1. Factors that make a successful Extranet
presented by:
David Strom
David Strom, Inc. USA
+1 (516)
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

2. Summary Audience Purpose Design Community Architecture choices
Example: Tax News Network
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

3. Know your audience Executives, middle management, staff?
How well do you know these people?
Intended for your customers? New prospects?
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

4. Understand your purpose
Increase sales
Increase visibility
Communicate with clients
Enhance client relationships
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

5. Consider these design points
Keep the user in mind at all times!
Ease of access
Minimum of clutter, gratuitous graphics, menus
Site maps readily available
Browser version, plug-in support
Wide or narrow, deep or shallow content
Membership or public access
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

6. Members-only access Restrict to customers, staff, management
Keep competitors from downloading your customer file
Maintain customer privacy
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

7. Create layers of information
Different people need to know different things
Makes finding things simple
Match user with appropriate content
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

8. Create a sense of community
Send to group periodically
Inform users of new content on site
Take the right tone of voice in communications and content
Maintain discussion forums to engage user participation
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

9. Examine your web site from the end-user perspective
Can I really find the answers to my questions?
Do I get lost in web space?
Can I easily search the site?
Is the level of detail interesting and informative?
Will I come back to the site tomorrow?
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

10. Integrate any back end systems
Do you already have databases to publish?
Where do you maintain your customer lists?
Where do you maintain your content?
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

11. Choose the right path Buy a turnkey system Build in-house from scratch
Leverage existing IT infrastructure
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

12. Turnkey products Document management systems Notes-based add-ons
PC DOCS
Notes-based add-ons
Domino
Intranet software
Livelink
Intranetics
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

13. Turnkey product issues
Expensive (US$50,000+)
Not easy to customize
Don’t always work for your application
Not always easy to use and setup
Read my own reviews at
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

14. Example of extranet done right
Coopers and Lybrand Tax News Network
article:
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

15. Tax News Network Audience: corporate tax professionals
Membership and staff sections
Public access to small portion of site
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

16. TNN fee structure Public site is always free
Members get first month for free
Different tax association members get discounts
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

17. TNN content structure Leverages existing Notes and Informix databases
Replication and authentication taken from existing IT applications
Staff authors documents as they did before the extranet
Builds upon earlier DOS-based BBS systems
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.

18. Conclusion Q&A David Strom, david@strom.com
N+I Singapore IE6| (c)1998 David Strom, Inc.