Remarks to the
Washington on the Web Conference
Sponsored by
Edelman Public Relations Worldwide
Broadcast live by C-SPAN, Washington, May 29, 1996
The Internet has really put a crimp in the age-old practice of breaking
the ice with a joke at events like this. For years, when I
was covering the White House, I started every out-of-town speech with
the same joke, one I'd stolen from Joe Califano, who
had worn it out inside the Beltway before I snatched it. Nowadays, any
joke you tell to an Internet-savvy group will already be
familiar to at least half the people in the room. I tried one a couple
of months ago that I had just heard from a friend who always
seems to have fresh material. After my talk, a young woman came up to me
and told me she not only had heard the joke; she'd
already seen a couple of new twists in the punchline in some Internet
joke forum.
What I was asked to talk about this morning is how the Internet can be
used to change the way American people form ideas
and opinions.
I look at the Internet as an important new tool in the hands of people
who are seeking to win greater public understanding of
their own interests or causes. The graphical nature of the World Wide
Web, the nearly infinite capacity and the coming
multimedia capabilities of adding sound, animation and-someday-even
video to the message make the Internet an exciting new
medium in which to work.
I would argue, however, that much of the work going on right now in
development of Web sites is adding to a giant junk pile in
cyberspace that, if we're not careful, will frustrate and discourage
exactly those people we're trying to reach. I'm not suggesting
the Web will go the way of CB radio, but I am saying that building Web
sites badly can have effects equal and opposite to
those intended by the builders.
Mass communication on the Internet, I believe, should be guided by three
simple tenets:
- First, a Web site is really an extension of who you are….
- Second, build for your intended audience, not for the digirati out
there critiquing the newest and coolest technology….
- And finally, the Worldwide Web is a dynamic place, and you have to
be agile enough to change your site at will to keep
pace with developments in your industry or interest sphere….
There are lots of other issues, such as how you get people to come to
your site, but if you don't plan for those three, the rest
doesn't matter very much.
One of my favorite corporate sites is Bethesda Software, a company that
makes role-playing adventure games set in Medieval
Europe. Everything from the art to the archaic English to the names it
gives its Web pages adds to the tone of mystery, magic
and danger found in its games. The technology, on the other hand, is
generic. You don't have to have the latest extensions and
plug-ins to enjoy the site. You can even choose text-only, limited
graphics or full graphics, depending on the speed of your
modem and the level of your patience.
The IRS, on the other hand, throws its graphics and technology in the
path of the message.
First of all, to download this page at dial-up speed takes about a
minute, which isn't unreasonable-except that it would be nice
if you got some information for that investment of time. So what do we
get? A big mailbox and these instructions: "Please pull
your window to the black hash mark. And set your browser font
preferences to 12-point Times." Even if I knew how to do
those things, which I'll wager most people don't, why should I
reconfigure my software to suit the IRS? This is an agency too
accustomed to telling people what to do.
[There follows a graphic demonstration of the many steps it takes to
extract and print an IRS tax form from the Web.]
Now, if I had run through this exercise using America Online, which is
far and away the largest Internet Service Provider in the
world today, the pictures all would have tumbled over to the left side
of the screen, and when we got to Retrieve File, we
would have seen a page telling us we had selected one file for
retrieval-but not giving us any opportunity to actually download
it. Wouldn't that make you love the IRS?
Please don't misunderstand my own message here. I think it's great that
this information is being made available on the Web for
anyone to search and retrieve. But how you present what you have has a
lot to do with what people with think of you after the
experience.
While the new media do provide a marvelous opportunity to express
yourself in new and different ways, you still have to focus
on what you're trying to say and to whom you're saying it.
Thank you very much.
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