ECW14
Office Futures
ECW14
Issue 14, September 17, 2000
+++ Sometimes You've Got to Practise What You Preach
+++ Cyber-Liabilities of the Internet -- The Double-Edged Sword
+++ Have You Got the Right Team for Success? -- A Venture Capital Perspective
+++ Peter Judge Started This...
+++ Part 2 of the Ecommerce Glossary
+++ Sometimes you've got to practise what you preach
Life has been a little hectic in this corner of paradise. One of our neighbours is a very nice firm which has specialised in the world of simulations and modelling and we've long had one of those "It'd be nice if we could so something together sometime" relationships that develop over the occasional beer and mutter about the state of the industry.
The opportunity arose when they decided to launch as a Web portal a project they have been working on for several -- a set of tools for road engineers and contractors. We were asked if we could help with some of the server-side issues (the joys of running COM objects in a ColdFusion environment with some ASP stuff and an O'Reilly WebSite Pro server) and some of the marketing issues.
It has been interesting as they decided they'd like to take an online/offline approach to the marketing and we have always believed that there have to be cheaper ways to drive traffic than taking 60 second spots in the middle of the Superbowl. We also thought there must be some interesting new things going on in the world of online marketing. Indeed there were.
One of the ideas we decided to try was putting our banner advertising budget up for competitive bidding. Just as you might conduct an offline town test [wozzat?], we decided to test several approaches to banners over a six week period and compare outcomes and ROIs.
We decided to give the auction site OneMediaPlace (http://www.onemediaplace.com) a whirl. The process was quite painless and a friendly and apparently knowledgeable sales team took us through the process of quantifying and qualifying an RFP (request for proposals). Most of the usual suspects made bids, as well as some names new to us. You can post refinements and conduct an online bid and counterbid, although the interface proved a bit clunky.
What was useful was immediate e-mail notifications of updates in the process: these referred back to a URL. A capture of the form information in the e-mail might have slicked things up a bit but the click-and-go had the virtue of taking you into your auction "room" with all the information readily to hand. The OneMediaPlace folks arranged teleconferences with the final shortlist of three and facilitated the discussions.
This proved helpful, as they were knowledgeable about the different systems and a lot of the sites which were on offer. In the end we selected three, including one specialising in selling those annoying banners the free ISPs use. It was fascinating to be able to nominate the individual sites your banner would appear above, but of course there are doubts about the relative quality of the free ISP audience. Time and stats will tell.
The production side hasn't been quite as slick, though to be fair it didn't help that we supplied the wrong-sized mechanicals by accident first time around. They gave us the wrong address to send the creative material to, so we got chased for something we had supplied two days before. Only then was the size discrepancy discovered. Then one of the vendor orgs wasn't able to deliver a key site we wanted that was in their initial offer.
Finally, and days after the campaign was supposed to begin, we were told one vendor required the banner to pop up a new window when clicked because they didn't want the user to depart the confines of their site in the 'master' browser. I was at home when advised by e-mail so didn't have the full code handy. I dashed them off the minor amendment they'd need to make to the tag. To my surprise they couldn't handle that and needed the whole code chunk. And I didn't find out until I was back home Friday evening (the joys of Atlantic vs Pacific time).
The net result of all this (no pun intended) was that four days were lost in the campaign breaking from receipt belated information on the requirement. [I've can't make sense of this sentence.] We aren't that time sensitive, but it might hurt some campaigns. When a parallel issue arose with a newspaper handling the online campaign, it was all sorted out in just a couple of hours the afternoon before publication.
The other interesting venture was to approach the redoubtable Yasha Harari (http://www.harari.org) -- internet prankster and marketing guru. One of Yasha's many Web ventures is opt-in 'joke a day' e-mail lists. Our thought was to ask him whether he would be interested in creating one to produce a joke a day about road-building. Our idea was the long-term building up of an industrial list and using it to advertise our wares. Yasha came up with a revenue sharing model that (we hope) will eventually turn a marketing cost centre into a revenue generator.
It's all a bit gamekeeper turned poacher, but has been hugely good fun and an interesting chance to look beyond the chat you get from the PR folks. So far, the quality of service and market knowledge has been at least as good as you'd get from the space-selling reps from better publications. You don't (so far, at least) get all those opportuning phone calls, but there is a definite shortfall in the long liquid lunch department.
We'll be expanding the range of things we try and keep you posted.
-oOo-
+++ Cyber-Liabilities of the Internet -- The Double-Edged Sword
By David Draycott, Websense, Inc. (Note: the law cited in this article is mostly that of the UK.)
Pornography, shopping and stock trading: just another day's work for a growing number of employees.
As workers are drawn to the alluring nature of the Net, corporations are facing a mounting crisis. The Web -- once a productivity saviour quickly is becoming a TV set on employee desktops. Valuable network bandwidth is being consumed by non-work related surfing. And employee viewing of truly objectionable material is leading to sexual harassment suits and other legal entanglements.
Indeed, businesses today are facing a double-edged sword when it comes to the Internet. In the mid-1990s, the Net was hailed as a productivity tool, the source of e-mail, e-commerce and research tools. But, as the Nineties have come to a close, the Internet has become more of an obstacle, distracting workers with e-zines, e-trade and e-porn.
And the Net shows no signs of slowing down its phenomenal growth. The Web has spiked from more than 2 million sites in January 1994 to more than 43 million sites in January 1999. In addition, entirely new business models and content are emerging daily -- from new e-commerce clothing stores to streaming video magazines.
What are the issues facing the employer of providing Internet access to employees and what can the average IT professional do about non productivity and cyber-liability? The issues, in the main, fall into three categories:
1. Productivity
2. Investment protection
3. Legal liabilities
Productivity -- the combination of speed of access, no 'phone call cost and no interruptions from family members makes accessing the Internet from work much more attractive. Add to that an employee lacking enthusiasm and diligence, then it's not hard to justify some of the statistics recently published.
A survey recently published by IDC Research stated that an average of 30-40% of access to the Internet from within the corporate workplace was not business related. This is backed up with statistics from a survey by Secure Computing that found 50% of people found time to visit 'adult' sites from work, 92% on-line traders trade from work, 84% search for new jobs and 54% visit chat rooms.
The statistics also show an increase in on-line shopping, with it now being the number one use of the Internet. In fact, it has taken over from pornography and that's still on the increase as well. (The Internet is the number one cause of divorce in America today [fascinating if true Roger] and special psychiatric centres are being set up for addicts.)
Employee activity of this nature reduces their productivity and slows down Internet access for legitimate users. What are your employees doing?
Investment Protection -- Along with the above issues costing corporate $millions, there is also the issue of investment. By the time a company implements Internet access with a firewall, a virus package, an e-mail package, a proxy, a router, a leased line and all the necessary hardware, there's often no change out of $100,000. Given that 30-40% of access, on average, is not business related this averages out at $30-$40,000. Given the size of leased lines, it's no wonder that 70% of people downloading MP3 music files do it from work. The size of the lease line makes it quick and it doesn't cost the employee anything on his/her phone bill. This also applies to downloading video, games software, pornographic images and so on.
Legal Exposure -- The company intranet provides employees with easy and quick access to perform illegal activities, such as using pirate music sites (like http://www.audiofind.com), pirate games software, pirate video, hacking tools, pornographic and obscene material. Again, the bandwidth available makes it commonplace to find employees downloading such material.
If the issues of lost productivity and investment protection don't concern you, then this issue should. However employees might have been wasting time before the introduction of the intranet, what they did probably wasn't illegal.
++ Illegal Material
The Obscene Publications Act (1959), Child Protection Act (1978) amd the Telecommunications Act (1984).
According to the Computer Crime Squad, it is illegal to distribute hardcore pornography for profit. Hence the recent case for a London Bank employing an IT contractor who was caught downloading and selling pornography, over a period of 6 months, caused the bank great concern. His laptop computer was found to contain over 170Mb of images and he admitted to spending approximately six hours a day downloading material.
At his contract rates, this meant the bank had lost over to $100,000 in his time charging. His material breached a number of laws which prohibit distribution of pornographic material for profit, the material included acts with children and bestiality (both outlawed) and, in using the telephone network to download the material, he again was in breach of the law. The law could be violated in electronic distribution, procession or transmission of such material.
++ Harassment Issues
An employee could take legal action against his employer if he or she were subject to exposure to such material -- or pretended to be. One woman I recently interviewed sued a company for harassment as a result of passing another employee's desk and seeing the contents of Playboy's site. When I suggested that the site in question was not particularly offensive, she agreed and stated that she was leaving the company anyway and this was a golden opportunity.
I was recently in an Internet café who, in providing the service, had not forced any filtering of material. I could have claimed harassment as two young men surfed gay and homosexual Web sites in my view.
++ Illegal software -- international copyright law
The ease of access and size of leased lines available from within the corporate environment encourage employees to download music files, video files and games and software from pirate or illegitimate sources. Not only is this taking sizable amounts of bandwidth but also is a breach of international copyright law.
++ Hacking Tools
Hacking sites provide staff easy access to tools allowing them to perform hacking activities from within the corporate environment.
In one case, involving a young network engineer caught hacking into another large competitive company from work, using tools downloaded from the Internet, the company threatened to sue his employer. The offending company was an industry name known for providing network security consultancy that traded on its respected name. Being sued would have created unwelcome bad press for it.
++ The Liability
Unfortunately the liability can fall to the company. Companies are liable for employees' actions even if they are unaware of the breach. There is a much-cited case of a large British financial & pensions company [Norwich Union Roger], where an e-mail from an employee containing defamatory comments about a competitor [Western Provident Association Roger] was seen by the competitor. The case cost GBP450,000 pounds in settlements.
Each company has directors or a company secretary who is personally held responsible for ensuring their employees keep within in the law. It should also fall to them, along with IT staff, to protect themselves against cyber liability.
++ IT professionals: the workplace saviours
Interestingly, it is IT professionals who can prevent this termination from ever taking place. By managing their company's network properly, IT pros can stop the threat of Internet misuse before it becomes a headline in a newspaper. With two simple steps, the IT manager can safeguard the workplace and become a saviour for upper management -- without ever having to leave the building.
The first step is to outline a Web access policy for employees. Included as part of an employee manual or signed during employee training, these types of policies outline in very clear terms what kind of Internet usage is permitted, what kind is not, and the consequences for violating the rules. Sample Web access policies can be found at http://www.Websense.com/products/hr/hr_iap.cfm.
The second step is to install Internet filtering software to enforce this access policy. The monitoring, reporting and filtering tools can run in conjunction with your chosen platforms, such as firewalls, proxy servers, cache engines, network appliances or other content applications. This software can then to filter inappropriate Web sites, allowing managers to block everything from pornography to stock-trading sites. In addition, the software is customizable, giving managers the ability to block sites by certain users or groups. It even had dynamic category updates for recent media events that companies may want to block, all updated by daily downloads over the Web.
++ What this all means
Simply put, the Internet can readily change from a productivity-enhancement medium to a major distraction for workers. While management can often be shortsighted -- adding more bandwidth or firing more workers -- it is up to the IT professional to put controls on corporate Internet content before it becomes a problem.
With the advent of Web access policies and filtering software, IT professionals hold two of the solutions that will ensure the continued growth and success of their businesses -- and their valued employees.
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For more information on the issues covered in this article, or for ways of monitoring & filtering employees' use of the Internet then, please contact Johanna Severinsson on 01932 796105 or email jseverinsson@Websense.com. Alternatively, visit http://www.Websense.com
-o0o-
+++ Have you got the right team for success? -- A venture capital perspective
by Alice Chapman, Director of Catalyst Fund Management and Research, UK
Building a good team is vital to the success of any business. Yet, selecting people who work together constructively is a difficult and challenging task. This article considers the issue from the perspective of venture capitalists. Our job gives us a distinct outlook; not only do we assess teams at an early stage in their development, we also assist companies with their recruitment. The latter is a crucial factor in our ability to nurture future growth.
There is clearly no formula for building a team. If there were, managing people would be an easy task and we would all be millionaires. Different contexts call for different blends of personality, talents and skills. Combinations of people who work efficiently in one business sector can have difficulty adapting to another.
In any context, however, good teams are made up of talented people. For this reason recruitment must be a management priority and must be carefully considered. A classic error made by young firms is that they fail to put enough resources into recruitment. They tend to start to recruit personnel too late, waiting until they have the funds to do so rather than recruiting in anticipation of future success. I believe that the early appointment of a CFO is especially important for the success of a business venture. The recent collapse of boo.com, which has been attributed partly to its lack of financial control, bears this out.
It is vital that managers do not invest in companies or recruit personnel merely because they appear to be 'in the image' of the employer or investor. Instead, managers should look for evidence that people set their own goals and are energetic and passionate about making a business a success when they assess teams. They should look for resilience and the ability to take responsibility when things go wrong, and should place a high value on individuals' intellectual abilities and interpersonal skills.
I advocate using a combination of techniques to assess existing managers and to recruit personnel. At Catalyst, we use interviews, team exercises and psychometric tests, such as the Myers-Briggs and Belbin's team roles tests, to assess people's qualities.
This relatively 'scientific' approach to recruitment is a definite improvement on just relying on gut instinct. It means that at Catalyst, our team must be clear about the types of skills and personalities we are looking for before recruiting or assessing personnel. That results in a better blend of personality, experience and skills within teams.
Entrepreneurs would do well to follow this example. By undertaking a comprehensive analysis of potential employees' characters and track-records it is possible to form a view on how well they will perform in a new environment. Different individuals excel at creating ideas, managing projects, organising material, auditing and so on. Each is a valuable skill.
Many new economy companies are overloaded at senior level with individuals whose strength is the production of ideas, whereas a combination of personality types is needed to drive the company and its product forward. Effective recruitment is the key to securing this combination.
Venture capitalists assess the viability of business teams every day, but the way that they do this has changed in the 'new economy'. In the past, venture capital companies tended to back teams of managers who had 'done it before'. They invested in management buy-outs and assessed the teams' competence in terms of the profitable growth that they had achieved. The main change that took place was a change of ownership, and as long as the team had done well previously there was little reason to think that they would fail in the future.
However, in the new economy, venture capital backs new businesses and new teams. It is much harder for us to assess these teams' potential than it was with management buy-outs. For example, although management skills transfer well into new companies, assessing how well a particular person will suit a start-up environment is more complex. A successful career in a traditional company is not a guarantor of success in a new one.
These issues make it more important than ever to assess the structure of teams and what makes them tick. At Catalyst, we are pleased to see teams who have worked together before because they will have coped with both ups and downs together. I also recognise that teams need to adapt and change.
The implication is that a combination of youth and age is often productive, and that within a team it can be productive for people to express and accommodate differences of opinion and personal objectives. Business experience cannot be replaced by original ideas, but the two are jointly necessary in a competitive environment.
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Alice Chapman can be contacted on 0207 747 8600.
-o0o-
+++ Peter Judge started this...
As e-this and m-that mania continues unabated, Peter Judge, recently translated from Ziff's IT Week to even greater things (of which more anon), and Roger started an altogether silly correspondence on whether a complete alphabet soup could be compiled. It seems it could - and here it is. (Warning: not all of them are immediately obvious; several exhibit political incorrectitude.):
a-commerce -- http://www.deaf.com
b-commerce -- http://www.beeworks.com
c-commerce -- http://www.p-and-o.com
d-commerce -- http://www.jamaicatradepoint.com
e-commerce -- http://www.yorkshire.co.uk
f-commerce -- http://hiphopmusic-rapmusic.com
g-commerce -- http://www.arabianhorsesales.com
h-commerce -- http://www.herointimes.com
i-commerce -- http://www.specsavers.com
k-commerce -- http://welcome.to/fawltytowers
l-commerce -- http://www.ellemag.com
m-commerce -- http://www.jamesbond.com
n-commerce -- http://www.bnfl.com
o-commerce -- http://www.rsc.org.uk
p-commerce -- http://www.golden-showers.teenstrippers.net
q-commerce -- http://www.Web-ho.com/Cucumbers
r-commerce -- http://www.devon-online.com
s-commerce http://www.voltapublishing.com/netgains/forum/Forum2/HTML/000015.html
t-commerce -- http://www.twinings.com
u-commerce -- http://www.yewboxes.co.uk
v-commerce -
http://swaf.landsend.de/landsend/swaf/de/swaf.html?query=http%3A//http://www.landsend.de/cgi-bin/ncommerce3/ExecMacro/LandsEndGermany/ledeu_Home.d2w/report%3Fmdiv%3Dwl (Unwrap this one!)
w-commerce -- http://www.samhd.org/images/health.htm
x-commerce -- http://www.fuckedcompany.com
y-commerce -- http://www.overthrow.com
z-commerce -- http://www.horlicks.co.uk
-o0o-
+++ Part 2 of the eCommerce Glossary
Here's the second part of Roger's canter over the technical terms and acronyms that so enliven our working days. Part 1 appeared in ECW 13 (see http://www.ecomwatch.com/ecomwatch).
Java = Object-oriented programming language from Sun Microsystems. Extensively used on the World Wide Web and in intranets.
JIT = Just in time. Management philosophy of delivering requirements in a system exactly as and where required. Famously pioneered as a manufacturing approach by Toyota Cars, in Japan, but now applied to other disciplines an activities, e.g. just-in-time education.
Kanban = Japanese for 'visible signal'. Typically a card attached to a container or bin, a kanban indicates to a supplier that the next batch of materials or parts is needed. That indication comes either by direct inspection of the card or via a computer link.
Key = Cypher or algorithmic pattern used by a sender to encrypt messages, and by a recipient to decrypt them.
Key escrow = Storing of all or parts of a security key with a trusted party or parties, in case of loss or destruction of the key. Can also make possible its recovery by law enforcement services.
Kiosk = A free-standing computer terminal for public use, often mounted on a plinth and used for displaying the contents of CD-ROMs or on-line databases. Increasingly being used to give access to World Wide Web, for information searches or commerce.
Knowledge management = The idea that what is held in employees' heads could be put to better use through training and improved communication.
Linux = (Pronounced 'linnucks'.) Non-proprietary version of Unix for Intel processors, originally created by Linus Torvalds while a student in Helsinki. See Open Source.
List server = A crude form of text conferencing, much used on the Internet. E-mail users register on a list by sending it a pro forma request to be subscribed. The list server software is simply a non-human user that copies to each registrant every message it receives.
LOB = Line of business. IBM-favoured term for what an organization does. LOB systems are computers running software specific to an organization's main activities.
Local loop = The connecting piece between a public network (telephone, ISDN or cable) and the customer's premises. Sometimes described as 'the last mile', whatever its actual length.
Logistics = The movement of goods between sites or organizations. Derived from the military term for the transport of supplies and troops. (Despite what many conference chairmen believe, does not mean the catering arrangements at public events.)
Loyalty card = A bribe to shoppers to come back to the issuing store. Enables the build-up of extensive detail on each customer's buying habits in return for, usually, miserly discounts.
M-commerce = Electronic commerce conducted over mobile telephone networks.
Maverick buying = Purchases made outside an organization's approved purchasing process or contracts, typically by end-users. Not to be confused with horse-trading.
Merchant server = A Web server running electronic commerce software.
Metatag = Embedded text in an Web page, read by search engines when indexing that page. Used by site designers to ensure that a site is described to those engines. (To see the metatags on any Web page you are viewing, go to the 'view source' or 'view page source' command in your browser.)
Micropayment = A means of allowing owners of Web sites to charge small amounts of money, below those for which credit cards are viable, while keeping transaction costs low.
Mid office = In banking, where assessments of quality and risk are carried out, 'just behind' the front office. A term also favoured by travel agencies. See Front office and Back office.
Middleware = Software that mediates between client and server processes in distributed systems. Provides central services over the network and a unified set of application programming interfaces.
MIME = Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions. A way to allow mail containing varied data types to travel over the Internet. Converts contents into the 7-bit data streams demanded by the Internet transport method, SMTP, and back again. Will interoperate with X.400; is replacing UUENCODE.
Minitel = French public videotex service, begun in 1984 as an online telephone directory service. Gradually acquired a superstructure of commercial services, including the subsequently banned 'Messagerie Roses' (too 'ooh la la!'). Now connected to the Internet.
Mirror = See Mirroring.
Mirroring = Replicating all or part of a Web site to other servers, either on the Web or on an intranet. Allows faster access and download times for dispersed users. Also a security measure against network failure or blockage of a site's access.
Modem = Modulator-demodulator. Hardware that converts digital information, as from a computer, to analogue form, for transmission over public telephone networks. Conversion back to digital is done by another modem at the other end.
MP3 = MPEG-1 Audio Layer-3. Standardised way of compressing sound into a small computer-readable file. Although the result is mid-fi at best, has the record industry in a state of near panic. See MPEG.
MRO = Maintenance, repair and operations. Catchall term for the purpose and ultimate destination of purchases made other than for production needs. Typically includes such things as stationery, cleaning supplies and computer consumables. See ORM.
MRP = 1. Materials requirements planning. Computer software for manufacturers that aid in production planning. 2. Manufacturing resource planning. Extension of the above idea to apply to other variables, such as employee numbers. The precursor to ERP. Also known as MRP II.
Net, The or The 'Net = The Internet.
Network externalities = In economics, externalities are costs or benefits for third parties arising from the use of something. Network externalities, a term beloved of some industry commentators, refers to those effects arising from the economic connections between people from using the Web, not from the Web itself.
Newbie = Slang for a novice user of the Internet in its various manifestations. Probably derived from the school expression, 'new boy' or 'new bug'.
Newsgroup = The participants in a Usenet or list server discussion.
NNTP = Network News Transfer Protocol. The database replication method use for copying Usenet messages around participating server sites.
Non-repudiation = Proof provided by a security system that a transaction occurred or that a message was sent and/or received. Important in online trading, since it prevents the recipient falsely claiming that the transaction had not taken place or the message not received.
OBI = Open Buying on the Internet. A developing standard for business-to-business Internet commerce.
ODETTE = Organization for Data Exchange by Tele-Transmission in Europe. Maintains the EDI standards used by the European motor industry.
Open source = Software designed in public collaboration, typically over the Internet, and with no copyright claimed in the result.
ORM = Operating resource management. Grandiose term for buying and overseeing supplies for other than direct production purposes. A fortuitous anagram of 'MRO' (see above).
Packet switching = A way of 'shredding' electronic messages and packing them together for more efficient utilization of network capacity, recombining them on receipt. X.25 is the main packet-switching standard.
PDA = Personal digital assistant. A computer small enough to held comfortably in one hand.
PDF = Portable Document Format. File definition format used by Adobe in its Acrobat electronic paper product. Based on Adobe's PostScript language.
Permission marketing = Making contact with customers, with the ultimate purpose of making sales, only with their express agreement. Its antithesis is, apparently, 'interruption marketing' (see Spam).
Personalization = Modification by a Web site owner of what a user sees on a Web site, in accordance with the user's stated preferences or his observed behaviour. Reminiscent of the 'personalized' letters that word processors made possible in the 1980s. (Cf Customization).
PGP = Pretty Good Privacy. Freely-available software for encrypting data transmissions.
PKCS = Public-Key Cryptography Standards. Set of encryption methods developed by RSA in alliance with Apple, DEC (now Compaq), Lotus, Microsoft, MIT and Sun. Cover the encrypting and signing of data.
PKI = Public key infrastructure. The rules and arrangements for swapping public keys. To be complete, should offer an integrated set of digital certificate specifications, certificate authorities, registration authorities, certificate management services, and directory services.
Plain text = The decrypted or unscrambled form of a message; readable without recourse to a code book or key.
Platform = The type of computer or operating system upon which an application program will run.
Portal = A doorway, both in ordinary life and on the Web. On the latter it refers to a site that is or purports to be a major starting site for users, either on the Web or on an intranet.
POTS = Plain old telephone system. Semi-jocular term for the telephone network. More properly known as PSTN.
Prestel = British public viewdata (videotex) system, the first in the world. Designed by Sam Fedida and operated by the part of the General Post Office that became British Telecom. Began service in 1978; more or less died in the early 1990s, through lack of technical development, marketing and commercial support. Now operates as an independent ISP.
Private key = Part of cryptography. A code sequence for 'unlocking' encrypted documents that remains with the user or owner (cf Public key.)
Procurement = See Purchasing.
Proxy server = Typically, an in-house Web server stationed between users and the Internet. Gives faster access and allows the organization to exercise better management of Internet use by its members or employees. If installed correctly, its presence is unknown to the users.
PSTN = Public switched telephone network. What PTTs install and run. Although providing analogue services, in northern Europe the PSTN is usually digital throughout most of its length.
PTO = Public telephone operator. A PTT without responsibility for mails. In USA, especially, called a 'telco' (i.e. telecoms company).
PTT = Postal, telegraph and telephone authority. The major common carrier for mail and telecommunications in its particular country.
Usually used to enjoy a statutory monopoly but less often so these days.
Public key = Part of cryptography. A code sequence for 'unlocking' encrypted documents that is openly distributed (cf Private key).
Purchasing = Buying.
Purchasing card = Company credit card, issued in multiples for use by an organization. Allows authorized employees to make cashless and, often, paperless purchases from suppliers.
Push/pull = Once-fashionable concept among Web software suppliers. Push products and services send information to the user, typically in accordance with predefined parameters. Pull products and services require the user to call for the information as needed. Push working leaves the connexion open; pull closes it after each session.
Repurpose = Remake for use in a different medium. Favoured by electronic publishing types to describe the conversion ('repurposing') of material previously published on paper, say, to a form suitable for the Web or CD-ROM. Reworking material for more than one medium at once is called, toe-curlingly, 'multipurposing'.
RSA = Rivest, Shamir and Adelman. Developers of the encryption software named after their initials.
S.W.I.F.T. = Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. Worldwide electronic network, originally for carrying messages between banks. Now also links brokers, investment managers, stock exchanges and so on. Possibly the world's last acronym still with full points.
S-HTTP = Secure HTTP. See HTTP.
SCM = Supply Chain Management. Application software for managing the flow of commercial data, especially that relating to purchasing and supply, between trading entities or companies.
Search engine = Tool for searching one or more servers, on an intranet or the Internet, usually for textual information. See Spider.
Sell side = Denotes systems to enable and manage online purchasing that are owned by the selling organization, the vendor. See Buy side.
Set-top box = Control box on a television set that selects cable channels and other services.
SET = Secure Electronic Transaction. A way of allowing secure credit card transactions over a network, developed by Visa and MasterCard.
SFA = Sales force automation. Computer-aided selling. Ranges from contact management software on a laptop PC to company-wide systems that permit team coordination, role swapping and visit control.
SGML = Standard Generalized Markup Language. An international standard for annotating text for electronic publishing. Based on IBM's Generalized Markup Language. See HTML and XML.
Shopbot = Short for 'shopping robot'. An aid to comparison shopping, using software that will search traders' Web sites for bargains, according to the user's selected criteria. See Agent (1).
Shopping basket = See Shopping Cart.
Shopping cart = Data storage area on a trading Web site that allows review of what the customer has selected.
Smart card = Plastic card similar to a credit card but with a microchip on it to store information, such as e-cash.
SMS = Short Message Service. E-mail system for digital cellular telephone services. Also works over some pager networks.
Spam = Unsolicited electronic mail that has been sent out in bulk. The on-line equivalent to junk mail. Greeted with genuine hatred on Usenet.
Spider = Or Web spider. Search engine that 'crawls' over the Internet looking for objects corresponding to a search term.
SSL = Secure Sockets Layer. A Netscape-originated method for secure information transmission over the Internet.
STP = Straight-through processing. Automatic handling of data and messages except where needed for policy reasons. The banking sector's term for end-to-end working, reminiscent of the old Tate & Lyle slogan, 'untouched by human hands'.
Supply chain = 1. The companies and activities involved in an organization's inbound movement of goods and components. See Demand Chain. 2. More loosely, all the companies and activities involved in both making and supplying goods and services.
Symmetric key = A security cypher or algorithm that uses the same key for both encryption and decryption, e.g. DES (cf Asymmetric key). Also sometimes called the private or secret key.
TCP/IP = Transmission Control Protocol/Interconnect Protocol. A client-server networking method, used on the Internet and for Unix-based systems.
Telco = See PTO.
TQM = Total quality management. An integrated approach to quality management, developed by Joseph Juran, involving all the corporate functions that affect a product or service's final state. Usually based on teamworking to resolve differences and cure problems.
Trading partner = A participant in an established business relationship.
TTP = Trusted third party. The organization that holds all or part of a security key that has been placed in escrow (see key escrow).
UMTS = Universal Mobile Telecommunications System. The so-called 'third-generation' (or '3G') cellular technology. Like GPRS, it is based on CGM and uses packet switching but it offers much higher transmission rates, of 11 Mbps or more.
URL = Uniform Resource Locator. The addressing method used for World Wide Web and intranet pages. Typically, but not always, takes the form 'http://www.xxx.yyy'.
Usenet = USErs NETwork (it was formerly written 'USENET'). Rudimentary but widely-used text conferencing system, running over the Internet. Originating in 1979, it now covers thousands of topics. Message databases are swapped between servers using NNTP.
V-commerce = Electronic commerce conducted with voice rather than keyboard commands.
Value-added = Originally, the increase in the market worth of a product or service resulting from each particular stage in the production process. Now frequently used so loosely as to mean almost anything of which the speaker approves.
VANS = Value-Added Network Service. A commercial arrangement offering basic communication capacity plus services such as error detection or format conversion.
Videotex = Generic term for centrally-managed systems, such as Prestel, Ceefax and Minitel, for sending text and (crude) graphics to computer or television screens. The World Wide Web of the 1980s and early 1990s but nationally bounded and even slower.
Viewdata = British term for Videotex.
Visit = In Web terminology, an single access to a Web site by a remote user, irrespective of the number of pages viewed. See Hit.
Vortal = A Web portal designed to cater for a vertical market, such as pharmaceuticals or construction.
VPN = Virtual private network. A partitioned-off, and relatively secure, path over the Internet or public telephone network, for the use of known participants. Contrasts with a leased line arrangement.
W3C = World Wide Web Consortium. Body charged with developing and enforcing standards for the Web. Tim Berners-Lee is head prefect (see WWW).
WAN = Wide-area network. Uses public and private circuits to create an enterprise network, spanning a domain greater than a typical local area network can deal with.
WAP = Wireless Application Protocol. A set of evolving standards for linking wireless devices, such as cellular telephones and radios, to the Internet. See WML.
Web browser = See Browser.
Web page = A collection of linked computer files and screen layouts that appears in a Web browser as a single, continuous image.
Web server = The machine on which reside the Web pages and associated data to service a company's Web site. Sometimes called the host.
Web site = A set of Web pages, typically held on a single server, and indexed and treated as a unity. Has its own domain name and number.
Web, The = The World Wide Web.
Webmaster = The person responsible for a Web site, whether internal or external. He or she is usually a technical specialist and not responsible for the broader aspects of site ownership, such as corporate style or legal considerations.
WML = Wireless Markup Language. A dialect of XML, used in creating WAP-compliant applications for mobile Internet devices. Formerly called HDML (Handheld Devices Markup Language).
Workflow software = Models human work processes on a computer, enforcing compliance with established sequences and procedures.
World Wide Web = More familiarly known as 'The Web'. A graphical information retrieval system that operates over the Internet. Devised in 1990 at CERN (the European atomic particle research centre) by Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau.
WWW = World Wide Web.
XHTML = eXtensible Hypertext Markup Language. A hybrid of HTML and XML. In effect, is version 5.0 of HTML.
XML = eXtensible Markup Language. A simplified version of SGML that promises to do more than standard HTML can but within an
adaptable framework. Is being promoted by many major software suppliers, including Microsoft.
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About eComWatch
eComWatch is edited and published by Roger Whitehead and Christopher Ogg. Copyright Roger Whitehead and Christopher Ogg, 2002. eComWatch may be circulated freely in its original format with copyright notice intact. For permission to reproduce any article,