English
Envoyé: 6 mars, 2000 07:45
À: HoltzUpdate
Objet: HC+T Update: March 2000
Subject: HC+T Update
March 6, 2000
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In This Issue:
o Should Your Company Be An ASP?
o "Widgets" Add Relevance To Intranets
o Get Page-Specific Feedback
o Are The Candidates In Synch With You?
o Web Writing Workshop Dates Set
o HC+T Update
o Boilerplate And Subscription Information
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SHOULD YOUR COMPANY BE AN ASP?
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I was struck recently by remarks made by the head honcho
at one of the big medical Websites. Noting that the site
had not generated the kind of traffic that had been
anticipated, he said the company had come to the
conclusion that it could not rely on content to
attract an audience.
Not that content isn't important, but there are several
sites competing for the same audience with very similar
health-oriented material. To become a top destination,
the organization concluded, it had to become an
Application Service Provider (ASP). That is, it had
to offer server-based applications that visitors would
use over and over.
Any number of ASPs populate the Web, but being an ASP
is their entire business model. I have just started to
use XDrive, a company that allows you to back up your
files on their system. (It's different from its
competitors thanks to a small downloadable application
that maps your XDrive storage folder to your Windows
Explorer directory, allowing you to drag files from
your local drives directly into your remote backup
folder.) The consulting consorium to which I belong,
NetGain, is using Intranet.com as a means of
communicating, sharing calendars, and storing files,
and managing projects.
What makes the medical site different is that the
applications will complement rich content. A diabetic,
for example, can learn about diabetes and explore
alternate treatments on the site, but they may also
be able to maintain their daily blood-sugar diaries,
accessing the resource from anywhere a browser is
available, and even providing their doctors with
access to their diaries.
A lot of organizations scratch their heads in wonder
that the volume of outstanding content on their sites
fail to attract audiences. With the volume of good
content available from multiple Web-based resources,
though, these organizations may need to follow the
lead established by the health site. Should part of
your Web business model include providing an
interactive resource to your audiences? It's worth
considering as part of your site's evolution.
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WIDGETS ADD RELEVANCE TO INTRANETS
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I recently completed a project for a client in which
I was asked to assess the best next steps for the
company's intranet. Executive interviews and employee
focus groups revealed that several departments had
the need for the same information, but in different
contexts. As I worked through the results with my
technical advisor, he suggested the idea of a "widget
library."
Before getting into the notion of the library, let me
explain the idea of a widget. This is a chunk of code
that can be copied and pasted onto an HTML page. Anybody
viewing that page would see whatever the widget was
programmed to display. You can try out your very own
widget at www.freepolls.com. Here, you develop a
Web-based survey. The process results in a few lines
of code that you paste into your Web page. Visitors
see the survey, which actually resides on the FreePolls
server; the responses are recorded at FreePolls, which
also allows visitors to see survey results. All this
looks like it's happening on your Website, but in
fact, the only thing on your site is that small
chunk of code.
Now, imagine an array of pre-written chunks of code
that display information and applications that
employees need. Say, for example, a chart that
tracks the stock prices of your competitors. You
could, of course, stick that chart on one page and
make employees click to that page. But several
departments may have information on their departmental
sites that could be enhanced with that information.
Why not let the Webmasters of those sites copy the
code for the chart directly into their own pages?
The chart exists only once, but it can appear
anywhere on the intranet where it is pertinent.
That's where the library comes in. Site managers
can visit the library, review the widgets that
have already been created, and select those that
make sense for their own sites, enhancing the value
of their content to their audiences. Most of these
widgets are already being created anyway; a widget
library simply shares the wealth.
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GET PAGE-SPECIFIC FEEDBACK
**************************
What kind of feedback do you get from your "feedback"
link? If your site is like most, it generates a wide
variety of largely useless queries. In the city of
Arlington, Texas, the Webmaster has come up with a
far more valuable means of soliciting feedback.
On key pages of the site, you'll find a small feedback
box. This differs from most feedback mechanisms in
that each box asks for different feedback than the
others; it asks for feedback specific to that page.
One page, for instance, is dedicated to helping
Arlington-based businesses find other Arlington-
based businesses to meet their needs. The idea is
to keep Arlington's economy strong by keeing
business-to-business dollars inside the city. The
short questionairre at the end of the page asks
if the visitor found the information she needed,
and if there is any additional information she
may have hoped to find on the page.
The Webmaster reports that the volume and quality
feedback has improved considerably since adopting
this approach -- the feedback leads to targeted
improvements on the site which, in turn, lead
to more repeat visits.
It's a simple enough concept to initiate, and it
could yield worthwhile results.
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ARE THE CANDIDATES IN SYNCH WITH YOU?
*************************************
In these hectic times, a lot of people who would
like to be engaged in the political process simply
don't have the time to pay attention to the campaigns.
Several sites have tried to take the pain out of
the presidential campaign by offering an interactive
service that finds the candidate who most closely
matches your stand on the issues.
Each candidate was asked to complete a form about
his positions on a host of issues. Visitors to the
site complete the same questionairre. The program
performs a comparison, identifying the candidate
who most synchs up with visitors' views.
The sites that offer this voter-candidate
comparison have been getting a fair amount of
attention, but they're not the first to adopt
this approach. In fact, it's pretty easy to add
a similar element of interativity to a site.
For the "NextWave eCommunication Conference"
Website, my NetGain colleagues and I developed
a questionairre designed to help prospective
participants determine whether the conference was
right for them. We were targeting senior-level
communication managers who had already implemented
some online components in their communication
programs. We wanted to discourage those who
may be looking for a conference where they could
learn the fundamentals of communicating online.
The questionairre involved little programming
-- just a brief line of fundamental Javascript
code called "OpenIt" you can copy from any
Website that already uses it -- but it lends
the site that degree of personalization that
can make it a more compelling experience. (You
can try out the quiz at
www.nextwave200.com/quiz.htm. To try one of the
presidential election questionairres, visit
VoteMatch at www.govote.com.)
******************************
WEB WRITING WORKSHOP DATES SET
******************************
The International Association of Business Communicators
(IABC) has set the dates for its Spring 2000 series of
"Writing for the Wired World" workshops, taught by
Shel Holtz:
April 6 -- Chicago
April 12 -- San Francisco
May 1 -- New York
May 30 -- London, UK
June 1 -- Brussels, Belgium
For more information, and to register, visit the
IABC Website at http://www.iabc.com.
************
HC+T Update
************
>>>Shel Holtz conducted "Writing for the
Wired World" and "Managing Web Content"
workshops for a major investment company
during February.
>>>Shel will consult with a major
telecommunications company on the development
of interactive discussion forums as a
component of the company's intranet.
>>>Shel is helping a major insurance
company plan its annual communications
conference, and will speak at the March
event.
>>>If you don't subscribe to the NetGain Update,
you should. Authored monthly by four of NetGain's
six consultants, the brief email update offers
useful insight into using online media to
communicate. Subscribe at the NetGain Web
site, www.netgain.org.
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