Assessing Your Organization's Use of Information

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This section gives you tools to discuss the mission and function of your organization and examine how information is used. Taking a look at how your organization uses information to achieve its goals can help you understand the relevance of different types of information to your organization and the processes involved in getting and giving them. It can also help you plan how the Internet can improve these processes.

Information is an important aspect of any type of work. The farmer needs to know the current prices and availability of specific crops to decide what to cultivate and send to market. The chief executive officer of a corporation must keep informed about competitors' activities, new ways to manufacture and market products, how much customers are paying, and what is and is not selling. The university professor must stay in touch with colleagues and understand what research is taking place in his or her field. And, as you will read, HEALTHLINK 2000 needs to keep abreast of scientific and political developments, new funding opportunities, and initiatives by partner organizations. All of this information and more can be transmitted via the Internet.

Overview: Conducting an Assessment of Your Organization's Use of Information

In conducting this information-oriented assessment, you will complete a series of exercises. The exercises serve as a starting point to help you define your organization's purpose or mission, analyze its information use, and provide some important input in developing an Internet action plan. The information use analysis here in Step 2 will show clearly the relationship between the purpose of your organization or business, the type of information you use, and why you use it. Later you will determine which Internet applications can best meet these needs. Here is what you will do in these exercises:

1. Define succinctly (20 to 30 words) your organization's purpose or mission. (If your organization already has such a statement, use it rather than create a new one.) You will link how your organization uses information to its purpose.

2. Identify how and with whom you share information to accomplish your organization's purpose.

3. Identify what information you share with your target audiences and why you share it.

Worksheets for creating your own information use analysis are located in the appendices. You—ideally in collaboration with others in your organization—need to think through the questions on the worksheets, using HEALTHLINK 2000 as a guide. Whether you develop the first draft of these worksheets by yourself or with others, remember to make sure that everyone in the organization, at all levels, agrees with your responses.



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