State of Michigan goes online

ABOUT THE VENDOR

Vignette is a provider of integrated content management applications used by the most successful organizations in the world to interact online with their customers, employees, and partners. By combining content management with integration and analysis applications, Vignette enables organizations to deliver personalized information wherever it is needed, integrate online and enterprise systems, and provide real-time analysis of the customer experience. Vignette powers more than 1,300 leading organizations and is headquartered in Austin, Texas. Vignette has offices located throughout the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Australia.

ABOUT THE CLIENT

Created in April 2000 by the Executive Order of Governor John Engler, the e-Michigan Office was launched with an initial two-year charter to overhaul the State of Michigan's online presence. e-Michigan has coordinated the efforts of vendors and service providers, and worked with other state agencies to bring them into a new, integrated e-government portal. Since the launch of Michigan.gov in July 2001, the portal has already become one of the top-ranked state government sites in the country.

ABOUT THE TECHNOLOGY

Vignette Content Management applications, which include capabilities for content management, content personalization, content integration, and content analysis, enable organizations to further their CRM strategies by providing technology that presents highly-relevant content to the right person at the right time via the right device. Vignette content management applications empower content owners by allowing them to update Web sites using applications they are familiar with, and not having to learn HTML or other coding languages. With this functionality, information integrity is ensured, meaning that Web site visitors see only the most recent and accurate information. With personalization functionality, organizations are able to target content to specific users, making the online experience more effective and enriching.

The e-Michigan office was directed to employ innovative technology to increase access to state services and information for citizens, businesses, and state employees, thereby improving the state government's responsiveness and effectiveness in serving its customers. SearchCRM spoke with Peyman Zand, Deputy Director at the e-Michigan Office, about the project.

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SearchCRM: Why did you decide to evaluate content management solutions?
Zand: We knew that we needed to have a more streamlined process for getting information out on the Web and to our citizens. Prior to that, our state had various different methodologies and inconsistencies in getting its content out. Old content was out there for a number of years.

SearchCRM: What were you looking for in a vendor?
Zand: We were looking for a system that was robust and that was being used not only by leading public sector companies but also by Fortune 100 companies. We were also looking for one that fit our environment of central management but decentralized control of the content. By that, I mean that instead of having 20 or 30 different servers sitting at different locations, we had a centralized server environment, but we wanted to allow our content owners to be able to post content on their own as they saw fit.

SearchCRM: How did the technology evaluation go?
Zand: We put out an RFP and we received 16 bids back. One challenge in the evaluation was the approach that each vendor took. We listed certain requirements, but we wanted to leave the flexibility with the vendors to provide a solution. Each vendor takes a slightly different approach; it's not that any approach was wrong, but we had to decide which way we wanted to go.

SearchCRM: What was the most challenging aspect of the implementation?
Zand: We went with a centralized control approach, but we didn't centralize some of our IT resources up front. We had to rely a little bit more on our vendor partners, which increased costs a little bit.

Also, once you go from a hierarchical, organization-based environment to a citizen-based environment, sometimes the organizations don't believe they have as much of their identity as they had before.

SearchCRM: How are you using the content management system?
Zand: We did a study to find out whether we could place all the services that we provide to constituents into broader categories. We hired a company called Public Policy Consultants, and they did a study and found that we can classify all of our services under six categories: education and career development, family health and safety, travel and recreation, business services, Michigan government, and licensing and certification.

We had a rule where all content had to be accessible within three clicks, so we had to streamline down from 15 or 16 clicks. We've also designed our system with a "no wrong door" policy. If you come in through the main portal and want to get a license, you can click on Licensing and get your information. But if you know you deal with the consumer industry services department to get your license, then you can also go through that agency to get your information. They both lead to the same place.

Because of Vignette's dynamic content management system, an agency can post content once and we're able to reach that content through various different means. When that content changes, it's changed in one location but it impacts the other avenues we have for folks to come in and access it. Vignette also allows for an easy-to-use user entry environment where we don't have to have highly technical people to manage content. If they can use e-mail, they can use this system.

SearchCRM: How did training go?
Zand: The training on this product is very easy -- we're able to train most users in about an hour and a half. It required a day or two of training for the system administrators, and it required about a week of training for our developers.

SearchCRM: When did the project go live, and when do you expect to see ROI?
Zand: The project went live in July of 2000. We can start capturing out return on investment starting today; we haven't yet. Identification of ROI is one thing, and being able to capture it is another. Where we have identified some of the ROI is in various systems out there. For example, there are 200 Web servers that are providing services across the state. We believe that 15 to 20 percent of them are serving up content, so we know we can probably retire those servers.

SearchCRM: Do you have any advice for companies that are thinking of starting a similar project?
Zand: Speed is really the most critical thing. Observe the 80/20 rule: you don't have 100 percent of the information to move forward. If you have 80 percent of the information, you can probably make very good judgements. That way you avoid paralysis by analysis.

Linda Formichelli's writing has appeared in Woman's Day, Wired, Writer's Digest, Family Circle, Psychology Today. Contact her at linda-eric@lserv.com, or check out her Web site http://www.twowriters.net