Is There Intelligent Life on the Internet?
Hothouse Environments: Larry Cohen
Corrections or additions?
Published in U.S. 1 Newspaper on May 10, 2000. All rights reserved.
Who Owns Your Website?: Marc Friedman
E-mail: MelindaSherwood@princetoninfo.com
Can your website hosting service hold your website hostage?
Can your website developer sell your design to a competitor? Does
your website infringe on a patent? All these are possibilities, says
Marc Friedman, an attorney with Friedman Siegelbaum in Roseland,
who speaks on “Websites: Critical Issues Analysis,” on Tuesday,
May 16, at 11:30 a.m. at the Westin in Morristown. Call 973-631-5680.
A founding partner of Friedman and Siegelbaum, Friedman specializes
in Internet, E-commerce, and high technology litigation, and pioneered
computer law more than 20 years ago. He has a BA in philosophy from
George Washington University, Class of 1980, and a law degree from
Johns Hopkins University.
If you own a website, you want to have a specific contract in place
with your web hosting service that will enable you to switch services
if you choose to do so, says Friedman. “The web host can hold
it hostage,” says Friedman. “An agreement does not ensure
that you can liberate it, but it gives you certain privileges. The
website hosting service actually exercises dominion and control over
the data, so a web operator needs a carefully drafted web hosting
agreement that says when he can move it to another location.”
Likewise, web developers, by law, own the intellectual property rights
associated with a website — the code, the look, the feel of the
website — unless otherwise indicated in a work-for-hire agreement,
which establishes company ownership of all of the intellectual property
rights associated with the website. In theory, without a work-for-hire
agreement, your web developer could sell several features of your
website to a competitor, but perhaps more importantly, a company should
own all the intellectual property associated with its website so that
it can be improved in the future.
Businesses also have to consider the issue of patent violations as
well, which became front page news when Amazon.com sued Barnes & Noble
for using its unique “one-click” purchasing feature. Internet
patents are both good and bad news for businesses. “We have found
instances where clients have come in with websites that were well
under way and would have infringed on some kind of patent,” he
says. “A patent lawyer who has experience with website development
can intuit whether there’s an infringement, and can also determine
if there’s any part of our client’s website that may be patentable.
You are much better off owning a patent than not owning a patent —
the patent itself has a deterring effect on competition.”
The globalization of commerce enabled by the Internet has also created
more situations in which companies get sued by a foreign court, says
Friedman. “Suppose you are L.L. Bean, located in Freeport, Maine,
and I place an order in New Jersey over your website for a kayak,”
says Friedman. “It’s shipped to me in New Jersey and it turns
out to be defective and I suffer some personal injury. L.L. Bean could
very well be sued in New Jersey if it hadn’t taken the appropriate
measures.”
The appropriate measures, in this case, would be a “terms of agreement”
that customers must click on before making a purchase that requires
any lawsuits be brought to court in the state where the website is
operated. “The safest way to guard against being sued in some
foreign jurisdiction is to have a law firm qualified in these kinds
of affairs prepare an agreement before any communication can take
place over the website,” says Friedman. For E-commerce sites,
this is essential; for websites that deal purely in information, so-called
“passive” sites, this is not essential, says Friedman, but
it doesn’t hurt to have a disclaimer in any case.
Top Of PageKind & Gentle PR: Barbara Fox
Amateurs may be able to get away with pestering editors
with repeated useless phone calls, says Barbara Fox, senior
editor of U.S. 1 Newspaper, but PR pros or semi-pros can’t, “because
when it’s time to pitch another story some of us may be less enthusiastic
about taking your call.”
Good PR tactics and manners will be covered at “Making Your Company
Newsworthy,” the next New Jersey Association of Women Business
Owners meeting, on Thursday, May 18, at 6 p.m. at the Palmer Inn.
Fox will join newspaper women Susan Briggs, editor of the Princeton
Packet’s Business Journal, and Anita Shaffer, business editor
of the Times of Trenton. Call 609-924-7975. Cost: $34.
A journalist with 20 years of bylines in Baltimore, Philadelphia,
Pittsburgh, and Trenton dailies, Fox has been reporting on business
and technology in the Princeton corridor since 1987. She has a BA
in English from Duke, Class of 1961.
Since most publications have a unique angle, they also may have different
criteria for selecting their stories and the kind of information they
need in their press release. The first thing PR people need to do
is their homework: read the publication, find out what formula they
use. An example: “For most newspapers, provide the hometown for
each person you talk about, but for U.S. 1, tell us where that person
works — the company and the street address,” says Fox.
When you write the press release, remember to provide the kind of
facts that are typically conveyed in the publication’s stories, and
don’t worry too much about how it looks. “The press release format
doesn’t matter for U.S. 1,” says Fox. “Just get it down on
a piece of paper. Give us more detail rather than less.” For U.S.
1’s day-by-day calendar, be sure to include the cost of the event.
“At U.S. 1 we feel that’s noteworthy,” she says. “If other
newspapers don’t run ticket prices, they can omit them.”
Take into consideration the logical timeline for the publication,
depending on whether it is a daily, weekly, or monthly. The further
apart the editions, the more time goes into planning. “We all
want information, good information, but U.S. 1 wants it earlier rather
than later,” says Fox. Events should come in at least a week ahead
of time for U.S. 1’s day-by-day calendar. Business or feature story
ideas need to be articulated at the very least two weeks in advance.
Remember that editorial and advertising are clearly separated in the
newspaper business, says Fox. Don’t approach editorial with an ad,
or advertising sales people with editorial unless you want to lose
your audience quickly. “Don’t use the word `ad’ when you are talking
to an editor,” she advises.
While editors are used to being pressured and prodded by their sources,
and while publications often need your cooperation as much as you
need theirs, you can still attract more journalistic bees with honey
than with vinegar. Here are some ways to sweeten your dealings with
the press:
Don’t ask if a reporter got the press release. Ask ifyou should send another copy.Don’t ask when the editor will run it. Ask if more informationis needed.Don’t ask if it ran. Ask how you can make sure to getcopies on a regular basis.Don’t ask the editor to send you a copy. Ask where youcan get copies on a regular basis.Don’t neglect to notify editors of an error. The editorwants to know what was wrong. Offer to write a letter to the editor.Don’t ask to see a story. If you must, ask if you cancall to have the direct quotes read back.Don’t give your info to the ad department for them topass on. Give it to editorial. Talk to editorial.Even if you do all these things right, there are no guaranteesthat your story will make it to print, says Fox. “Realize thatevery newspaper has space problems,” she says. “Out of 335events in a recent time period, U.S. 1 editors assigned or wrote storieson only 12 of those events, and an additional 30 were able to getan extended listing or a photo.” The opposite side of that story,however, is that newspaper often need to fill space, so don’t hesitateto send your press release in, particularly if it’s timely.Top Of PageIs There Intelligent Life on the Internet?It’s a question almost everyone has pondered — howdo you find the good stuff on the Internet without spending many fruitlesshours surfing?Author David Vine set out to solve that problem, and in hisnewly-released book, “Internet Business Intelligence,” presentsat least one solution. Vine developed a system he calls “InternetBusiness Intelligence System,” or IBIS, a hybrid of traditionalknowledge management systems with data mining techniques for gettingat the Web’s most valuable data sources. “The ability to rapidlylocate and acquire data is a cornerstone of the IBIS,” writesVine, who comes to Barnes and Noble in MarketFair Thursday, May 18,at 7 p.m. Call 609-897-9250.A journalist during the 1960s, Vine (www.davidvineassociates.com)holds a business degree from Thomas Edison State College, and an MBAfrom Rowan. He’s been running a consulting practice since 1982, andhas written for several computer trade press and management publicationsprior to penning “Internet Business Intelligence.”In this 400-page book, Vine attempts to cover a lot of terrain, beginningwith basic definitions of a “web browser” or “search engine”for the Internet neophyte, to more detailed descriptions of newsgroupsand shareware. Vine’s major contribution is a theoretical framework,which he calls PROActive, for tapping information from various sourcesand implementing them in a business, and several descriptions of softwaretools that can help businesses organize information constructively.PROActive, he writes, is “a methodology derived from centuries-oldwarrior strategies but updated for the new millennium. This updateencompasses technology and ever-greater flows of digital information.This process includes Planning, Rapidly obtaining required information;Organizing the information and Analyzing it; then Communicating itby translating, interpreting, verifying, and evaluating informationthroughout the process.” In short, Vine lays out the basic principlesof knowledge management.He explains various tools on the market for capturing data. He includeseverything from Microsoft Excel, to OrgChart by Softkey (www.softkey.com),to IBM’s Decision Edge, a complete end-to-end business intelligencesolution. The descriptions are to-the-point, and well-served by someillustrations of the basic interface.This survey of the Internet is interweaved with descriptions of basicbusiness concepts, such as marketing or benchmarking, that are notonly unnecessary, but tiresomely long-winded. If the book is writtenfor the complete novice, which this feature seams to indicate, Vine’suse of acronyms (IBIS, LMDS) and lofty, technical language is likelyto scare people away, especially if they can pick-up “Internetfor Dummies” instead. Take, for example, Vine’s cryptic definitionof “problem solving:””Solving a problem means finding an appropriate way to cross agap. When there is little uncertainty one can utilize optimizing methods.Dominance relations among alternatives, specification of the orderof importance of alternatives, and additive weighting given to moreimportant properties are optimizing methods. A non-optimizing methodcalled “satisficing” includes finding the first satisfactory alternative.””Internet Business Intelligence” also faces the very problemit purports to solve: with over 500 pages of tangential information,how do you get the good stuff without fruitless hours wasted?— Melinda SherwoodTop Of PageHothouse Environments: Larry CohenThere’s a reason that newsrooms are open space —businesses that deal in information have to foster communication.Likewise, businesses thriving in an information-based economy mightbe wise to follow the newsroom model: be open, fluid, and flexible,says Larry Cohen, senior consultant for workplace strategiesat Steelcase in New York, a company that provides office solutions.”If you look at the older offices, the cubicles are on the insideand the panels are about 65 inches high — it’s a very isolatingexperience,” says Cohen. “What we see today is that privateoffices are now on the inside of the building, and workspaces areon the exterior so they get the natural light. Panels have droppedand that’s creating an environment that fosters communication, soyou tend to get a faster flow of ideas, product development, and customersatisfaction.”On Friday, May 19, at 8 a.m. Steelcase joins Office Interiors of Hainesport,(609-702-5882) to present, “HotHouse Environments: Fostering BreakthroughInnovations,” a seminar on how interior design and planning canfoster greater productivity. The meeting is at the Doral Forrestal.Call 908-252-6027.Steelcase’s methodology in interior design focuses on three things:nurturing the individual, cultivating interaction, and propagatingknowledge. “A good example, by the way, is Bristol Myers Squibb,”says Cohen, who has a business degree from NYU, Class of 1978, andwent back to school for interior design after selling computers atIBM for seven years. “The private offices were moved to the insideand the walls they used can be stacked and destacked. Some peopleneed more privacy — the point is that it’s adaptable.”Embedded technology is also a key feature of today’s office equipment,and many companies are using raised floors to accommodate cables associatedwith the technology. “It’s very prevalent in Europe,” he says,”and it’s becoming more predominant here.”Top Of PageRVCC to FairleighBeginning this fall, students admitted to Raritan ValleyCommunity College will automatically be granted admission to FairleighDickinson University. The joint admission and degree completion programallows students to simultaneously apply to RVCC and FDU, and upongraduation from the community college, enter FDU with junior standing.Raritan Valley also has joint admission programs with Rutgers, MontclairState, Centenary College, New Jersey Institute of Technology, CedarCrest College, Kean University, and Thomas Edison State College, andoffers masters program courses from Seton Hall, NJIT, and FDU on itscampus. Call 908-218-8860.Top Of PageCorporate AngelsB>Bristol-Myers Squibb is making a land donationalong the Stony Brook to create a Mercer County Greenways trail. Thetrail will be a key link in a planned Greenways walkway from the StonyBrook Watershed in Hopewell Township through Pennington and MercerCounty Park Northwest. The announcement will be made this Wednesday,May 10, at 11 a.m. at Bristol-Myers’ Hopewell facility.GTECH Corporation on Route 130 has donated the computers, onlinetechnology, software and volunteer hours needed for the Trenton YMCAto open a state-of-the-art computer center at its Pennington Avenuefacility. The new facility is part of the YMCA’s after school program,and officials hope it will close the digital divide that exists inmany urban areas. Call 609-599-9622.Top Of PageDonate PleaseThe Central New Jersey Council of the Boy Scoutsof America needs funds for its scouting program in New Jersey,a program that serves more than 15,000 young people. A major giftas a benefactor ($3,000) or sponsor ($2,500) includes multiple ticketsto the Good Scout Award ceremony on Wednesday, May 31, at the PrincetonMarriott, plus a full-page ad in the event program. Tickets are alsoavailable for $125 each. Call 609-419-1600.Previous StoryNext StoryCorrections or additions?This page is published by PrincetonInfo.com— the web site for U.S. 1 Newspaper in Princeton, New Jersey.
