A: Increasing the Usability and Effectiveness of your Corporate Intranet

"If you build it, they will come" only works for cornfields in the movies. If you're willing to build a corporate Intranet and want employees to use it, their experience must be a positive one. An effective development and maintenance strategy is critical to ensure the long lasting success and usability of your corporate Intranet.

This strategy must include:

Consistent development standards for appearance, functionality and navigation

Usability testing as a step for success

A strict governance policy that is actually enforced

Eastman Chemical Company will share the details of its strategy for its corporate Intranet and real life experiences in the development and maintenance of its employee portals: My Workplace and My Information Station.

Wayne Armbrister
Manager of HR Service Center Technology
EASTMAN CHEMICAL COMPANY
Wayne Armbrister is currently the manager of HR Service Center Technology at Eastman Chemical Company. Wayne draws from over 20 years experience in HR Administration and Information Technology. Since 1997, he has been a leader in the development of Eastman's employee self-service strategy.

B: Roundtable Discussion Groups

These detailed interactive and informal subject-specific discussion groups give you an excellent opportunity to probe the knowledge and expertise of our speaker faculty. Enjoy continental breakfast while the speakers host roundtable discussion forums, with each table focusing on a particular subject.

Table topics include:

Lessons learned from redesigning a corporate internet

Purchasing and/or charging for content

Content management systems

Website functionality and usability

9:15 ?? Concurrent Sessions Choose Track A or B

A: Re-Thinking Navigation With the End-User In Mind ?C How to Think Like a Human Being

From what perspective do you build your Intranet site navigation ?C from the top down, or from the bottom up? Do you spoon-feed static information from upper management, or do you involve your staff by making it interesting from the end-user's perspective? Don't assume you know how end-users think. Phone reps have different needs from accountants who have different needs from senior executives, etc. Every group wants their information NOW and EASY to find. You must be part psychologist and part advertising copy writer. Who do you have to please? Why do you have an Intranet? These answers will help guide you when building navigation.

Participants will learn how to:

Create an Intranet with no prior experience

Build your navigation to maximize the reason for the Intranet ?C information housing, links to applications, company propaganda, and employee morale

Think like an employee

Find tools to reveal end-user needs - utilize focus groups, find a workout process and train a facilitator

Please everyone - frontline and back office staff, department managers, your legal department, and your executive team

Howard Geffen
Technical Writer
AMERICAN AIRLINES FEDERAL CREDIT UNION
Howard joined AMR Corporation, the parent company of American Airlines, in 1994. After working in the Strategic Training Department of an AMR call center subsidiary, he moved to the American Airlines Credit Union training department in 1999. His first task was to facilitate the migration of paper-based policies and procedures (P&P) to an on-line format. Three years ago Howard helped to create the Credit Union's first Intranet site. Today, he maintains nearly all content on the Intranet and continually updates the on-line policies and procedures.

B: Web Writing Skills to Support your Web Self-Service Plan

Today's companies turn to web self-service to reduce costs and please customers. But many web self-service plans fail because web content is unclear. When customers can't easily find information or complete transactions online, they pick up the phone or send an e-mail ?C and that's the end of self-service.

Effective self-service web content is predictable, clearly written, and easy to follow. Learn how to write web content that enables selfservice and how to explain the importance of writing well to all the web self-service content contributors in your company.

This session will include tips for writing effective web self-service components:

FAQs

Instructions

Knowledgebase entries

Leslie O'Flahavan
Partner
E-WRITE
Leslie O'Flahavan is a Partner in E-WRITE, a D.C.-based writing training and consulting company. E-WRITE develops and teaches web writing courses, writes web content, and translates print to online writing. E-WRITE has developed and presented web writing courses for technology and content leaders: Prudential, Fannie Mae, Coca Cola, U.S. Air Force, American Airlines, and KeyBank.
10:15 ?? Networking and Refreshment Break
10:45 ?? Concurrent Sessions Choose Track A or B

A: Conducting Studies to Understand Employee Intranet Use

Metrics are increasingly important to understand not only how Intranets are used, but also their business value as key communications and productivity tools. IBM's Intranet is the preferred information channel at the company, and a current challenge is to web-enable role-based work processes. With the 2004 launch of IBM's new Intranet, known as the On Demand Workplace, the tracking studies used to assess satisfaction have been substantially revised. This presentation will review the major types of ongoing research that focus on understanding Intranet usage at IBM.

Participants will learn how to:

Conduct quarterly online satisfaction surveys with randomly selected samples

Organize location-based focus groups, in-depth interviews and usability studies

Deliver key themes and interrelationships in news and on-line discussions using text analysis

James F. Newswanger, Ph.D.
Corporate Intranet Research Manager
IBM
James Newswanger is Research Manager of the IBM Corporate Intranet. In this role, Jim is responsible for the internal web measurement program, including site traffic analysis, productivity metrics, customer satisfaction, and qualitative research. The IBM Intranet is one of the largest in the world, with several thousand sites and 350,000 users. Jim also directs IBM's "w3Jam" research program, and coordinates ongoing study of corporate reputation.

B: Branding your Site to Increase Interest Internally and Externally

A Website is and should be used as a sales tool. It is out there for the entire world to see ?C including your customers, prospective customers and internal customers. Are you able to use this tool to increase your corporation's brand awareness? If not, why not? Attend this session and Yum! Brands will teach you how it utilizes its Website to increase brand awareness.

Topics of discussion will include:

Identifying the best method of branding your site

Recognizing the ROI from brand awareness

A step-by-step guide to increasing interest in your Website

Drew Edman
Manager of Consumer Web Communications
YUM! BRANDS, INC.
Drew Edman is the Manager of Consumer Web Communications for Yum!Brands, Inc. whose main headquarters is located in Louisville, KY. For over 8 years, Drew has lead development and implementation of B to B and B to C content, tools and applications for such well known brand web sites as KFC.com, LJSilvers.com, PizzaHut.com, and TacoBell.com.

11:45 ?? Concurrent Sessions Choose Track A or B

A: Moving from Intranet to Portal ?C Time to Turn Up the Volume!
"Build it and they will come" truly is a field of dreams when it comes to Portals. You must create a portal so compelling, your audience just can't function without it. So how do you take your Intranet into the next century? Come listen to the Yum! plan of attack including a day in the life of five different Yum! employees and learn how Yum! sifted through the rubble of multiple Intranets and massive amounts of content, and found the way to make a difference in the day-to-day actions of its people.

Participants will learn how to:

Utilize tips for content restructure/reorganization

Take content and turn it into something special

View the "Day In The Life" portal demonstration

Toni Ewton
Web Communications Manager, Yum! Systems Communication
YUM! BRANDS, INC.
Ms. Ewton is the Web Communication Manager for Yum! Brands, Inc. the world's largest restaurant company in terms of system restaurants with more that 33,000 restaurants in more than 100 countries and territories. The Yum! Brands family includes A&W All American Food and segment leaders KFC, Long John Silvers, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell. Her team of four is responsible for content and site maintenance and enhancements for 4 Intranets and 8 Extranet sites which are the main communication vehicle to the company's franchise community.

B: Conducting Usability Testing for your Website to Ensure Satisfied Visitors

The Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations (JCAHO) is the nation's predominant standardssetting and accrediting body in health care, evaluating and accrediting more than 15,000 health care organizations and programs in the United States. Accordingly, its Website must communicate a great deal of complex and technical information, updated on a daily basis. The Joint Commission conducts usability testing to make certain that visitors??ranging from senior citizens evaluating caregivers to hospital administrators enforcing safety guidelines??are able to quickly and effectively retrieve information. The results have been increased task-completion rates and overall productivity by visitors, and reduced training and support costs for the Joint Commission.

During this presentation you will learn how to:

Go about recruiting participants

Set the test up and write a good script

Select vendors to help you conduct your test

Analyze your observations and develop recommendations

Communicate your recommendations to gain buy-in from key stakeholders

Frank Barancyk
Internet/Intranet Communications Manager
JOINT COMMISSION ON ACCREDITATION OF HEALTHCARE ORGANIZATIONS
Frank has been with the Joint Commission since 2000. Prior to his experience with the Joint Commission, Frank worked in health care marketing and public relations for 10 years at The Methodist Hospitals in Gary/Merrillville, Indiana. He holds a BA from Purdue University in organizational communications and public relations.
12:45 ?? Luncheon for Speakers and Delegates
?C Presentation of the 2nd Annual IBIC Awards!
2:00 ?? Concurrent Sessions Choose Track A or B

A: Developing a User-Friendly Online Training Course for Content Providers to Reduce Training Costs

Need to reduce training costs yet still provide a meaningful training resource for your Intranet content providers? What does it take to make this happen? You're not alone -- these are common questions. Don't despair. KeyBank successfully launched a new online training program for its Intranet in early 2004. This session will openly discuss the benefits and challenges of implementing this technology.

Topics covered in this session include:

Assessing the needs for online training and determining the best solutions

Identifying common goals among content providers

Leveraging macromedia flash technology to develop an interactive training resource

Developing an ongoing maintenance/updating process for training material

Measuring and evaluating the use of technology to centralize training and reduce expenses

Carolyn J. McDowell
Vice President and Manager of Electronic Communications & Distribution
KEYBANK
Carolyn McDowell joined Key in 1990 and currently serves as senior manager of Electronic Communication and Distribution. Responsibilities include the continued growth and development of Key's Intranet and other internal electronic distribution channels, like e-mail. Carolyn manages the core business team responsible for the development and integration of three Intranets into the corporate Web content management system.

B: Globalizing your Website to Drive a Competitive Advantage

Managing global customer-facing Websites requires an effective and collaborative content strategy involving all business units and processes in a company and meeting user needs. The main international challenges lie in merging technology and content, building Web governance and covering complex content lifecycles. Therefore, implementing a global content management solution means dealing with technical and organizational issues.

Participants in this session will learn how to:

Identify global content strategy components, processes and objectives

Develop a content framework across the organization

Select a content management solution and a Web globalization partner

Categorize content and understanding content layers

Bruno Herrmann
Web Content Program Manager
ACNIELSEN EMEA
Bruno Herrmann manages the Web Content Program for ACNielsen (based in Wavre, Belgium), covering 19 countries and 12 languages across Europe. Previously, he was responsible for the GMS Program at HP MEA and for various content management projects on top of Web localization projects at Compaq.

3:00 ?? Concurrent Sessions Choose Track A or B

A: Utilizing Search to Increase the Functionality of your Intranet

In today's society time is a premium and visitors want instant access to their target content. Therefore it is essential that your Intranet search strategy is effective and that your visitors successfully leverage your search tool. Marriott is deploying a search solution to enhance and optimize search, by leveraging metadata, integrating search with existing enterprise products, offering business managers relevancy ranking alternatives while maintaining security, and offering enterprise scalability.

During this session participants will learn how to:

Define search requirements

Evaluate an existing search product or proposed product

Measure visitors' searching patterns

Develop strategies to improve search results

Design search interface screens

Richard Corson
Senior Director, Application Technologies
MARRIOTT INTERNATIONAL, INC.
Mr. Corson is Marriott International's Senior Director of Application Technologies. He is accountable for Marriott's Intranet/Extranet environment supporting over 45,000 active internal and external customers. Additional responsibilities include, an internal billing and expense allocation systems team; a configuration management best practices team and a small systems development team.

B: Customizing and Personalizing your Website for Visitors

As the largest private research University in the southeastern United States, with approximately 15,000 students and more than 9,400 full and part-time staff, it is vital that the University of Miami be able to provide students, faculty and staff with the information they need when they need it. Through the University's Website, www.miami.edu, each of the University's Schools and Colleges is able to meet the needs of its department's students and staff with customized information, while still maintaining the unified look and feel of the University.

This session will discuss how to leverage content management and portal technology to:

Reduce site development time

Update pages quickly

Share content from across departmental sites

Streamline the content review, approval, and management process

Attendees will leave with strategies and best practices which can be applied in government, education or corporate America for developing and maintaining a Web presence with personalized content and mass appeal.

Wendy Dibean
Senior Manager of Web Development
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI
Wendy Dibean is the Senior Manager for Web Development and Support at the University of Miami, where she plays a significant role in content management and web application initiatives for the University. In 2000, her team implemented an enterprise-wide content management application, and since then has continued to expand their efforts to support the updating of the phonebook, a University-wide events calendar, and a "Major Finder" for prospective students.

4:00 ?? Concurrent Sessions Choose Track A or B

A: A Step-by-Step Guide to Increasing the Effectiveness of your Corporate Intranet

Learn how the nation's leading waste service and environmental management company used a routine technical upgrade to foster better communication among content owners/managers and better organization and usability of their Intranet resources. Find out how to get self-service content owners/managers to take more responsibility for their publishing areas and how to market these improvements to the company's users.

Participants will learn how to:

Gain leadership support

Use a broad-based survey to define areas for action

Get content owners/managers engaged and involved

Generate excitement in the user base

Maria R. Thurow
Sr. Communication Specialist
WASTE MANAGEMENT, INC.
Ms. Thurow is Waste Management, Inc.'s Senior Communication Specialist. She is a member of WM's Intranet Portal Development team, which has recently completed a major portal integration and relaunch of the company's Intranet site. She leads the area of content owner management, site governance and user experience.

Scott Ward
Senior Consultant
COMPUTER SCIENCES CORPORATION (CSC)

Mr. Ward is a Senior Consultant with Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC) and a member of the Organizational Change Management team with Waste Management's IT department. In that role, he assists in the deployment of a wide variety of IT initiatives, providing leadership alignment, stakeholder readiness and communications support.

B: Developing an Internet Strategy for China: Content, Translation and More

China is a major economic force in the global market space. Increasingly more and more customers are accessing companies' websites from overseas and particularly China. Companies need to develop a scalable effective web globalization strategy. This presentation spikes out the specific process that was employed to develop Texas Instruments' Internet strategy for China, to create an executable roadmap, to secure buy-in across diverse internal organizations by building and presenting a strong business case.

Specific questions that will be addressed include:

Who is the customer?

What content needs to be translated?

How do we tie in to our existing content management system?