The RedAppleOnline Project

Review And Recommendations

Report Submitted By: DigitalSpace Corporation
Client: American General

Date: April 4, 2001

Contributors for DigitalSpace Corporation: · Galen Brandt, Project Manager · Bonnie DeVarco · Bruce Damer · Stuart Gold · Ron Meiners

Contributors for Rheingold Associates: · Teri Myers, Project Manager · Howard Rheingold · John D Williams · Jeanne A. E. DeVoto · Cliff Figallo · Cheryl Fuller · Elizabeth Lewis

343 Soquel Avenue, #70
Santa Cruz CA 95062
www.digitalspace.com
831 338 9400

Executive Summary

I. Overview and Recommendations

a. RedAppleOnline Project History
b. RAO's Planning Conference 2001
c. General Recommendations
d. Site Options
i. Option 1
ii. Option 2
iii. Option 3
e. The Purpose of this Report

II. User Population: The Opportunity for the Online Education Space

a. Reasonable Expectations for Current Target
b. Audience Growth
c. Expanding the Audience Through Partnerships
d. Partnerships with Special Interest Groups
e. School Safety – Leveraging the SAY Partnership Initiative
i. Safety Site Review Methodology
ii. Sites with Message Boards / Interactivity
iii. Sites with Training and Mentoring Programs
iv. Research Survey Conclusions
f. Expanding Outreach to Align with E-Learning Trends
i. Collaboration and Communication
ii. Teachers’ Rising Internet Use
iii. Online Professional Development
iv. K-12 Teachers Entering the Online Work Force

III. Site Evaluation

a. RAO by Comparison to Education Portals
b. Target and Membership
c. Design
d. Context and Content
e. Navigation
f. Tools and Interactivity
g. AGRS/VALIC Sites

IV. Events Planning and Execution

a. Events Planning
i. Scheduling
ii. Planning
iii. Management
b. Evaluation
c. Metrics and Measures of Success: Statistics and Key Indicators

V. Staffing

a. Manager
b. Internal Support Team
c. Onsite Staffing
d. Recruiting and Growth

VI. Training

a. Training System
b. Social Issues
c. Hosting and Moderating
d. Software
e. Internal Team Training
f. Training Future Trainers
g. Mentoring

VII. Communication and Collaboration Tools

a. Leveraging Interactivity Through Strategic Use of Toolsets
i. RAO and Lessons Learned
ii. Aligning RAO Toolsets with Member Needs
iii. Aligning RAO Toolsets with the Larger Education Community
iv. Leveraging User Interaction through Multiple Levels of Interactivity
b. 2D Asynchronous Tools: Message Boards
i. Overview
ii. Caucus
iii. Web Crossing
iv. WWWThreads
v. Ultimate Bulletin Board
vi. Slashcode
c. 2D Synchronous Tools: Chat
i. Overview
ii. Timeline
iii. Software
d. 3D Tools, Systems and Environments
i. 3D Multi-User Graphical Environments in Education
ii. ActiveWorlds and the AWedu
iii. Leveraging the Unique Capabilities of 3D Virtual Environments
iv. RAO and Meet3D: Development History and Current Features
v. A Fully Integrated 2D and 3D Toolset
vi. Implementation Trajectories: Suggested Uses and Scenarios
vii. Implementation Issues

VIII. User Documentation

a. Guidelines/Rules of the Road
b. RAO’s Current Status
c. Community Guidelines: Best Practices
d. Terms of Use: Standard Formats & Inclusions
e. Privacy Policy: Standard Formats & Inclusions
f. Help Files / Tutorials

IX. Strategic Development

a. Planning Conference
b. Social Infrastructure
c. Launching in Stages: Phases and Timeline Issues
d. Build Out and Attracting an Audience

X. Conclusion

XI. References

XII. Appendices

Appendix A – The History and Evolution of Education Portals
Bonnie DeVarco
Appendix B – How Online Social Networks Benefit Organizations
Lisa Kimball and Howard Rheingold
Appendix C – Nine Timeless Design Principles for Community Building Amy Jo Kim
Appendix D – Suggestions for Evaluating Forum and Chat Software Howard Rheingold
Appendix E – 30 Features to Consider When Choosing Forum Software
Jim Cashel
Appendix F – The Art of Hosting Good Conversations Online
Howard Rheingold
Appendix G – DigitalSpace's Integrated Virtual Community Toolset: Meet3D, Meet2D and MeetingPage
Bruce Damer
Appendix H – Adobe Atmosphere™ White Paper
Bruce Damer
Appendix I – Target Population Research Lists
(Compiled by Bonnie DeVarco)
Appendix J – Additional Resources on the Web
(Compiled by Rheingold Associates)

Executive Summary

The purpose of this report is to provide a review and recommendations regarding potential options for American General’s RedAppleOnline project.

This report comprises market research, case study analysis, best practices and recommendations, and detailed information on key toolsets and planning strategies with regard to the RedAppleOnline project.

The intent of this report team is to allow American General to make informed decisions that can serve as a foundation for any further work on this project by internal AG personnel and/or by this report team.

a. RedAppleOnline Project History – Goals and Assumptions

The RedAppleOnline (RAO) website was originally envisioned as a community portal for K-12 education professionals. As AG/VALIC had benefited financially for many years from its educator customers, so it would now reward them for their loyalty and trust by offering them a valuable online service: a credible, comprehensive and user-friendly online educational community.

The original RAO Mission Statement outlined this vision:
To provide a premier virtual community where individual teachers, other educators, and education associations may conduct meaningful collaborative activities.
The Red Apple Online community offers K-12 educators the ability to communicate with peers in a warm, friendly, high-tech environment.

As described, RAO would provide an inviting, thriving community that would offer useful information and innovative, online communications tools to enrich the personal and professional lives of its member educators. It was further hoped that this forum, having been initially inspired by the tragic Columbine school shooting incident, might enable increased communication between educators who are committed to reducing school violence in the future.

AG identified an original target audience for RAO comprised of the following four groups of “community members”:

· K – 12 Campus Educators – Teachers, Librarians, Media Specialists

· Campus Administrators – Superintendents, Principals, Board Members

· Educational Associations – national, state, regional

· Individual education catalysts, influencers or experts

Research done by American General in early 2000 showed this target audience included over 3.3 million prospective users, with the potential to grow by an additional three million users. The research also demonstrated that while there was very strong and well-funded competition in this marketplace, the market was clearly underserved in the realm of interactivity and online community, particularly in the area of innovative and well-integrated 3D tools which could serve as an outstanding site differentiator [see: RedAppleOnline Business Plan, April 17, 2000].

An internal RAO team was consolidated, outside vendors were contracted, and AG outlined the following goals for RAO:

Marketing and Brand Marketing Goals:

· Increase word of mouth and referred leads for affiliate recruitment

· Reinforce credibility to overcome quality concerns associated with online communities

· Identify and develop new partnerships to strengthen brand loyalty and maintain member enthusiasm for community involvement

· Build branding power of American General

· Provide member benefits that will make members feel good about VALIC via the community VALIC has built for them

Community Development Goals:

· Increase membership by attracting new members

· Increase member retention through loyalty programs and increased community involvement

· Enhance member experience

· Reward members for involvement and loyalty

· Increase member activity

· Develop specialized site content to meet member needs

· Provide appropriate tools to enable communication and relationship building

· Enable and foster a sense of trust within the community and between members and American General

Business/Sales Goals:

· Expand the reach of AG to a younger demographic of Web savvy teachers who are in the early phases of retirement planning

· Assist members with their financial "life events" planning needs

· Develop "touching the customer" enhancements including virtual discussions with sales representatives and events with financial planners and advisors


The RedAppleOnline.com website was launched on September 29, 2000. As articulated by the company in a series of thoughtful “lessons learned” documents, the site met with several promising early successes, including nationally-visible high-traffic events, recruiting of prominent sponsors and affiliates, numerous well-received presentations at conferences, and the introduction of a unique 3D toolset.

As noted by the company, there were also early failures: insufficient content, confusion and breakdowns caused by the roll-out of too many technologies at once, too little due diligence on choice of vendors, inadequate implementation and integration of toolsets, and the lack of a community plan.

b. RAO’s Planning Conference – January/February 2001

In an attempt to remediate the above situation, the company contracted this team to write a community plan for RAO. As a first step, the team initiated an online planning conference that in0volved both team members and key AG/RAO personnel. This conference was designed to expose and resolve the key issues that form the necessary foundation of both the plan and the community.

During this highly productive planning conference, for reasons neither entirely clear to nor recommended by this team, a major shift occurred in AG’s stated goals for RAO. The company made the decision to target the site to a small subset of K-12 education professionals, specifically those who:

· Are already VALIC customers

· Are ages 25 – 40

· Access their VALIC account(s) online

This team was told that approximately 50,000 people fit these characteristics.

American General then articulated a smaller set of goals for RAO involving this new, limited target audience:

Reward existing VALIC customers with opportunities to receive special funding at their schools for SAY programs

Promote the sales of additional VALIC products through better product information and communication between customers and sales representatives

Given these goals, the company mandated the following objectives for this report:


· Create a plan which is events-based

· Incorporate interactive tools to accomplish goals

· Leverage interactivity to create measurable ROI in the form of generated sales leads and increased product sales

· Bond the relationship between VALIC sales reps and VALIC customers, including showcasing of reps as “experts”

· Focus on activity as a value-add “reward” or “thank you” to VALIC customers

· Think of the site not as a community, but as an interactive web-based loyalty program”


The reasons for the shift in focus were explained to this team as follows:

· The company already has a personal relationship with VALIC customers through its sales representatives
· The company can focus selling campaigns of VALIC products to site members without worrying about compliance issues or mentioning competitive products
· Zero-based” budget and personnel constraints necessitate limiting the target audience
· The education market is already overserved by online community, and competing would require more budget and resources than have been appropriated
· The SAY initiative needs a “home” vehicle and has been folded into the RAO project

The team attempted to better understand these reasons so as to offer advice and recommendations. At this point, the planning conference was terminated by the company, and the team was requested to write a plan; no further information or clarification was provided by the client.

c. General Recommendations Re Proposed New RAO Initiative

Based on the information available to this team, we strongly recommend against the implementation of the newly envisioned RAO. It is indeed advisable to “start small” with a targeted audience of known customers, particularly in an atmosphere of budget and staff constraints. Moreover, as described within this report, the RAO team has identified a real opportunity and has made an excellent start at a uniquely valuable implementation.


However, in the opinion of this team, the new vision of RAO represents a possibly problematic attempt to marry non-profit community (the SAY initiative) with for-profit commerce (selling VALIC products).This mismatch could result in a counter-productive conflict of interest on many levels and might not be in the best interest of either American General or its prospective members/customers.


Just as is true of any community, an online community is first and foremost about enabling relationships. Members come to community looking for good information, social capital, and communion with like-minded others. Many features of the original RAO site exemplify this understanding.


On a non-profit site such as the original RAO, members do not come looking to purchase products and services as their primary intent or goal. While educators value and need financial information, if they feel the information and communication offered by a non-profit site are skewed for commercial purposes, they are much less likely to be enthusiastic community participants. This is particularly true of educators, who value trust and credibility above all else. Lose their trust by confusing conversation with sales pitch, and you could lose them as both community members and customers (See Appendix A. The History and Evolution of Education Portals).


A corporate sales website, on the other hand, such as http://www.vrsco.com/agrs2000/agrsweb.nsf, is about sales. Its primary aims are corporate image building and selling company products and services. People visit such sites for the express purpose of gaining information about the company and its products that may lead to on-site purchase; many companies are finding the Internet a cost effective sales and marketing tool.


Mixing non-profit community and for-profit sales on the Web poses specific difficulties. Community sites should, by nature, be open. Sales sites, especially those requiring confidential exchanges of customer information, should and must be closed and password-protected. Community sites encourage open discourse among members; sales sites may want to limit that discourse in line with marketing and sales objectives and corporate image.


Selling VALIC products to existing customers is clearly representative of a sales-driven, corporate enterprise. It should be undertaken on a sales-driven, password-protected, clearly for-profit web site such as the existing www.valic.com


Though this team has been given almost no information about the SAY initiative, we are told SAY has been termed a grant-giving “foundation.” In our view, the awarding of SAY grants should be an actual and perceived non-profit activity. It should take place on an open, not-for-profit web site, which may form the basis of a true community of interest. Even if SAY grants are to be awarded preferentially to VALIC customers, the attempt to sell those customers should not be confused on the same site with the attempt to reward them.

d. Recommendations re Site Options

As a result, this team recommends the following three options for consideration by American General:


OPTION 1: Continue developing an open RAO community for K-12 Education Professionals
OPTION 2: Incorporate a suite of innovative, well-integrated communication tools and “community” approaches on the AGRS and VALIC sales sites as a key site differentiator
OPTION 3: Create an events-driven non-profit web site for the SAY Initiative that is sponsored by American General

i. OPTION 1:
Return to the original vision of RAO as an open community for K-12 educators, with the aim of filling the clearly underserved niche of realtime interactivity.

The goal to enable a high level of interactivity via an innovative user experience is right on target with the potential within the education market to build a successful online community. Brand recognition and a long-term strategy to attract affiliate revenues and retail tie-ins are appropriate and reasonable goals for an online community venture as outlined in the research undertaken both by the company and by this team [See Section III g].


The launch of the RedAppleOnline site was an incredible step in the right direction. The original plans and goals for this web site are still completely appropriate. This team believes American General is overlooking a significant resource by changing the goals and reducing the potential for this web site.


Online community can be a tremendously valuable resource for a company. However, it takes time, energy, resources and commitment to make it work – none of which has been adequately accorded to RAO. This team does not believe that RAO has had the opportunity to demonstrate what it can do for American General. The early statistics for traffic and usage on the RAO site prove out the assumption that educators want realtime interactive online community.


The two areas chosen for site focus are also valuable to a larger market than that defined for the new direction of this project. School safety and school violence issues are in the forefront right now with the increase in school shootings. The need to find solutions to the increasing stress and potential for violent eruptions in the schools is one of the foremost issues facing educators today. Every child deserves a safe environment for learning. Every teacher and administrator deserves a safe workplace environment. The potential to enable real progress in this area via the Internet is huge. We believe RedAppleOnline can meet that need given proper time and resources.


The other focus area chosen – financial planning – has always been a key area for educators. Unfortunately, the value our educators offer to society has not been recognized financially in this country. This is a population that is keenly interested in planning for the future and understanding their financial options. This is a topic of interest to a much wider population than the one described for the new direction of this project. The potential to reach a much larger market, and increase the brand recognition and foster a positive reputation of American General in this market, is huge. By focusing only on a small number of current customers, we believe American General is missing an opportunity to increase both brand recognition and market expansion.


Further, while it is philosophically inappropriate -- and raises critical legal and compliance issues -- to sell products directly on an open community web site, it would be highly appropriate to introduce links from a RAO community site (particularly from a community of interest which discusses financial planning issues) directly to a corporate, sales-driven AG web site such as the existing www.valic.com. This team believes such an effort would prove financially rewarding to AG, as the goodwill engendered on and by RAO would likely translate into increased interest in and sales of VALIC products.


Thus it would be possible to start with these areas of interest, nested in a larger community offering, to build a community for and by educators – a community of significant benefit to both American General and community members.

ii. OPTION 2
Leverage the efficacy of existing company sales and marketing web sites by the incorporation within these sites of a suite of carefully integrated realtime, interactive tools and “community” methodologies as outlined in the body of this report. This obviates the need for a separate, sales-driven RAO web site.

As discussed above, a corporate sales and marketing web site such as www.valic.com can be a highly cost-effective, revenue-generating sales tool. In the opinion of this team, the current company sites could be productively leveraged by the addition of realtime, interactive tools in a number of areas.


While remaining focused on a small, targeted audience of current VALIC customers, this incorporated tool set would be a highly effective and cost-effective means by which the company could realize many of its initially stated goals for its Web
offering:

Business/Sales Goals

· Expand the reach of AG to a younger demographic of Web savvy teachers who are in the early phases of retirement planning

· Assist members with their financial "life events" planning needs

· Develop “touching the customer" enhancements including virtual discussions with sales representatives and events with financial planners and advisors

Marketing and Brand Marketing Goals:

· Reinforce credibility to overcome quality concerns associated with online offerings

· Build branding power of American General

· Provide member benefits that will make members feel good about VALIC via the Web offering VALIC has built for them

· Develop programs and safeguard a sense of trust from the customers in the company

Customer Membership Development Goals:

· Increase membership by attracting new members through word of mouth

· Increase member retention through loyalty programs and increased member involvement

· Enhance member experience

· Reward members for involvement and loyalty

· Increase member activity

· Develop specialized site content to meet member needs

· Provide appropriate tools to enable communication and relationship building between members and sales representatives

· Enable and foster a sense of trust within the membership


By incorporating realtime, interactive tools, and linking to a special site page that highlights SAY grant opportunities for VALIC customers, this approach can also realize the smaller set of goals outlined by AG for a new, customer-focused, interactive “loyalty” web site:


· Reward existing VALIC customers with opportunities to receive special funding at their schools for SAY programs

· Promote the sales of additional VALIC products through better product information and communication between customers and sales representatives.


This approach is further supported by the company’s stated reasons for choosing to refocus its efforts on a primarily sales-driven site for current VALIC customers:

· The company already has a personal relationship with VALIC customers through its sales representatives

· The company can focus selling campaigns of VALIC products to site members without worrying about compliance issues or mentioning competitive products

· Zero-based” budget and personnel constraints necessitate limiting the target audience


Rather than driving traffic from VALIC and AGRS sites to a new site, it is preferable to leverage and expand the traffic on those existing company sales sites with the addition of appropriate new tools and methods. In addition, this approach can incorporate and realize all of the goals mandated for this report:
· Create a plan which is events-based

· Incorporate interactive tools to accomplish goals

· Leverage interactivity to create measurable ROI in the form of generated sales leads and increased product sales

· Bond the relationship between VALIC sales reps and VALIC customers, including showcasing of reps as “experts”

· Focus on activity as a value-add “reward” or “thank you” to VALIC customers

· Think of the site not as a community, but as an interactive web-based “loyalty program”


Of great importance to American General, this approach can generate ROI in significant ways, many of which are neither produced by nor readily available using other methods. The company articulated the following ROI goals for the new RAO:

· Member is engaged to participate in an ongoing discussion on the site message boards

· Member decides to purchase additional VALIC materials

· Member shows interest in being contacted by VALIC to become a sales lead


It further stated that these ROI goals are to be the primary method of measuring site success. All of these goals are best met – and most easily measurable – not on the newly envisioned RAO, but rather on existing corporate sales websites.

In addition, there are numerous valid ways to generate and measure ROI which extend the concept beyond the dollars and cents metaphor of generated sales. Creating an online social network is a uniquely time- and cost-efficient way to effect a vast range of corporate sales and marketing goals, all of which fall within the parameters of ROI, including:

· Creating an early warning system

· Building relationships across time, space, role and discipline

· Building an ongoing context for knowledge exchange

· Attuning those within the company (ie sales reps) to each other’s needs

· Attuning sales reps to customer needs

· Generating new and improved products and services based on needs identified by both customers and sales reps

· Amplifying innovation

· Creating a “community” memory

· Turning training into a continuous process

· Attracting and retaining the best customers and employees by providing access to social capital

· Improving the way individuals think collectively so as to effect positive corporate branding and change

For more in-depth discussion of these benefits, see APPENDIX B. How Online Social Networks Benefit Organizations.


The use of innovative, well-integrated tools to create an effective online social network can produce invaluable marketing feedback for the company. A well-tuned online social network can enhance a company’s collective knowledge and sharpen its ability to act on what people know in time to be effective. Creating these opportunities has long been the purpose and purview of other communications initiatives, including in-company and off-site meetings among company personal, focus groups with customers, and so on.
All are equally if not better leveraged using new online tools. For example, new and improved products and services can be created to meet genuine customer needs as identified in synchronous and asynchronous online discussions by and between both customers and sales representatives.

The same set of interactive, online tools recommended in the body of this report can be used by AG sales representatives to leverage their productivity in innumerable ways. Such intranet workgroup sharing of synchronous information can be of great benefit to AG. In a famous example, Xerox technical representatives equipped with an interactive two-way radio network that gave their ”community of practice” 24/7 field access to one another improved their customer service significantly. The system not only supported and created a problem-solving network, but also provided a new learning medium whereby new tech reps could listen in and learn through this “distributive apprenticeship for learning.” [1] In another example, AG has indicated that Hello Networks is now being used in a pilot program to train sales force, replacing phone and face-to-face meetings.
A suite of online, interactive tools embedded in the corporate sales sites can yield great benefits in communications not just between sales reps, but also between sales reps and customers. As it stands now, VALIC and AGRS customers must phone an 800 or 888 number or send an email to contact their sales representatives, and, the sites warn, be prepared to wait even days for a response. The use of online tools (“click here to talk to your sales representative NOW”) could make this response instantaneous.Further, as described, it can put sales reps in the field in instant touch not just with customers, but also with other reps and company headquarters. Considered in this light, cost of customer acquisition for both new and cross-sold products is extremely low, and ROI, in the largest sense outlined above, extremely high.
Finally, this approach eliminates all of the conflict-of-interest concerns discussed above. Properly implemented, it can yield a highly effective, brand-building sales and marketing vehicle for American General. This vehicle can serve as an invaluable testbed for future Web offerings on the part of the company, as the same approach can be effectively applied across multiple company web sites (www.vrsco.com/agrs2000/agrsweb.nsf and www.agfg.com/agim2000/agimweb.nsf for example).
In the long term, this approach could underscore the need and provide necessary market research and customer feedback for the eventual creation of a true community site – such as the originally envisioned RAO -- with its own clear justifications and reasons for being.

iii. OPTION 3:
Create an open, non-profit web site to leverage the SAY initiative which focuses on school safety issues and builds high profile, positive branding, sponsorship, partnership and affiliate opportunities for American General.

In the opinion of this team, this can be an excellent, high profile, brand-building opportunity for AG that can generate goodwill and consequent revenue and partnership opportunities in multiple areas.


Research done by this team indicates that there is strong and ongoing interest in this topic, as evidenced by numerous existing web sites on the subject. The research also demonstrates that communication and collaboration tools such as those recommended in this report are clearly both welcome and needed in this area.


An excellent opportunity exists for an American General sponsored, non-profit SAY site that offers hosted, moderated discussions, realtime communication and online events. Well-moderated discussion forums are lacking and realtime communication is almost non-existent in this topic area. Sites that offer professional development in school safety issues via training or mentoring do not offer them with the value-add of online support that can be made possible through a combination of well-moderated synchronous and asynchronous communication and collaboration tools. These sites represent a strong potential for partnership in American General’s development of an events-driven, interactive non-profit SAY site.


This approach eliminates the conflict-of-interest concerns discussed above. Further, it is appropriate and possible to link the SAY site directly to a separate, corporate sales site or sites, and it is the opinion of this team that such linking could prove highly profitable to AG.

e. The Purpose of this Report

If American General wishes to undertake the development of any or all of the above options, it is imperative that the company engage in a thorough planning process, ask and answer key questions, and make clear decisions that serve as the basis for further development.


The purpose of this report is to provide market research, case study analysis, best practices and recommendations, and detailed information on key toolsets and planning strategies with regard to the above options. The intent is to allow American General to make informed decisions that can serve as a foundation for any further work on this project by internal AG personnel and/or by this report team.

ll. User Population

The Opportunity for the Online Education Space


The primary target audience for the newly envisioned RAO site has been defined as a subset of the AGRS/VALIC client base: K-12 teachers between 25-40 years old, a population of approximately 50,000 individuals.


Reasonable expectations given a group of 50,000 potential members are based on what this team knows about typical user interaction online. There are, however, many variables that have to be taken into account in projecting reasonable expectations for a user population in any online space, not the least of which are the marketing efforts used to reach those potential members and the types of activity presented to the users upon entry into the site. The level of member activity is also dependent on the amount of support for the activities by the sponsoring organization, and ongoing maintenance is critical to the success or failure of future initiatives.


Given an ongoing marketing campaign, and strong support and management for the site and its activities, it is reasonable to expect approximately 10% of the target population to respond to attempts to get them to the site. With a 10% return on the envisioned target group, it is realistic to expect that active participants who continue to return to and utilize the tools, services and content on the RAO site will not exceed 5,000. Levels of continued visits will decrease unless a concentrated effort is made to keep site content fresh and activities inviting and appropriate, and users are given a real sense that their interaction with the site is a valuable use of their time and energy.


With site growth beyond the 5,000 figure unrealistic, ROI for the site cannot be pegged to increased membership if the site is confined to its current projected target. Scaling up the user base will be critical if increased membership is to be a key indicator of success.

b. Audience Growth

If the site is confined to its current target, it runs the risk of being underused and could even be a detriment to positive imaging or brand building of the company. It is the recommendation of this team that the target audience be expanded, if not immediately then in the near future, to allow for future growth and wider audience participation. Initial discussion has suggested several initiatives that could appeal to a wide audience of educators. Expanding the site membership to include this audience could help make the site more dynamic, allow for better brand building by the company, and create an instant advertising stream for American General. Moreover, to limit the target audience is to miss an enormous opportunity to carve a unique niche in the online education space. The nature of this opportunity is described in detail below.

c. Expanding the Audience through Partnerships

Our initial comparative research in Education Portals (see APPENDIX A The History and Evolution of Education Portals for a thorough analysis of this material) has demonstrated that American General is correct in identifying the following:


· Education markets are NOT underserved on the Web

· Without more tools, staff and investment dollars, RAO cannot compete in any defined education market

· RAO should not compete in the open market space or directly with larger education providers


This section will show that, while RAO should not attempt to “compete” with other education providers on the Internet, these significant groups are nevertheless very ripe for partnerships with RAO. In reviewing the history and evolution of what we now call an Education Portal, we would like to point out the following:


· The online world is redefining education. At the same time, education is redefining many areas of the online experience.

· The education community is a hybrid – a service organization at heart and a community, when networked together, large enough to become the prime adopter of the “new” and the harbinger of what is yet to come.

· Educators are looking for trust and credibility above all else. These are the hallmarks of an education environment, service or community.

· The most successful communities are comprised of individuals who have come together because they “know” or recognize one another.

· Resources that come from the non-profit, government sponsored, education-based sites or from “homegrown” sites by peers have long contained the highest value for educators.


The Education Portal partnership pattern demonstrated by other insurance companies fits two main types


1.     The insurance company is one of the (many) sponsors of the site with a logo and link as a banner or in a prominent location of the site (see the Aetna example in http://www.education-world.com ).


2. The insurance company sponsors or provides services on a specific section of the site (see teach-nology's financial planning section powered by Legend Insurance: http://www.teach-nology.com/finance/ )


With AGRS/VALIC as the primary sponsor of the RAO site, a few successful ways to partner with large Education Portals might be:


1.     Use RAO’s specialization to drive traffic from these portal sites (such as Lightspan or TeacherHelp) to topical RAO events. 


2.     Create a location within a larger portal or aggregate site to serve as a launch pad for teachers to jump to RAO.


Our recommendation is to view Education Portals and their affiliates very seriously as additional avenues to drive traffic to or as event sponsors rather than trying to become their competitor. RAO can also partner with them to deliver added value to their constituency. Portal partnerships will help RAO become a valued player in these larger aggregates of K-12 portals that teachers currently value and which already have strong credibility.


We highly recommend that RAO strive to expand its existing partners or affiliate organizations (consisting primarily of content providers or click-to sites such as T.H.E. Journal, Beyond Books and ClassroomConnect) to include new large education partners such as EdGateway, Lightspan, and TeachNet with their primary bases of K-12 teachers in order to drive traffic to RAO events and other areas of the RAO site. With its new events-driven focus, the need for a limited set of topic concentrations for the RAO site also opens up partnership opportunities with smaller special interest groups

d. Partnerships With Special Interest Groups

At the beginning of the RAO planning conference, American General identified a number of subject areas for possible inclusion on the RAO site. At that time, the site served a wide target audience of K-12 educators and education professionals. To serve this constituency, the RAO principals planned to develop new "community interest" sections within the RAO site. If AG decides to pursue Option 1 as presented in the Overview section of this report, we recommend that RAO seek partnerships with special interest groups that would allow them, as partners, to:


1) Define a subject area and use RAO as a click-to content or event location.
2) Define a tool they could benefit from that RAO already provides, whether through "renting space in" or encouraging sponsorship of an event related to their topic in one of RAO's communication tools such as Meet3D


The internal RAO team also identified the following structure they planned to build into new "community interest" sections of the RAO site. This structure includes resources such as links, programs, books, multi-media and statistics. The areas within these sections that would feature training, speakers and idea sharing can all benefit from the implementation of moderated communication tools such as message boards, virtual worlds and chat (see section VII for more detailed discussion on tools):


·Training

· Programs

· Conferences

· Speakers

· Guests on RAO to discuss special interest issues

· Experts scheduled to speak on these issues around the country

· Speakers / Consultant Resources
SpeakOut

· Survey

· Share Ideas

· Topic-oriented chat room

· Topic-oriented message board


In planning sessions conducted by this team, the notion of "events in a box" was discussed - i.e., RAO could create templates for customized event packages to market to specialized area partners. This strategy is a good one if RAO serves a broad constituency. The best way to survive in this fast moving market is to focus on inclusiveness by overlapping as much as possible with other well-respected partners. Again, this satisfies the credibility and trust issues that are central to the concerns of teachers, and also drives traffic to the RAO site


During the planning process the internal RAO team noted several high priority special interest groups they were considering for inclusion on the site:


·        School Safety
·        Women's Issues
·        School Reform
·        Special Education
·        Teacher's Associations


Thus far, RAO has confirmed its commitment to only one topic or target group from the above list -- School Safety. Expanding the site to include other special interest groups will be beneficial only if RAO decides to return to its original plan to have an open site for a wide range of education professionals.If AG chooses to pursue this option, we recommend that targeted research surveys on these special interest groups be undertaken by RAO prior to the implementation of "Communities of Interest" sections on the site. This will allow AG to better understand the full potential for various communication tools and events in each topic area, and to clarify where partnerships with other organizations are possible.


If a smaller RAO site outlined in Option 3 is pursued through AG's new partnership with SAY, (see Section I d. iii.) many opportunities will also open up. Hence, this team's deeper analysis of school safety sites is presented in the next section of this report. (See APPENDIX I for the preliminary lists of other special interest groups compiled by this team early in the planning stages).

e. School Safety - Leveraging the SAY Partnership Initiative

RAO agrees that service is one way to build brand in the online communities of the future. Delivering content, events or services suited to the needs of these emerging communities is an important consideration as RAO builds out partnerships. While the AG founders' goals and the newly articulated goals of RAO are clearly limited at this point, it is important to note that branding is also connected to larger dynamics than just company objectives.


The issue of student safety / ending school violence is important to AG. Returning to RAO's earliest planning documents, crime in schools was the primary motivation for AG's initial decision to launch the RAO site. At that time, school safety / school crime was pointed out as an issue not dominant enough to justify RAO's full concentration. Almost a year later, however, we are still witnessing the increase of gun violence in schools (the most recent one in Santana High School in Santee, California, occurred during the writing of this report). Ending school violence is clearly an issue of increasing importance to educators.


Currently, one of RAO's special interest group partners is a "click-to" content site, Partnerships Against Violence Network (PAVNET-http://www.pavnet.org). PAVNET is a "virtual library" of information about violence and youth-at-risk, representing data from seven different Federal agencies. The RAO site also features a special selection of school safety resources in addition to the broader searchable sites that are part of the EduHound search engine on the site.


In addition to building more content in this special interest area on the site, RAO is partnering with SAY. What we have been told thus far is:


SAY stands for Safeguarding America's Youth
SAY is a corporate giving program that will begin in Spring 2001
SAY does not currently have an online presence or a logo and will benefit from the tools and content that RAO already has in place on the site


Although the internal RAO team has indicated the possibility of aligning the identity of RAO with SAY, this team has not been given a definitive statement from RAO on the nature of the partnership. With the very limited information we have been given about the SAY group and its membership, the analysis that follows will of necessity be somewhat general. However, it will be of critical use as RAO considers its options for the near and longterm future:

i. Safety Site Review Methodology

RAO currently features a special selection of click-to content for Student Safety and Violence at http://www.redappleonline.com/Resources/RegionalEducationOffices.asp
These sites are presented in the context of sharing best practices between educators. Of the fourteen references, most are sites where policy documents, brochures and articles on school safety issues or current statistics on school violence could be found. RAO's list of click-to content will grow as the partnership with SAY becomes forged and is not an area where research by this team is warranted. Instead we have concentrated our research primarily on both "click to" and "click-through" sites that offer some kind of partnership potential to RAO either by their ability to drive traffic to RAO's events or by the strong credibility of their sponsorship organizations.


The analysis below identifies other National or Regional school safety sites out of approximately forty school safety sites analyzed (see APPENDIX I) that fall into the following categories:


1) Sites exhibiting a small level of interactivity or communication (i.e., message boards or forums) which might have an interest in partnering with RAO to increase access to online events or more complex discussions
2) Sites that offer school site training, mentoring or safety courses and might be looking for a partnership that will increase their ability to expand that to training modules online in virtual environments.
3) Sites that have very strong sponsorship organizations (government or teacher associations) and excellent content, yet show a clear absence of or need for more interactivity.

ii. Sites with Message Boards / Interactivity

In a cluster of a numerous small and about a dozen large school safety click-to and click-through sites, only a few feature message boards or synchronous communication forums. None, as of the close of this research survey, has chat or realtime communication, with the exception of one site offering occasional teleconferences. This is a good sign that communication and collaboration tools are both welcome and needed. In addition, there is not a high level of sophistication in any of those surveyed. Of all School Safety Sites reviewed, only one (NWREL) includes message boards with moderators. Due to this and other factors, message board activity was modest. School Safety message boards that were more active tend to be linked to either topic specialties of the sites or to special events. It is was also noted that events like the Santana High School shooting undoubtedly result in spikes in message board activities or encourage more discussion on a particular topic such as guns and schools.

The Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory
http://www.nwrel.org/
The NWREL is the only site in this survey that offers a fully moderated and password protected listserv and is the founding organization for the National Center for Safe Schools' "SafetyZone" (http://www.safetyzone.org/). NWREL is a broadly defined organization that works with schools and communities to improve education. Their school safety forum requires registration. In addition, the SafetyZone site as a whole is one of the most sophisticated school safety sites, with automated newsfeeds, searchable databases and extensive resources.
Center for the Prevention of School Violence
http://www.ncsu.edu/cpsv
The CPSV hosts the School Violence Prevention Forum, a University-based threaded discussion board that is open to the public. The Center monitors forum communications and provides information and assistance when requested. Messages are also subject to editing by the Center. Site http://courses.forum.ncsu.edu/cgi-bin/netforum/svpf/a/1
StopSchoolViolence.com
http://www.stopschoolviolence.com
The Stop School Violence.com's discussion board is one of the more active and current message boards found in this survey. It is open and public, and can be added to directly on the site. The messages are threaded and searchable by keyword. The most current is the date of this report and a clear spike is shown on the issue of guns in schools messages since the Santana shootings. http://www.stopschoolviolence.com/disc10_frm.htm
It is clear that this message board is unmoderated, (we noted a threat post from a student on the list evoking no intervention or list moderator and few lengthy dialogues between consistent users).
American School Safety
http://www.americanschoolsafety.com
The site's communication forum is an on-site, interactive message board that is open to the public. Its structure is relatively simple and basic. It features four different forums (for teachers/administrators, parents, students and law enforcement). Open posting is available in a form at each section except for the law enforcement section. Posts in each section are obviously very infrequent. The teachers/administration board shows the most recent post coming from September of 2000 (the parent and student forums show more recent posts). This site is founded by security professionals and offers levels of sponsorship by companies that are interested in and support school safety issues.

iii. Sites with Training and Mentoring Programs

Many organizations offer school safety training programs. School Safety sites that specialize in programs of this nature generally carry out training, counseling and mentoring on the physical school site. Partnering with some of these organizations might enable RAO to extend its online events to customize online modules for training programs or as an online mentoring or forum follow-up support that keeps participants linked after the training is over


The HOPE (Harnessing Optimism and Potential through Education) Foundation


http://www.communitiesofhope.org/


The Hope Foundation makes available long-term, ongoing staff and community development through media, national forums and professional development speakers. While many of their training materials and teleconferences are available for sale on videotape, they offer online assistance and online leadership courses for educators. Their commitment to online modes of delivery is an important sign of potential partnership avenues for RAO and SAY or for sponsorship of online events.


Indiana School Safety Specialist Academy


http://ideanet.doe.state.in.us/isssa/welcome.html


Indiana School Safety Specialist Academy provides on-going, certified training and information on national and state best practices, as well as exemplary resources for school safety, security, intervention/prevention, and emergency preparedness planning. School safety specialists will be trained to lead the development and implementation of school safety practices that provide safe educational environments for all students in Indiana.


Educators for Social Responsibility & Resolving Conflict Creatively Program


http://www.esrnational.org/Training2001.html


This organization offers Professional Development For Teachers, including a twenty-four hour introductory course and ongoing support for implementation of the RCCP curriculum through on-site classrooms visit. Their program offers school site-based training and peer mediation to teachers, administrators, parents and students in maintaining and managing peaceable classroom environments. But it does not currently offer online services that could support continued collaboration between various schools undertaking the programs or teachers taking the courses. This is a niche that an AG-sponsored SAY site might be able to provide if a partnership were pursued.

iv. Research Survey Conclusions re Safety Sites and SAY Initiative

An excellent opportunity exists for American General if Option 3 described in the overview of this report (See Section I d. iii) is adopted. An American General sponsored, non-profit SAY site could be a differentiator if it offers hosted, moderated discussions, realtime communication and online events. In this research survey of click-to and click-through sites dedicated to the issue of school or student safety and violence in schools, we have noted that partnerships are possible and a niche for specialized services does exist.


This team's research outlined above demonstrates that well-moderated discussion forums are lacking and realtime communication is almost non-existent in this topic area. Sites that offer professional development in school safety issues via training or mentoring do not offer them with the value-add of online support that can be made possible through a combination of well-moderated synchronous and asynchronous communication and collaboration tools. These sites represent a strong potential for partnership in American General's development of an events-driven, interactive, non-profit SAY site.

f. Expanding RAO Outreach to Align with E-Learning Trends

“E-learning” is rapidly defining itself in e-commerce as a strong and growing market segment with the proliferation of companies and institutions that offer online courses, training, and support. RAO is already aware of the competitive landscape for web-based business models in the education industry. In 1999, global expenditures on education and training exceeded $US 2 trillion with about one third of the spending taking place in North America. [2] In 1999, corporate America spent $63 billion on educating and training its workforce. At $3 billion, e-learning occupied the fastest-growing fraction of the market.[3]. Although the industry is currently led by corporate training programs, universities (i.e., Western Governors University, UNEXT and others), and K-12 are also catching up to define a significant part of that landscape.


As a communication and collaboration site for education professionals, RAO, whatever its focus, must consider the timeliness of supporting this growing community of educators for whom computers and the Internet are already key components in their professional lives, their communications, curricula and classrooms.


i. Collaboration and Communication are Key


In this new knowledge-based economy, collaboration and communication are becoming recognized as the industry’s cornerstone for success. “Knowledge Networks” and “Learning Communities” are the most commonly recognized terms for these collaborative networks of educators. As technology increases access beyond geographic boundaries, teachers and students are networking with each other through their own initiatives, though non-profits and through corporate funded initiatives to build these learning communities. The distributed “electronic” communities already span the globe as these networks of teachers share their work, experiences and ideas with one another. Margaret Riel, co-founder of “I*Earn,” the oldest global network of teachers and students, emphasized technology’s ability to increase access to these “learning communities” in her 2000 E-Testimony to Congress [4].


ii. Rising Internet Use by Teachers


Recent findings from Quality Education Data’s Year 2000 survey of public schools in the U.S. demonstrated that the use of the Internet by teachers is growing very rapidly and expanding to areas such as professional development and the evaluation of curriculum tools. While teachers have long used the Internet for email and other types of communication, survey results showed a marked increase in teachers’ use of the Internet for these other areas just in the past year. The results showed that


53% of teachers in public education now use the Internet for professional development,
52% use it as a lesson-planning tool
80% use the Internet to evaluate curriculum materials. [5]

iii. Online Professional Development

With U.S. educational standards rising, today’s teacher is now required to seek regular professional development and training to expand and update her skills. Professional development is now taking place online more often as this type of course fits better into a teacher’s heavy schedule and is more cost effective for the schools. In addition, a new market segment is emerging in the K-12: the full-time online educator.With the proliferation of state and regional virtual high schools (i.e., Electronic High School , Kentucky Virtual High School, Florida High School, Concord Consortium’s Virtual High School, and others), many K-12 teachers are entering the full-time workforce of these virtual charter schools. [6]


iv. K-12 Teachers Entering the Online Work Force


Although Higher Education is farther along in the implementation of full program delivery, many universities are partnering with the K-12 to create online learning programs that bridge the resources of the University with the needs of college bound students (i.e., UC College Prep Initiative and University of Nebraska’s CLASS, and others).[7] In addition to the need to find strong community tools to support their services such as mentoring, tutoring, counseling and online resources, these programs are also beginning to add K-12 teachers to their work force. For this reason, RAO’s site might benefit from stretching its target audience to the K-14 to attract this constituency as well as the incoming teachers from the Educational and Ed Tech departments of the university. RAO’s innovative approach with new tools such as thin-client 3D worlds might also attract as partners the Center for Innovative Learning Technologies (CILT), one of the premier networks of K-14 professionals.


In conclusion, RAO is uniquely positioned to serve the education market by making its specialized tools or special interest events more widely available. RAO can accomplish this by developing strategic partnerships with large education portals (i.e., Bigchalk.com, Education World, Teach-nology, TeacherVision, TeacherHelp, Lightspan, AOL School, and others) and non-profit organizations (i.e, EdGateway, CILT, I*EARN, TAPPEDIN and ASCD (The Association of Supervision and Curriculum Development) in order to drive traffic to its events, content and services.

lll. Site Evaluation
a. RAO By Comparison to Education Portals

Because RAO will deliver services, interactivity and events to a population of educators, it is important to take into consideration all tools and community practice guidelines from educational sources when implementing the site. Above all, the site must foster the trust, credibility and goodwill that are marked characteristics of success within education communities. For this reason, research undertaken during the planning phase of this project concentrated on Education Portals and service sites. This research reveals that education service sites share the following series of characteristics (see APPENDIX A History and Evolution of Education Portals for in-depth analysis):

Target Population

Target audiences that encourage community involvement: Teachers (K-12 and secondary). Sub-areas for Administrators and Education Professionals, Parents and Students

Membership

Free Memberships or levels of membership that include both free and fee

Design

Very little graphics, high volume of text, split frame (3-column 10 point text)Corporate look and feel, often banner ads

Navigation

Quick tour of the site with instructions and screenshots
Site search engine on top of entry page
Easy site map view as well as the main page view with alpha or topic order of complete site

Content

Professional development for teachers
Resources and lesson plans arranged and organized by topic or keyword search, often linked to standards or rated
Specialized education search engines
Technology support, assessment and evaluation resources

Tools for Communication or Interactivity

Interactive calendars of events
Customizable personal organizers or calendars (so site can become user's "home page")
Message boards or asynchronous communication forums (more often threaded than serial)
Realtime chat (sometimes integrated with message boards - 'see who is online now')
Extra interactive reference sources such as dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesaurus, etc.
Tools for members to create a class Web page, school Web page or course Web page
Ratings systems to encourage user input


Following are specific comments and recommendations on the RAO site for each of the above categories.

b. Target and Membership

The most critical hallmark of sustainable community is its membership. Whether in a non-profit site as outlined in Options 1 and 3 of the Overview of this report or a for-profit site as outlined in Option 2, (See Section I d.) American General must recognize that it will be in a service orientation to its members. It is critical first and foremost to:
· Define your target membership by understanding as much as possible about them - the work they do, the tools they are familiar with or use, the information they need and the types of relationships they want to form with other community members.
· Create multiple feedback loops so you can continue to find out who they are and what they need so you can be in best service to them.
· Maintain a level of flexibility that is built into the site structure so it can accommodate changes that are needed as site membership grows and changes.

Encouraging members to take part in an onsite survey group or become part of your beta test team for the site (as you have recently done on the current RAO site) yields valuable feedback, and also gives members a valuable sense that they are part of the site. Giving members a “voice” is a huge step in forming a vital relationship with them; members will feel they are part of the site, rather than incidental to it, and their instant “buy-in” is critical to network growth. The single biggest mistake made by many companies creating a member-based site is to ignore their members, when in fact, your membership is your single most valuable source for user opinion.

Our research demonstrates that most education service sites target a broad-based audience that includes teachers, administrators, parents and students. This opens up opportunities for community growth as stronger dialogue around shared issues is made possible. American General’s primary target audience as currently defined consists of K-12 teachers who are VALIC customers. While this smaller target group is appropriate for Option 2 (i.e. community services and tools on existing AG sales sites), this team recommends that the target groups stay broader for Options 1 and 3. (See section II a. through e.). School safety, in particular, affects everyone in a community. It is an issue that can only be effectively addressed by parents, students, administrators and teachers together.

You may wish to institute member profiling so that members can find others with whom they share common interests and/or location to engage in discussions, collaborations, and mentoring relationships. Profiling opens up significant privacy issues and company policy issues, especially with respect to site documents including Terms of Use and Privacy (see Section VIII d-e for discussion of these documents). Decisions need to be made about target membership and policies for the site before further recommendations can be made in this area.

c. Design

The design of most of the Education Portals surveyed tends to be highly corporate and text-based. RAO’s early focus groups for the site during the pre-launch stage suggested that subjects wanted a brighter, more colorful, less corporate look than was exhibited in early versions of the RAO site. This team agrees with the need to make the User Interface as warm and friendly as possible. As demonstrated in the visual comparison of many of the sites (See APPENDIX A History and Evolution of Education Portals, pg. 9), RAO definitely stands out. However, it is the opinion of this team that the cartoon quality of the current RAO site as a whole may alienate a large portion of its potential membership, particularly if school safety becomes a dominant issue.


Teachers working with K-6 might feel comfortable with RAO’s current design. However, teachers in today’s high schools may not feel that information is treated with the seriousness it deserves when they are working with young adults in very serious settings. While friendly imagery can add to the ease of navigation (as exhibited in areas of the excellent, simply-designed www.dotolearn.com site for special education professionals), there is a fine line that should not be crossed between friendliness and cartooniness. In addition, large image map cartoons in the reference section of the RAO site do not perform well and add to the download time.


This team recommends that the design of the site strive for simplicity and elegance, while maintaining a colorful, friendly quality. Eliminate some of the overly cartoon style and integrate simple, modern iconography where possible. Icons can appear to have a friendly style while still maintaining an understated and easy-to-use design quality. An excellent example of this is found throughout the EdGateway education site. The overall design of the site should maintain and amplify the integrity of the material presented within it.

d. Context and Content

The context within which the interactive and content components of the site are presented to the user is critical to the success or failure of those components. Context is everything. If your content is not congruent with your interactive offerings, the result will be confusion and disinterest on the part of your site visitors.


Two key areas of content interest have been identified by RAO as having the highest short-term priority: financial planning and school safety. The first is an obvious connection to the parent company’s business. The second is clearly linked to the Safeguarding America’s Youth (SAY) initiative. Both areas are clearly of interest to the currently defined target population, and in fact would be of interest to an even wider definition of that audience.


The best way to provide the foundation for a successful interactive network is to begin with one or two key areas of interest to the target population. Both proposed subjects make an excellent offering around which to create buzz, develop events and encourage ongoing discussion (see section II e.). Editorial content should be concise and well written, and clearly linked to interactive discussion and event areas to encourage member response and participation. Members can be polled (via onsite surveys, emails, and so on) to determine which content areas most interest them.

e. Navigation

Navigation is an issue that impacts interactivity to a great degree on a website.


· Users need to be able to find what they want, and on the best sites they can do so within two or three clicks.

· The path must be clear and well-marked so that users can not only find their way into a specific component, but can also find their way back out and hopefully back in on a subsequent visit.

· Navigation through an activity needs to be clear and simple. Pathing should be straightforward and not force the user to double back or repeat steps in order to accomplish a task.

· The best navigation allows for multiple pathing through a site, so that an individual has a number of ways to enter an activity, perform a task, or accomplish a goal, and may do so from just about anywhere on the site.

· Path and current location should be well marked, either via explicit labeling or implicit in the design.


The RAO site has some navigation issues that are an impediment to ongoing interactivity. The inability to login once and stay logged in throughout the session is one of the most common reasons people do not return to an interactive site. RAO needs to either eliminate the concept of “membership” or rebuild the membership system so that users can login once and will be recognized by the system as logged in no matter where they go or how many times they switch pages on the site. The ideal system would also recognize when a returning user is already a member and would invite that member to login rather than inviting the member to sign up again. Lack of persistent login can be confusing and frustrating for people, which can be a big factor in users not returning to the site.


Any interactive components on the site need to be integrated in such a way that the components are available from anywhere on the site:

· The global navigation should present an opportunity to get into the top level of any interactive portion of the site.

· If message boards are used, the global navigation should point people directly into the top level or start page of the message boards.

· Links need to be embedded into interactive components in context with the content of the site. So you might post an article and then invite people to talk about the subject by embedding a link directly into a relevant topic.


The current RAO site includes what is commonly known as a “splash page.” This is unnecessary and should be removed. There is no reason to use a splash page, and some consider it a barrier to entry. All components of the site should be available within three clicks. The home page should always be the primary entry point – not click to the splash page, then click to get to the home page. A first click should get you into the top pages of the large subdivisions of the site. In this case, it might be a subsection about financial planning and a subsection about SAY, along with the top level of the interactive components, and the top level for the “utilities” area of the site. The second click should allow people to read articles, interact, move around the site and DO things. The third level – if any at all – should be reserved for things like downloadable files, feedback forms and links to other sites. By using a splash page, you are eliminating one of those levels off the top, and you are forcing the users to dig just a little deeper to get to the main content.


While some argue that this is the best way to get listed in the search engines, this is not true unless you are creating a different splash page for each search engine based on the rules specific to that search engine. Since there is no indication that this is the case here, the splash page should be eliminated.

f. Tools and Interactivity

This team and RAO principals collectively reviewed the RAO site and considered the “Lessons Learned” documentation from RAO during the planning stages. It became clear that:

· The RAO site launched with too many tools too quickly

· RAO’s communication tools were not adequately supported by a human infrastructure

· Tools such as the instant messaging were little used and not well integrated on the site

· Tools such as MyEvents did not perform well enough to meet original expectations

· Tools such as the personal planner were too commonly available to teachers in other locations online.


In reviewing the research and lessons learned, this team agrees that RAO’s initial goal to use interactivity and communication tools as a differentiator met with positive results. During the planning sessions there was a collective agreement that RAO was wise to phase out or change tools such as MyEvents or its “personal organizer” which exhibited poor performance or were already too commonly available. It was also the collective agreement that the primary uses of tools according to an event-driven model would be for communication and collaboration. As RAO phases out pre-existing tools and adopts different, or more efficient tools, the following questions still need to be considered.


· What is the primary purpose for each tool?

· Has it met that purpose?

· Where has it been successful?

· Where has it failed?


It might be important to consider these comments of the early focus groups (primarily educators) of the RAO site carried out prior to launch:

· The presentation (User Interface – UI) of the tools was of high priority

· The graphic quality of the 3D Worlds was exciting (but a more symbolic or iconic rather than anthropomorphic avatar was suggested or preferred)

· Navigation to the tools was important (i.e. where they are located in the site)
For an in depth discussion of communication and collaboration tools including recommendations regarding tool selection, tool integration and multiple levels of interactivity, see Section VII: Communication and Collaboration Tools.

g. AGRS/VALIC Site

The AGRS and VALIC sites deliver appropriate, useful and clearly written information to their target audience of current and potential customers. Graphics are clean and professional.


However, it is recommended that several navigation, content and tools issues be explored and improved (see Section VII for extended recommendations concerning uses of tools).


Navigation is made difficult both by the thin navigation bars across the top and bottom, and by the extremely small, thin, gray type font used in bars and especially in the left-hand frames. As these frames point to information of central importance to customers, at a minimum, font size should be increased and the font bolded. Further, critical information -- i.e., “educating your employees” or “4 easy steps”-- should be featured (for example, in the Section Highlights or as prominent click-tos in the center of the page), rather than buried in the frames.


Especially on the AGRS site, content on the home page seems designed to serve the company and its shareholders at the expense of customers. Company statistics, while impressive, are of less immediate use to customers than are critical information and tools such as calculators and important tips about new products. A quick fix might be to make the “find information about” list on the AGRS home page immediately clickable.


Of particular concern are the “My Account” and “Contact Us” pages. On the AGRS home page, John Graf states the company’s commitment to “uncompromising face-to-face” customer service and to the Internet as a new service medium. A range of interactive tools exists that do in fact leverage the Internet’s usefulness as a customer service medium – none of which is in evidence on the sites. Message boards, chat capability and 3D meeting software such as the Meet3D software developed for RAO (“click here to talk to your sales representative about your account NOW”) would all be of great benefit to AGRS/VALIC in “touching” their customers with immediate, personal service. As it is, these same customers must send in emails and wait (even days) for a response, or speak to an automated phone system. It is highly recommended that the interactive tools discussed within this report be incorporated into the AGRS and VALIC sites, as they can provide the “uncompromising face-to-face approach” noted by Mr. Graf.


There are currently tools available on the VALIC/AGRS sites to help customers manage their retirement accounts. The tools allow for customers to view their portfolio, get a transaction history, view their current investment elections, change their investment allocations, make exchange transactions, get price information, and manage their online account (change PIN etc).


A VALIC account holder who is also a member of this team suggests that these tools are useful, but intimidating. He is uncomfortable making changes because he is not sure about the changes and he doesn’t want to make a mistake. He suggests


· Adding an interactive demo, preferably with audio or chat capability, where a customer can make changes to a pretend account to see what happens.

· Adding a <save configuration> option so that if you didn't like what you'd done, in addition to <cancel>, you could load a previous configuration and get back to square one or default


He also stated that the second suggestion may be there later on in the process, but he has not felt comfortable enough with the system to make any changes to find out if it is there and the help isn’t available to tell him what is or is not possible.


It is the recommendation of this team that interactive help files be created for this system to make it more user-friendly and less intimidating. This might also be a VALIC customer-specific event topic for a private online event.You can invite only current VALIC customers who have online access to an event specifically to allow them to talk to someone who can walk them through the process. Or you can have a message board topic set up so that only folks who access that topic through the VALIC account management system can see the postings to allow people to ask questions and get answers directly from the company about how to use the tools.We are not talking here about advice on the investments themselves – only technical and user information about use of the system itself. This could be a tremendous boost to relationship building with your customers and be a definite plus in comparison to the service of other providers who do not provide this kind of surface intimacy for help with online technology.


Further, information such as “This is not your mother’s portfolio” and “Four Easy Steps For Planning Your Retirement” would benefit from message board and/or conference forum treatment that would invite active member participation (see Option 2 in the Overview Section).


For example, the internal RAO team indicated that an initiative is underway to create a series of “Life Events” tutorials for use by customers. Financial planning needs to take life events into account and many people do not know how to manage finances around life events. These tutorials are being created by American General to give people tools to help them handle the financial implications of life events. We believe this is an excellent opportunity to tie in the content of the site with interactive tools and approaches. These Life Events tutorials can provide context for large-scale events or for ongoing discussions on the site.


For example, perhaps AG would like to present a Life Event tutorial about a woman planning her retirement in light of the possibility of being widowed. This is a very real issue for women, yet many women rely on their spouse’s planning and retirement for their own comfort and support in the later years of life. When a spouse dies unexpectedly, the woman is often left unprepared and unable to immediately manage her own finances and can be caught in an undesirable position financially. Further, as pointed out in “This is not your mother’s portolio” on the AGRS site, women are by nature risk-adverse, and as a result, may invest so cautiously that they outlive their investments.


Launching this particular Life Event tutorial can become something larger than just putting the tutorial on the site. An event can be sponsored that talks about the issue, and the tutorial can then be launched alongside the event. Further discussion among women – possibly women sharing their own experiences with other women – can then be undertaken on the message boards for either a finite time period or for a longer ongoing discussion topic.


It is the opinion of this team that the Life Events tutorials can create wonderful context for the interactive network and should be taken into account when integrating content with interactivity.


Finally, while the graphics on both sites are appropriately professional for a serious, adult subject, focus groups of educators approved of RAO’s colorful, friendly look and tone.The team notes that the website http://adventistretirement.valic.com/prilabel/sdaweb.nsf, created for an audience of AGRS/VALIC customers who are Seventh-day Adventists, combines the professional information offered by the above corporate sites with warm, friendly graphics tailored to a “community.”The same graphic approach could be used with good effect to create sites or pages within the above sites targeted to educator “communities of interest” (women, mentor retirees, etc) such as those identified by the original RAO.In addition, the information in “12 Easy Retirement Tips” from the Seventh-day site would make excellent content for a series of message boards or a conference forum.

iv. Events Planning and Execution
a. Events Planning

Events are a great means by which to build and cement community. There are several types of events you can undertake. Forum-based events involve bringing in someone who would be of interest to the population for a specified period of time to interact with the members on the message boards. This type of event is usually heavily moderated and the host assists with the direction and flow of the event as it happens. Once a forum-based event runs its course, the topic is often frozen so no more discussion can be added. There are a number of ways to facilitate this type of event; this team is available to assist you in understanding all of them.


Another type of event occurs in chat. You can invite a celebrity or well-known individual into a moderated chat event. These events generally draw large crowds when the guest is a well-respected or well-liked individual within the community. Again there are specific facilitation needs and often chats of this sort are logged and archived so that someone can come in later and revisit the event. It is also a good idea to make these logs available so members who could not attend a chat can come later and see what took place.


Chat events can be further extended to a discussion on the boards about the event or about the guest. Of course this discussion can also be used to advertise or promote the event prior to the chat.

i. Scheduling

The timing of the events schedule is based on a number of variables. It is usually a good idea to start with a slow schedule and build to a more active schedule based on the number of users, the level of interest in the topics, and resource support for the events. Our recommendation is to start with one event every four to six weeks to begin, and to slowly increase that schedule. You might want to increase events to once per month after having two successful events, then maybe to twice per month after having 2 - 4 successful monthly events. You can increase at this rate until you reach a comfortable level of activity for your events. This is advisable whether an event is a chat event, an auditorium event or a forum-based event.

ii. Planning

Planning an event requires about six to eight weeks of preparation. It can be done more quickly, but your ability to execute a successful event lessens with a shorter time frame to plan the event. Planning requires first developing your topic or theme for the event and creating a context for the event. The context can be totally online, or it can be in conjunction with some offline event or interest.


Once you develop a topic or theme, you need to identify, contact and invite your guest speaker (or speakers). After identifying your speakers, you will need to make sure your guest is prepped, any preliminary technical issues are taken care of, you have a moderator and/or host for the event and you have covered any legal or contractual issues with everyone involved. You may need a typist for the event, and in the case of a 3D event, you have other issues that need to be addressed (see section VII c).


After you get this far, you need to plan your marketing campaign and determine how you are going to get people to come to your event. You can then determine your metrics for success and begin to put the pieces into place. The normal process conducted by this team includes walking you through the planning of at least one major event and helping you to develop your topic, context and guest speaker for the event. We can also help you identify staff members and set up for the actual event itself.


Our recommendation is to carefully plan each event, and staff each event with well-trained moderators/hosts. Allow enough time to thoroughly prepare for an event: secure a guest, take care of any legal or contractual considerations, research the topic, prepare any text, find qualified personnel to run the event, market the event, do a practice run and prepare the environment. The first few events will take longer to prep than subsequent events, simply because it is a new activity for the internal team.

iii. Management of an Event

Event management is a key factor in the success or failure of any event. It is of vital importance that trained staff members run the event itself. Events do not just “happen.” They take careful planning and skilled execution. Event management goes beyond simply operating the software. There are many behind-the-scenes issues that come up, social issues to deal with and technical machinations that need to happen transparently to the end-user.


The actual event may only be scheduled for an hour, but management of that event takes much longer. Besides the planning time - which should start at least 4-6 weeks or longer in advance - on the day of the actual event, an hour event translates into several hours of work for the event staff. Several hours before the event, the entire platform should be tested. Any macros or text should be installed and tested to make sure there are no glitches during the event. If a typist is being used for the guest, any communication path set up for the guest and the typist must be tested. Systems should be in place to measure and log the event and any material that is being presented should be finalized and ready to go. You will not have time during the event itself to tweak and polish.


Forum events are longer-lived, so you may have time to fix any snafus as you go, but generally the better prepared and the more polished you are at the opening of the event, the more smoothly the event will run.


An example of a seminar style event is the current Online Social Networks 2001 http://www.groupjazz.com/osn2001 jointly sponsored by GroupJazz and Rheingold Associates using a customized Caucus interface. This type of event lasts two or three weeks. An event can be a great way to launch ongoing discussions -- people are less reluctant to commit two a two or three week event than to an ongoing discussion. Moreover, some of those who show up for the event will stick around. Two to four events a year could help a continuous community grow. The key to sustainable community is critical mass. An event is a means toward the end of achieving a critical mass of active participants


Another event of this type is MathWeb. This was an event produced by GroupJazz in a highly customized Caucus conference. The conference was archived and is now available on CD-ROM. The target audience was math teachers, and the goal of Mathweb2000 was to make professional enrichment accessible to mathematics teachers throughout the country through the use of technology.


You can reach MathWeb by visiting http://www.groupjazz.com/mathweb2000. You can read about the event on the site.To access the archive, scroll down to the bottom of the page where you’ll see an enter button. Use the user name “mathwebdemo” and the password “demo” to access the archive of this event.


Approximate cost for this type of event:


1. $40,000 for an event for several hundred participants, keynote speakers and workshop leaders. AG would be responsible for compensating speakers and for the marketing. This would be a message board event of two weeks duration, with the possibility of several chats during that time.
2. $10,000 to set up the software and create the information structure -- all the greetings, titles of discussion topics, intros to discussion topics, welcome centers and help desk.
3. $5000/month to maintain a reasonably sized message board and chat community
Actual cost quotes would depend on the variables and would be offered in a proposal for implementation if requested.

b. Evaluation

Once the event is over, you will need to “clean up”, archive and analyze the event.If this is a real-time event, you should take the time to review any unanswered questions and possibly post answers to questions that had not yet been reached in the queue. If this is a forum-based event, you will need to go in and address any unaddressed issues - even just to summarize and recognize that issues did remain unaddressed.


Any archives or logs of the event should then be prepared and posted.How these archives are prepared depends on the decisions made for presentation of the material after the event. This is also the time to record the stats for the event for analysis. Much of what you do after an event is based on the decisions made prior to the event. For example, how the stats are analyzed and reported is dependent on the decisions you make regarding the success parameters for the event and how individual events fit into the larger picture.be ongoing discussions after the event which need to be taken into consideration. Or there may be a feedback/communication loop that is ongoing, as, for instance, in the case of sales leads generated as a result of an event around the topic of retirement.With more information, and the ability to work with you, this team would be able to walk you through the first few events and help you understand the variables and deal with the after-event based on the decisions you make.

c.Metrics and Measures of Success

Statistics and RAO Events
As discussed in Option 2 of the Overview (see section II.d.ii), ROI on any site parameter can be measured in multiple ways. There are two types of statistics that need to be measured and analyzed to determine the success or failure of the project as a whole, and of individual portions of the project such as individual events, certain interactive activities, marketing campaigns and other initiatives.


1)ROI. The Return on Investment necessitates that everything be translated into dollars and cents and that those numbers then be applied to the p-and-l to determine the bottom line. You must have a good handle on what your costs are, and then in terms of dollars what your return is. For example, ROI can be measured by a direct correlation between sales leads generated via an event and completed sales. But there are other ways to measure ROI as well:savings in travel expenses, lower phone bills, lower cost of information dissemination, lower cost in customer support via phone reps, lower cost in mailings, and so on. There are a number of ways to gain a return (defined as a positive impact on bottom line P&L) that are not tied directly to revenue stream 2)The second indicator of success or failure is not about ROI. It has nothing to do with dollars and cents and everything to do with determination and definition of success. This requires an understanding of appropriate measurable outcomes. Measurable outcomes are what you develop from site statistics and traffic analysis, among other things. For instance, if you define success as X number of registered members in a given time period, then your measurable outcome is the number of current, active registrations.


Developing Key Indicators for Events


RAO needs to develop clear measurable outcomes for the project-at-large as well as for individual subsets of the project such as events. For both ROI and measurable outcomes, you need to identify key indicators for each, and then determine how those indicators will be tracked, analyzed and reported.

Current metrics used to measure the RAO site have been the raw log files analyzed by WebTrends to provide a snapshot picture of all traffic to and from the site. This analysis includes the customary page views, user session and traffic pattern analysis that gives an overview of the numbers of people that come to the site at any given time during the day, where on the site they visit and how long they stay. Further information includes from which domain they come and on what page they enter and exit the site.

From the statistics available, there is a clear indication that a move towards interactive, events-based programming is a good one. There are clear spikes of interest in the site from a wider number and variety of people when there is an interactive event promoted and executed on the site. Currently, RAO’s retention figures are low, but this trend can be reversed with the addition of fresh and exciting site activities, including message boards linked to events.

The aim of future site development is to leverage the ability for the site to generate this type of spike in activity, and turn this activity into something more in keeping with the goals the company has for the site. In order to know that those goals are being met, and to measure the success and/or failure of a given event, or the site as a whole, metrics much be defined and developed which go beyond raw site-wide statistics.

In order to do this, key indicators need to be identified and methods for tracking those indicators need to be put into place. For instance, you may plan to invite a speaker to headline or keynote an online event. For example, you might invite Jeremy Travis, former Director of the National Institute of Justice, to speak to current VALIC customers about an issue critical to school safety – for example, whether gun safety courses in schools should be mandatory, a current topic of high interest to educators and parents alike.

You will want to know exactly how successful that event is and whether you should do that type of event again. The site statistics may be able to give you a high level overview of the amount of traffic generated on the site for the time period surrounding the event, but they will not give you any specific information about the event itself. You would need to determine the type of information you consider important to this type of event. Do you want to know who your visitors are? Do you want to create a follow-up discussion? Do you want to know how many people actually asked questions? Or presented comments? Do you want to know how many people downloaded an archive of the event? These are the types of things that do not show up in raw web logs.

Key indicators for each measurement you want to take would need to be identified. If you want to know how many people download the archive, you might want to put a counter on the download process to find out how many people are actually downloading the file. Or you may want to go a step further and allow only registered users to download the file so you can track who is downloading the file. Why would you want to know this information? By knowing who downloaded the file, you can create an invitation list for the next event of the same type. You can compare the download list to the attendance list and find out who had an interest in the event but did not attend. You can then survey to find out why they could not attend and if there was something you could do to make it possible for them to attend the next event.

The first step in developing a system for measures of success is to define your success. You want to make some decisions about what events you are going to schedule and how often. You then need to take a look at the target population, and make some decisions about where your definition of success lies. The variables include:

· your ability to reach your target audience

· the visibility of the event and

· the planning and the management of the event itself.

Take the example above with Jeremy Travis. Although he provided the keynote address for PAVNET’s online School Safety conference a couple years ago and is known for his expertise on this topic, he is not a generally well-known man who would generate “buzz.” The topic is important to educators, however, so how you position this event in your marketing effort will determine how many people you can reasonably expect to show up.

For an event such as this, given that you have approximately 5,000 potential attendees to work with (this assumes an overall target market of 50,000 VALIC customers; see section III b), a strong marketing campaign may result in about 10% of your potential audience attending at least to see what the event is about. This means you would have an upper threshold of 500 people for this event. You would need to decide in advance what your parameters for success are based on this threshold. If all 500 people show up, and 20% of them stay from beginning to end, is that a success? Or would you expect to see a 50% or better full attendance rate? If you have 20% stay from beginning to end, of those 100 people, how many would you expect to continue with some type of follow-up activity? Are you planning to hold a discussion after the event? Put up a message board topic? Are there other offerings that can be made in conjunction with the topic? Giveaways? Sale items? Discounts on VALIC products? Preferential SAY grants?

Suppose you decide to leverage your existing relationship with current affiliate partner PAVNET by staging an open, jointly-sponsored event on the RAO (or SAY) site featuring Jeremy Travis. Given a much wider possible audience of education professionals as your target market, your definition of measurable success changes significantly.

This might all look different again if you change yet another variable. For example, suppose you invite someone extremely famous, such as Oprah Winfrey, to speak about safeguarding America’s youth through school safety programs. You must then change your definition of success. To take a look at 500 people and assume that you will get at least 100 to join the event from start to finish would be grossly underestimating your success for the event. By inviting a higher profile guest, you can actually get a larger return for less exposure. You might expect to get a larger percentage of the 5,000 VALIC customers interested in the event – maybe as high as 75%. You can reasonably expect at least 50% to show up. If you then take 50% of those who show as a success metric for a high-profile event, you have 1,250 people rather than 100. This makes a huge difference with regard to the amount of time and energy it takes to execute an event. Make the event open to educators outside your current VALIC customer base, and the success metrics change again.

Other variables may have an impact that is just as dramatic. The amount of money you spend in marketing an event definitely has an impact on how many people you can reach to promote the event. Tie-in promotions are also a good way to generate some buzz about an event and encourage more people to attend.

Once you decide what you are going to do, and decide how you define the success of that particular event, you can then determine the key indicators that need to be measured and develop a system to measure those indicators, track changes and analyze the results. The recommendation of this team is to develop your measurable outcomes and track your metrics on an event-by-event basis, which will require some thought during the planning process for each event about how you want to define the success for the event.

After several events, you will have several different templates that you can use for measuring the effectiveness of your marketing, and you will understand how to use the defined metrics to fine-tune your procedures for events management and execution. The normal process of this team includes working through the planning and execution of at least the first large event to help you define those success points, focus in on the goals for the event and measure and analyze the raw statistics available after the event. Since this is a process that is very specific to the activity, it is necessary to have the decisions made and the structure in place before defining metrics and developing measurable outcomes.

V. Staffing

Staffing is essential to the success of any online venture, but especially critical to any interactive venture online. Staffing covers both the internal staff needed to support and manage the interactive site and the online staff - which may be part-time, full-time, freelance or contract work. Before we talk about the types and potential numbers of staff members necessary to be successful, the issue of volunteers vs. paid staff must be addressed.

On the Internet, it has become the habit for many sites to use volunteers. Most notably, the sites that bill themselves as “community” sites, or call their interactive portions “community,” justify this use of volunteers rather than paid staff by claiming that the workers are performing a “community service” and that they are really not part of the sponsoring company.

In reality, this is inappropriate at best, and illegal exploitation at worst. The history of this practice goes back many years, and stems from the gift economy of the Internet. Many people willingly and enthusiastically contributed to the growth and development of both the technologies and the social networks that make up the Internet as we know it. In fact, the Net would not be where it is without this gift economy. So when big business found the Net, it took advantage of the gift economy. It is not clear there was any concerted effort to exploit - at least not at first. Business still was not sure how it was going to make money, but saw an opportunity to try. After all, where a great number of people gather, there is usually some money.

Companies did not understand “gift economy” and thought all they needed to do was to create the space. And indeed, they created the space, and people came. In many cases, this worked. People who came were accustomed to building relationships online, and they gladly took advantage of newer technologies to build their networks. But as the population online grew, so did the amount of work it took to build and manage and maintain these communities. “Newbies” - or new Internet users - eventually overwhelmed the old-timers and it became not only a real challenge to maintain a sense of community, but also a less attractive way to spend time for the people who were doing it. The companies, however, had expectations that the communities would continue to grow and be managed in a way that held a positive image for the company. Companies were now paying attention to what people were doing online, and realized that communities were more than just an aggregation of people. They started to manage and direct these leaders of the communities and indeed started placing real expectations on the people who were encouraging and enabling relationships among the throngs of users aggregated around the technologies.

It became apparent that without this aggregation of participants, some of these companies would not be successful on the Web. And without these leaders, these aggregations would not turn into communities. And without communities, the aggregations would go away - because meaningful interaction requires planning and skilled management, and meaningful interaction is what brings people back over and over again.

In the United States, we have laws that govern how business may use its human resources. The only organizations in this country that may use volunteer labor legally are non-profit corporations as designated by the IRS or community based human services, such as hospitals, fire departments and the like. The only other valid, legal use of unpaid labor falls under the heading of “internship” which is a very clear use of student labor for the dual-purpose of teaching (on the company side) and learning/experience (on the student side).

The laws do not make a distinction between online and offline - the only distinction is the company’s status and business. That is not to say there is not a place for online volunteers; there most certainly is a place for online volunteers, but that place is not in a position where a for-profit company would benefit from their labor.

It is the recommendation of this team that ALL staff, online or offline, be paid for participation in any website(s) developed by this project. This includes hosts, moderators, typists, developers, writers, editors, managers -- everyone. There are some potential exceptions; for instance, you might invite registered members to write an article of interest to the community in return for recognition or a small stipend as a way to generate member-created content. And you may not need to pay every single guest speaker that comes through the site; some may be paid, some may not. But any individual that is there to manage and assist with providing these events and the interactive spaces should be paid a real wage for the work that person is doing. It is hard work, it requires skills and training, and the company benefits from the work done by the individuals. This section will deal with the issue of staffing and recommendations for skill sets needed to staff the interactive portions of the site.

a. Manager

It is important that someone on the internal team be dedicated solely to the development and support of site interactivity. This is such an integral part of the site that great consideration needs to be given to how the interactivity will be supported. Just as it is necessary to have staff in place to address the needs of the content, commerce and technology portions of the site, so it is necessary to have someone dedicated to the interactive components of the site.

You have already put into place an individual to manage this function. The purview of this position requires that this person be directly responsible for the interactions between people on the site, and the interaction between the site and the users. This position may also have input into the communication between the company and the customer, although this may not be the person directly responsible for the content of that communication.

We recommend that the Manager currently in this position take a training course specific to the management and development of online interactive spaces - aka online community. It is necessary and beneficial for the individual in this position to be not only well acquainted, but also comfortable with the tools implemented to enable communication on the site. It is also of great benefit for this individual to understand the social issues inherent in any online social network, and how to manage those issues effectively. Communication over online ne