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Introduction
Designing an Easy-to-Use Template
Improving Site Navigation
Surmounting Service Provider Restrictions
Addressing Security Issues
Being Responsive to Changing Needs
Introduction
When
the venture capitalists of the Megunticook Fund launched their Web
site in early 1999, the team quickly encountered challenges in
keeping the site updated with mission critical information. Given
the dynamic nature of start-up companies, it was imperative to
continually update content for limited partners seeking the most
current data on portfolio investments. But as the site was then
structured, Megunticook was at the mercy of its Web design house to
implement required changes.
"We're a start-up company ourselves. We invest in very early
seed-stage companies," explains Catherine Vaughan, Director of
Operations for Megunticook Fund. "Things change daily and no
outside source could match that demanding pace. We needed to find a
way to dynamically update information on the Web site on our
own." ASG Multimedia was brought in to turn their static site
into a dynamic information center with accurate and timely
information, and to deliver control of the content directly to
Megunticook.
Designing an Easy-to-Use
Template
"The idea was to make it very simple for
Megunticook to manage the content on the Web site without having to
contact the web design house or us," says Andy Gelbert,
President of ASG Multimedia. The first step was to identify every
area of the web site that Megunticook wanted to have dynamic control
over. The second step was designing a simple fill-in-the-blanks
template that provided the framework for adding and updating web
pages on each portfolio company. This included preliminary
information about a company in which Megunticook chose to invest,
what it did, its goals and products, as well as marketing plans and
confidential financial information.
The information could be transferred from e-mail or other electronic
communications directly into the web template. On the server, a
relational database organized this data and allowed the web pages to
be created on the fly using the latest stored information.
Megunticook staff could upload the new information right to the web
page pertaining to a portfolio company or create a new page for a
new investment. ASG Multimedia also added a separate section for
tracking the latest press releases from portfolio companies.
"Andy Gelbert was really a mastermind in making this job so
easy," insists Helene Lorentzen, MIS Consultant for
Megunticook. "He designed the update feature so that we can
post changes to our web pages without having to do any formatting or
HTML coding." Lorentzen says this has saved her an enormous
amount of time over having to develop web pages from scratch. This
time savings is crucial because in the fast-paced world of venture
capitalism, there's never any time to spare.
Improving Site
Navigation
In addition to helping Megunticook control
their own Web site content, ASG Multimedia offered suggestions to
make the site more user-friendly. "As we began posting more and
more information on portfolio companies, the original structure that
we had for the web site became unwieldy," recalls Lorentzen.
ASG Multimedia recommended adding layers to make site navigation
easier.
"Initially, updates were about a paragraph long," recalls
Gelbert. "Then Megunticook started getting updates from their
portfolio companies that were multi-page Word documents. Limited
partners visiting the site complained about how long it took to
scroll through every update." In response, ASG Multimedia
constructed a hierarchy of content, allowing site visitors to skim
the highlights or drill down for more detailed information.
Surmounting Service
Provider Restrictions
While many web service providers
allow clients to run an executable file on the server that would
allow them to upload pages directly, Megunticook's server did not.
Given this restriction, ASG Multimedia designed an easy workaround
with a special FTP utility. "Normally, I would build the upload
utility right into what I was coding for them," explains
Gelbert. "But it requires a program to be running on the server
that would automatically accept the new Web pages. Since their
provider didn't allow us to do that, I installed a utility on the
Megunticook system that allowed the staff to transfer files from
their desktops to the web server." According to Lorentzen the
drag and drop utility was easy to learn.
Addressing Security
Issues
Wrestling with security constraints imposed by
its service provider, Megunticook further consulted ASG Multimedia
on ways to incorporate more flexible yet secure access to its site.
Originally the server totally locked out access to the secured
portions of the Megunticook site when a single user logged on
incorrectly three times in a row. The 20-minute lockout period
raised complaints from partners attempting to log onto the site.
"This security problem seriously affected the usability of the
site," shares Lorentzen. "It also caused us an image
problem because for those 20-minute intervals, nobody could log
on."
ASG Multimedia designed an improved security architecture so that
only individual users would be denied access as a result of an
incorrect user name or password; other users would still have access
to the site. This scheme also gave Megunticook direct control over
the secured user name and password, instead of the service provider.
Being Responsive to Changing
Needs
As ASG Multimedia helped Megunticook transform
its static site to a more flexible and dynamic one, the venture
capitalists began expanding the scope of what information they
wanted to be able to update. "Andy was very thorough in
explaining exactly what we needed to do at every step of the way. As
someone who isn't very familiar with Web technology, I greatly
appreciated his patience as well as his technical expertise,"
says Catherine Vaughan.
Lorentzen commends ASG Multimedia for its bottom line approach and
technical savvy. She states, "They are sensitive to the issues
that both we and our clients face. And they're willing to go back
and forth with us to make sure that we get the results we want. We
won't hesitate to contact ASG Multimedia when future technical
issues arise or we wish to make further enhancements to the web
site."
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