|HOME|CONTENTS|LINKS|

Finding a Home

Two years after the February 1996 launch of the "beta" version of the Business Advisor, the site had changed little. Several new links had been added, but several important links no longer worked or worked intermittently, such as the ability to search the GovBot database of government web pages. The "News" pages were out-of-date. And, so Jim Van Wert discovered to his dismay, email sent for follow-up information was largely ignored. The site still attracted frequent visitors, but it had not kept pace with the rapid developments in Web technology and was nowhere near to being the kind of gateway to transactions that Van Wert and those at NPR had hoped to build.

FedWorld

After the site's 1996 debut, NPR had handed the day-to-day management of the site over to FedWorld, a unit within the National Technical Information Service at the Department of Commerce that considered itself, "the official source for government-sponsored US and worldwide scientific, technical, engineering, and business-related information." NTIS earned its operating costs from the sale of its products--technical publications and CDs filled with datasets--and its services, among which was a web hosting service for government agencies.

In effect, NTIS was, according to Van Wert, "like a contractor." He adds, "They don't have any vested interest. Business assistance is not part of their mission." NPR was paying NTIS to manage the Business Advisor site, but as John Huang notes, it was not like any of the other sites it managed. The others ranged from its own venture--the FedWorld site--to sites sustained by particular agencies, such as the IRS web site and that of the Customs Service. According to Huang, "there was not a single point of contact" for making sure the Business Advisor was continually updated and queries were answered.

NPR had tried to find a home for the site in the Spring of 1996 but had settled on NTIS because no other shelter could be found. Changes at the top of the two lead agencies made the task impossible at the time. Commerce Deputy Secretary Barram had moved on to head the General Services Administration, and SBA Administrator Phil Lader was soon to become US Ambassador to Great Britain.

Van Wert, who was concerned about sustaining the site, had tried to convince Lader that SBA, an agency created to help small businesses succeed, should take control of the site. Lader, however, believed it would be a mistake to agree to take on the site just before he left. Van Wert recounts, "I couldn't get him to take it over largely because he knew he was leaving and he said I was going to have to convince his successor to take it over."

|HOME|CONTENTS|LINKS|

Harvard University > John F. Kennedy School of Government > Case Program

Copyright © 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College.

This file was last updated on 23-Mar-99.

Email the Case Program.