Internet at home Portal e-personas. Cajamadrid. - The World Summit in Reflection

Internet at home Portal e-personas. Cajamadrid.

Ángel Córdoba Díaz

Introduction

"Nowadays governments realize that they cannot do everything, that society's objectives can only be achieved through cooperation and alliances with a wide range of actors, including the private sector, civil society and other groups." Kofi Annan

1. Background

In the year 2000, aware of the impact of Internet and the new Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on business objectives and their commitment to society, the Caja Madrid Group sets in motion a strategic plan with an innovative objective: achieve business goals through the incorporation of Internet and new technologies in the daily habits-at home and at work-of the employees of the group and their families.

2. Previous Analysis of the Project

Two facts stand out from the detailed analysis of our group:

a) That the majority of the families of the Caja Madrid Group did not have the necessary infrastructures for acceding to the Information Society -- PC's, communications lines - and

b) They had seldom connected to Internet, fundamentally because they lacked "digital literacy" and because of fears and insecurities as regards Internet navigation.

3. The Philosophy of Approaching the Project

Given the findings of the analysis, parameters are laid down for the design of possible actions:

c) Don't obligate people. It has been repeatedly shown that learning by obligation can have results which are counterproductive; on this occasion, any initiative should be based on necessity, not obligation.

d) Make them aware. The "digital divide" is not a pathological state of persons. The general population is not even aware of the level of access to the knowledge society, so the first step is to make them know why the Knowledge Society is necessary in order to better personal and family life, even as a vehicle for conciliating both.

e) Support. Although people become aware of the convenience of using Internet in their daily life, this does not logically lead to them acquiring the means of diminishing the digital divide. For this reason, Caja Madrid, mobilized the means necessary to support actively this process by means of a two-part global project: Internet at Home and Portal ePersonas.

4. Strategic Factors for the Success of the Project

There are several barriers which should be taken into account in order to guarantee the success of the project:

|Barrier |Caja Madrid Solutions |

|The costs |In order to minimize the barrier |

| |associated with the purchase of |

| |infrastructures (equipment and |

| |lines), Caja Madrid established two|

| |lines of action: |

| | |

| |Financiation of approximately 65% |

| |of the cost of the equipment (PC - |

| |desktop or laptop, with DVD and |

| |color printer) |

| |Total subsidy of the cost of |

| |installation of the equipment and |

| |flat rate Internet access (24/7) |

| |during the first year. |

|Problems of |The installation and first |

|installation and the |connection of the equipment was not|

|first connection |left in the hands of the families, |

| |rather it was confided to |

| |professionals. |

|Slow navigation and |To overcome the barrier of slow and|

|the lack of security |insecure connections, the Caja |

|in Internet |Madrid installed the infrastructure|

| |to create their own Internet |

| |Service Provider (ISP) and a |

| |virtual private network, |

| |facilitating connections with |

| |maximum access velocity, quality |

| |and security. |

|Telephone |The problem of telephone |

|incommunication while|incommunication during navigation |

|navigating the Web |was solved by the installation of |

| |DSL service where possible, or, in |

| |other cases, with the installation |

| |of a second analogic phone line |

| |dedicated exclusively to Internet |

| |access. |

|Lack of ICT knowledge|The lack of "digital literacy" was |

| |overcome by the creation of a |

| |Helpdesk (7 days a web, 365 days a|

| |year) and with the offer of courses|

| |of office automation, English and |

| |Information and Communication |

| |Technologies for the whole family. |

|Unfamiliarity |The Portal ePersonas proved to be |

|with Internet |an excellent platform in overcoming|

| |the barrier of unfamiliarity with |

| |Internet. It permitted the |

| |integration of contents (articles |

| |and "information pills") which gave|

| |users the necessary competence for|

| |Internet navigation. |

|Apathy/ |Regarding the demand for Internet |

|Dismotivation |content and services, it was |

| |necessary to activate services for |

| |overcoming the initial apathy-based|

| |fundamentally on lack of |

| |knowledge. To do so Caja Madrid |

| |took a dual approach: the |

| |continuous personalization of |

| |content which responded to the |

| |actual preferences of users, and |

| |the creation of an exclusive canal |

| |within the Portal ePersonas for |

| |certain services. |

5. Projects which Facilitate Access to and Integration in the Knowledge Society

Associated with the objective of supporting access to and participation in the new Knowledge Society, is the creation of two great projects:

. The "Internet at Home" project: to make available to the 12,000 families of the group the necessary infrastructure (equipment and line) to access Internet in a secure manner

. The "Portal ePersonas": to facilitate a smooth transition to the Information Society through personalized, individualized content and to contribute to the incorporation of Internet use into daily life

The "Internet at Home" Project

The principal challenge of the "Internet at Home" was the question of providing the homes of the 12,000 families of the Caja Madrid Group with the necessary infrastructure (equipment and line) to permit them to access the Information Society securely.

To carry out the project a three-month implantation schedule was established and a policy was defined which centreed on the minimization of entrance barriers (costs, installation and first connection problems, slow connections, telephone incommunication during navigation, unfamiliarity with ICT and the Internet, and apathy/lack of motivation) and on the elaboration of a quality offering in terms of features attractive for the whole family and as personalized as possible.

The offer was launched on May 10, 2001 and completely finished on July 31, 2001.

The "Portal ePersonas" Project

In order to reinforce the natural attraction of the members of the Caja Madrid Group to the Information Society, and as a necessary complement to the "Internet at Home" Project, Caja Madrid developed the Portal ePersonas ("Enter from wherever you like, from work or from your home, discover that the new technologies are available to everybody and find everything you need to manage aspects of both your family and professional live, taking advantage of the benefits of doing so in the context of a virtual community.")

The objectives of the Portal ePersonas were:

. From the professional point of view (E. Professional): to facilitate a new channel which would improve internal efficiency in the field of Human Resource Management, and would individualize the relations with the group's professionals. The benefits for the person include an increase in his or her autonomy and the capacity to manage information themselves. This contributed to the integration of professional life and family life, and in an increment in the employability of the members of the group, fomenting self learning (e-learning).

. From the family point of view (E. Familiar): to contribute to the use of Internet in the daily habits of the group's families, with the logical benefits: incorporation in the Information Society on equal terms; access to complementary online public services, especially Internet and the Information and Communications Technologies; access to support services for young people, women and the elderly; and access to a dynamic medium of electronic transactions, through a Virtual Mall.

The objectives of the Portal ePersonas are achieved through a dual approach:

1. The very structure of the Portal, which consists basically of:

E. Professional, subdivided into the following channels:

. Self service, the object of which is to increment the autonomy and management capacity of people - individualized information in real time - facilitating the approximation between Human Resources and the members of the group.

. Virtual classroom, with the objective of incrementing members employability and encouraging their self learning process, but putting tools at their disposal which favour the development of the person.

. E. Familiar, subdivided into:

. Community Channel (Canal Comunidad), with the objective of integrating a community of 35,000 persons with common interests based on content and value-added services.

. Teaching Channel (Canal Didáctico), with the objective of encouraging the permanent use of computers and the new technologies, with special emphasis on Internet.

. Thematic Channel (Canal Temático), with the objective of spreading the knowledge of the most relevant contents of Caja Madrid's corporative web.

2. The selection of content for the Portal, which followed the following guidelines:

. Initial impact, achieved by the profuse use of attractive graphics

. Exclusive economic advantages

. Attractive and exclusive services offering value added to the families of the group

. Content and services with permanent access

. Services and content with a social component

. Individualization on demand of content and services

. Didactic content on the subjects of ICT and Internet.

. Individualization of the professional situation of each person

. Exclusive channel for Human Resources services and for professional development

6. Results Obtained

The principal indicator of success in both projects is the degree of utilization of Internet and the services offered by the Portal ePersonas.

In order to measure the success of the experience we defined the following ratios:

Degree of Internet adoption: Internet access of 12,000 familie

|Collective |Degree of Internet Adoption |

|European Union |3 in 10 |

|Spain |2 in 10 |

|Caja Madrid |in 10 (85% ADSL; |

| |(flat rate, 24 hours) |

Degree of Fidelity and Permanence on the Portal:

|Indicator |Results (last 12 months) |

|Average navigation |17 min./day |

|time | |

|Average number of |7.229 |

|sessions per user | |

Degree of Utilization of Content and Services (Data February 2.003)

|Most Visited Services |Percentage by |

| |group |

|rno |Channel | | |

| | |News media and |13% |

| | |Escape! |13% |

|Most Visited Services |Percentage by |

| |group |

| | |My SVR |28% |

| | |Financial |10% |

| | |Processes and |16% |

|Most visited sections |Percentage in tools |

|Tools |My mail |47% |

| |Search engine |32% |

Detailed analysis of the results leads us to affirm that the both projects, "Internet at Home" and "Portal ePersonas" have been resounding successes both in terms of levels of use and in the acceptation and recognition accorded the program by the users. Furthermore, from the point of view of Caja Madrid, it not only means meeting the objectives of promoting access and integration of people in the Information Society, but also the culmination of our business objectives and the elevation of the level of employability of staff with much lower costs than would have been necessary through other paths of action.

All of this obliges us to reaffirm the necessity to place a firm bet on raising the awareness and offering overall support to people in your organization (technological efforts, content and people, inside and outside the family and professional settings) as the formula for eliminating the digital divide in a definitive way with the involvement of private company initiative.

Ángel Córdoba Díaz
General Subdirector of Caja Madrid and Managing Director of Human Resources of the Caja Madrid Group