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About 3978 days ago Telecom and Wireless

IM Is Here. RU Ready 2 Try It?

Special Technology Report In the late 1980s, Rhonda Sanderson happily moved her tiny public-relations agency from downtown Chicago to suburban Highland Park. The move cut her commute from 30 minutes to about 30 seconds: she’d set up shop in an office building across the street from her home. But a decade later, Sanderson & Associates Ltd. was growing, and Sanderson found that the top job candidates — recent college grads — viewed her location as a distinct drawback. Having just escaped from smallish midwestern college communities, they weren’t interested in launching their careers somewhere even smaller. “They wanted to live and work in the big city,” says Sanderson. Sanderson, a single parent, didn’t want to uproot her high school-age daughter to move back downtown. Instead, she bought a small building in a trendy Chicago neighborhood and moved several of her employees there. After she had satisfied everyone’s lifestyle demands, Sanderson had just one nagging concern: how would she, the suburban CEO who schlepped into the city just two days a week, stay in the loop the rest of the time? “I thought, ‘Will I have to call them every single minute?’ ” she says. As it turns out, Sanderson does talk with her seven staffers dozens of times daily — but without picking up the phone. Instead they chat live on-line, using a free instant-messaging (IM) program installed by an employee. Today “it’s fair to say we run the whole business on IM,” says Sanderson, whose company, with revenues in excess of $1 million, specializes in representing national franchises such as Meineke Discount Mufflers and Back Yard Burgers. “Every [internal] communication is by IM. Everything. This arrangement wouldn’t have worked without it.” There’s no playing phone tag, no wondering whether somebody got that urgent E-mail message, no delaying a response to a crisis. Sanderson is never more than a few keystrokes from her Chicago employees — as long as everyone is near a computer. “I feel much more secure handling my office this way,” she says of the constant real-time contact. “I feel the need to be connected to them.” CEOs nationwide are discovering what teenagers and twentysomethings, including Sanderson’s daughter and staffers, have known for years: IM is an addictively fast, simple, and cheap way to communicate. There’s nothing exotic about the technology. It’s basically real-time E-mail, either in-house or over the Internet. But unlike E-mail, IM is, well, instantaneous; as soon as the message writer hits “send,” the message pops up on the receiver’s screen. And unlike E-mail, IM doesn’t generate in-box clutter. Conversations usually vanish when they’re finished (although programs increasingly allow one to save them), and users, because they control their lists of authorized contacts, are less likely to receive “spam,” or unsolicited messages. The best-known IM programs are free; even commercial products are relatively cheap. Although an IM conversation typically involves just two people, power users may conduct several conversations simultaneously or create a chat room where any number of users can join the discussion. With some programs, users can even swap graphics, video clips, or voice clips. And unlike any other form of communication, IM monitors physical presence. With a glance at their contact lists, users can tell who’s logged on and available right now. Even though IM began as a way for kids to pass notes electronically (see “The IM Generation,” below), it’s clearly becoming a vital tool in businesses. IDC, a research company based in Framingham, Mass., says that about 40% of U.S. companies already use the technology. Jupiter Media Metrix, headquartered in New York City, says nearly 17 million Americans used the largest free IM services at work in March 2002, up from 10 million in September 2000. Gartner Inc., in Stamford, Conn., calls IM “the sleeping giant of the Internet” and predicts that by next year employees at 70% of all companies will use IM for business or personal communication. By 2005, Gartner says, at least 50% of U.S. businesses will rely on IM to interact with customers — and most consumers will use IM more frequently than they use E-mail. Naturally, IM works best in businesses in which employees are tethered to computers. Large high-tech and telecom companies like IBM and AT&T have used the technology for years. But it’s picking up speed in less likely industries. For instance, manufacturers are beginning to use IM kiosks in factories to keep managers in close contact with floor supervisors. Retailers that have been using live chat on their Web sites for the past few years are beginning to use it in-house as well. Jennifer Convertibles in Woodbury, N.Y., uses IM to communicate with managers in its 200-plus stores nationwide. Rami Abada, the chain’s president and chief financial officer, says the low-cost IM network, which replaced a costly voice-mail system, has saved the company $50,000 to $60,000 a year and eliminated 7,000 calls a week that were going into voice mail. Now smaller companies, too, are getting the message that IM is free or cheap, requires no special hardware and no training, and can even be kind of fun. (See “Instant Lingo,” below.) And despite some of IM’s drawbacks — such as legitimate concerns about security and productivity — they’re finding plenty of ways to use it. For many growing companies, IM’s main appeal is simply being able to reach anybody instantly — even when both parties are already busy. Being there: In the Chicago office of Sanderson & Associates on a hectic Friday morning in April, Kelly Templer was on the phone with a reporter. She checked her contact list to be sure Sanderson was on-line. She was. Templer opened her IM on-screen window and typed in: “I have a reporter from AP on the phone. I want him to interview Tommy about IFE [a franchise trade show], he also wants other franchise info — what should I do?” She hit “send,” and Sanderson, on another call in the Highland Park office, saw the message pop up. Sanderson immediately shot back: “Give it to him! Offer him interview with Don DeBolt or some other expert if he wants independent source. Try to get info on exhibitors to him.” Neither had skipped a beat on their respective phone calls. Bolstering virtual management: At Tax Technologies Inc., a two-year-old tax-preparation and software company, vice-president Jeff Wenger, who’s based in Bradenton, Fla., uses IM to manage a team of software developers and testers scattered all over the United States. Because all IM programs indicate which users are logged on, Wenger can tell, for instance, when developer Anar Patel, in Warren, Ohio, is available and when Adrienne Morey, in Phoenix, is on-line. (Team members can, and do, converse with one another by IM all day — and sometimes all night — about work in progress.) Wenger says the setup allows him to hire top employees who can work and live wherever they want, “whether it’s the mountains of Colorado, the beaches of Florida, or the big city.” Using IM has cut his daily telephone time from three hours to less than 30 minutes. Other organizations rely on IM to stay in touch with telecommuters, road warriors, or local field staff. Companies that have overseas employees, partners, or customers may find the technology particularly cost-effective. Managing crises: AtomicPR, a $1.9-million San Francisco high-tech PR agency that was launched in late 1999, just before the dot-com bubble burst, built real-time communications into its business model and culture. The company’s 15 employees say that IM provides them with a competitive advantage in a tough economy. Today the business uses IM for both in-house and client communications, and the staffers have found it invaluable for responding rapidly to a crisis. In one case, account supervisor Mike Crusick contacted company cofounder Andy Getsey by IM at 7 a.m. on a weekday, when both were still at home, to report some bad news: a press release had just come over the wire that a client was being sued by a competitor. Andy to Mike: Wow. I’ll do a quick plan for [client], then give her a call. It’d be best to have recent real-world examples too. Can you find a few similar suits and corporate responses ASAP? Thx. Mike: Here are links to announcements/responses in similar suit. Andy: Thx. Can you find 2 more from different suits, too? Hurry. Andy: PS. Would you call the rest of your team and let them know what’s happening ASAP? Andy: PSS. And tell team to hold on related media communications until we talk to [client]. Mike: Of course. Mike: More links to difft suits. Andy: Check Andy: Just emailed [client] 5 point plan. CC’d you and team. Calling her now. Mike: Roger that. Andy: Just talked with [client]. Buzzing there! Went over the key points and examples. She’s going into internal meeting at 9 — will call us immediately after. Thx for help. I’ll be at office in an hour or so. Mike: Great. I’m headed into the office now. See you there. Busy morning already Instant inventory tracking: At Pacific International Marketing, a produce-trading company in Salinas, Calif., with revenues under $100 million, sales managers use IM to simultaneously alert 35 salespeople in five cities to market changes. A typical message: “Stop selling broccoli at $7; it’s dropped to $6.” That’s a big improvement over the decidedly low-tech tradition of simply yelling across the room to local traders and then calling around to remote offices to spread the news. And, says president Tom Russell, the time savings is no small potatoes in his industry, where prices can fluctuate 100% in 24 hours and product shelf life is measured in days. As Russell puts it, “The minute we cut some product in the field, it’s beginning its journey to the Dumpster.” He estimates that IM has saved him thousands of dollars in phone calls — and an untold amount in losses caused by information delays. Kibitizing on transactions: One of IM’s most practical and widespread uses in small companies is allowing behind-the-scenes collaboration. At $22-million YellowPages.com, an on-line ad directory based in Henderson, Nev., the company’s 42 employees “ping,” or contact one another by IM, throughout the day. “My Chicago guy is pinging me right now,” Dennis Warren, senior vice-president of corporate development, says during a telephone interview. (His reply: “OTP. SB.” Translation: “On the phone. Stand by, I’ll get right back to you.”) But the technology’s real value, he says, is in letting salespeople get the answers they need. For instance, a rep who is trying to close a deal on the phone might use IM with Warren: “Can I offer her a 30% discount?” Warren can decide and reply on the spot (“Yes,” or “Try 15% first”) without making the employee — or the potential customer — wait. At StudentUniverse, a travel service in Watertown, Mass., that caters to college-age customers, agents often use IM to send questions to a manager, aiming to get an immediate response without putting the customer on hold. Customer-service director Phil Dobbyn credits IM for helping cut his staff’s average time per call by 25% in just a few months. Finacorp Securities, a bond brokerage in Newport Beach, Calif., with revenues under $5 million, uses IM for everything from telecommuting to providing tech support for its on-line arm, Tradebonds.com. But IM’s greatest value is linking salespeople to the firm’s compliance officers to get fast answers to regulatory questions. Some managers own up to swapping messages with one another during conference calls with outsiders. StudentUniverse CEO Espen Odegard occasionally uses IM to confer with his cofounder or his lawyer during sticky negotiations. Other executives cue each other during calls; in fact, AtomicPR senior account manager Misha Gulak used IM with Getsey during a phone interview with Inc, reminding Getsey about a point she thought he should make. Instant gratification, of course, comes with a price. For starters, IM, like E-mail, can transmit viruses that existing security software may not detect. (For that reason, security experts recommend using virus-scanning programs that specifically cover IM.) But because anybody can download free IM software from the Web, tech staffers may not even realize employees are using it. And IM isn’t always secure, as the CEO of a now-defunct California dot-com learned when he found copies of his private messages posted on the Web. In May, Microsoft warned that its popular free IM program, MSN Messenger, contained a serious security flaw that could leave users vulnerable to computer hackers. (The company provided a free on-line “patch” to fix the problem.) With that in mind, Tax Technologies instructs users not to transmit confidential client information. StudentUniverse’s messages include their own version of the surgeon general’s warning: “Never give out your password or credit-card number in an instant message conversation.” Obviously, any new link to the outside creates new opportunities to leak corporate secrets. For that reason, IM programs increasingly include monitoring functions that allow companies to capture or log transmissions. Many IM programs — particularly the free ones — won’t work with one another, meaning that if you have only Yahoo Messenger, you can’t use IM to communicate with a client who has only AOL Instant Messenger. That’s exactly why the American Homeowners Foundation, a publishing and lobbying organization based in Arlington, Va., stopped using IM last year. Initially, the foundation’s directors hoped to use the technology to quickly correspond with the far-flung authors who write the organization’s books. But they ultimately found IM more frustrating than useful, says vice-president Chris Christensen, citing the plethora of incompatible programs. Michael Osterman, an electronic-messaging consultant in Black Diamond, Wash., predicts that the industry will adopt a common standard within the next year or two. In addition, some people find the barrage of read-me-right-now messages annoying or disruptive. “Your attention gets very fragmented. It gets in the way of good solid thinking,” says Carl Stormer, StudentUniverse’s cofounder and executive vice-president. “It’s almost like white noise; you don’t notice it till it’s gone.” Other executives occasionally shut off IM or change their status to “busy” or “do not disturb.” Managers at some companies worry that employees will spend too much work time using IM to chat with pals inside and outside the company. Others — such as StudentUniverse’s Norwegian-born Odegard and Stormer, who use IM daily to correspond with their families in Norway — view it as a perk they can offer employees, as long as personal use doesn’t get out of control. They also emphasize that IM isn’t the right tool for every business missive; employees should still turn to E-mail when they need a record and to the phone for the personal touch. Finally, they acknowledge that IM sometimes provides solutions to problems that don’t exist. For instance, employees at StudentUniverse admit that they sometimes swap messages with nearby coworkers rather than step next door or down the hall. Stormer says, “That is like taking the elevator to the first floor.” Yet even critics recognize the technology’s promise. For example, ActiveBuddy, a New York City developer of IM products, offers free homework help, stock quotes, and sports scores; the company also created IM promotions for the band Radiohead, teen singer Lindsay Pagano, and the movie The Lord of the Rings. Other companies are exploring IM’s potential for real-time auctions, travel booking, technical support, and stock trading. Meanwhile, the earliest adopters remain true believers in the technology’s value. “Our development team is 5 to 10 times more productive in our virtual environment than in a traditional office setting,” says Tax Technologies’ Wenger. “It’s disruptive,” says Dane Madsen, CEO of YellowPages.com. “But so was the Internet and so was E-mail. You adjust.” Anne Stuart is a senior writer at Inc. Instant Lingo In instant-messaging culture, spelling and grammar matter less than trading messages at the speed of a championship tennis match. So fans of IM write in standard business shorthand: FYI, ASAP, OK, thx, cc. They also rely on those annoying acronyms that hard-core E-mailers have thrown around for years: BTW (by the way), LOL (laughing out loud), TTFN (ta-ta for now). But as if it weren’t telegraphic enough, business IM seems to be adapting its own code. Among the ones we found: BRB: Be right back. BTN/5: Be there in five (minutes); be right there. C&B or c/b: Crash and burn. Convo: Conversation. G2G: Got to go. IC: I see. JK or j/k: Just kidding. JW or j/w: Just wondering. NP or n/p: No problem. OTL: Out to lunch. OTP: On the phone. OTR: On the road. Ping: To send someone an instant message (“I’ll ping you later”). Pop: Ditto. SB: Stand by (as in “just a minute”). SN: Screen name, or on-line identity. TTYL: Talk to you later. The IM Generation Most youthful IM aficionados use the technology for exactly the reason you’d expect: to converse, instantly, with everybody they know. Simultaneously. “I have 11 windows open,” Jessica Nurnberg, 15, of Oklahoma City, typed during an interview using IM. Translation: As Nurnberg answered Inc‘s questions at lightning speed, she was chatting with 10 other friends, swapping messages on everything from homework to hot ninth-grade gossip. Other young IM fans cite more practical uses, such as: Passive promotion. Kevin Colleran, 21, wouldn’t dream of spamming his 200 IM buddies with ads for his on-line business, Clubvibes.com Boston, a nightclub directory. But Colleran, a Babson College senior who holds several national “young entrepreneur” titles, uses the Clubvibes logo in his buddy icon (the on-line ID badge that appears during IM sessions). That way, he raises brand awareness without raising hackles. Real-time brainstorming. For a sociology class, Marie Aschenbrenner, 18, of Penticton, British Columbia, was assigned to a debate team taking a “pro” stance on globalization. Team members researched the issue, then met on-line the night before the debate. Working into the wee hours, they drafted and rehearsed their arguments — entirely by IM. Coordination of schedules. Emily Giles, 15, of East Greenwich, R.I., uses IM to quickly organize gatherings. “U can ask a bunch of people if they can do the same thing all @ the same time,” she wrote in standard IM (rather than standard English) during an IM interview. “Its easier 2 keep track of who can do what n who cant.” Homework help. Casey Koppelson, 17, of Newport, R.I., sometimes uses IM for French-class assignments. If Koppelson needs the French phrase for “mow the lawn,” she sends an IM inquiry to SmarterChild, a free on-line homework helper. SmarterChild instantly searches its database of information and sends back a message with the words: “fauchez la pelouse.” Matchmaking. Sarah Kornblum, 16, of Natick, Mass., uses IM to introduce friends from different towns. “They chat on here for a while and get to know each other a little bit and THEN go out on a date,” she wrote. “So far it is working pretty well, if I do say so myself.” Many under age 25 can’t imagine life without IM. “I really don’t know what I did before,” says Aschenbrenner, who had never used IM before she started college last September. Now she’s so IM-dependent that when she stayed off-line for a whole day, her brother called to check on her. Please E-mail your comments to editors@inc.com. Related content: IM Product Sampler IM Legal Primer IM Etiquette

About 4159 days ago Telecom and Wireless

Have Tech, Won’t Travel

Special Report: Tools that will let you stay grounded Alex Stanton would have swum across the Atlantic to woo that special prospective client in the United Kingdom. Ultimately, he only had to go downstairs. Stanton, CEO of Stanton Crenshaw Communications, in New York City, passionately wanted a contract to represent a certain European telecommunications company. He and his team planned to fly to London in mid-September to pitch their proposal in person. But then came September 11, when terrorist hijackings grounded all U.S. air travel for three days and delayed many overseas flights for several days longer. With the Twin Towers wreckage billowing smoke just a few miles away, Stanton asked his prospective clients to postpone the meeting. They politely declined. They wanted to pick their public-relations firm that week to get an overdue marketing campaign off the ground. In seeking options, Stanton didn’t have to look far. He dropped in on ICE Inc., a marketing-communications company located two floors below his office, on the hunch that the company might have videoconferencing equipment. In the spirit of post-attack camaraderie, Stanton’s neighbors offered to let him borrow their boardroom, their equipment, and a technician. Thrilled, Stanton called London. Fortunately, the prospective client had a compatible setup, and its executives were perfectly happy to meet virtually. So, at the appointed time, Stanton’s team went downstairs, faced the cameras, and put on a one-hour show for a five-person audience across the pond. “We did a couple of rehearsals,” Stanton says. “We found you have to stage it a little more than you might in person. You have to decide who’s going to talk when, and you can’t interrupt as much.” While the transatlantic sound was fine, the video occasionally jerked or froze. And the presentation didn’t feel quite natural. The executives in London faced a fixed camera, which never moved even when they did, and occasionally someone would shift out of view, forcing the presenters to address a disembodied voice. “You’re sort of at the end of a tunnel,” Stanton says. “It’s hard to see how people are reacting to your ideas.” Despite the drawbacks, Stanton’s team members felt they’d made their case, even after the telecom company awarded the contract to a competitor (which, coincidentally, was another New York City PR agency forced by circumstances to pitch by videoconference). “We didn’t win, but at least we were on equal footing,” Stanton says. Like Stanton’s company, many small and midsize businesses have built their reputation on traveling to meet far-flung colleagues, customers, partners, and prospects. And like Stanton, who’s now considering a blend of videoconferencing and personal visits, many CEOs are now reexamining the assumption that being in business means being on the road. The most urgent soul-searching, of course, stems directly from the September 11 attacks. And the November 12 crash of an American Airlines plane in Queens, N.Y., did little to allay the fears of an already leery traveling public. But even before those events, the slumping economy prompted many companies to curb their travel expenses. In April 2001 the National Business Travel Association, a trade group based in Alexandria, Va., polled 200 companies of all sizes and found that 33% were using or considering collaboration technologies, primarily videoconferencing, to eliminate costly trips. Five months later, following the suicide jet crashes, nearly 90% of those polled said they’d now consider high-tech options to travel. It’s too early to say if increased scrutiny of business travel represents a true change in thinking, a permanent shift away from our economy’s air dependency. Right now many CEOs seem to be in wait-and-see mode: Wait and see what happens in the U.S.-led “war on terrorism.” Wait and see whether there are more hijackings, air disasters, or other threats at home. Wait and see whether the economy starts to rebound. But it’s safe to draw a few conclusions. First, for both financial and security-related reasons, many CEOs are developing restrictive new travel policies. In addition, many companies are experimenting with high-tech options that let them do their jobs closer to home. Some are already finding those alternatives surprisingly attractive compared with long-distance business trips with all their expense, time investment, and hassles. ON SOLID GROUND: Alex Stanton, CEO of Stanton Crenshaw Communications, needed to make his pitch without getting on a plane. Ultimately, though, nobody expects to eliminate the need for business travel. As Daniel P. Brogan, president and CEO of the San Diego architecture firm Earl Walls Associates, puts it: “I see this as an opportunity to rethink the way we do business. But we’re never going to get away from traveling. Our business is still very much hands-on.” When it comes to substituting technology for travel, options range from the almost-free to those requiring another line on next year’s budget. On the low end: making better use of existing equipment, an approach as simple as spending more time on conference calls. On the high end: renting a television studio for a satellite broadcast or even investing in an in-house, state-of-the-art videoconferencing studio. In between: options like Web-based conferencing and broadcasting, setting up virtual private networks, using peer-to-peer technology, and — especially in an era of germ-tainted mail — increasing use of E-mail, fax, and instant messaging. (See “The Next Best Thing to Being There,” below.) Obviously, picking the right option depends on what the company needs to accomplish and what barriers it must overcome to get there. The following are several common postattack headaches and the technology prescription for relieving them: Your former “road warriors” are skittish about taking to the skies. Earl Walls Associates specializes in designing scientific laboratories. Thanks to that narrow niche market, the company serves clients all over the world. But in recent months “I’ve definitely told people not to travel if they don’t have to,” says CEO Brogan. Instead, the company increasingly runs client meetings from two rented videoconferencing facilities located close to its office. Even at $1,000 a day, videoconferencing is cheaper than sending a team in person, especially when you figure in the loss of productivity on travel days. Of course, architects must sometimes meet face-to-face with clients to review plans, but Brogan is now trying to do as much virtual up-front and follow-up work as possible. He’s even earmarked $25,000 this year for an in-house videoconferencing studio. But just as you can’t call somebody who doesn’t have a telephone, you can’t videoconference with somebody who doesn’t have a compatible setup. So before he actually spends a dime, Brogan is polling the company’s clients to find out whether they’ve got equipment — or at least access to it — on their end. On September 11, employees at Whale Communications Ltd., a network-security company with offices in Fort Lee, N.J., just across the Hudson River from Manhattan, watched the World Trade Center towers burn and collapse after being hit by hijacked jets. Not surprisingly, many Whale employees didn’t want to fly after that. CEO Elad Baron, who grew up amid the threat of terrorism in his native Israel, couldn’t blame them; he immediately declared all air travel optional. Fortunately, Whale had started scrutinizing its travel costs earlier in 2001, when many of the company’s 60 employees were spending up to 75% of their time traveling to visit clients across the United States or in the company’s research-and-development facility in Israel. “Even before September 11, we figured out that was not very efficient, so we really began cutting back,” Baron says. So he invested $38,000 in Web-conferencing and videoconferencing hardware, software, and services. By September, he’d cut travel time for most employees to just 20% to 25% of their total hours. Because of the savings on travel expenditures, he expects to recoup his investment early this year. However, some employees’ jobs still require travel. If they’re afraid to board a plane, Baron expects them to make other arrangements. In the most extreme case, a sales rep who’d previously flown nationwide started driving everywhere instead. His longest trek: from New Jersey to Charlotte, N.C. — about 1,300 miles round-trip. Because the rep traveled on weekends, he lost no work time — and got no objections from the boss. “I don’t mind, as long as the customer gets served,” Baron says. Your chief ambassador wants to stay home. In many companies, there’s one person — sometimes the CEO, sometimes another executive — who has long served as the public face of the business. But now the ambassador wants to spend less time, or no time, in the air. That’s the case at Phenix & Phenix Literary Publicists Inc., an 11-person agency based in Austin, far from the nation’s major news and publishing centers. A year ago, CEO Leann Phenix created the position of national media director, a job requiring frequent coast-to-coast travel to attend book-launch events, meet with the media, and speak at writers’ conferences. Staff publicist Marika Flatt was promoted into the new job and at first rather enjoyed all those cross-country flights. But Flatt, the mother of a 14-month-old daughter, hasn’t been on a plane since the terrorist attacks. A NEW ATTITUDE: “I see this as an opportunity to rethink the way we do business,” says Daniel P. Brogan. “But we’re never going to get away from traveling. Our business is still very much hands-on.” Like other companies, Phenix & Phenix has considered videoconferencing and other high-tech options. But because Flatt is the only employee who needs to travel extensively, the business’s executives have decided that such an investment wouldn’t make sense for the company — at least so far. Instead, Flatt is building and maintaining some other long-term relationships: with the telephone and the computer. “If there’s a writer I haven’t been introduced to yet, I’ll send an E-mail and say, ‘Can I call you at such-and-such a time?” she says. “It’s obviously not as good as meeting face-to-face.” But that’s how things will have to be, she says, “until things simmer down a little bit and we build our confidence back up in the airlines.” Meanwhile, will staying close to home hurt business? “Definitely,” Flatt says, sighing. “Definitely.” You need to do hands-on work with faraway partners, but you don’t necessarily need to see them. Network Orange Inc., in Boca Raton, Fla., which manufactures and sells network-testing and -control equipment, serves customers all over the United States. These days president Mike Vislocky has been concerned about sending employees across the country to touch base with customers. “It’s not just a fear of flying,” he says. “It’s the prospect of being stranded away from home.” So Network Orange invested in a Web-conferencing software called WebDemo, which lets the Florida team have virtual visits with customers. The product allows a meeting’s participants to view a PowerPoint presentation or edit a document together, screen by screen, in real time over the Internet. Meanwhile, they’re on a conference call, discussing what they’re seeing. Overall, “it’s not bad,” says Vislocky. “You can take breaks; you can put your phone on mute and just listen until it’s time for you to say something. I have a portable phone, so I can even walk around until I need to come back to the screen.” Vislocky hasn’t used videoconferencing and says he probably won’t. “None of the stuff we do benefits from being able to see other people.” You don’t travel much, but your clients do. Royce Carlton Inc., a New York City-based speakers’ agency, represents about 50 famous clients. Among them: Anna Quindlen, the former New York Times columnist turned best-selling novelist. Agency CEO Carlton Sedgeley had booked Quindlen to speak at a Houston fund-raiser in late September. But after the attacks, Quindlen, who lives in Manhattan, refused to get on a plane. So Sedgeley arranged for her to speak by videoconference, a solution he calls less than ideal. “It’s second-best,” he says. “It’s just not as satisfying as someone being there. You don’t get to press the flesh. You don’t get the book signing.” On the other hand, for an investment of about $350, the show went on, and Sedgeley collected his fee, albeit a reduced one. BUSINESS AS USUAL: Rob DeRocker of Development Counsellors International has flown 16 times since September 11. Sedgeley has been using travel-obviating technology since well before September 11. In November 2000, he helped political analyst Jeff Greenfield give a virtual talk using technology far more sophisticated than videoconferencing. Greenfield was scheduled to address a group in Palm Springs, Calif., but when the U.S. presidential race stayed too close to call for weeks, Greenfield couldn’t leave Florida, where officials were recounting the ballots by hand. Instead, he addressed the California crowd via satellite from a TV studio in Palm Beach, Fla. The satellite link provided a much higher quality transmission than even the best videoconferencing and, not surprisingly, bore a price tag to match: about $4,000 for that particular venture, Sedgeley says. In the weeks following the attacks, he arranged appearances broadcast by satellite or videoconference for several other speakers. You must travel, period. For some companies, no technology alternative can replace being there. As Andrew Zacharakis, professor of entrepreneurship at Babson College, in Wellesley, Mass., puts it: “If you have some hot sales prospects and you need that face-to-face contact, I would say you have to get on the plane.” Rob DeRocker did just that shortly after the attacks. DeRocker is executive vice-president and part owner of Development Counsellors International, a 30-person company that develops marketing campaigns promoting tourism. He flew to Kansas City the Monday following September 11. Over the next several weeks, he boarded 16 airplanes. (On one flight, owing to increased security, he had to remove his shoes and run them through a metal detector.) And so far, he’s requiring his account executives to fly because the company’s survival depends on it. “We can’t forgo traveling if we stay in this business,” he says. “It’s hard to lead a press trip to Tacoma unless you’re there, and driving isn’t an option.” There’s just one thing that might change his insistence on flying: another terrorist incident involving aircraft. Meanwhile, many companies continue to seek the perfect balance of technology and travel. For Alex Stanton, who used videoconferencing to make his pitch to the European telecom company, it’s a matter of compromise. “Often, when we’d go and do these things, we’d send two or three or four people to show them our whole team,” he says. Now he considers sending one person — perhaps the team leader — to present in person and having other employees attend by videoconference. “It’s not perfect,” he says, “but we don’t live in a perfect world.” Anne Stuart is a senior writer at Inc. The Next Best Thing to Being There Nothing digital can duplicate a hearty handshake. But if you want to keep your company aloft without putting yourself — or anybody else — on an airplane, you can consider a wide range of electronic alternatives. If you’re strapped for cash, build on your existing technologies, starting with the telephone. Make those once-deadly conference calls far more palatable with high-quality speakerphones (such as the Polycom SoundStation models, which start at $499) or the dial-in teleconference services offered by many telecom companies. Next stop: the Internet. Create an online environment in which employees, partners, and customers can swap documents, create group mailing lists, or post messages in forums. Host your company’s intranet, extranet, or password-protected Web site yourself, or, for a small monthly fee, pay a service provider (such as Intranets.com) to host one for you. If you need to see people’s faces, consider videoconferencing, two-way video, and audio communication over high-speed lines. Pictures may freeze or look grainy, and shy participants may clam up on camera. And videoconferencing works only if both parties have compatible equipment. But it’s probably the closest thing to sitting in the same room. Costs range from $100 or so for a home-use camera and microphone to $5,000 for a portable videoconferencing system to $75,000 for a customized in-house studio with good acoustics, professional lighting, high-quality monitors, and cameras. Rentals range from $250 an hour to a flat $1,000 a day at local videoconferencing studios and some Kinko’s outlets. Another option when visuals matter: a satellite hookup. Satellite communications offer superior transmission quality — but at a superior price because of the cost of renting satellite time. Figure on spending at least $1,000 an hour. If you want to put on a show for a widely scattered audience, consider Web conferencing with tools such as WebEx or WebDemo, both of which let meeting participants share documents and applications online in real time. Web conferencing lets far-flung participants view documents simultaneously from their own desktops. It’s a handy option for PowerPoint presentations, sales demonstrations, whiteboard-style diagramming, and collaborative document editing. Some products include audio, while others require a simultaneous telephone conference call if participants need to talk while they’re working. The costs range from $100 for install-it-yourself conferencing software to $1,000 or more for a professionally hosted conference. If you want to share documents safely, look into creating a virtual private network (VPN). This highly secure technology creates a private “tunnel” into a company’s systems. It’s an outstanding way to provide remote users — including distant partners, traveling employees, and people who work at home — with full access to important documents and applications. The costs range from a few hundred to several thousand dollars, depending primarily on the number of users. Please e-mail your comments to editors@inc.com. For more electronic alternatives, see 5 Travel-Reducing Technologies.

About 4859 days ago E-Commerce

Traffic Will Make You Rich: The Word from the Experts

Myth 2: Traffic will make you rich REALITY CHECK: Selling well makes you rich. Traffic only provides eyeballs Cramer: Revenues are what will define things in the end, but people live and die by the Media Metrix site-traffic reports. Wall Street is obsessed with them. I swear to God, if you want to make big money in the stock market, go to Springfield High outside Philadelphia. Get a bunch of kids and say, “Surf this site all day long, and I’ll give you 20 Gs.” You’ll generate a huge amount of page views, which is what wins in the market today. Johnson: Sites like Blue Mountain Arts’ E-greeting-card site succeed because they provide something that attracts people, and in the Internet world that’s a useful model. It may make business-school people scratch their heads, but traffic to a portal gets a person to hit some other channel buttons and use other content. Morgan: A lot of companies, like Blue Mountain Arts, are specifically aggregating an audience, and they’ll figure out what to do with it later. The question is whether an audience used to doing things for free will ever pay for them. Randall: There is a common belief that you should basically spend an infinite amount of money to promote your site. What you’re starting to see is that at the end of the day, you have to have a real business model. Rich: Bottom line: you’ve got to have users and customers. Driving visitors to a site is not a guarantee for a viable business. THE TRUTHMONGERS To help us deconstruct the myths of the Web, we turned to expert observers of the Internet phenomenon. Their comments can be found after each of the case studies we presented. Here are their credentials: Martin Anderson , management professor at Babson College, in Wellesley, Mass., advises executives who are transforming their traditional companies into “click and mortar” businesses. James J. Cramer is the brash cofounder of and columnist at TheStreet.com. He has built successful careers as both a journalist/pundit and a hedge-fund manager. Kathleen Eisenhardt is a professor specializing in competitive strategy at Stanford’s School of Engineering. She recently coauthored Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos. Chip Hazard is a general partner and E-commerce specialist at the venture powerhouse Greylock, in Boston. He helped launch the e-Steel exchange. Tod Johnson , chairman and CEO of Media Metrix Inc., based in New York City, is a widely recognized expert on brand loyalty. Ted Leonsis is president of AOL Interactive Properties Group. In his first three years at America Online (starting in 1994), it grew from about $100 million in revenues to $1.5 billion. Kelly Mooney is director of intelligence at Resource Marketing Inc., a technology-marketing firm in Columbus, Ohio. She has helped companies such as Victoria’s Secret develop their on-line strategies. Allen Morgan is a general partner at Mayfield Fund, in Menlo Park, Calif. He has been involved in more than 350 venture-capital investments and public offerings. Bo Peabody is a cofounder of Tripod Inc. and vice-president of network strategy at Lycos Inc. When he was still in college, Peabody founded Tripod, which helps people build their own home pages. In 1998 he sold the company to Lycos. Scott Randall is founder and CEO of Internet-auction hosting service FairMarket Inc. Randall has been involved in E-commerce since 1995, when he launched an on-line store. He has been president of the Internet Shopping Network and Yahoo Marketplace. David Rich is vice-president of marketing and brand guru at Bigstep.com, which provides on-line services to small businesses. He previously orchestrated brand campaigns for Walt Disney, Pepsi, and Jamba Juice. THE 7 MYTHS OF THE WEB ECONOMY Myth 1: Building a Web site is easy The word from the experts Myth 2: Traffic will make you rich The word from the experts Myth 3: Smart money makes you smart The word from the experts Myth 4: Razzle-dazzle makes Web sites great The word from the experts Myth 5: Brand is everything The word from the experts Myth 6: Wild ads make Web stars The word from the experts Myth 7: Community, community, community The word from the experts Plus: Tales my guru told me Dispatches from the Web economy Back to Intro, ” I Was Seduced by the Web Economy”

About 4859 days ago E-Commerce

Razzle-Dazzle Makes Web Sites Great: The Word from the Experts

Myth 4: Razzle-Dazzle Makes Web Sites Great REALITY CHECK: Bells and whistles are fun but not always functional Cramer: The look and feel of a site is meaningless. What matters is speed. People want to get in and get out. Until they get technology so that pictures and graphics don’t delay load time, all pictures should be banned. Eisenhardt: Fancy graphics and animation don’t buy you anything. There’s a minimum level of slickness you want to see when you go to a site, and people will probably add those features as broadband becomes more common, but I expect you’ll see a lot of diminishing returns as well. Hazard: Fancy front-end technology slows down the user experience. Ultimately, that will turn people off. I was shopping on toy sites from home the other night. One loaded in one second, and one loaded in 15. Guess which one I bought from? Leonsis: There are sites out there that are just functional. Look at Yahoo. It’s not fancy; it’s just gray and blue. Look at us at AOL. We’re pretty much a flat site. You want to make buying really fast and easy. No videos, no bells and whistles. Just get to the point. Mooney: This has been a big myth for the last couple of years. There’s a tremendous focus on the cool things you can do. Technology has gotten ahead of the concept in many cases. The more important thing is to know what people want. Peabody: As broadband becomes more common, you’ll have to have this stuff. But today it’s not to your advantage to have a lot of bells and whistles. Sites like that are sort of annoying. Rich: Stay true to what your customers value: more efficiency or a faster download. THE TRUTHMONGERS To help us deconstruct the myths of the Web, we turned to expert observers of the Internet phenomenon. Their comments can be found after each of the case studies we presented. Here are their credentials: Martin Anderson , management professor at Babson College, in Wellesley, Mass., advises executives who are transforming their traditional companies into “click and mortar” businesses. James J. Cramer is the brash cofounder of and columnist at TheStreet.com. He has built successful careers as both a journalist/pundit and a hedge-fund manager. Kathleen Eisenhardt is a professor specializing in competitive strategy at Stanford’s School of Engineering. She recently coauthored Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos. Chip Hazard is a general partner and E-commerce specialist at the venture powerhouse Greylock, in Boston. He helped launch the e-Steel exchange. Tod Johnson , chairman and CEO of Media Metrix Inc., based in New York City, is a widely recognized expert on brand loyalty. Ted Leonsis is president of AOL Interactive Properties Group. In his first three years at America Online (starting in 1994), it grew from about $100 million in revenues to $1.5 billion. Kelly Mooney is director of intelligence at Resource Marketing Inc., a technology-marketing firm in Columbus, Ohio. She has helped companies such as Victoria’s Secret develop their on-line strategies. Allen Morgan is a general partner at Mayfield Fund, in Menlo Park, Calif. He has been involved in more than 350 venture-capital investments and public offerings. Bo Peabody is a cofounder of Tripod Inc. and vice-president of network strategy at Lycos Inc. When he was still in college, Peabody founded Tripod, which helps people build their own home pages. In 1998 he sold the company to Lycos. Scott Randall is founder and CEO of Internet-auction hosting service FairMarket Inc. Randall has been involved in E-commerce since 1995, when he launched an on-line store. He has been president of the Internet Shopping Network and Yahoo Marketplace. David Rich is vice-president of marketing and brand guru at Bigstep.com, which provides on-line services to small businesses. He previously orchestrated brand campaigns for Walt Disney, Pepsi, and Jamba Juice. THE 7 MYTHS OF THE WEB ECONOMY Myth 1: Building a Web site is easy The word from the experts Myth 2: Traffic will make you rich The word from the experts Myth 3: Smart money makes you smart The word from the experts Myth 4: Razzle-dazzle makes Web sites great The word from the experts Myth 5: Brand is everything The word from the experts Myth 6: Wild ads make Web stars The word from the experts Myth 7: Community, community, community The word from the experts Plus: Tales my guru told me Dispatches from the Web economy Back to Intro, ” I Was Seduced by the Web Economy”

About 4859 days ago E-Commerce

Brand Is Everything: The Word from the Experts

Myth 5: Brand is everything REALITY CHECK: Image is fine. Sales are better Eisenhardt: Just having a brand isn’t much. It doesn’t hold people when a competitor is only a click away — when it’s much easier to switch than it is in the physical world. CDNow had a brand in the music space, but that didn’t prevent customers from going to Amazon.com or Liquid Audio for music. In better companies, there is a real attention to metrics — a specialty of Yahoo, which is very good at monitoring key metrics and figuring out how to make money. Johnson: I don’t know if we’ve really made the big breakthroughs on the Web at this point. With motion pictures, it took 30 years before someone thought of doing a close-up. On the Internet we probably haven’t discovered the close-up yet. Mooney: We can tell which sites technicians have built and which have been built by people who understand retail. Retailers know where to put the most expensive stuff. They know how to trigger impulse buys. These formulations, fully developed for brick-and-mortar retail, haven’t been executed well on the Web yet. Peabody: Merchandising is absolutely the most critical component of any E-commerce company. People try to brand their sites, but it’s really more important to show an image of what you’ve got instead of asking customers to guess. If you let them guess, they’ll guess wrong. THE TRUTHMONGERS To help us deconstruct the myths of the Web, we turned to expert observers of the Internet phenomenon. Their comments can be found after each of the case studies we presented. Here are their credentials: Martin Anderson , management professor at Babson College, in Wellesley, Mass., advises executives who are transforming their traditional companies into “click and mortar” businesses. James J. Cramer is the brash cofounder of and columnist at TheStreet.com. He has built successful careers as both a journalist/pundit and a hedge-fund manager. Kathleen Eisenhardt is a professor specializing in competitive strategy at Stanford’s School of Engineering. She recently coauthored Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos. Chip Hazard is a general partner and E-commerce specialist at the venture powerhouse Greylock, in Boston. He helped launch the e-Steel exchange. Tod Johnson , chairman and CEO of Media Metrix Inc., based in New York City, is a widely recognized expert on brand loyalty. Ted Leonsis is president of AOL Interactive Properties Group. In his first three years at America Online (starting in 1994), it grew from about $100 million in revenues to $1.5 billion. Kelly Mooney is director of intelligence at Resource Marketing Inc., a technology-marketing firm in Columbus, Ohio. She has helped companies such as Victoria’s Secret develop their on-line strategies. Allen Morgan is a general partner at Mayfield Fund, in Menlo Park, Calif. He has been involved in more than 350 venture-capital investments and public offerings. Bo Peabody is a cofounder of Tripod Inc. and vice-president of network strategy at Lycos Inc. When he was still in college, Peabody founded Tripod, which helps people build their own home pages. In 1998 he sold the company to Lycos. Scott Randall is founder and CEO of Internet-auction hosting service FairMarket Inc. Randall has been involved in E-commerce since 1995, when he launched an on-line store. He has been president of the Internet Shopping Network and Yahoo Marketplace. David Rich is vice-president of marketing and brand guru at Bigstep.com, which provides on-line services to small businesses. He previously orchestrated brand campaigns for Walt Disney, Pepsi, and Jamba Juice. THE 7 MYTHS OF THE WEB ECONOMY Myth 1: Building a Web site is easy The word from the experts Myth 2: Traffic will make you rich The word from the experts Myth 3: Smart money makes you smart The word from the experts Myth 4: Razzle-dazzle makes Web sites great The word from the experts Myth 5: Brand is everything The word from the experts Myth 6: Wild ads make Web stars The word from the experts Myth 7: Community, community, community The word from the experts Plus: Tales my guru told me Dispatches from the Web economy Back to Intro, ” I Was Seduced by the Web Economy”

About 4859 days ago E-Commerce

Community, Community, Community: The Word from the Experts

Myth 7: Community, community, community REALITY CHECK: Not every business begets a cult Anderson: There is a huge myth out there that anyone can build an on-line community. Take my bank. I’ve been doing on-line banking since before the Web was the Web. Now, all of a sudden, my bank wants to become my portal. It wants to load up the page with news and sports. Everybody is trying to be a portal, but not all are destined to succeed. Johnson: It’s easy to see the appeal in building a community. When you talk about communities, the three or four sites that come to mind are AOL, GeoCities, Angelfire, and Tripod, all of which have created great riches. Lots of people want a feeling of belonging, and the Web has given that to them, through personal home pages and chats. Randall: About a year ago there was a huge thing being made about building communities, and it is still big. But there are a lot of customers who are very functionally driven, who simply want to go to a merchant and buy something. They don’t want a community. Rich: It really comes down to being smart about your users and your core business. Adding a community to a site that doesn’t meet customer needs or that offers a shoddy product won’t help. Also, building a community is a very complex and costly proposition. It requires a well-thought-out strategy, not just a lot of technology and money. You can end up damaging your company and your brand if you don’t implement it properly. THE TRUTHMONGERS To help us deconstruct the myths of the Web, we turned to expert observers of the Internet phenomenon. Their comments can be found after each of the case studies we presented. Here are their credentials: Martin Anderson , management professor at Babson College, in Wellesley, Mass., advises executives who are transforming their traditional companies into “click and mortar” businesses. James J. Cramer is the brash cofounder of and columnist at TheStreet.com. He has built successful careers as both a journalist/pundit and a hedge-fund manager. Kathleen Eisenhardt is a professor specializing in competitive strategy at Stanford’s School of Engineering. She recently coauthored Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos. Chip Hazard is a general partner and E-commerce specialist at the venture powerhouse Greylock, in Boston. He helped launch the e-Steel exchange. Tod Johnson , chairman and CEO of Media Metrix Inc., based in New York City, is a widely recognized expert on brand loyalty. Ted Leonsis is president of AOL Interactive Properties Group. In his first three years at America Online (starting in 1994), it grew from about $100 million in revenues to $1.5 billion. Kelly Mooney is director of intelligence at Resource Marketing Inc., a technology-marketing firm in Columbus, Ohio. She has helped companies such as Victoria’s Secret develop their on-line strategies. Allen Morgan is a general partner at Mayfield Fund, in Menlo Park, Calif. He has been involved in more than 350 venture-capital investments and public offerings. Bo Peabody is a cofounder of Tripod Inc. and vice-president of network strategy at Lycos Inc. When he was still in college, Peabody founded Tripod, which helps people build their own home pages. In 1998 he sold the company to Lycos. Scott Randall is founder and CEO of Internet-auction hosting service FairMarket Inc. Randall has been involved in E-commerce since 1995, when he launched an on-line store. He has been president of the Internet Shopping Network and Yahoo Marketplace. David Rich is vice-president of marketing and brand guru at Bigstep.com, which provides on-line services to small businesses. He previously orchestrated brand campaigns for Walt Disney, Pepsi, and Jamba Juice. THE 7 MYTHS OF THE WEB ECONOMY Myth 1: Building a Web site is easy The word from the experts Myth 2: Traffic will make you rich The word from the experts Myth 3: Smart money makes you smart The word from the experts Myth 4: Razzle-dazzle makes Web sites great The word from the experts Myth 5: Brand is everything The word from the experts Myth 6: Wild ads make Web stars The word from the experts Myth 7: Community, community, community The word from the experts Plus: Tales my guru told me Dispatches from the Web economy Back to Intro, ” I Was Seduced by the Web Economy”

About 4859 days ago E-Commerce

Building a Web Site Is Easy: The Word from the Experts

Myth 1: Building a Web site is easy REALITY CHECK: Oh, yeah? Try putting a traditional business on-line Anderson: The details in technology can clearly shut you down. We’re seeing that in our distance-learning efforts here at Babson. You’d think it would be very simple to prepare course materials that you’ve been using electronically for years and send them out via the Web. You quickly find out that customers have all different types of machines out there. Cramer: A lot of the technology out there doesn’t work well. Nobody admits it, because no one wants to tarnish the gloss that’s on the Web. Technology problems almost demolished us a dozen times. The first Internet service provider that we worked with was really bad. It was as if it was under contract with my personal enemies or with women whom I’d crossed before I got married. With the second, it was like these people were put on earth to destroy my business. Hazard: The real key to success is in improving the Web site over time. It’s really about having a feel for usage patterns — where people are spending time, where they’re getting stuck — and incorporating it into the design capabilities to allow you to go from generation one to five in a year. Johnson: It’s easy to build a bad Web site, harder to build a good one. The greater difficulties are in making a site easy for customers to use and in minimizing the number of clicks. The best example is Amazon’s one-click purchasing. It’s a pleasure to use after buying on a site that takes four, five, or six clicks to make a purchase. Peabody: At Tripod we struggled enormously, but that was because there was no off-the-shelf technology at the time. Today there’s so much more to buy. Of course, if you have a 30-year-old company with a special database, I wouldn’t be able to begin to tell you what to do. I’m sure there’s a lot of integrating that goes on. THE TRUTHMONGERS To help us deconstruct the myths of the Web, we turned to expert observers of the Internet phenomenon. Their comments can be found after each of the case studies we presented. Here are their credentials: Martin Anderson , management professor at Babson College, in Wellesley, Mass., advises executives who are transforming their traditional companies into “click and mortar” businesses. James J. Cramer is the brash cofounder of and columnist at TheStreet.com. He has built successful careers as both a journalist/pundit and a hedge-fund manager. Kathleen Eisenhardt is a professor specializing in competitive strategy at Stanford’s School of Engineering. She recently coauthored Competing on the Edge: Strategy as Structured Chaos. Chip Hazard is a general partner and E-commerce specialist at the venture powerhouse Greylock, in Boston. He helped launch the e-Steel exchange. Tod Johnson , chairman and CEO of Media Metrix Inc., based in New York City, is a widely recognized expert on brand loyalty. Ted Leonsis is president of AOL Interactive Properties Group. In his first three years at America Online (starting in 1994), it grew from about $100 million in revenues to $1.5 billion. Kelly Mooney is director of intelligence at Resource Marketing Inc., a technology-marketing firm in Columbus, Ohio. She has helped companies such as Victoria’s Secret develop their on-line strategies. Allen Morgan is a general partner at Mayfield Fund, in Menlo Park, Calif. He has been involved in more than 350 venture-capital investments and public offerings. Bo Peabody is a cofounder of Tripod Inc. and vice-president of network strategy at Lycos Inc. When he was still in college, Peabody founded Tripod, which helps people build their own home pages. In 1998 he sold the company to Lycos. Scott Randall is founder and CEO of Internet-auction hosting service FairMarket Inc. Randall has been involved in E-commerce since 1995, when he launched an on-line store. He has been president of the Internet Shopping Network and Yahoo Marketplace. David Rich is vice-president of marketing and brand guru at Bigstep.com, which provides on-line services to small businesses. He previously orchestrated brand campaigns for Walt Disney, Pepsi, and Jamba Juice. THE 7 MYTHS OF THE WEB ECONOMY Myth 1: Building a Web site is easy The word from the experts Myth 2: Traffic will make you rich The word from the experts Myth 3: Smart money makes you smart The word from the experts Myth 4: Razzle-dazzle makes Web sites great The word from the experts Myth 5: Brand is everything The word from the experts Myth 6: Wild ads make Web stars The word from the experts Myth 7: Community, community, community The word from the experts Plus: Tales my guru told me Dispatches from the Web economy Back to Intro, “I Was Seduced by the Web Economy”