A Tale of Two Portals: Target Audience and Portal Taxonomy

Consider the distinct methods of building information portals and you can respect the complexity involved in getting the right information in the right hands. 

The Two Dimensional Approach

Portal A is built with functions to aggregate private information to a public space.  This involves setting up the appropriate plumbing, arranging hierarchies, and maintaining intricate access control lists.

Portal B is built with target audience, everything is built horizontally, complex rules spring up for who sees what and when.

The challange with both approaches standardization across roles and competency levels.

The Role Based Approach

Glocal thought is just as important to information portals as it is to the flat world.  This involves a design that maximizes usability for different customers while simultaneously improving the efficiency of information workers.  Syndication of data is paramount for discovering interdependency of information, and aggregation of performance metrics to digital dashboards is a mandatory requirement for competitive advantage.

Devising a system to allow agile local control while nodding and respecting overlaps will put you ahead in the game.  The challenge here is balance.

It can be the best of times, it can be the worst of times depending on a slew of variables and how you handle them.