Info Teck Talk Newletter (Summer 1997)...(itt-970701)

People are often frustrated with the manual processes found within their organization. Take for example the process of an employee preparing to attend a conference in another city. The employee must manually fill out a variety of forms each often requiring the same bits of information. Then these forms would be routed through a maze of different paths to various people for review, approval, and action. The entire process is full of potential roadblocks and bottlenecks requiring the employee to constantly "bird dog" the entire process to ensure that he or she will get the travel orders, airline tickets, hotel reservations, and other key documents in time for the trip. Because of the sequential nature of the work process, having one or two people in the process out due to sickness or vacation results in long delays in getting the paperwork out. Also, it is not unusual for a piece of paper to get lost in the process. This is often an anxious and irritating period for travelers.

All of the steps in a process, such as this travel procedure, is defined in what is called "workflow." It covers the steps from start to finish including all exceptional conditions. There are numerous other examples of workflow in both the private and public sector:

In general, the key problems with using the manual "paper hand-off" workflow include the following:

One answer to these problems is workflow technologies. These automated technologies manages the work performed by an organization by:

Technology forecasters such as Gartner Group are saying that the next technology explosion after the Internet will be workflow technologies. Earlier this year, Delphi Consulting released a report that showed a 20 percent annual growth rate in workflow product sales during the past five years.

One example involves linking a workflow to the Internet to allow organizations to create virtual workflow solutions. The Office of Undergraduate Admissions at North Carolina State University in Raleigh is in the process of enhancing its current workflow system to allow prospective students to initiate a workflow by filling out an application form located on the school's World Wide Web site.

"Ultimately, workflow is the flowing of documents, which are the manifestation of information in an organization," states Nathaniel Palmer, senior market analyst at Delphi Consulting Group in Boston. "But that doesn't mean that everything flowing is workflow," Palmer indicates. "There is a distinction between workflow and, for example, E-mail or groupware. Going beyond the mere transport of data, a workflow system allows a business process to be developed, analyzed, monitored and changed. Packages that allow workflow to function over the Internet are in their infancy. But it's only a matter of time before such applications take off. Indeed, North Carolina State University is beta testing a system that allows prospective undergrads to apply for admission over the Internet."

Receipt of the application via the World Wide Web will start the workflow process by creating an electronic folder for that applicant on the school’s workflow system. This folder is routed to different parts of the University for various reviews and approvals.

The use of web is just one part of the solution. Grade transcripts and other academic information must be submitted by mail or fax. If an application is received by mail, it is scanned into the workflow system as a document image, placed in a work queue, indexed by Social Security number and included in an applicant's folder. A fax transmission which is already in digital form, is received in the workflow system as an image and processed the same way.

Linking workflow and the Internet, according to Brian Kemerait, director of North Carolina State's Management Information Resource Center, gives the school a leg up over other schools. "Attracting good students is a very competitive process," he says. "The key concept is to make it as easy as possible for them to show an interest in the university and to apply."

Resistance to change -- People often have a hard time adjusting to a new way of doing business so adequate orientation and training is required as well as a strong managerial commitment and support for the new process.

People do not like to be monitored -- These technologies may appear to have "Big Brother" characteristics but actually the workflow automation techniques should be tracking the same information which a supervisor would normally monitor in a manual process.

Cost of the systems -- Workflow systems are not cheap (prices approach $1,000 per user) but they pay for themselves over time.

Interoperability with other systems -- There is a general trend toward integrating this technology with desktop applications and web tools.

Let’s get back to the travel procedure mentioned at the beginning of this article. Imagine an automated workflow system which you can enter travel information just once and all the work is done for you!!! You can easily check the status of your request instantly and at any time from your work station. The process would be done rapidly and efficiently with minimal chance of error. If one or two people involved in the process were out of the office, the workflow tool would be automatically re-route the key documents to an alternate individual. Sounds too good to be true? Well, it is true and can be done using workflow technologies!

McCormick, John. "BPR and Workflow Tools", Government Computer News, June 2, 1997, p. 57-59.

Born and raised in Winter Haven, Florida, I now serve as a professor of systems management specializing in technologies such as software, the Internet, multimedia, telecommunications, and infrastructure technologies. I have researched topics directly related to the development of IRM policies, organizational reengineering, and system acquisition. I have implemented wireless networks and provided network, hardware and software support to enhance student access to and understanding of leading edge information technologies, and tried to keep the IRMC at the forefront of the Information Revolution.

My Air Force career is rapidly coming to its end. Retirement and the transition to civilian life and employment is underway. Ideally, I'd like to secure employment as a Project Manager, with emphasis in software life cycle management, SEI CMM, and software development. Other interests include PC and LAN based technologies, particularly the Internet. I have enjoyed building things including computer hardware and software. Today, the interest is more of a hobby than a career. I have no interest in being locked away in a room forever to develop the toys. Teaching these technologies -- now I do enjoy that.

My goals and drive for education continues to this day. I am enrolled at Syracuse University and plan to finish a second Masters degree in Information Resources Management. Most likely, Ph.D. work will follow. When I'm not playing with computer toys (my children are very interested in computers and we've built a small network in our basement), I enjoy hiking and riding my motorcycle. Yes, even around Washington!

Groupware merges with course content in the Managing Information Security in a Networked Environment (SEC 9702) course. The course is about information security and the lesson is called the Future of Information Security. In that lesson, a study produced by the Gartner Group serves as a baseline for projecting the security needs in the near future. Group Systems V for Windows was used to solicit student inputs into the observations of the study. Next, the students were polled as to the extent of agreement with the study. This class was quite successful, with students asking for a paper or electronic copy of all the generated inputs and outputs.

How many vice presidents does it take to change a light bulb? Eight: one to work the bulb and seven to make sure the company gets $2 for every light bulb ever changed anywhere in the world.

How many C++ programmers does it take to change a light bulb? You're still thinking procedurally. A properly designed light bulb object would inherit a change method from a generic light bulb class, so all you'd have to do is send a light bulb change message.

How many shipping dept. personnel does it take to change a light bulb? They can change the bulb in 7-10 working days; if you call before 2 pm and pay an extra $15 they can get the bulb changed overnight.

How long does it take a (pick your own) repairman to change a light bulb? It depends on how many burnt-out light bulbs he brought with him.

How many Macintosh users does it take to change a Light bulb? One, but he'll swear up and down that it was easier for him than it would be for a PC user.

How many Microsoft engineers does it take to change a light bulb? None, Bill Gates will just redefine Darkness™ as the new industry standard.

The growth in popularity of intranets has prompted an associated growth in options for creating and maintaining these systems. This article looks at those alternatives and attempts to provide some guidance for evaluating them. It will begin by providing a definition for an intranet. It will then provide a taxonomy and characteristics of each of the approaches. It will also provide a basis for matching a solution to an organization’s environment. Finally, it will provide some caveats for managers who need to think carefully about the long term effects of creating and maintaining intranet solutions.

An intranet is a privately owned information network that utilizes the protocols, tools, and languages of the Internet. The varieties of protocols include TCP/IP, DNS, HTTP, FTP, CGI, SMTP, Usenet, and IRC. The principal tools include servers (with utilities), browsers, and web page organization programs. The primary languages utilized include HTML, VRML, JAVA and JavaScript. The server is central to the establishment and implementation of an intranet because it must be able to interpret the variety of protocol instructions and also store and deliver the data packets.

Four relatively clear approaches for building intranets have arisen. They are 1) roll your own, 2) packaged applications, 3) generic systems, and 4) see through. A Roll your own approach entails coding data or information from scratch, most frequently using HTML and CGI scripting languages such as JavaScript. Packaged applications are purchased "turnkey" applications oriented toward specific functional areas such as sales or budgeting. They are usually written in JavaScript or Java by professional software organizations such as Oracle or Netscape. Generic systems provide a loose framework with generic application templates or data structure supports that work within the internet protocols. Finally, See Through programs operate by providing a window through a browser into legacy applications. The table below provides a quick look at additional characteristics for each of the approaches.

Approach	Description	Vendors/ Examples	Advantages	Disadvantages
Roll Your Own	Start coding HTML, CGI, Java from scratch	Organization specific	Custom built; sense of pride in creation	Expensive; difficult to maintain
Packaged Application	Pre-packaged applications such as sales, purchasing	Oracle, Oblix	Ready to go; meets immediate business need	Likely need tailoring; limited applications available; training required
Generic	Template environment for application creation and management	Lotus Domino; Allaire Cold Fusion	May build on legacy apps; complete solution; integrated	Adaption, training
See Through	Use of your browser to view legacy applications running on your LAN or mainframe	CITRIX’s Winframe; SCO’s Tarantella	No new development necessary; very cost effective	Must continue to support legacy apps; some inefficiency in speed and processing because of added layer

Irrespective of which of the above approaches an organization may select, certain basic requirements are necessary. That is, intranets are no different from traditional client server systems in needing servers that must be purchased (e.g. $5,000 for a 100 user Intranetware license from Novell) and maintained (backup, upgrades). They also require webmasters (in lieu of network administrators) to administer and control access to the data. It would be untenable to have a user create a series of pages only to have another user come along and accidentally delete them. Additionally it is desirable for these systems to have links to the other information systems already resident in the organization such as e-mail and databases. Gateways to those systems need to be created and maintained. The following paragraphs discuss additional vagaries of the individual approaches.

This method is the approach currently most utilized. Roll your own has been a common sense evolution. Intranets are a new technology and therefore not much software support is yet available for integrating and managing web pages. Much of this type of help is just now surfacing. We are passing through a stage roughly equivalent to mainframe computing in the early 1960’s. At that time database management systems and packaged applications did not yet exist. Organizations hired and used their own programmers to build systems from scratch.

The roll your own approach is touted as easy and inexpensive. It provides this appearance by giving users the ability to create their own home pages through HTML coding, and the hypertext linking capability inherent in internet protocols. A number of vendors have created packages or add-ons to word processing packages for building HTML web pages. With an hour or two of training, users can be creating personal web pages to attach to the intranet.

Technical management of a roll your own intranet is typically limited to what may be accomplished through low level server capability, for example, read/write privileges on disk directories. This places a burden on the user to know what directories may be used. It also surfaces the issue of how pages and links are to be maintained upon a user’s transfer or leaving. In a survey of ten organizations using roll your own intranet technology, an average of one full time person needed for each intranet server in use. This person is needed in addition to LAN management personnel. This management can be aided through the use of programs such as Microsoft’s Front Page for organizing and controlling content.

The use of the roll your own approach for transaction processing or document control is a poor approach. These types of applications require expensive professional Java or JavaScript programmers and months if not years of development time. There are however a growing array of tools available for building these types of applications. Just as Visual Basic and PowerBuilder surfaced as application development environments for a Microsoft Windows client server environment, now Integrated Development Environments (IDEs) such as Visual Cafe (http://www.symantec.com/vcafeprowin/) from Symantec and Visual J++ (http://www.microsoft.com/visualj/) from Microsoft have arisen to meet the needs of Java developers.

To meet the serious business user’s needs, and eliminate the "start from scratch" necessity, vendors have stepped in and created turnkey packaged internet applications.

Most of an organization’s business needs can be well served by packaged software. Knowing this, vendors such as Oracle, Clarify, and Oblix have begun producing Web-based software for a variety of application areas such as customer support, sales/marketing, and human resources management. Their goal is a turnkey system that a customer can install quickly, receive on-line training, and implement post-haste. Oracle has produced an array of applications including Oracle Payables™, Oracle Workflow, Oracle Human Resources™, and Oracle Purchasing™. (http://www.oracle.com/products/websystem/intranet/html/appsweb.html)

Clarify (http://www.clarify.com/) has produced applications such as call tracking, service-contract verification, customer-configuration management, defect tracking, and service-inventory management that companies such as Cisco Systems are using daily. Oblix has produced an environment called IntraPower Suite. It includes an Employee Directory, Resource Scheduler, Dynamic Business Cards, and Organization Chart. The largest problem in this approach is the current lack of extensive applications. It will likely be years before application specific vendors convert their applications from the client server side to Web/Intranet based technology. Meanwhile organizations can find solutions that go half-way toward a turnkey environment through generic approaches.

The generic approach is an interesting hybrid between the packaged application thrust and the roll your own method. There are several vendors who offer structural frameworks and more sophisticated management tools for creating and managing HTML and other data types. These include Lotus’ Domino (http://www2.lotus.com/domino.nsf), OpenDatabase, Borland’s Intrabuilder (http://www.borland.com/intrabuilder/) Allaire Corp.’s Cold Fusion, Everywhere Development Corp.’s Tango, and Broadvision’s One-to-One. The thrust of this approach is to set up a complete environment for allowing users to create web pages, but to also integrate them easily by adding the essentials of database technology. The features commonly available in database environments such as access control, security, and query capability are then available for web based documents. A particularly attractive feature of this product is the groupware aspect. Users can pull information from the intranet, but also push it, i.e. place information on the server in a much more organized fashion without having to coordinate with the Webmaster. Additionally users can create forms and output views without extensive professional training and experience. The Lotus product acts as both an intranet and internet server simultaneously. This provides an organization with the capability of developing intranet applications that can then be turned out onto the web. Notesbases databases residing on a Domino server exist in an HTML format. The paradigm for data control through Domino is also different. The content of and access to a Notes database, internal and external to the organization, is controlled by the database manager, not the Webmaster or network administrator. Domino also has CC Mail built in with SMTP, POP3 and X.400 compliance.

In any of the three approaches just visited a substantial investment must be made in development and infrastructure support. Another method which bypasses much of this need is surfacing.

The rationale behind much of the thrust of creating intranets has been to utilize the browser such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft Internet Explorer as a single point of entry and navigation among an organization’s information. In fact, little data is yet available to support the cost benefit payoff of creating intranets (see Web Week 21 April 1997). In response to this lack of a measure and in response to a need for accessing an organizations legacy systems, two vendors have produced products which allow and end user to peer through his browser into the legacy applications. The two products in this arena are CITRIX’s Winframe (http://www.citrix.com/prodback.htm) and SCO’s Tarantella (http://www.tarantella.sco.com/). Winframe’s non-HTML access is limited to applications running on Microsoft client server networks. Tarantella however works through a wide range of UNIX (X-Window), Novell and mainframe application frameworks. While this approach is very cost effective it prevents data which is not in an internet accessible format from being integrated. It also limits processing to legacy capability.

While certainly any organization’s criteria for evaluating intranet options are specific to its needs, the following list of issues are likely universal and therefore should be considered when evaluating the various approaches to intraneting:

Cost - Initial, maintenance, programming, training

Compatibility / Standards / Platforms

Security / Access

Interface/Ease of Use

Network Management Tools

Data Organization and Access

Development and Administrative Personnel Availability

Application Development / Extensibility / Customization

While intranets have been proliferating, many if not most of the efforts have been "bottom up", that is started and extended by decentralized, enthusiastic individuals. Ultimately, however, your organization will need to answer the question: What is the business purpose of our Intranet and is it cost effective? What applications needs will readily be answered with this technology, and what others are inefficient using these approaches? The fact that the basic paradigm of the web is hypertext should not be ignored. Information Systems managers should be wary of falling into the trap of the 1960’s - spaghetti code. There is significant cost down the road to those who are now advocating a "Do your own thing" - no structure approach. Payday will come in the form of heavily overloaded Webmasters, the entanglement and loss of links, and the loss of control and history over one of the organizations most important assets - its information.

A recent trend in interactive advertising over the Internet is the evolution of virtual organizations that aim to match the organizations that sell products/services with their appropriate target consumers who might be interested in their products/services. These virtual organizations trade information—they collect information from consumers regarding their demographics, product/service preferences, likes and dislikes, etc., and based on this information, they provide product/service information using interactive advertisements to the consumer groups that the corporations would like to target. While they charge the corporations for the advertisements directed at the target consumers, they compensate the consumers for their information and for viewing the advertisements using inducements such as free e-mail service, cash, promotional rebates and coupons and point-rewards that can be exchanged for a variety of goods and services. In early 1996 there were only two such organizations on the WWW experimenting with the idea, now there are more than a dozen of such organizations vying for users’ attention on the Web. Each employs a different business model to attract on-line users to register with their organization, to ensure their involvement with the advertisement, and to charge the client organizations for the advertisement. While growth of virtual organizations on the Web is nothing new, the fact that consumers are getting compensation in some form for sharing their personal information is a new concept. This may indicate a shift in the balance of power in the marketing information market as consumers come to realize that their personal information could be of significant value (see Hagel and Rayport, Harvard Business Review, March 1997). In this note, I describe and compare the different schemes that the virtual organizations employ to get on-line users to view and process the advertisements and examine what the future holds for this industry.

The advertising-revenue supported "goodies" for consumer information models can be classified into two main types: the community model and the pay-for-performance model, although there are many variations within each category. The virtual intermediaries following the community model provide free services such as e-mail access, chat groups, news, weather, and magazines, etc. in much the same way as a no-frills Internet Service Provider. Generally, the intermediaries provide free services software that users can install on their computers and free local telephone access to these services that users can tap into at no extra cost other than subscribing to a local telephone line. In return, the users signing up with these intermediaries provide detailed demographic, psychographic and/or product/service preference information. The intermediaries sell the advertising opportunities to client organizations and tailor the advertisements to user groups based on the information they provide. When the users sign on and use the free services such as e-mail, chat rooms, news, etc., these tailored advertisements are directed to them as banners or background, at strategic locations on the interface screens.

Some examples of virtual intermediaries that follow the community model include Juno, which provides free e-mail service with 1.5 million subscribers; Free@ UMail, a service provided by a Washington area local TV station (UPN20) that includes free e-mail, news, chat rooms, free classifieds, etc.; Hotmail, an Internet-based e-mail service provider claiming a 3 million subscriber base (users need to have access to the Internet to use this e-mail service and get a password to link to the e-mail service; the e-mail service is very versatile in transmitting various data formats and files). There are other virtual (true) communities that are evolving on the Internet which aim at gathering people with similar interests and may/may not relay advertising information about products/services that the community members might find of interest based on their general preference and demographic data. Examples include Firefly.com, Geocities, Tripod, etc. (see Business Week, May 5, 1997). But most of these do not explicitly provide any "goodies" in return for consumer information, although they may provide information of value to the user.

The virtual intermediaries following the pay-for-performance model operate in a much different way as compared to the community model. When users sign up with these organizations, they provide demographic and product/service preference information as they would do with the community model organizations, but they do not get any free services. Instead they get paid cash or bonus points for viewing and interacting with the advertisements that are tailored to them and sent to them via e-mail or flashed at them at certain web-sites. If the users fail to interact or remain passive to the advertisements, they do not get paid; they accrue the payments or bonus points only when they act and hence the term "pay-for-performance". The accrued cash can be used in any way – deposited in a bank account, used for buying products at web-sites, rebates, etc., while the accrued bonus points can be redeemed for products/services similar to the redemption of frequent-flyer miles or loyalty points. The advertisers who advertise through these virtual intermediaries get charged on the basis of verified responses from users who interact with the advertisements.

There are several organizations on the Web that follow the pay-for-performance model. Cybergold.com launched in 1996 offers incentives ranging from 50 cents to several dollars for such activities as viewing and interacting with advertisements, visiting Web sites, taking surveys, filling out application and registration forms, making purchases, etc. (with a limit of one reward per person per action). BonusMail, a virtual organization operated by Intellipost Corporation operates in a slightly different manner. When users join, they fill out a personal profile. Based on these profiles BonusMail directs e-mail messages containing the advertisements that might be of interest to the users. The users read the advertisements and reply to BonusMail to verify their action. To ensure that readers process the advertisements, the e-mail messages embed special MagicWords in the advertisements, which the readers have to identify prior to replying. The users accrue "rewards" which can then be redeemed for products/services, rebates, etc. There are many variations of the pay-for-performance model that different organizations use but they all provide some type of guarantee for user interaction and response to the advertisements.

There are several questions that arise when we closely scrutinize these models. First, why would users want to enroll with these virtual organizations? Well, they get free "goodies" for the information they provide (which marketers, hitherto, paid nothing for!). There is no risk involved in getting this goody. What about the "quality" or "reliability" of the information users provide regarding their demographics and product/service preferences? Would users be truthful? Assuming that the consumers are risk neutral, even if we consider the viewing/interacting with the advertisement as a chore that users perform for getting goodies, they would rather perform the chore with advertisements that are of some interest to them. It is not very likely that consumers will provide false information and interact with advertisements that are of no interest to them. Thus, there is an in-built incentive in the scheme that ensures truthful information. This is why the business models work.

The organizations using these different models are after different users. The pay-for-performance model requires access to the Internet before users can sign up. Thus, the market is limited to 40 million or so users that use the Web on a regular basis. The community model provides access to e-mail and other services a user may not possess and so is directed at the users who do not have access to the Web from home. This market, obviously, is much bigger. These users are mainly na�ve/first-timers whereas the pay-for-performance targets the sophisticated Web-surfers. It is expected that as users become more sophisticated, they may acquire their own access to the Web and graduate to the pay-for-performance type organizations.

What is the future of these virtual organizations? Right now, both models are in the growth phase. For advertisers to pay the right kind of money, the organizations have to show that they have a reach over a significant number of users, which means each organization has to build its market share. With more players entering the market, a shake-out is imminent. Three other factors may hasten this process. One is the growing concern over information privacy. If consumers are concerned about the manner in which their personal information is used/traded and privacy breached in the process, the "goodies" that these organizations hand out need to be of much higher value to attract users. This will increase costs which only big players can bear. Second, advertisers over the Web are now more concerned about user response to their advertisements (such as clicking on it to enter their Web-site, making inquiries, purchases, etc.) rather than mere exposure. This augurs well for the pay-for-performance model rather than the community model, which guarantees only exposure. Advertisers may not be willing to spend top-dollars for mere exposure on the Web. The community model, therefore, may generate less revenue per advertisement than the pay-for-performance model. Given that the market for the community model is much bigger, a big player in that market may still survive and perform well. Third, consumer apathy may well play a role in which model succeeds. The pay-for-performance model requires a proactive consumer with keen interest in the goodies. The community model may satisfy more needs of a consumer – e-mail, chat, look up news, etc. – while passively watching the advertisements. Thus chances of repeat uses may be higher in the community model than in the pay-for-performance model.

What should you and I do in the meanwhile? Just surf away! I saw that Cybergold.com is paying a dollar to the user for getting a friend enrolled. The market share war is already on! It is time to make $$$$.