Part 1: The background file on Lefile

What inspired you to begin Lefile?
In short, when I was running an S&P 500 company's corporate marketing and communications department, I couldn't find the forum I needed to help me make decisions about my website. I retired and established a corporate communications consulting business and I decided to invent the forum myself. It's LeFile.

In 1995, you created one of the first bank websites in the nation. Did you understand the power of the Web immediately in relation to consumers and businesses?
Really few people realized the power right off. Remember, had gotten started only a little while earlier than my site. And there were precious few consumers on the Web at the time. In my case, I grabbed a URL for my company to stake out some real estate. I put up brochureware and began to talk up the potential inside my company.

Who is your targeted user base?
I designed LeFile for people like me; upper managers who have the ultimate responsibility for communications, sales, the business as a whole. We are not the techies. The core group with the most at stake are the Marketing/PR Officer, the Investor Relations Officer, Chief Legal Officer and the Chief Executive Officer. If you're surprised at the CEO being part of the group, don't be. The company's web presence is too precious an asset to not be managed from the top of the organization until a corporate tone and web-ethic is set.

You coined the term "meek". How do you apply the definition to those upper managers?
I contrived the word meek, Management geek, to define the CEO and others who are as passionate about managing the business of the web as "geeks" are about computers. Where the IT department once had the final say on the corporate website, more and more companies are waking up to the fact that the MEEKs have inherited the responsibility.

Can you differentiate for us the terms "web substance" from "web content"?
Gladly. I hope people reading this interview find it has "substance." Too much of what we see on the web billed as "content" is nonsense. When I evaluate websites, I look for the substance.

Why are many corporations today rudderless in terms of how to run their Web presence?
They haven't figured out who's in charge of the site and the site's goals. In some cases, Marketing is in charge and they see it as a sales tool only, forgetting employees and shareholders. In other cases, a designer is ultimately in charge. Strange, but this happens. After all, "it's all about computers and design, isn't it?," so the site becomes a design object, not able to communicate much to anyone. Too many company sites I've seen are organized like their operations are organized, an approach that usually makes no sense to a web visitor.

And how can corporate websites be their own CNN?
I use the CNN analogy when speaking with corporate managers because everyone knows CNN can be found wherever you travel, whether it's Berlin or Baghdad. The corporate web presence is the same thing -- anyone, anywhere in the world can "tune in" to your "channel" if they have a need to. In times of crisis management this can be critical.

Take the case of the company that was the subject of a stock-market hoax last year. Emulex took three hours to post its denial of the hoax on its own website. True, they sent it to the media. But in a time of a hoax, who knew who was saying what? If it had been seen in the company's own words, over its own signature, credibility could have been restored much faster.

Why should a company's page strive to be the first portal for both employees and shareholders?
First there's the practical reason, to draw people to the site. Employees and shareholders should be considered among the most important people to a company. I say drive them there, along with customer prospects, by offering fresh content regularly. It doesn't have to be daily. It should be regular, however.

The second reason is the technical one. These days, there is absolutely no reason for an IT department to have to publish all material to the site. Smart companies are designing sites with the flexibility to create "content holes," windows in the design that authorized managers can refresh with content at any time of the day or night.

Why doesn't it work for several people to run a website?
The website can be compared with publishing a newspaper with news and ads, or running a TV station with programs and commercials. In those examples, a publisher, editor or manager is in charge of professionals who know what they are doing.

In the case of the corporate website, no such knowledgeable team of professionals exists. That's why I say, the board of directors must set policy, then some one individual must be in charge. Committees simply don't work.

Continued...