Action Planning for Use of the Internet

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In Step 1 (Awareness) and Step 2 (Assessment), you introduced the Internet to your colleagues and analyzed how your organization receives and gives out information. In Step 3 (Finding Answers to Technical Questions) and Step 4 (Training), you explored the technical aspects of getting Internet access and training colleagues on how to use the Internet. You have now had a chance to try some of the Internet's most used and useful features, and you have gained some sense of how these features can contribute to your mission.

Step 5 focuses on how the Internet can be used to accomplish tasks important to your workplace—communicating with nearby or distant associates, publicizing your organization, selling products and services, and conducting research, among others. Simply purchasing the equipment and connecting to the Internet will not bring about results. To take full advantage of this new tool, you need to develop a plan to introduce it into your organization and devise concrete steps to apply it to achieving your development objectives.

Overview: Developing an Internet Action Plan

The best action plans are written by the people who will implement them. After all, they know their jobs, the work environment, and the constraints under which they operate. They are in the best position to anticipate problems and solutions encountered in doing something different.

You will need the good ideas and the support of your co-workers, even though occasionally it may seem less time-consuming just to write the plan yourself. Depending on your organization and your position in it, you will need the support of your supervisor, your employees, or your board of directors. We suggest involving your colleagues in a three-phase planning process:

1. Conduct a brainstorming or dreaming session that allows people's imaginations to roam free. What would you do to reach your organization's goals if there were no barriers to sharing information? How would you change your program? Exercise 4 gives you a framework to facilitate this dreaming.

2. Then, return to reality, but with a sense of the possibilities that the Internet can bring to your organization now or in the future. Develop action goals for introducing the Internet into your work (Exercise 5).

3. Draft an action plan to achieve the goals. The action plan will carry you beyond the dream phase of Internet access into the realm of practical use. A well thought-out plan will detail the resources required, time frame, people responsible, and evaluation procedures needed to accomplish your goals (Exercise 6).

Dreaming

Although you may be reluctant to spend time on a dreaming session, it is worth your time. Why?

This session enables you and your colleagues to think of new ways your organization could do business if the communication barriers it currently faces were removed. How might your organization use the features of the Internet in an ideal world?

What if you could send your newsletter to all its readers—for free? What if you could instantly tell your entire board of directors about a new policy development? What if you could instantly access the most up-to-date information on any subject? How could your organization take advantage of these and other things that could result from a world without communication barriers?

Dreaming will help you see how to use the Internet in creative ways that further your organization's mission and goals. Do not make it a long exercise—perhaps 30 or 60 minutes at most. Have fun!

When this exercise has been introduced in Leland Initiative Training workshops, participants have found it very useful. Dreaming is an important phase in planning how you can take advantage of this new tool. It allows you to think beyond the way things are now and to imagine the way things could be.

Exercise 4: Dreaming about the Way Things Could Be

Think about the Internet features you now know about, as well as some of the features that you have not experienced firsthand but have heard about.

Take a few minutes and dream about what your organization would do differently if all communication barriers were removed. Write your ideas on the Dreaming worksheet, just as Tina and the other staff of HEALTHLINK 2000 did in the following example.


post by santan...29th...july......