Tapping an Intranet
by Keisha Stewart
The Times in Munster, Ind., has discovered a way to cut its work in half. For nearly a year, an intranet system connecting the main plant with its two bureaus has been processing many time-consuming tasks, resulting in less leg-work, paper-shuffle and time needed to complete a job.
An intranet works like the Internet but is smaller in scope, focused on the needs of the host company and not universally accessible.
"Our intranet is an attempt to increase communications within our organization," says David Leslie, The Times' systems integrator and developer of its intranet.
Companies such as AT&T and Motorola have intranet systems in place. In fact, Dan Blom, operations director for The Times, says managers looked at non-newspaper industries for ideas in implementing their own system.
"I haven't heard much talk in the newspaper industry about intranet
systems yet," Blom says. The Chicago Tribune and The New York Times are
among the few newspapers that have established intranet systems.
The idea started a little over a year ago when at a Times' communications committee meeting, members realized that the World Wide Web environment would be a good way to communicate, since it is not platform dependent and could be accessed by different types of computers. Leslie pieced together a prototype with "duck-tape, super glue, and bubble gum," he relates, using a computer he had lying around. He later got a high-speed Mac to run the program. He uses Netscape on a Mac server, and the Web server is WebStar. Other tidbits like Claris FileMaker Pro, which runs the database, and Web.FM, which makes the Web browser interact with the database, are used. Leslie estimates the total investment at $2,500.
Virtually every department uses the intranet, including the ad and art departments. "Our next step is to set it up group-wide," says Larry Maas, group production director for Howard Publishing Group. This would link Howard's 15 newspapers into one giant-area network.
Keisha Stewart completed her internship with TechNews in December. She can be reached at kdstew@wam.umd.edu or (301) 474-9559.