June 1995 to April 1997
Intel Corporation, Hillsboro, Oregon, USA
Network Products Division
Electronic Marketing Programs Manager
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Key Accomplishments
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- Developed and deployed five high-volume, high-exposure marketing web sites for a Fortune 500 company.
- Pioneered forms of online electronic marketing and web site operations. New forms of statistics gathering and cost-effectiveness of marketing programs.
- Pioneered forms of online client/server services through web interfaces (event registrations, interactive configuration tools, dynamically updated calendar systems).
- Performed as liaison with international counterparts on a regular basis in person and remotely.
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Summary of Skills Used
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PROJECT EXPERIENCE
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TECH EXPERIENCE
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Web Marketing Technovangelist
Co-founder of Web Author's Club
Liaison to Intel Reseller Web
Liaison to Intel Support Web
Liaison to Product Groups
Liaison to International Groups
Co-founder Author Certification
Cross-Divisional Leadership
International Teambuilding
Marketing Programs
Contract Negotiation
Contractor Management
Internal Trainings
Model Web Marketer
Recruiting
Interviewing
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HTML 3.x to 4.x
Cross-Platform JavaScript
Cookie Technology
Visual BASIC
Microsoft Windows NT
Web Servers (Netscape/Microsoft)
Server Co-location
Allaire Cold Fusion
Microsoft SQL Server
Microsoft Access
CDROM and ISO9660 Standards
WebCD Publishing Software
Publishing Technologies
SMTP/POP Mail Services
Internet domain registration
Perl and Awk
Quality Assurance
Technical Writing
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HIGHLIGHTS
About Intel Networking Products Division
Networking Products Division was a screamingly successful division of Intel destined to one day be on the chart alongside Intel's processor business. PC Networking was a market with HUGE financial potential and it was about to break wide open when the Internet acceptance hit critical mass.
The World Wide Web was brand new and my predecessor was a visionary. He helped push a web presence for Intel Corporation into reality by blazing some trails of success in his role as the first Electronic Marketing Programs manager. When he found out that I had built the RealtyNet system he realized he'd found someone who could fill his shoes.
Intel Networking Products Web Site v2
My primary responsibility in Network Divisional Marketing was to develop and maintain the Intel Networking Products Web Site. A large (in content if not in exposure) section of the Intel Corporation web site. I was part of a two man team chartered to turn the web into an effective marketing vehicle for a host of nearly 20 different and distinct products which had the categorical definition of being "network related" and being "branded products". This included 100Mbps and 10Mbps ethernet adapter cards, special high-powered/featured server ethernet cards, token ring adapter cards, server & workgroup network management software, virus protection software, wire-based backup technologies, network based help-desk software, and network based printer sharing products.
 My predecessors and team-mates had already subdivided the content into two product "vectors": high speed networking products and network management products.
My team gathered, repurposed, and posted nearly every single piece of printed marketing material available. Our web site became the most comprehensive and dynamically updated marketing content about any of Intel's products in existence. We received accolades from our peers and management.
My early challenge was in helping maintain and organize the content under a web server infrastructure that was somewhat disorganized and also somewhat unreliable. Early Intel web site days were riddled -- as with most companies -- with questions about how to organize infrastructure, responsibilities, and accountability. The servers and network did not supply us a dependable environment in many key moments. One classic example was an evening in which we had sponsored a focus group to critique our web site. The site content update process failed and corrupted the files which caused our web site to become riddled with broken graphics and links. After that incident, I began a campaign of contingency planning and hyperactive cross-divisional influence tactics.
I learned techniques to prepare content and deliver it with the minimal potential for disaster. My efforts included setting up an intranet web server upon which I could house a mirror copy of our entire web site and use it for our own content development instead of relying on the support of others. I learned ways to protect myself from disaster by posting supporting data files and content the night before I posted changes to menus and connecting pages. I could then test the content before it was updated to the public. I also set up a second workstation which acted as a client residing outside the corporate firewall as a test machine.
In March of 1996 we launched the web site, it was much more colorful than the previous web site with very much improved navigational features. The web site also included some interactive web content such as an interactive product configuration guide (C coded by outside agency) which was housed on an external Internet server using a special domain name (networking.intel.com) which I set up complete with reverse lookup capability within the intel.com domain.
Championing the Common Good
I realized that there was a need for synergy between functional groups and across divisions. Intel's authoring community was made up of many small groups and at that time about 30 "authors" (web site owners). None of which had enough resources to do a thorough job without leaning on other groups for support.
Essentially, policy by the masses was the rule at Intel. So I became a champion for the common good. I promoted common technologies and became a thorn in the side of the support groups (IT and our web server team) until they standardized and built up our infrastructure. It only takes a 20% consensus to make an idea stick... after that its just a matter of time before an idea becomes reality. It also doesn't hurt if the message you are preaching is common sense.
My efforts were at first a concern to my supervisor, but after I made some big wins for our group I was given free-reign. I was also shipped to various Intel locations to "scout" the situation including Paris, France and Swindon, England.
Soon after launching this effort I had become the de facto model for webmastering at Intel. Divisional managers began consulting me on hiring and divisional organization issues that required web presence and web savvy staff.
Intel Networking Products Web CD
 My predecessor had invented the concept of putting web content into a stand-alone CD-ROM viewable with an Internet browser. During the early period until March 1996, no off-the-shelf technology existed. Much of the creation work required manual modifications to the content. I pioneered the development of new tools and processes to perform this task. I managed two contract programmers' efforts to develop a makeshift toolset for Web CD creation. During my first year I was able to produce three CD's in this manner. These issues required me to work hand-in-hand with Spry Consulting (later CompuServe Northwest then later AOL) to produce a special version of their Spry Mosaic browser which could be bundled onto the CD and installed by the customers.
This CD-ROM capability allowed us to service existing customers who did not already have Internet access capability. A steady stream of business reply cards from the CD package allowed us to watch the trend of growing Internet connectivity in our CD-ROM customers. During the first year approximately 30,000 CD's were produced and fulfilled to customers for free.
In March 1996, an off-the-shelf solution came to market by a young clever start-up company in Colorado. I adopted it whole-heartedly and worked closely with the developers at that company to help them answer all my business needs. I initiated a close relationship with the senior technical staff of Marketscape (now known as Mobilize).
This new technology allowed me to create a new CD image within a matter of days instead of a matter of weeks. Due to the growing enthusiasm in our sales forces for the web site content the CD-ROM had become a valuable sales tool by the end of my time in this group. The field sales force could carry the entire web site with them as they traveled to customer sites and leave it behind.
Due to my work in developing workable technology solutions I had become a resource for our reseller channel web site managers and the customer support web site CD-ROM publishers too.
This technology seriously improved the cost-efficiency of managing and utilizing a web site. Every dollar that is spent in preparing content that can be used on the web site is reduced when the web site content is re-used again and again on CD-ROM.
Web Turnstiles
In mid-1996 I developed a method of using "turnstile" pages (simple HTML pass-through) as program response counters for Network Product Division's other marketing programs including direct mail and print magazine advertising. Using special unique URL's which were then printed into the program materials we could count the number of customers which received the material and came to the web site to get more information about the promotional topic. Using this technique we saved the divisions hundreds of thousands of dollars by slimming direct mail to postcards and flyers with web response as the call to action.
Originally, I dubbed these "portals" but with the invention of my.yahoo.com I had to start calling them "turnstiles" instead.
Web Technology Research
 Throughout my tenure at Intel I served as a technology researcher, consultant, and application designer. Through a series of online surveys for statistics we were able to identify our target audience and their capabilities on the web. This allowed us to better gauge which technologies we should implement in our site for better effectiveness of the content.
Intel Networking Products Web Site v3
 In April of 1997 we launched an improved site which included shorter URLs (a great political battle won), a flatter directory structure and improved interactive features.
Shorter URLs and an "english" structured directory naming convention allowed us to give the outside and inside sales forces something easy to remember and easy to promote to their customers. An example: To reach networking products try this URL: "http://www.intel.com/network/products". Multiple "english-like" bounce pages were also put into place to provide short-cuts even if the customer remembered the URL incorrectly. At a million hits a day typos are fairly common.
The site also included a real-time event calendar which was generated from a back-end database I developed using Allaire Cold Fusion and a Microsoft Access Database.
The networking products web site had become a staple source of information for people from within and without Intel. Inside sales forces used the site as a reference to customers calling in on the telephones for information. Field sales forces use the URLs as quick response to customer's requests for specific information regarding a specific product or product family. We received accolades for our new site at the Intel Worldwide Sales Conference that year.
The site also included every electronic demo or test drive software we could muster for each product.
Online Event Registration System
 In late 1996, Network Products Division hosted a series of nationwide satellite broadcast technical seminars to unveil and promote new products.
The marketing team was made up of half a dozen marketing specialists of which the Network Products Division web team was a part. I developed an online interactive user/event registration system. The event registration system allowed customers to register into a database and receive a user ID cookie. The cookie technology allowed me to keep track of "who" the browsing customer was which allowed me to provide the customer nearly real-time access to the event registration database.
 The user was allowed to return again later to add events to their registration records, look up information about events they were registered for, and even cancel a registration if they wished. This data was delivered to the outside agency that was handling the satellite broadcast event coordination so that registrants who used the web service were included in the process along with anyone who used conventional means (mail or phone) to register for the events.
I later used the user-registration and events system model to build an interactive online quiz engine which was used to provide a technical quiz to Intel networking sales engineers. Those that passed the quiz were granted bonus points in a special promotional program.
I also used the model to plan a whole series of site enhancing projects to evolve the web site into a real-time result driven marketing tool for the marketing staff.
EMail Blasts
Through various marketing programs we implemented on the web site (which included beta test sites, software preview registrations, satellite seminar registrations) we were able to build small lists of customer email addresses along with customer permission to send email messages when newsworthy information or events took place. So, I built an Email Blast tool which allowed us to send a common message to groups of less than 5000 customers. I wrote the interface in Visual BASIC which included an interface for message editing and an email address pre-validation/repair procedure to help clean-up mailing lists before the blast was sent to an internal SMTP capable POP mail server.
Selling the Tools To Intel
 In late-1996 I performed a short series of demonstrations of web capabilities and the types of services that the Network Products Division Electronic Marketing team could provide for the marketers and the rest of the business units (engineering/administration functional groups) that we serviced. The best way to show your capabilities is to use your own tools, therefore I created an HTML-based presentation which we used in Oregon and Utah.
Internal Technology Presentations
 The web professional community within Intel had grown rapidly as the web phenomenon took place. I am pleased that I was able to become a founding member of what became the Author's Club. The Author's Club provides Intel web professionals with a way of being informed about internal policy changes, corporate-wide web issues, and a place to share information and learning.
I performed a presentation to the Web Author's Club Forum regarding Cookie technology and how it worked. I was surprised and also pleased to see that user feedback surveys scored it almost as high as the central policy information roll-downs (something that is core to our business).
When I started at Intel the Author community consisted of about 30 people, mostly in Oregon. When I left the Author community had grown to over 150 world-wide and was splitting into international chapters.
Moving Forward
After a string of dramatic successes and gaining a reputation all over the company as a "living legend" -- no kidding some of my peers actually called me that. I realized that I could make no more of a difference to my company in a divisional role. I needed something more centralized. In April 1997 my opportunity arrived with a newly forming central marketing communications electronic team.
 previous experience
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