It should be a way to communicate. It should be a forum for free speech. It should be, and still is, a place for anyone to communicate what they please, in the way they please. But it is business that is driving the most elegant solutions for doing it. It is business that has brought prosperity to the Internet. 

When a business wants to take advantage of the audience the web attracts. When they want to try and grab a piece of the eCommerce pie, they are faced with as many choices on how to do it, as there are places to go on the web itself. For many the choices are narrowed by budget and objective.  

If your objective is to run your whole business on the Internet you can do that. If all you want is to put your brochure on the web, you can do that. You do it three ways; hire a web developer; do it yourself; or find an off the shelf product.  

While may people have put up their own pages not many companies do. Most go to their graphics house or advertising or PR agency for help. It's probably the best solution. A site custom designed and tailored exactly to your objectives is wonderful. It is also expensive.  

There are millions of businesses that have never used a graphics house or an advertising or PR agency. Many who can't afford it. They have neither the human resources nor interest in building their own. Their choice then becomes finding a way to have a respectable web presence for a reasonable price. 

The following interview deliver some insight into two companies whose business is providing other business with a presence on the Internet. The first, Prospera is a design and communications firm. The second is Netpropulsion. They have developed a template based product for "off-the-shelf" web sites. 

Prospera is the design arm of Shandwick International. Shandwick International, is one of the largest PR companies in the world. They were formerly Mona, McGrath & Gavin Public Relations, one of the most visible PR firms in the area.  

As a design group Prospera has access to the biggest and most wealthy business clients in our region. They are a prestige firm creating elegant and "bleeding edge" functional web sites. Visiting them seems like a trip to Oz; beautiful offices, beautiful furniture, plentiful artwork. It's perfect. 

But in reality it's a business like any other. They've spent the money because good design is important to them. It's like immersion learning, if you surround yourself with quality, you're more likely to produce quality because you are constantly being changed by your surroundings. If they were not profitable they would not still be in business. Just like all of us. 

iBiz: Where did Prospera come from? 

Jennifer Kemp, VP New Media: Prospera was branded in 1995. While Prospera specializes in both Print and New Media it existed before then as the Mona, McGuire, Gavin Design group. In 1995 they added the new media key personalities. That was very timely, we started out with really three people and during that first year we grew to fifteen. It's pretty much held there since then. 

iBiz: I presume you started in CD-ROMs and gradually moved to the net. Can you remember when you did your first web site? 

Jennifer Kemp: Well, really right away. Our business was all web development and design related on the new media side. As a capability we've been promoting the fact that we have people who can do more traditional multi-media design and development. But the truth is everybody is interested in online communication and 90% of what we do is there. 

iBiz: What type, size business is your target customer? 

Jennifer Kemp: I would like to say that we don't pick and choose our customer depending upon the size of the company, or the type of business they're in, but rather if they share our vision of online communication with good design and communication. That they want to develop a site that targets an audience, and uses a voice and has objectives that will all help them achieve some sort of measurable goals. Those are the types of clients we like to work with. 

iBiz: Is the design of the site, or the appearance of the site, more important or the customer's communication objectives? 

Jennifer Kemp: I think there are three important factors that contribute to a successful web site. One is the interface design. The technology design, which is it's functionality. The third is the content design, content development. Each of those pieces has to be equally as strong. You still have to know who are you talking to. What voice are you using. What are you trying to accomplish? How do you measure the success of the site? Those are all communications fundamentals that have to exist for a web project as well as any other medium. 

iBiz: Do you see a web project as a separate entity or as an integral part of a customer's communication plan? 

John Dusek, Sr. New Media Producer: It's part of the overall communications mix. Our approach has always been to look at the entire spectrum of communications tools that a company might produce, or might be in the process of producing , and make sure they're web site reinterprets the messages and the values of those other tools online. One of the great things about the web is that you can do things on the web you can't possibly do with traditional media. That doesn't mean that there shouldn't be a link between what you're doing traditionally and what you're doing online. Our process is to really audit and analyze the entire spectrum of communication tools to make sure that what we're producing, whether it is a web site or an Intranet, or an online promotion is consistent. 

iBiz: Do your customers come to you for just their web site or do they come to you for all their communication needs? How do you deal with customers with a lot of different vendors each doing their own individual thing? 

Jennifer Kemp: We like a holistic approach to online communication. If we're able to facilitate a variety of different tools for them, we can leverage those assets across several different media. That is not only cost effective for them, but also maintains a high level of consistency. So whether it's an annual report, a brochure, a video, an interactive kiosk or a web site, if it's all being generated at the same time, for the same reason, then it would be nice for all of that business to come to us. 

John Dusek: Part of the reason companies establish identity standards is so that in all their communication tools that identity, and their values, are portrayed consistently. That doesn't mean you can pick up a printed piece and translate those same standards to the web. They're different mediums.  

Our process is to look at those existing standards and reinterpret them so that the values and the messages are still true. But that the formatting and the structure of the design, which are different online, are modified to take advantage of the web's capabilities 

iBiz: Do you solicit business outside of the Shandwick umbrella? 

Jennifer Kemp: We can solicit business on our own. We actually market our brand a little differently and separately. That allows us to pursue and work with clients independently.  

iBiz: Why should your customers go to the web? Why do they need a web site? 

Jennifer Kemp: I rarely have a meeting where I'm trying to convince someone that they should do something. I think that all businesses are unique, and what they're trying to accomplish with the web is unique. The interesting puzzle is what is the thing we can do on the web that is different than what you're doing everywhere else. How can we positively affect your bottom line by helping to replace business transactions or processes, or augment a process that's already in place, by putting materials online instead of printing them. Or putting materials online instead of having to send them to your clients. You can see how that mounts up to a lot of money and that gets very exciting. 

You can provide information services or products in a new and more convenient way for your customer. That goes a long way towards creating loyalty for your company because you're saying, "I want to be open to a new way to provide you with what you need." 

You can find a new way to reach a new customer base beyond your existing customer base. It's a new revenue stream for a lot of companies. It reinforces their brand identity. 

You can look at the web and say you can sell your products here, you can make some money, you can do something new you've never done before, and relatively inexpensively. If what you have doesn't work, you take it down and try something else. You haven't created a brochure with all it's printing costs and then you have to do it again. Or putting an advertisement on TV? 

John Dusek: We look at three main. . . what we call the three main elements of success. One of the things we try to do is look at what type of service can you provide online that you can't provide through traditional media. Differences that help you. Hopefully reduce costs or increase productivity (if we're talking about an Intranet). What services can this site offer that no other site can? 

We also look at building a community. One of the great things about a web site is that it's a dynamic medium that allows for a two-way stream of information. You can't do that with any other medium. We try to figure out how we can build a site so that the audience can talk, not only to the company, but to each other. When we do that we can start to build a community around the site.  

The third thing we try to do is determine how we can put information into context. One of the great things about this medium is you can build one-to-one relationships with your customers. The site that I see doesn't have to be the site that you see. It can contain different information. It (the site) can learn what I like versus what you like. So the ability to put your products and services into context, to target it to specific audiences, or even to individuals, is something you can't do in any other medium. 

So as we're trying to figure whether a company should be online, and why. . . whether they make the investment in a web site. Those are three areas we look at. How can we best take advantage of those three capabilities? 

iBiz: A year ago people were saying you couldn't make money on the web. The emphasis seems to have changed for many people. Now it seems everyone want to know how much money they can save using the web and its associated technologies. Do you find you can save your customers' money by replacing traditional media or methods with web technology? 

John Dusek: I definitely think there's money to be made on the web. It depends on the situation. You take a look at the Northwest Airlines site which we helped to develop. Twin Cities Business Monthly voted it the best money making site recently. That comes from looking at what services can we add to this site that increase revenue and decrease operating costs.  

Whether that is allowing people to check their Frequent Flyer miles online. Allowing them check flight information. Both let people to do their own customer service. A web site offers all of that. Booking a flight online is something that is much more efficient, much less costly, for Northwest airlines than are traditional methods.  

I think that is a unique example. Obviously not every company has an example that would apply like that. But one of the things important for every company about that example is, looking at what are you doing right now. You analyze their operation and try and find what can we move online. What can we automate so that operational costs decrease and access for customers increases. That's where you make money, and that's what you can't do through any traditional media. 

iBiz: When people think Web design they think about the appearance of the site. Do you offer more complete services?  

Jennifer Kemp: There are two parts to that question. I'll answer the first one. In terms of our breadth of capabilities. We really take the holistic approach to project development. If a client comes to us and says we need a new web site. We say yes we can do that. We can do strategy design. We do content development and implementation. 

But we also pay attention to that surrounding piece which is, how will you incent people to go to your site, the marketing and promotion piece. How will you measure the activity of your site and whether or not the right audience is going to your site. Or a surprising audience, there might be some folks going to your site that you didn't anticipate and does that mean there is a market there that you didn't know existed. That can be very exciting. 

So is the monitoring piece. Having a maintenance plan in place so you have a plan to keep it (the site) fresh and new and continues to bring people back to the site. That's holistic development.  

In terms of the technology capability, when it comes to special applications development like database development we do not keep that capability in-house but stay flexible by partnering with other companies that specialize in that capability. 

John Dusek: That could be electronic commerce or security, there are a number of different things where there are a number of companies that specialize in that thing. What that allows us to do is choose our partners for a project based on what the overall project parameters. That is something we try to work into our assessment, trying to identify all the opportunities there. We don't wait for a customer of ours to recommend that they go there. We try to take a proactive approach and identify those opportunities. We then select the right team to implement them. 

Jennifer Kemp: These companies are hiring us not just to produce a project for them but to be their partner in identifying other opportunities. To see things they're not seeing because they don't always understand the medium. That's why they hire us. 

John Dusek: We have been with some of our customers since day one. We started with Northwest Airline planning their Internet strategy back in 1995. We've been working with Shell Oil International since early 1996. With plenty of our clients we have taken a long looking approach to their Internet strategy. We do things in phases so that their sites are designed to grow. Most of our clients are looking at, "How do I get my foot in the door? How do I get started?" But then where do I go from there? How does this thing evolve as my business evolves and the capability of the web evolves. A part of our value add there is we can chart a course. 

iBiz: What is the advantage of a custom site? 

John Dusek: A pre-designed site is like putting a round peg in a square hole. Our approach is to first identify the overall site objectives. What are we trying to accomplish? Who are we trying to speak to? What do customers want to do at this site? What need are we trying to fill here? The benefit of having a design solution that speaks to those is it's more streamlined. It's easier for the customer to use than an off the shelf product would be. You really have to have form follow function here.  

Once we have a map for what the site needs to accomplish, then we can build a design that achieves that. If we try and do it the other way around and say here's our available designs, pick one. That doesn't work. 

Another thing is a custom site is inherently designed to grow. We look at what does a site need to do now, but also what does it need to do in six months. . . in twelve months. . . in two years? We make sure in our plan that we have a site that can evolve and can change as we find out how the site is being used. A custom site can do that and a cookie cutter site can't. You have an inherent constraint in the cookie cutter solution. 

Because our customers are looking for us to provide them with a long term road map of how they can grow their business online it really prohibits us from looking at a cookie cutter solution. They're not nearly as flexible a tailored solution would be. 

iBiz: What are the customer benefits to that solution. 

John Dusek: Basically it's easier to use. We can take a look at what the customer wants to achieve and make sure the interface and the structure supports that. The cookie cutter solution is not specific. As a result the customer experience is going to suffer. 

iBiz: One of obvious differences between the two solutions is cost. Will you take a small customer. Can you scale your offering down? 

John Dusek: That's the benefit of the customer solution. It can scale either direction. We can scale up to handle the largest company in the world. Or we can scale down to a customer who has more conservative goals. 

Net Propulsion is a template based design product developed by Vallon, Inc. in downtown Minneapolis. Vallon itself, like Prospera is a high end web developer with online credits like American Express, Polaris and the Minnesota Arboretum.  

When you decide to buy a Netpropulsion web site you go a local print shop. The Vallon team decided there will always be alternatives for the big guys, but how are small companies, the Mom and Pop stores and basement start-ups, going to get a site that looks good and accomplishes their business objectives. They set out to create a way and Netpropulsion is their answer.  
 
iBiz: Tell me about how Netpropulsion got started. 

Bonnie Breezee, Marketing Director: As you know Vallon started out as a high end web development company. They were doing quite well but. . . There was this infamous Thai food meeting late in the night. The management team was sitting around the table speculating about where the Internet was going. Where is the growth of the Internet going to be? 

The consensus was the high end web site is the sexy part of the business but it's really small businesses that are going to fuel the growth of the Internet. The question of course was; How do we service small business? Initially they thought of the print channel because a lot of us come from the print business. They banged a lot of ideas around and eventually came back to the print channel. They said you know, it's printers who are working with digital files and other marketing materials that have content. Y'know it really makes sense, it's a natural extension of their business to take printed matter, change the format and put it on the web. 

So that's where the channel came from. Alan (Alan Discount , CEO of Vallon) had come from William House Regency and had a concept of this type of product. . . the album selling approach. Printers are used to that with stationary and wedding invitations, things like that. So the concept of putting the Internet on paper, the site flows and creative elements, that's how the whole thing was born. 

iBiz: What is the print channel? 

Breezee: We work with all different types of typically quick print commercial printers. The small commercial printers. Many of them are franchises. We work with Sir Speedy, Insty Print. ICED which is your Quick Copies your Copy Club primarily in the Texas area. Here in the Twin Cities it's primarily Sir Speedy and Insty Prints. We have a few Signal Graphics and then we have a number of independents as well. 

iBiz: So you've rolled this program out nationally? 

Breezee: Yes. We're all across the country. Actually we're a little bit international we have some in Canada. I think we have our first one in China. Actually some of the franchisers are international so they've taken them offshore but it hasn't been a robust business, it's been more in the United States. 

iBiz: How long has the product been out? 

Breezee: It's just been a year in February.  

iBiz: How many printers do you have online now? 

Breezee: I believe it's just over 1,500. 

iBiz: How are they equipped to do this. Are they familiar with the process? Do they understand it? 

Breezee: What we do is we send this (the album) out to them along with a video that talks about the benefits of the Internet and why customers would want this. The following week we send out a training manual that talks about all these different phases. It has tests, actually it's a certification process the owner or whoever is going to be selling web sites can go through. We also conduct seminars in major metropolitan areas. We ask them to attend and then we take them hands on through the process. 

iBiz: How are you promoting the product? 

Breezee: We send out free point of purchase materials for them (the printers). We've got banners, ceiling hangers, posters and buttons for their people that say "Ask me about web sites?" We also have tri-fold brochures and take-one brochures and counter cards, anything they might need to promote their business. We're also coming out with a CD of all different types of artwork because they're a printer they can take the art and customize it for their business. The printer's own material can say "Frank's Sir Speedy web sites!" 

iBiz: When I saw my first Netpropulsion site I thought it was very attractive. The graphics the type styles are well chosen. There are some nice elements. If you only see one of these sites it looks very nice. Did you work with a graphic design firm to develop the program or did you do it all in house? 

Breezee: They were all done in-house. They were all done by the original Vallon team which is still doing high end web sites. 

iBiz: For me the genius is the distribution channel. But what is the product? 

Breezee: It's really an album approach to selling web sites. We have taken the intangible and made it tangible. It's taking the web and saying here's what your pages will look like. Here's the artwork, the type styles and the backgrounds. It's putting it on paper and making selections. Following the album and making selections so that you (the customer) can have an expectation of what you will have on the web. 

Versus the other way of going on the web, sitting down with a blank sheet of paper and trying to communicate what you want. This you can pick and choose and look and see exactly what you will get. 

iBiz: What are the elements? 

Breezee: First of all the customer will have to decide what they want. Do they want a static site, where it's really put your printed piece up. They can pick a one page site, or a multi-page personalized site, or a deluxe site which is really a custom site. We can do all of those.  

Then depending on what the customer wants they can go through the album, or the site flow if you will. How many pages do I want? What format do I want them in. 

iBiz: There's multiple formats available to them? 

Breezee: Yes. We've actually helped them by going out and researching a number of vertical markets to try and understand how they want to promote themselves on the web. Then based on what we've found, we give them a starting point. If they're an educator, or in real estate, or they're a photographer they can start here and say, "Hmmm that makes sense. But I think I want that, but I want different pages here. Or I don't like this particular style, I think I like this one better. Or I like all three of these but I want to switch these pages around. I'm going to go back here and I want that one here instead. " 

iBiz: We're talking about page layout here? 

Breezee: Right page layout and site flow and number of pages. Once you decide on that you flip to the next section (of the album) which would be your creative elements, the look and feel of the site. Again we make recommendations based on their particular vertical market. But of course they can go through and pick anything that they would like. Or if they want to work with their quick printer and their printer has graphic capabilities, they can create their own look. It just has to fit within our specs. We'll drop it in at no charge to them. 

iBiz: What we're looking at here are front page banners. What you mean by specs are X pixels by x pixels. They could create their own banner a put it in place of one of yours. 

Breezee: Right, absolutely, if they didn't find anything they want in here. 

iBiz: Looking at these there's obviously one that's a travel company, one that looks very medical, one that could be a lawyer or educator. One has a financial air to it. 

Breezee: Right, there's over a hundred of these. 

iBiz: Now we have our banner picked where do we go next? 

Breezee: If you look at each one of these we make recommendations on their next choices. Those would be their background colors and their type styles which is the next section of the album. Again they can actually pick whatever they would like, but we help them by recommending what would probably work best with their previous choices. 

They can also choose stock photos. We've formed an alliance with Photodisk so they have a whole catalogue of photos to choose from. If they don't have their own they can pick any photo they like, at no charge to them. 

iBiz: Can they supply their own photographs? 

Breezee: Yes, certainly. They can supply them digitally or we'll use their photographs. 

iBiz: Do many of them have the digital scanners, the tools it takes to create web pages. 

Breezee: Some do but most of them just send the photos to us. We do incent them to do it themselves. If they do, there's a discount that they either keep for themselves or pass onto their customers. So there is an incentive for them to send it digitally. 

We also have some optional enhancements mortgage calculators and guest books. We are also in the process of adding pages for eComerce and online catalogues. 

At this point the printer would help the customer make these selections, help them pull content together. Maybe from marketing pieces they already have. The printer would submit that order to us and within seven days we would have a proof on the net for the customer to approve. We'd make any changes if they were necessary and it's done. 

iBiz: When they leave the printer do they get a piece of paper that says, this is the format they've chosen, this is the color the type? 

Breezee: That all depends on how the printer wants to set it up with their customer. When we proof it with them they will get it on paper and a test server so they can go online and proof it. 

iBiz: They can look at it during the production process just like you would a custom site. 

Breezee: Right. We have a 100% satisfaction guarantee. When they see the site, if they don't like it , we'll fix it. 

iBiz: So how successful is this product? 

Breezee: People get very excited about it. It's taking the print channel awhile to embrace it. They've been very excited about it but they're in business to sell printing. I think they're just beginning to realize, "Hey, this is where the future is." and the orders are showing that. We getting steady growth. 

But they have to be comfortable. This is the Internet this is not ink on paper. This is digital and while it's a natural extension of their business we have to help them get over their natural reticence. That's why we have reps in different parts of the country to help them. To call on them and train them and help them through their first order. Once they get past that first order that comfort level is there. 

One of the most important things in our training is a lot of them have never had web sites of their own. We offer them a web site at a very good price for them customized to their franchise or independent operation. One of our reps walks them through the very same process. If they do it themselves then it's, "Oh I can do it myself. I know how to do it now." Once they get their own site up and running they feel a lot more comfortable. 

iBiz: How is this structured? I saw on the first page of the album some prices,. Are those the recommended retail prices? 

Breezee: Exactly. Yes those are retail but the printer can sell them at whatever price they choose. What happens is we bill the printer and the printer bills the customer. 

iBiz: So really the printer can take that price page and throw it away. 

Breezee: Exactly, in fact the newer books don't have that page. We've reprinted the album without prices. 

iBiz: What kind of responses have you received from people who have used this product? Have you had any responses from end users? 

Breezee: We've had some but because we are the back end we don't have contact with the end user. We have to get those comments from the printer but people have been very satisfied. They like the speed with which they get it. They like their level of involvement. We've found people to be very excited about it. 

iBiz: You mentioned small businesses earlier. What is the target market for this product. 

Breezee: Actually the target market is the market of the printer. It all depends on who the printer approaches with this. We've actually had very high end projects as well come from this market. Because we actually will do custom web sites. What we request is printers send us what that customer is looking for. Within 24 hours we'll give him a quote. 

We've done several thousand dollar sites through this channel It's not just the really large businesses anymore that want the eCommerce site or the catalogue site or the chat rooms. It's the small business too because the web is that great equalizer. They say, "Hey I wanna sell on the net too." 

They like our product because we make it very easy for them. They buy a site and we have the plug and play options that make it work. 

iBiz: What about hosting. Who hosts these sites? 

Breezee: We host as well. We really try to make this a turn key solution for our customers. They can offer web site development, hoisting and maintenance. There are hosting packages and maintenance packages. If the customer does not want to host with the printer, with us, we'll supply the site on disk and they can take it wherever they like. It's totally optional. They don't have to buy hoisting when they buy a site. 

iBiz: Is there any support for end users after their site goes up? What if their business grows and they want their site to grow too. 

Breezee: They go back to the printer. That person is their customer. Our customer is the printer. They would go to the printer 'cause we've got maintenance plans. If they want monthly changes, quarterly changes, ad hoc editing. They can get what they want, add pages add functionality. If they want to come back and ad more pages we'd love to help them. 

iBiz: Do you want to tell me the average price on our sites? 

Breezee: We're finding the average price to be around $1,000.00. But that typically includes a hosting or maintenance plan which are yearly plans. Most sites typically includes one or both of those.  

iBiz: Have you seen any particular kind of business more than others in your sites? 

Breezee: No, we've had everything from "waterproofing your basement" to auto repair. I think more and more people are seeing the value of the web and that's why we're seeing businesses across the board in our customers. 

iBiz