Digital Governance Blog

Understanding Digital Governance Maturity

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There is a digital governance maturity curve that most organizations move through when they launch a digital channel (Web, mobile, or social). The process of maturity begins with the decision to launch a new channel, and it culminates with the organization having fully integrated that channel into the company to the extent that governing dynamics and operational processes are automatic, leaving the organization fully responsive to digital trends. The dynamics of each phase are fairly… Continue Reading Understanding Digital Governance Maturity

An arrow moving from lower left to upper right showing the digital governance maturity curve stages, Launch, Organic Growth, Chaos, Basic Management, Responsive.

An Automated Tool Can’t Ensure Standards

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A week doesn’t go by that I am not asked which automated tool can ensure online quality and what should organizations be looking for when assessing a standards tool. While there are ample toolsets in the marketplace, with varying features and associated price points, the reality is that tools can only support standards adoption and cannot drive their implementation. Quality tools are not inherently bad or a poor investment, but you need to understand their… Continue Reading An Automated Tool Can’t Ensure Standards

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Your Digital Governance: How Bad Is It?

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Rest assured—every organization has digital governance problems. Just because an organization might look good online doesn’t mean that it is getting a good return on its investment or operating in an effective, low-risk environment. I’ve seen plenty of “lipstick-on-pig” digital environments where a nice-looking website design was only thinly veiling an ineffective digital presence supported by no real digital strategy and an uncoordinated digital team—governance gone wild! I’ve also seen some “looks like it was… Continue Reading Your Digital Governance: How Bad Is It?

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Cramming for GDPR or Is It Simply a Review?

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In school, there are always three types of students: those who regularly study and are ready for the exam those who cram the night before in order to just pass the exam those who wing it and hope for the best. The world of digital policy and regulatory compliance is not all that different. The world of digital policy and regulatory compliance is not all that different. Recently the chatter around General Data Protection Regulation… Continue Reading Cramming for GDPR or Is It Simply a Review?

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Five Digital Governance Design Factors

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Digital governance frameworks would be easy to design if they existed in a vacuum. But they don’t. There are many pre-existing organizational factors in every business that influence which aspects of an organization ought to be accountable and responsible for making decisions about what’s happening online. Sometimes the dynamics of these factors are so hard-wired into an organization’s operational processes that they can be difficult to change. Staff and management feel that these dynamics are… Continue Reading Five Digital Governance Design Factors

Illustration showing numbers 1 through 5 (to represent five factors.)

Supporting Digital Operations with Standard Operating Procedures

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IT departments have long relied on standard operating procedures (SOPs) for server security lock downs and other infrastructure-related activities. Help desks use them routinely to quickly address user issues. So why would you not develop standard operating procedures for digital operations? Certainly not every policy or standard requires a supporting operating procedure, but consider a scenario where you are trying to troubleshoot an issue with your webpage header not properly displaying, but rather looking small… Continue Reading Supporting Digital Operations with Standard Operating Procedures

Three white flags with red words that say Standards Operating Procedure. The flags are waving in the air with a background of a blue sky and clouds.

Digital Transformation: More than Marketing Well Online

Digital Governance Blog, Digital Governance Fundamentals / By

I like marketing teams. I work with them about 80% of the time when engaged in a digital governance project. That’s because very often it is the marketing team that is responsible for driving an organization’s online footprint (with some support from IT). Unlike some other parts of the business, marketers are good at messaging. They are good at talking up their own importance in the organization. And, they love to talk about digital disruption… Continue Reading Digital Transformation: More than Marketing Well Online

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The Customer Contract: Addressing Personally Identifiable Information In Your Organization

Digital Governance Blog / By

As a digital governance consultant focusing on policies, I interact regularly with digital marketing professionals and corporate counsels who appreciate the risk of data breach and recognize that someone within the organization should be thinking about privacy protection. Often there is a privacy officer involved in the discussion, but not always. Large multinationals tend to disseminate that accountability across the globe and smaller organizations don’t have enough work to hire a privacy specialist, so it… Continue Reading The Customer Contract: Addressing Personally Identifiable Information In Your Organization

Justice scales, showing balance among data circuits

Identifying Your Digital Team

Digital Governance Blog, Digital Governance Fundamentals / By

Your digital team is the full set of resources required to keep the digital process functioning for your organization. Your digital team includes not just the the core product-focused teams found in marketing/communications and IT, but also the casual content contributors, business unit Web managers, supporting software vendors, and organizational agencies of record. Your digital team also includes those who administer and support digital efforts by tending to the programmatic aspects of the digital team,… Continue Reading Identifying Your Digital Team

Governing Software and Navigating Audits

Digital Governance Blog / By

If your company has not received an audit request from a software vendor asking you to validate what aspects of their tools or service you are using in order to assess licensing fees, it is only a matter of time. While many vendors have implemented half-successful automated processes to measure usage and licensing of their software, this area of digital is still quite immature. As a result, vendors may request data, access to your systems,… Continue Reading Governing Software and Navigating Audits

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