20 Under 40 - 1997 Profile: Phil Harris, Naples (Fla.) Daily News

PRESSTIME

By Presstime Magazine

First Published: December 1997

Just two years ago, Phil Harris worked as a manufacturers' representative, crisscrossing the southeastern United States and extolling the virtues of men's slacks. Today, he serves as electronic-publishing director for the Naples (Fla.) Daily News (morning, circulation 57,668), a, ahem, hand-tailored position.

Harris liked the rep job, despite the fact that he traveled 60,000 miles annually. "You have friends all over the country," he observes, though adding, "and none at home."

With the retailing world in flux, he reviewed his options and decided that a newspaper, particularly one launching new-media projects, might offer a career segue.

Publisher Corbin A. Wyant hired Harris to head an audiotex department, though Wyant says he had "essentially no computer experience." It wasn't computer skills that Wyant wanted.

"I know selling, and I knew I could sell the audiotex system to advertisers," Harris says. Less than a year after the audiotex system began operations, he also pushed to launch a World Wide Web site, Naples Daily News Online (http://www.naplesnews.com/), in November 1996.

Today, the electronic-publishing department generates monthly revenues of about $30,000 and shows a profit. Its staff works with advertising and editorial departments, and Harris credits cross-department teamwork with making electronic publishing a success in Naples.

He strives to be of full service to local advertisers, creating online coupons and banner ads, and even developing Web sites for them. He suspects that the Web, like its print counterpart, offers a chance to strengthen community ties through high-school sports schedules, scouting news and the like.