November 1998, Vol. 9, No. 11

Hoosiers

New classified front-end, web design bring good ideas from Indiana

Serendipity -- the basis for the perusal of a newspaper or a magazine -- works upstream as well.

Without any forethought, we ended up with a lot of good ideas coming out of Indiana this month.

For quite a while we had discussed paying a site visit to Indianapolis Newspapers Inc., publishers of the Star and the News, to see how the implementation of one of the first big Atex Enterprise classified front-end installations had gone.

Our Man in the Midwest -- Senior Editor Pete Wetmore -- finally made time in his schedule to get to Indianapolis to see the Enterprise system. Inside, you'll see that Wetmore comes away from Indy quite impressed -- not just with the technology, but with the way the Indianapolis people implemented it.

It’s clear from reading Wetmore’s story that executives in Indianapolis are Getting It -- they seem to understand that new technology invariably brings new ways of doing things.

One of the biggest problems we see as industry journalists and as industry consultants is that publishing executives want the transition from the "old system" to the "new system" to be transparent. It can't be that way; publications must take a longer view, understand what they're currently accomplishing and how they're accomplishing it, and figure out better ways to achieve the same -- or better -- results.

You can minimize the impact, but you can't expect to change technologies without fundamental organizational change.

It’s not just an issue of fewer people; it’s an issue of making the same head-count more efficient.

So, without the least bit of precognition that a "theme" was being constructed, we welcomed aboard a new writer -- Jay Small.

The former design director of the Indianapolis Star, for the last couple of years Small has been the general manager of the on-line effort at Indianapolis Newspapers.

The papers have a variety of sites, ranging from a basketball site to an auto racing site to a city guide to a "regular" newspaper site.

Small has also served as the point man for new media at the Society for News Design, running some enlightening sessions at SND conferences (which have, on a couple of occasions, included Modesty Forbids as a speaker).

Small has agreed to contribute to The Cole Papers on a regular -- if infrequent -- basis, and we were happy to cut him loose on his first topic: the differences between designing for print and the Web.

When you wash away the size discrepancies (big newspaper page, small computer screen), there are more fundamental differences, and Small has given a good rundown on the things that could cause a print designer problems when moving to the on-line world.

Also inside, in light of all the conference coverage we've had in recent issues, we commissioned Correspondent L. Carol Christopher to find out what conferences publishing executives attend and what they do to keep the Powers That Be pleased enough to keep signing those travel chits.

And, Correspondent Steven E. Brier sent me a note asking whether I knew of any newspapers using cable modems to connect bureaus to the world. (Would you be surprised to find that Brier’s connection to the Internet is via @Home, the Mountain View, Calif.-based provider of cable modem Internet access?)

I didn't know of any, but his question spurred us along to find out how high-tech bureaus and traveling reporters really are.

Unfortunately, it looks like many bureau reporters remain second-class citizens, tech-wise.

Lastly, there’s a quick little report on System Integrators Inc. co-developing a Lotus Notes-based editorial front-end system in conjunction with London’s Associated Newspapers. We have been quite high on similar implementations and think that SII may have a winner here.

In fact, it’s such a good idea, I'm surprised it didn't come from Indiana.

-- David M. Cole