HOT NEWS IN THIS REPORT:

1. E-commerce timing is ripe for mid-sized firms
2. Videoconferencing offers key competitive advantages
3. Executive research tool: DeepCanyon
4. Web-based surveys make market research easy
5. Cool tool: Giage WebSpace
6. Palm Pilot applications grow into vertical markets

Executive Technology Briefing (ETB)
Editor/Publisher: Jordan Ayan
Contributing Editor: Chuck Frey

Please feel free to forward this issue to others who may be interested in learning about these new technology developments!

Questions? Feedback? Suggestions for future topics? Please contact us at: etb@create-it.com

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---E-COMMERCE TIMING IS RIPE FOR MID-SIZED FIRMS---

The time is now right and "safe" for medium-sized companies to aggressively embrace e-commerce, according to a new report from Cahners In-Stat Group. By 2002, Web sites of medium-sized firms (100-199 employees) will have adopted a new e-strategy focus, with:

- More than 80% offering online catalogs,
- 35% offering online ordering capabilities, and
- More than 20% providing online transaction processing capabilities.

According to this research firm, these medium-sized businesses earned only about 4% of their revenues online; by 2000 that figure is expected to more than double to 10%.

What strategic factors will drive this expected increase? Nearly three-quarters of the companies surveyed for this study believe that the Internet is now "safe enough" for commerce. The rapid rise of vertical market portal sites will also help to fuel the participation of mid-sized firms in e-commerce. Portal "store fronts" offer a painless way for these smaller companies to start offering online transactional services to their customers at a lower cost than trying to develop these capabilities in-house.

What does this trend mean? Mid-sized companies can no longer afford to sit on the sidelines; they must incorporate e-commerce into their strategic planning process. Not only do they risk losing a competitive edge by not embracing e-commerce, mid-sized firms have the most to gain from moving aggressively in this direction, in terms of maintaining and growing relationships with key customers and suppliers - who increasingly want to do business electronically.

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---VIDEOCONFERENCING OFFERS KEY COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGES---

During the last few years, videoconferencing technology has been quietly growing as a business tool, but a lack of worldwide standards and limited Internet bandwidth have caused many businesses to hold off on using it. According to our ongoing survey of CEO's, only 18 percent have actually used it in their organizations. We believe that videoconferencing is finally poised to explode as a "killer application" that if used strategically, can have a positive impact on your company's bottom line.

In a videoconference, two or more people in different physical locations can communicate verbally and visually, and can collaborate on documents and projects, using a number of collaborative data-sharing tools. Videoconferencing tools fall into three general areas:

1. Inexpensive desktop tools including cameras and software that enable 1-to-1 conferences via the Web,

2. Stand-alone videoconferencing products (usually integrated into a roll-around cart with a monitor, camera and "codex" equipment that handles audio and video compression and decompression at each end), and

3. Dedicated videoconferencing rooms (high-end systems that cost $1 million and up).

According to the executives we've talked to who are already using desktop videoconferencing, the ability to collaborate and share data is by far its biggest benefit. Users can simultaneously view, comment on and mark up a document, for example. For many applications, being able to view a postage-stamp sized video image of the person at the other end doesn't add much value. As a result, many savvy users shut off the video camera, conserving precious communications bandwidth so these other collaborative applications can run faster. As bandwidth increases, and the cost of it drops, these tools will be found in offices with increasing frequency. They may already even be packaged on the systems you have purchased. Many people already have the tools on their systems and have never even tried them out.

Stand-alone products require more expensive telecommunications options, such as dedicated ISDN connections, but can be much more conducive to actual meetings. The cost of these systems has dropped dramatically over the last couple of years, and great systems are available for between $5,000 and $10,000. Additionally, now there's a universal videoconferencing standard known as H.320 that should help to drive the growth of videoconferencing so that more companies will have compatible systems.

The biggest benefit of videoconferencing is that it can eliminate some of your travel costs and helps maximize employee productivity. According to the Official Airline Guide, the average business traveler will take 21 trips this year and will spend an average of 37 nights in hotels. It's estimated that videoconferencing technology could replace 7% of business travel next year, and as much as 20% in 2007.

Applications of videoconferencing include one-to-one and one-to-many meetings, conducting training and product demonstrations, and communicating corporate announcements to employees in multiple offices and plants worldwide.

How you apply the technology is the key to getting the benefit from it. Here are some key ways to make videoconferencing pay off:

- Use it to develop and bring new products to market faster, through concurrent engineering and improved coordination between your company and suppliers.

- Improve customer satisfaction by "meeting" with key customers more often and on short notice. This more frequent dialogue can help you enhance existing customer relationships and improve your understanding of their needs and concerns.

- Reach consensus faster -- get more of your staff involved in a video meeting because they don't have to travel to one physical location.

As with many technologies, videoconferencing has a cultural caveat: to get the most out of this technology and avoid problems, you must educate employees on when it's proper to meet electronically versus face-to-face, and encourage them to use it. Videoconferencing is not a panacea, and should not be used to communicate sensitive corporate decisions to employees, for example. Also, CEOs and senior level executives need to lead by example: if the CEO hops on a plane to conduct routine meetings with staff at various branch offices or plants, he or she is sending the wrong message to the organization.

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---EXECUTIVE RESEARCH TOOL: DEEPCANYON---

http://www.deepcanyon.com

When you're developing ideas, tactics and plans to develop your business plans, you often need to locate a certain statistic or piece of market research that is critical to build your business case. If you find that you lack the time to sift through a mountain of information on the Web to find the data you need, Hewlett-Packard's new "DeepCanyon" information portal Web site may be able to help you.

DeepCanyon can help you develop winning business plans by offering a growing collection of business and market research, competitive information, customized industry news, and in-depth analysis of current market trends, all targeted at the needs of small to medium-sized businesses. DeepCanyon has agreements to sell research reports from such well-respected technology research firms as The Yankee Group, Zona Research, ActivMedia and the Institute for the Future.

By acting as an information portal for market research reports, DeepCanyon provides a valuable service: you can avoid spending hours tracking down these reports on each research firm's Web site. In addition, you can set up a personal profile so that DeepCanyon automatically sends you an e-mail when new reports are added to the site's database that match your interests.

Other DeepCanyon tools include a market size calculator, reviews of top business, innovation and marketing-oriented Web sites, and a special version of the Northern Light search engine, customized for DeepCanyon users.

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---WEB-BASED SURVEYS MAKE MARKET RESEARCH EASY---

http://www.perseusdevelopment.com
http://www.zoomerang.com

Web-based surveys are a great tool for taking the pulse of your customers, prospects and other key constituencies and building Web site traffic. But companies often lack the Web authoring expertise to create the complex forms and scripting required. A new class of software tools and online services makes creating Web-based opinion surveys a snap.

Survey Solutions for the Web, a software program offered by Perseus Development, allows you to create survey questions in a word processor-like environment, and then exports your completed questionnaire to HTML, with all of the necessary scripting to handle the data from the form. We've used this program, but have found that the questionnaires it creates still need to be cleaned up in an HTML authoring program, and the options for handling the resulting survey data aren't as intuitive as they should be.

Zoomerang from MarketTools takes a different tack, by providing all of the tools for creating, publishing and administering your survey via a Web browser - for free! It provides you with starter questions, which you can customize, or you can start out with a blank survey and create your own. Zoomerang even automates the process of promoting your questionnaire to your target audiences; you can customize an outgoing e-mail message, and then upload a list of e-mail addresses for the people you want to participate in the survey. Zoomerang automatically sends them an e-mail message that contains a link to your survey, hosted on the Zoomerang site. Responses are compiled as they come in, and you can view the results on a secure (password protected) Web page, complete with helpful graphs and charts of the data you've gathered.

Why are Web-based survey tools like these important to your business? Asking questions of your target audiences and constituencies can help you to identify their needs and concerns - valuable information you can use to enhance your products and services, and ultimately, to extend your competitive edge.

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---COOL TOOL: GIAGE WEBSPACE---

http://www.webspace.com

During recent years, a number of software companies have introduced programs designed to help combat information overload. Most of these programs haven't met the needs of knowledge workers because they don't take into account the breadth of information that today's executives need to keep track of -- without becoming overwhelmed by "Information Pain."

WebSpace 1.1, a new information management utility from Giage Ltd., takes a broader view of knowledge management. It uses an Internet Explorer-like interface to simultaneously display a Web browser window, an expandable outline of your WebSpace knowledge base, and an Explorer-like view of the assets on your computer. Its flexible design allows you to capture entire Web pages -- or parts of Web pages (only a block of text, or only certain graphics, for example) -- as well as local documents, images and other files -- all in a flexible, expandable outline format. You can then organize these information assets into folders and categories that make sense to you, and reorganize them whenever you want.

We have used WebSpace for several weeks, and find that it's easy and intuitive to create a flexible knowledge base out of the information on your computer, local area network AND the Web. Unlike some software programs in this genre, you don't need to be a knowledge management expert to use WebSpace. It does an excellent job of capturing information, no matter where it resides, and gives you a level of control over it that we haven't seen in other similar programs.

WebSpace can help you become more organized and productive by giving you fingertip access to the information and data you need. The program is currently available as a free download for a limited time; corporate licenses are also available.

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---PALM PILOT APPLICATIONS GROW INTO VERTICAL MARKETS---

The popular Palm Pilot handheld computer is quickly growing beyond the business and consumer markets into a variety of vertical market applications, where its portability can help industrial users to log data in the field. One Pilot add-on we recently came across is called "MyCorder," and snaps onto the modem connector at the bottom of the Palm III, IIIx and VII handhelds to collect data from up to six analog sensors. The unit, offered by a company called DataStick, comes with software that lets users capture temperature, pressure, light and acceleration measurements in the field, and view this data as bar charts, line graphs or in straight numerical mode - right on the Pilot's screen.

As the Palm Pilot continues to gain momentum as the de facto standard for palm-sized computers, we predict that hardware and software developers will create a wealth of new plug-ins and add-ons for it, extending its functionality into many more data-intensive vertical market applications like this one.

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That's all for now! I welcome your comments and feedback on the Executive Technology Briefing, which will help me to focus it even more closely on your needs.

Jordan Ayan
President
Create-it!