Aurora Development Educating The Client Is Major Part Of Web Design For This Group

Aurora Development Group works the other side of the looking glass.

Until a client has looked in the mirror, said President Beth Britt, the tiny Spokane company can’t create an Internet presence that captures the desired image.

And the Web is no place for a client that wants a mere electronic brochure, she said.

If a company wants to connect with potential customers, it must communicate with them, Britt said.

She said the kind of static pages many companies have launched in their eagerness to ride the latest technological wave just won’t cut it.

“A lot of companies have these Web sites that have grown like a disease,” adds Jason Pegg, Aurora’s chief information officer.

Different locations on a site, he said, look different. The failure to integrate the information displayed on computer screens often reflects a failure to integrate use of the Web into any kind of corporate strategy, he said.

Potential clients, Pegg said, first have to ask themselves “How do you expect to have this Web site pay off for you?”

Kris Rudin, another Aurora principal and its senior project manager, said the company sits down with all potential clients to determine their needs.

“We just don’t cookie cut,” she said. “Part of what we offer is education.”

“Sometimes, we educate them out of our door,” Rudin noted ruefully.

Aurora worked with the Spokane Intercollegiate Research and Technology Institute on the just-completed upgrade of its pages.

“It’s real important for SIRTI to have a state of the art site,” said spokeswoman Mary Joan Hahn. “They design sites that bring people back.”

She said officials chose Aurora not only for its proficiency, but also because the company designs sites that clients can maintain and update themselves.

The company is training a SIRTI employee to become an in-house webmaster, she said.

Pegg said the overhauled site contains current information about events, the newsletter, funding and grants, as well as on-line forms.

E-mail will be easier, too, he said.

Britt said Aurora has already received an inquiry from a Maryland company that came upon the SIRTI site and wants something similar.

“That’s kind of a thrill,” she said.

Pegg, Britt and Rudin met at Eastern Washington University, where all were teachers. Rudin now works full time at Aurora, while the other two continue to do classroom work that puts much of the content in student hands via the Internet.

The on-going link to academia has just paid off in two new contracts for Aurora.

The company will create a workforce development website for the Spokane Area Chamber of Commerce. Funding comes from Focus 21, a local economic development effort. SIRTI is also participating.

Britt said the site will keep employers, trainers and jobseekers up to date on their mutual needs and resources.

A worker, for example, can find out what types of positions are most in demand in the labor market, then identify the skills needed to qualify, and where to get them.

The project is scheduled for completion by Jan. 1.

Britt said Aurora is creating a similar site for WOW! Learning of Berkeley, Calif., a private company.

“On-line learning, on-line training are going to be huge,” she said.

Friday, Aurora received word Cavanaughs Hospitality Corp. will contract with the company for Intranet sites that continuously update its call-center and employee manuals.

The rapidly developing projects are probably going to force the company to double its current work force of four by the end of the year, she said.

Aurora was incorporated just a year ago after six months of discussion among the partners, including project manager Carol Bjork.

Rudin said the four decided they could improve on the Websites they were finding on their computer screens. “We saw so much that was done badly,” she said.

She said the Internet is a medium all its own, not just a combination of print, graphics and video.

Big Websites remain dynamic by incorporating software that makes them a program in their own right, Rudin said.

Britt said clients who already have a site usually understand the enhancements Aurora offers better than those who are exploring the idea for the first time.

But expense can be an issue.

“This is a completely new, unbudgeted service,” Britt said. “Two years ago, nobody had an Internet budget.”

Rudin said Aurora is just finding its niche. “There is no downslope,” she said.