[Sigia-l] Seeking Best Practices: order for chaos

[Eric Scheid]

On 27/9/05 2:59 PM, "Listera" <listera at rcn.com> wrote:

> What's new here is the implied imperative you missed in the messages from me

Do I really need to explain what this emoticon means:   ;-)

> and, I believe, Sarah: a website cannot operate in contradiction to the
> organization it serves. Or viewed another way, an organization can't be
> sustainably changed simply by concocting a new virtual order with a website.
> What needs to change *is* the organization.

Or... the apparent organisational structure presented in the website can be
translated via that intermediary to the real organisational structure. So
long as something doesn't get dropped on the floor then all is well.

Take for example a hypothetical organisation that, due to local regulations
(eg. labour or environmental laws) has different departments providing the
exact same service to their customers depending on where they are serving
from ... when you order a DVD from them it shouldn't matter to you one whit
where the damn package comes from. It matters on the back end, sure, but
should *not* be reflected on the website.

Similarly, that website might well have different sections for different
markets and different service levels, yet they both get served by the same
warehouse. Again, the front-end org structure gets translated via the
website intermediary to the back-end org structure.

e.