Steve

I wish I could offer you a lot of positive news from Down Under but 
like your circumstance I face the problem like IT 'new' road builders 
digging potholes in the way - not all IT people just it seems the one's 
with too much influence.

The strategy I try to use, and you indicated some of this approach in 
your reply to Linda, is to emphasise the discovery aspects (this will 
make finding information easier; improve on the reliability of any 
approaches like federated searching through consistent labelling of 
content; make life easier for your staff in the longer run). The 
management helps but I think focus on the wins for them in terms of 
discovery (I imagine everyone want a Google search as well and you can 
finesse the selling point to how some simple consistent structuring of 
information will help that approach as well - and I really really hate 
the term google search but lets not go there).

Keep the structured fields you want to use relatively simple at this 
point (not too many fields to make life difficult) and the lists of 
available selections low. Get some runs on the board and as people see 
the benefits start to talk up other fields / slight expansion of the 
system . Don't bother with trying to convince the IT people, instead 
keep your eyes and ears out for people within your company  who have a 
certain need for finding information and struggle with it and talk up 
your option (the drive for the change comes from them - hopefully 
through their Manager , and sails past any IT opposition, who are after 
all only a service provider not the business decision makers...well 
they should not be). The fact that helping people discover information 
will also help you and others manage the information is a happy 
coincidence!

Regards

John D
Records Manager
Down Under

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