerful possible components) and blogs (good for distributing and archiving announcements). Many intranet owners find great value in including administrative materials like office policies, announcements, calendars, etc. Office directories can be annotated to indicate areas of expertise, especially useful in larger offices. Martin Cordell, a lawyer with the Washington State Department of Financial Institu- tions (DFI), says that the DFI intranet provides lawyers with administrative services including travel assistance, leave management, access to payroll and benefits informa- tion and much more. Lawyers working at remote sites find this very helpful. Having that information on the DFI Intranet has certainly made my life and the lives of other DFI employees a lot easier by enabling them to locate these resources in a convenient place and way, notes Cordell. Seth Kaufman, a lawyer with the Department of Transportation Office of Inspector General, finds the work process management features of his intranet particularly use- ful. His office maintains a list of all open projects that any member of the legal staff can edit. Through a workflow on the intranet, his office communicates staffing assignments to the client offices. This way, our lawyers know who's assigned to what, and our cli- ent offices can check to see who is assigned to their project. Challenges Believe it or not, the main challenge to intranet success is human nature, something economists call the free rider problem. Intranets depend on users who are willing to take the time to contribute valuable information to the group. Unfortunately, many potential contributors may feel they are too busy to do so. Without other incentives, the easiest choice is to be a free rider: avoid contributing to the intranet, but make use of any worthwhile information others contribute.

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