When Questions Are the Answers: Kepner-Tregoe
Corrections or additions?
These articles by Melinda Sherwood were published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on
October 13, 1999. All rights reserved.
E-Commerce Caution: Marjorie Chertok
The great Web goldrush has produced a lot of half-baked
business plans and bad contracts, says Marge Chertok of Pitney,
Hardin, Kipp & Suzich LLP in Morristown. “Several E-businesses
have suffered major embarrassments in the press because they have
`gone live’ on the web before the ink was dry on joint venture, or
other central agreements,” she says. “Many businesses fail to
realize that standard contract terms and conventional parameters of
reasonable amounts of time for delays do not apply to the
instantaneous
time-table of web commerce.”
“Think before You Link,” is Chertok’s presentation to the
New Jersey Technology Council on Thursday, October 14, at 8 a.m. at
Mercer College. Stephen J. Casey, CEO of
WaresOnTheWeb.com,
will present “Battle Zone of E-Commerce: Retailers vs.
Manufacturers,”
and Jim Medalia, president of Justballs.com, will discuss
his E-commerce venture. Call 609-419-4444.
A Brooklyn native, Chertok received a degree in economics and
statistics
from Brooklyn College, Class of 1981, and a law degree from St. John’s
in New York. A former computer programmer, Chertok is now an expert
in Internet-related law, which is only now beginning to mature.
“There’s
a lot of pending legislation concerning digital signatures and privacy
issues,” she says. “The Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(October
12, 1998) has significant implications for ISPs dealing with caching,
where you copy someone else’s site for the purposes of downloading
it.”
Prior to the act, ISPs were liable for reproducing copyrighted
information,
even if it was merely transferring from one site to another, via
for example. “AOL or Yahoo picks up an article that you’re sending
to me,” explains Chertok, “and I forward it over to your
website
and you post it up on the website. Technically, a copy of that article
has been made in these different machines, and then people access
it. They would be technically violating copyright law.” Just as
a copy shop would be liable for reproducing copyrighted papers on
its premises, so too ISPs were responsible for materials that passed
through its lines.
Due to the volume of transmission over ISPs, however, Congress now
grants ISPs the same leniency that it does telephone providers: if
they can’t control the content, they aren’t liable for copyright
infringements.
However, to exercise this right, an ISP has to adopt a written policy
of termination of subscribers and account holders who are repeat
copyright
offenders, designate someone (usually the webmaster) to receive
complaints
about copyright infringements, and register that person with the
copyright
office.
On the flip side, businesses also need to think about protecting
themselves
in contracts with ISPs for Internet access or web-hosting, says
Chertok.
Before you sign with an ISP, Chertok suggests you look for the
following
in the contract:
Designated response time in case of system errors andsite design corrections.Formal disaster recovery plan and back up facilities.State-of-the-art security protocols, particularly ifcustomerswill be conducting commercial transactions over the site. The contractshould clarify that upgrades will be on an ongoing basis.Procedures for continually monitoring the vendor mix sothat if it is unacceptable, the contract can be terminated withoutpenalty.Top Of PageWhen Questions Are the Answers: Kepner-TregoeImagine what you might do with a map of Einstein’sbrain:Study the thinking patterns, imitate them, maybe steal some ideas?Kepner-Tregoe Inc. on Research Road would sell it.Although Ben Tregoe, co-founder of the consulting firm, didn’tget to pick Einstein’s brain, he did spend several years studying thethinking process of Air Force pilots while working at the RANDCorporation during the 1950s. Kepner-Tregoe has since patented thethinking processes of those pilots and is selling it to companies thatwant to enhance their brain-power.For troubleshooting in the manufacturing industries, says MichaelClark, a senior consultant at Kepner-Tregoe, those skills areenormouslyvaluable. “On the one side they want to maximize their businessperformance by increasing productivity,” he says, “but onthe other side there is this overarching need to comply with FDAregulations,and organizations are having a difficult time balancing those twothings.”On Friday, October 15, at 8:30 a.m. at the Princeton Marriott,Kepner-Tregoeteaches managers in the pharmaceutical and medical device industrieshow to apply the firm’s problem-solving techniques to FDA’s CurrentGood Manufacturing Processes. Cost: $275. Call 609-252-2274.Kepner-Tregoe’s patented process adds to the tool chest ofknowledgemanagement, but it differs from some of the other KM tools, saysClark,who worked in manufacturing for several years and holds a BS inindustrialengineering from Buffalo State University, Class of 1987. “Mostof the other systems are information technology-based,” he says.”Ours is based on people’s behaviors, because your knowledge willonly be as good as the questions managers are asking.”Eureka! The question is the answer. “You start by asking veryspecific questions,” says Clark about the approach, “thenyou begin to speculate on possible causes, evaluate those possiblecauses, test the causes, then confirm the true causes.”The results: “For a medical device manufacturer we significantlyincreased their customer service perception because their servicepeople were able to significantly solve programs,” says Clark.”Just because people got a little bit smarter.”Top Of PageBill Paying.comBell Atlantic Mobile now offers bill pay services toits wireless phone customers. They can view their accounts onlineat https://www.bam.com and view their monthly bill statements andusage patterns. The service includes E-mail notification when a billarrives, and payments can be submitted electronically. TheBedminster-basedcompany which has 6.6 million customers uses a Secure Socket Layer(SSL). The company reports that by the year 2002, 15 millionhouseholdswill pay bills online, as opposed to only 3 million households thisyear.Top Of PageDisability HelpPerhaps you have wanted to hire people with disabilitiesbut couldn’t afford the training costs or office modifications. TheDivision of Vocational Rehabilitation Services (609-292-7948) canhelp you smoothly integrate people with disabilities into yourbusinesses.Among its services: interpreting the American with Disabilities Act,providing counseling and placement services for people withdisabilities.The division will pay up to half a trainee’s salary and help identifytax incentives for the company.Top Of PageCorporate AngelsVolunteers from Fleet Bank, Merrill Lynch, andCommoditiesCorporation/Goldman Sachs will participate in the third annualCheck-out Hunger Supermarket Sprint on Wednesday, October 13, at 7:30p.m. at McCaffrey’s market in Southfield Shopping Center. In additionto the actual race, shoppers can participate; they can tear off adonation slip for $1, $3, or $5 and it is added to their bill as adonation to the Mercer Street Friends Food Cooperative.Other markets participating in the Check-Out Hunger program areAcme,Marrazzo’s Thriftway, Pathmark, Pennington Market, ShopRite,SuperFresh,and Wegmans. Donations go to the food cooperative that, this year,will distribute one million pounds of food.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
