lisanti@mit.edu portals: the buzzword of 1999 suzana lisanti cwis facilitator massachusetts...

lisanti@mit.edu

Portals: the buzzword of 1999

Suzana LisantiCWIS FacilitatorMassachusetts institute of Technology

Common Solutions Group, October 1999

lisanti@mit.edu

Portals

• What are they?– Mega-portal (AOL, Yahoo, Netscape) – Enterprise portals– Special-interest portals (vortal)

• Benefits

• Risks

lisanti@mit.edu

“Our” enterprise portal

lisanti@mit.edu

“Your” enterprise portal

Audience self-selects by type

lisanti@mit.edu

Search engine mega-portal

lisanti@mit.edu

Mega-portal: MSN

lisanti@mit.edu

“My” portal

lisanti@mit.edu

Knowledge management

lisanti@mit.edu

Benefits of “my” portal

• Daily content in one location

• Easier login (goal)

• Navigational value – Time saved not having to type favorite urls,

search terms

• E-commerce linkage may facilitate workflow

lisanti@mit.edu

Semantic confusion - new services as “portal”• Typical lists

– Academic Services– Course Resources: syllabi, access to teacher’s online

office hours, eConferencing, discussion forums and student/teacher homepages

– Campus auctions, event calendars, student communities, and post/find it tools (rideshare, roommates, tutors, etc).

– Research Center– Career Center– Web Shopping (discounts on Travel, Computers,

Books, Clothing, Music, Events )

lisanti@mit.edu

A successful portal

• Recognizes the user

• Displays dynamic content

• Facilitates Workflow – single login to disparate services– moves the customer through business processes

• Has customizable views and tools

• Is clear about its scope

lisanti@mit.edu

Relationships

• Build community or balkanize?– my.mit, my.sloan, my.physics– Peoplesoft uses “roles” concept

• Cognitive maps – internal vs external, marketing/service– referrals require a common language

lisanti@mit.edu

“Our” UCLA

lisanti@mit.edu

My UCLA: overlap?

lisanti@mit.edu

Personalized information

lisanti@mit.edu

lisanti@mit.edu

Our green

lisanti@mit.edu

StudentU.com

lisanti@mit.edu

Course Site (blackboard.com)

lisanti@mit.edu

E-commerce

• “Keep out e-commerce” is a red herring

• The devil is in the details - manage the contracts

• Guidelines for linking, sponsorship, and ads

lisanti@mit.edu

Define “acceptable” ads

Logo “postage stamps” from www.redherring.com

lisanti@mit.edu

Affiliates guidelines

Search boxes that pay

lisanti@mit.edu

Privacy

• Whose customer?– A school, department, or university?

• Privacy policies– can we trust 3rd party companies as data

guardians

• Portable profiles, possibly customer-managed?

lisanti@mit.edu

Full disclosure

• Require full disclosure

• Hidden deals for placement on search results

• Browsers act like search engines– internet key words, destinations

• On what basis does a link show up

lisanti@mit.edu

Someday

• Portals will seem really “flat”

• What’s coming is more interaction with the human being on the other side of the screen

lisanti@mit.edu

the next phase

lisanti@mit.edu

A real person behind the screen

lisanti@mit.edu

Thetoolshotover the net

lisanti@mit.edu

Build, buy, or barter?

• Pressure to develop a portal without a pragmatic web strategy

• Define clear goals

• Acceptable authentication & security needs to be in place

lisanti@mit.edu

I/T management risks

• Increased complexity in security, privacy, administration, and service

• Expensive to integrate legacy apps

• Expensive to manage vendors