An organisation’s corporate website is normally developed for the delivery of information to the general public. Visitors browse a website and pull information from it. In the scenario of an information hub the website should be a portal to all corporate services and platforms available via the web and also include information directing visitors to acquisition information for other none web services. It should also include links to other websites or services which logically connect to the hub and become a one stop shop, the convergence point of a network.

All technical papers, from the organisation, for public availability should be accessible. Procedures must be implemented to insure any inquiry for these public documents from the website should be easy to find and ultimately satisfied.

Policy briefs

Thematic papers

Training materials

Publications and eBooks

These technical papers and publications must also be available in the organization’s knowledge level information systems. This is not just in the form of electronic copies, but also as paper copy stored and catalogued with the documentation centre.

Other resources from the corporate knowledge levels systems including those in other media, for example audio and video, should be linked on the website with details of how these can be acquired as physical copies. Consider also hosting on the Kindle system and Google books for publications, where it can also be sold, and on Youtube for video and audio. These platforms not only provide free space, but also can acquire hits from an audience outside those specifically interested in the organisation’s broad themes. The corporate website and public information from the organisation are also made available for public awareness and not just solely for thematic practitioners. When developing content, the target audience needs to be carefully considered.

News sections will include news from the organization and also sectioned thematic news. Google news and RSS feeds can populate large parts of the pages, but should be complemented by internally generated content. Corporate events and significant activities would be important news items, but in many cases consider updating content before, during and after. RSS news feeds can be made available for subscribers, but insure that these are comprehensive and regular. A feed with no content is of no interest to anyone and referral by subscribers is unlikely.

Larger events would warrant their own sub-domain and web space. Human resources must be dedicated to insure that the website is updated daily during the event with, perhaps, RSS feeds made available for subscribers.

A calendar will also include all corporate events:

Courses

Scheduled online courses

Workshops

Conferences

Seminars

with links for the interested public to get more information. These are important knowledge activities which extend before and beyond the event itself.

Blogs or discussion forums, FAQ, Q&A and Wikis should be carefully arranged. Certain thematic areas may warrant a sub-domain which includes news, events, blogs etc. sections.

Copies of corporate newsletters would be downloadable from the hub after they had been delivered to subscribers, but it might be worth considering dividing each newsletter by article as an online searchable resource, also made available to subscribers as RSS feeds. Although the content would be duplicated for subscribers that also receive the newsletter, in this form as individual articles it can be catalogued by the subscribers in the RSS reader. FURL or similar solutions should be used to insure browsing consistency.

FURL, RSS feeds from Google News and other group tools could also facilitate group contributions to corporate newsletter production.

Information for new subscribers and links to relevant newsletters from other organisations will enhance the website’s reputation as a one stop shop.