Publishing is an information technology business, but technology may not be enough. It is more than having the capacity to invest in technology or even the desire, there must be a strategy behind the effort. The Scholarly Kitchen brought this topic to our attention in their article, “Why Is It So Hard to Solve Problems with Technology?”
Publishing is not the only industry that suffers from the “new toy” syndrome. Just because the technology exists, doesn’t mean it needs to be purchased, installed and applied. Publishers do struggle to apply technology, even when they can see the benefit. What they frequently fail to include are the processes that come with new technology. You can’t keep doing things the same way and expect the technology to adapt.
Whether you specifically define them or not, your organization has workflows, because that’s how things get done – how products get made and how services get delivered. This is true for publishing as well. Workflows can help streamline and automate tasks, minimizing room for errors and increasing overall efficiency.
Melody K. Smith
Sponsored by Data Harmony, a unit of Access Innovations, the world leader in indexing and making content findable.
