- Reducing the cost of internal printing and distribution for such ubiquitous but frequently updated items as telephone lists and personnel manuals. Companies with geographically dispersed employees add postage to that total.
- Changing the dynamic of the client-server approach. Instead of complicated client software such as QuarkXPress or Microsoft Excel, many intranets use "thin clients," mostly Web-browsing software such as Netscape Navigator or Microsoft's Internet Explorer. They act like the terminal emulation tools of mainframe days, save money on software, and make life easier for support staff, who no longer have to scurry from desktop to desktop tweaking complex applications.
- Standardizing common TCP/IP networking architecture simplifies system maintenance. "It is a big change, mainly because [newspapers] have a slew of different protocols," de La Fuente says. "Once everyone's on TCP/IP, things are easier to manage. We can communicate across companies with the same protocols."
- Following the crowd. Just as client-server systems allowed newspapers to use cheaper, simpler software tools such as Microsoft Word, intranet tools have become plentiful and inexpensive. "We use off-the-shelf software," de La Fuente says. "With open protocols, you can plug each piece of technology in to get best-of-breed products."
- Enhancing interoffice communication. As Foley puts it, the intranet allows employees "to find someone who can speak German at 5 p.m."
by Mark Toner, Presstime Staff Writer
Video may have killed the radio star, but it was a flashy computer network that derailed plans to scatter video screens throughout three buildings at a Texas newspaper.
The San Antonio Express-News had considered an in-house broadcast system to disseminate information to employees. Then, last spring, Kathy Foley rolled out a prototype of a newsroom intranet allowing reporters to tap the paper's archive and other resources--and started thinking big. The information-services editor persuaded human-resources managers to reallocate capital earmarked for the TV system and take the network companywide. Interactive staff directories and human-resources manuals joined news information online, and employees outside the newsroom began accessing the network. Soon, Foley was sharing brown-bag lunches with workers from other departments and teaching them how to build their own sites. In just over a year, the intranet grew from an idea to a resource that now has its own editor.
With 1,300 employees working three shifts amid a complicated renovation involving all the buildings, the intranet quickly became the top means of interdepartmental communication, saving at least $70,000 in printing costs during its first year.
Such is the way intranets gradually work their way into newspaper operations. Organic by nature, the networks often grow like kudzu. After being planted in one department--say, the newsroom, as a means to access archives--networks spread into other departments. And like kudzu, their growth can even supplant original, mission-critical applications.
Several groups, including Knight Ridder in San Jose and Howard Publications of Oceanside, Calif., already place accounting and editorial applications on intranet platforms. Even some of the industry's most venerable suppliers have come full circle from mainframe days. Meanwhile, at dozens of other papers across the country, employees in different departments take smaller steps by sharing information.
"An intranet facilitates the exchange of information and knowledge among our newspapers," says Ricardo de La Fuente, Knight Ridder's manager of business information services and technology. "We're building the highways for that information now."
THE GOALS
What exactly is an intranet? Technical mumbo-jumbo aside, it's any internal network that operates using the same open protocols as the Internet. Usually, that means setting up an internal World Wide Web server and installing Web-browsing software on users' computers, but any application using the Internet's TCP/IP protocol qualifies. Network-centric groupware applications such as Lotus Notes and wide-area networks are also often lumped under the intranet moniker.
Such systems proliferate throughout the corporate universe. As many as 63 percent of large U.S. companies have installed some form of intranets, according to several studies. And 80 percent of companies polled by Meta Group of Stamford, Conn., realized a positive return-on-investment on their intranet systems.
Where does ROI come from? A partial list includes:
Setting up an intranet may be as simple as dedicating one PC as a server, obtaining HTTP (hypertext transport protocol) server software and installing browsers on users' computers. Of course, as systems grow, they become more complex, requiring secure servers, firewalls and added security features such as certificate servers.
THE MOTIVATION
Intranets allow employees to think big. Take those at Knight Ridder, now using its intranet infrastructure to standardize e-mail for 10,000 users across the country. Intranets' open protocols allow the use of common, inexpensive e-mail applications by Microsoft Corp. or Netscape Communications Corp.
But there's plenty of opportunity to think big even within the walls of a single newspaper. In San Antonio, as Foley began sending feelers about the budding intranet project, she tapped into hidden demand: "People wanted more interdepartmental communications."
Communications tools on the ENsite intranet began with a searchable phone book including photos and voluntary bios featuring hobbies and pets. "It's helpful to find people whose names you forget," says Jalyn Kelley, the intranet's editor. The staff is developing clickable maps allowing users to see who's working where, a valuable resource as managers reshuffle bodies during renovations.
Since a big chunk of the intranet's budget came out of the human-resources department, personnel-related information came next. Along with "those forms you can never remember where to find," as Kelley puts it, staffers posted benefit information, training-program registration, information about the city, and even a list of nearby restaurants. With a captive audience of 1,300, intranet advertising from nearby eateries could be possible, Foley speculates.
So far, so good. Then the intranet's roots began sprouting, as staffers from every department began voluntarily posting information to ENsite. The distribution department's area, for instance, includes such morale-boosting tidbits as awards won and employee citations, as well as more practical maps of distribution centers and the ZIP codes they serve.
Why the grass-roots interest? "Everybody wants what they're working on to be seen by folks very high up," Foley explains. That, she surmises, plus friendly interdepartmental competition.
The true test of an intranet's ability to bring together staffers, however, may well be how it works with night-side, production and other staffers who don't spend their shifts in front of computers. ENsite installed eight public-access terminals in break rooms and production areas and held evening training sessions for third-shift workers. Doing so "puts people on an even foot," says Kelley. "They probably need this more than anybody."
THE PROMISE
Even rote communications tasks hint at intranets' larger promise.
"The phone book is a perfect example," Foley explains. "To print that book used to be an incredibly difficult task because there was no database of who worked where. For the first time, there is a database. That got everybody to realize that this could be the way we do business."
Already, employees at some newspapers set out to disprove the once-conventional wisdom that intranets are great for e-mail or file-sharing, but too fragile for serious business applications.
"Early on, there was the perception that these things couldn't handle sophisticated applications," observes de La Fuente. But intranet "protocols do not place a heavy burden on the network, so it's actually more robust than client-server in that respect."
Currently present in many newsrooms as a link to archives, intranets expand their role to critical production areas. For instance, some predict it will be difficult in a few years to find raster-image processing software without a Web-browser interface simply because developing different proprietary clients for Macintoshes and PCs is remarkably expensive.
In San Antonio, the first application will replace the multipart paper forms used for decades to assign photographs. "It's logical," Foley says. "Editors can see the assignments other editors or reporters made."
In Munster, Ind., Howard Publications Inc. opted to aggressively expand its home-grown intranet. Using IBM's general-business groupware Lotus Notes as a foundation, Howard purchased editorial tools developed by NewsEngin Inc., a St. Louis software developer founded by George Landau, formerly director of computer-assisted reporting for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (Presstime, Nov. 1997, p. 66). Additional software by DeskNet Inc. of New York City provides an interface to QuarkXPress. And for a per-seat cost in the three-figure range--yes, that's hundreds of dollars, not thousands or tens of thousands--Howard employees had a full-blown editorial system they could modify themselves.
Though Notes might seem more at home in the generic office environment depicted in "Dilbert," technologists argue that its adaptable work flow closely mirrors newspapers' editorial processes. "Think of Notes as an electronic erector set with parts that let you collaborateÉand quickly build what you need," Landau explains.
Such systems aren't just for smaller-market operations. Several large Scandinavian newspapers have integrated CCI Europe's complex NewsDesk system with Lotus Notes. One of the industry's venerable former mainframe-system suppliers, System Integrators Inc. of Sacramento, recently entered a partnership with Associated Newspapers of London to build a 700-seat Notes-powered intranet (Presstime, Dec. 1998, p. 63). While the British publishing powerhouse wanted a product familiar to users of its existing SII system, it opted to take the intranet route to "future-proof" operations, officials say.
Such applications simply won't remain confined to the newsroom. After introducing a central Oracle-based system for accounting, Knight Ridder's shared-serv-ices department began exploring the possibility of placing all financial systems on its intranet. As part of a gradual rollout, staffers use Web-browsing software and the central Oracle database to issue or authorize purchase orders or requisitions.
Senior managers who once drafted local budgets using spreadsheet software and then physically mailed them to corporate headquarters now access Budget Builder, an intranet application that culls live financial figures from a back-end database. Similar intranet applications are being developed for KR's regional customer-service centers.
When finances are involved, security becomes an obvious concern. But Internet technology, including secure socket layers, encryption and certificate servers, can be put into place on intranets. De La Fuente adds that intranets provide an opportunity to develop a superior one-password environment for disparate systems.
THE CHALLENGE
While intranet systems simplify life for systems personnel and end users alike, don't think the transition is painless, particularly in an industry long-dependent on numerous arcane proprietary frameworks.
Technically, this means discarding decades-old tools and network protocols and bringing the folks who have maintained the dinosaurs in touch with open systems. "The traditional proprietary system requires so much specialization that doesn't necessarily apply to other areas," de La Fuente says. "Most traditional IT shops have people who specialize, but [do] not have a lot of integration expertise....People need to be jacks of all trades."
In addition, as the very name suggests, intranet applications can become maddeningly intertwined. "The problem isn't one vendor," de La Fuente says. "The mail could be Netscape, the firewall could be VNS."
Finding people to tend intranets poses a challenge equal to the technical issues. The Express-News took advantage of an available full-time position in its news library, making the new hire ENsite's editor and Webmaster, with supplemental news-research duties. Still, one person couldn't possibly code and maintain the entire intranet. So, over time, Foley replaced department managers serving on the intranet team with interested volunteers who have computer skills. They manage their department pages using Microsoft's Front Page Web-authoring tool.
"Part of the success has been picking the right people," Foley says.
Like kudzu spreading across a field, intranet growth takes patience. "It's a migration," de La Fuente explains, "We're getting there."
For links to newspaper-intranet resources, click here.