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linked page.
 Workflow
(March 07, 2001) Periodically, we remind our readers to watch Dave Winer's work. Winer, who runs a
software/publishing company called Userland, is systematically ferreting
out the possibilities and potentials of the web. It's scary and
frustrating work.
Winer operates at the edge of the radar but is closely watched. His
flagship newsletter, the Scripting
News, is a sometimes focused, sometimes rambling view of the Internet,
the software industry and the changes that are happening in society and
our organizations.
As we watch companies adjust their communications to account for
the web's flattening, we're tickled at the difference between the
provocative an the status quo. The following article describes, in cynical
detail, Dave's perspective on workflow.
***Workflow
Yesterday I spent a bunch of time talking with Robert Scoble, a
conference manager at Fawcette, who's very bright and trying to figure
out what's going on here, same as me.
One of the questions that keeps coming up is why (or is) what
we're doing at UserLand different from the other content management
companies, Vignette, ATG, Interwoven, Broadvision. Clearly it is
different, if for no other reason that our software costs much less. But
that's just the beginning of the story.
One of the elusive features that others provide that we don't is
called "workflow." I wonder why we never implemented it and they did. I
wonder why it never showed up on my radar, yet it seems so central to
what they do. And then I had an aha. What follows is strong, so don't
read it if you can't stand a strong point of view.
The purpose of workflow is to keep content off the web. To
provide a sense of security to company management that all the right
people have to approve something before anyone outside the company can
read it. This can include relatively harmless checks, like making sure
that Web standards are respected, or it can make sure that the company's
lies are preserved, that no truth leaks out from behind the firewall. If
every statement has to get through the legal department, top management,
human resources, etc, so the theory goes, our company or organization
can't get in trouble.
Now I understand why it's not in our software. Our job is to make
it *easy* for people to get their ideas on to the Web, not hard. If you
have layers of editors in your way, I know that this starts warping your
personality, to the point where the work becomes tedious even
demoralizing. I said a few weeks ago (on Scripting News, my weblog) that
the Web these guys are writing for is not the same Web I write for, the
one I write for depends on people's judgment and recognizes that
companies are made up of people, and sometimes people make mistakes.
That's preferable, imho, to a story that either never gets told or is
told untruthfully.
Last week one of my people said something to someone outside the
company that made me cringe. I explained to him carefully why I don't
want us to say things that way. It could be big trouble. But I didn't
put a gag on him. I know he cares, and I know he does good work, and
that's one of the risks you take by giving your people a voice.
I remember when Brent Simmons launched his weblog, after much
prodding from me. I freaked out. "Now I'm not the only public voice of
my company on the Web." But I had a little talk with myself "Dave, you
*wanted* him to do this," I said. The initial shock is long gone, and
now I can't imagine a Web without Brent. He's a fantastic teacher, a
great writer, as long as he wants to write publicly, I want to read it,
and I want everyone who wants to to be able to.
So the bottom-line is that we are different because our natural
customers are the people inside an organization, and the content
management products are sold to management. Our purpose is to flow stuff
out to the Web, and honestly, from my point of view, the other guys'
purpose is to *not* flow stuff out to the Web. There's more money in
their business, because the management has more money, but there's more
Web in our business.
Over and over I learn that the barriers we erected in the past
that define workplaces don't work when the Web comes into the equation.
We're not the only ones. You can route around content firewalls by
starting an eGroup and inviting all interested people outside your
company to participate. Instant messaging and email are also
route-arounds.
So workflow is an illusion, like those silly non-disclosure
agreements that firewalls attach to the end of outgoing (public) emails.
The Web is revolutionary, it's hard to sell security with integrity when
there's a revolution (still) going on.
Dave Winer
(c) Copyright 1994-2001, Dave Winer. http://davenet.userland.com/.
"It's
even worse than it appears."
- John Sumser
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