Mining Your Website

Today's website interrogation software can uncover who visits your site, where they come from, what they view and for how long. Armed with this powerful data, companies can improve the value of their site plus gauge the effectiveness of bill inserts and advertising campaigns, generate quality leads for company programs and provide better customer service.

Here's some of what Apogee has learned from behind-the-scenes hosting of websites and content and providing Internet Solutions to more than 100 utilities across the country.

Analysis of traffic on a variety of websites found:

• One utility experienced a 100% increase in visitors the day of the arrival of a bill insert offering an incentive to visit the site. This information allowed them to better evaluate investments in their website advertising.



• Another found that the majority of their visitors were going first to the Careers page to view job postings.



• Several others could see a significant change in the number of visits immediately following the 9-11 tragedy.



• One utility offering fuel cells was amazed at the number of visitors who came from their fuel cell manufacturer partner's website.

Tom VanParis, director of marketing for Ohio's G&T Buckeye Power, reviews the site interrogation reports provided by Apogee monthly. These show the activity of visitors to the energy reference libraries and calculators accessible from the Ohio co-ops' websites. Traffic has been increasing steadily since this new material became available last fall.

Moving through the report, which contains easy-to-read graphs and bar charts, VanParis can observe how many visits are made to each topic. Interestingly, some topics receive three or four times as many visits as others. Knowing this early and directly from customers allows managers to conceive new educational campaigns, address some topics at a higher level on the website, or create a special mailing piece to answer questions.

While the majority of visitors to Buckeye's content spend just a few minutes perusing the material and running calculations, it's surprising that almost 10 percent of visitors remain on the materials for longer than nine minutes. Similarly, while most visitors view between one and four pages, almost 10 percent view 11 or more. And for the Ohio cooperatives, visitors reading about humidity levels and water conservation and operating the residential calculator attracted the longest viewing times of any of the material.

You can also see where the visitors came from. Buckeye saw that twice as many visitors come to their site from America Online as do visitors from the next largest organization or company. As for when they come, that's easy to see too. For Buckeye, Wednesday is the peak day and 1:00 p.m is the peak hour.

"It is surprising how much information is so readily available if you just know to go looking for it," says VanParis. "I plan to continue reviewing the reports and sharing them with the cooperatives so we can all learn more about what is on the minds of our website visitors."

To find out how to gain this kind of intelligence on your website, call John Owen at 770-270-6507.

Demand Exchange® Enhancements Unveiled at Useppa

Back Row L to R: Eric Watson (Apogee), Harlan Coomes (SMUD) Neil Pickard (Georgia Power), Jim Crist (The Lumen Group), Tony Koch (Bonneville Power Administration), John Hairston (Bonneville Power Administration), John Laun (Apogee), Dan Lockman (Apogee), Joel Gilbert (Apogee). Front Row L to R: Bruce Remmel (FirstEnergy), John Owen (Apogee), Karen Morris (Apogee), Dick Neiss (Apogee), Ron Amundson (San Diego Gas & Electric), Gail Smith (Tennessee Valley Authority), Dick Martin (Tennessee Valley Authority), Susan Gilbert (Apogee).

The Demand Exchange® hosted its annual User Group Meeting on Florida's beautiful Useppa Island this past February. The two-day session provided an excellent opportunity for some of the country's leading proponents of demand response to relate their real-world experiences of designing, implementing and operating such programs.

In addition to user case studies, Joel Gilbert, Demand Exchange CEO, presented on topics ranging from best practices for demand response delivery to an in-depth examination of various end-user load patterns and their impact on baseline calculations and program participation. These discussions proved thought provoking and engendered vigorous debate.

Eric Watson, Director of Product Development at the Exchange, presented several of the latest enhancements to the basic Exchange application. These enhancements reflect the philosophical view that engaging the end-user in demand response programs, and maintaining that engagement, requires the provision of certain tools that allow the end-user to understand how they use energy.

These include:

• Online Data Presentment - The Data Presentment Module (DPM) provides a set of an intuitive graphics and tables that allow the end-user to view their interval meter data. Through an intuitive interface, the end-user can view the calculated baseline, pledged reduction level (baseline minus pledge) and actual consumption for any curtailment event day. Exchange clients also have the option of presenting load data for all days to all end-users. Data can be updated on a daily basis, or if requested, as often as every 15 minutes during curtailment events.

The DPM is a powerful tool, especially if updated frequently on event days, by which end-users can gauge their performance relative to pledge and make adjustments as necessary.

• Online Settlement - The Online Settlement Module (OSM) of the Exchange shortens the time between an end-user's participation in a curtailment event and notification of the associated savings. After approval by program administrators, end-users can view their settlement in an intuitive tabular form. The OSM is customized to a client's specific settlement calculations and can accommodate a wide variety of "liquidated damages" scenarios. The OSM can also generate a file of settlement information for inclusion in the client's billing system.



• Service Territory Mapping - This new module provides program administrators with a rapid snap-shot of the level of participation in curtailment events across their service territory. The STM can be expanded to include other demand response programs not necessarily run through the Exchange, such as real-time pricing and noticed interruptible programs. The STM presents a visual representation of the service territory, can display congestion areas, transmission lines, and generation assets and their current status. The STM also displays each program participant with symbols that change based upon participation in the current curtailment event. The interval meter data that is used by the DPM and the OSM is also used by the STM to display tables of data.

e-Learning Advances and Awards College Credit

What began as Apogee's vision to transform traditional training into self-paced, 24/7 courses has now emerged as the energy industry's leading Web-based training portal: Study-Center.com. Offering an industry-specific curriculum, soft-skill courses, and custom development of client materials, Study-Center has broader coverage, more flexibility, and some new academic credentials. Here are a few of the exciting new features:

College credit. Through the Energy Industry CBT Alliance (EICA), we are now pursuing college credit status for all of our energy-industry related courseware. We have successfully gained the initial recognition needed in one state with the next phase being nationwide acceptance. We have also learned that Continuing Education Units have been arranged for some of our courses by FP&L for their employees. These academic designations are becoming increasingly attractive as employees work to fulfill both company training objectives and personal education goals simultaneously. We'll keep you posted on our progress. For details, contact Bernardine Purcell, Director of Study Center, at 770-270-6503 or bpurcell@apogee.net.

Content. Interactive calculators, analysis models, testing yourself against the experts, cartoons…all of this and more can be found in Apogee's Study-Center. And that's just the fun part. If you want to get serious, behavioral objectives, measurable testing results, glossaries, data tables, and specific information that improves job performance are just a few of the truly educational and corporate ROI features that Study-Center delivers.

Newly constructed e-learning courseware. Over the past year, available energy-industry courses have tripled. Our complete series of courses in areas such as Residential Energy Systems, Lighting, Fundamentals of Natural Gas, and Motors & Drives have all been reconstructed, updated, and enhanced.

Motors & Drives is now divided into six modules, allowing utilities to better match the course topic with the need. Whether it be for new or reassigned employees, customers having problems with motors or vendors needing the information to better meet their customer's needs, the new Motors & Drives course makes it easy to mix and match the appropriate curriculum.

The Residential Series has undergone a complete facelift. All of the content and pictures have been updated, and there are hundreds of graphics and interactive exercises to keep trainees interested and on their toes. And we've added a new subject - "HVAC for Warm Climates" in response to the needs of energy providers in areas with hot, humid weather conditions.

Lighting has been updated and enhanced as well. Since it is the most visible energy consumer, it's only natural that this course now holds the record for "Most Pictures per Page" of e-learning materials we've ever produced.

In our expanded courses on Economic Decision Making and Power Quality, problem-solving exercises are included so that you can test yourself against the experts -- comparing your solutions to actual events.

To Help You Get Started…

To see what thousands of energy industry professionals are experiencing with Apogee's expansive e-learning portal, here are two ideas to consider:

Request our FREE e-Learning Starter Kit. Whether you are ready to move from computer-based training to a Web-based offering or expanding your present e-learning curriculum, you may find our Starter Kit helpful. We've packed it full of tips and pointers to help you avoid the common pitfalls, explained how to ensure a successful launch, and even included a training ROI calculator to let you compute your own costs and savings. Click here to order or call Bernardine Purcell at 770-270-6503.

Start out with an Assessment. Depending on which knowledge area you're targeting, we may have a perfect match. Some utilities elect to have employees take our e-learning pre-tests to determine the need for the course, then offer the full course only to those who need it. Call for more information on our Assessment Offers, call Bernardine Purcell at 770-270-6503.

Kids Korner

Bigger and better, more fun than ever.

Kids Korner, a fun and informative energy learning center for children, is one of the most popular website content areas Apogee hosts for utilities. Receiving thousands of visitors each day, parents, teachers and kids themselves give it excellent marks. Each utility's version of Kids Korner is customized with the company's unique look so it integrates seamlessly into their website.

Recently we've added two interactive calculators that let kids see for themselves how much lighting and appliances cost to operate, and more importantly, how much can be saved through their careful use.

The Lighting Calculator called "Light Switch" lets kids compute how many of their favorite toys or candy can be purchased for the amount of money saved by converting the incandescent lamps in their homes to compact fluorescents.

A new Appliance Calculator uses the same approach to let kids quickly and easily estimate how much all the appliances in their homes cost to operate each month. Both are fun and most importantly, relevant to what interests kids.

One of the most popular Kids Korner activities is in the Safety section. It features a darkened room that kids can search with a flashlight. When they click on the room, their cursor becomes a powerful beam of light, allowing them to peer into all of the deep dark recesses of the room to see what is going on there.

Kids Korner topics include: energy efficiency calculators, home surveys, energy projects, safety lessons, an introduction to basic energy concepts, history of some of the legendary industry leaders, a glossary, a coloring book, an industry careers section, and a host of fun games and activities. Success on activities is recognized and rewarded with colorful printable certificates noting their accomplishments.

Our next planned enhancement, which we're now soliciting user input, is a curriculum guide with worksheets to help parents and teachers put these materials to work at home and in the classroom. If you have ideas or want to make suggestions, we'd like to hear from you! Contact Susan Gilbert at 770-270-6502.

Are Computers Male or Female?

It's a long-running debate. Are computers male or female? As an online technology company, we've found the following answers to be right on the mark and thought we'd pass them along for your enjoyment:

Men will quickly assert that computers should be referred to in the female gender because:

1. No one but the Creator understands their internal logic.



2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else.



3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long-term memory for later retrieval.



4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it.

Women will counter that answer, stating computers should be referred to in the masculine gender because:

1. In order to get their attention, you have to turn them on.



2. They have a lot of data, but are still clueless.



3. They are supposed to help you solve the problems, but half the time they are the problems.



4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that, if you had waited a little longer, you could have had a better model.

This debate will no doubt continue. Feel free to send us your answers and we'll publish (anonymously, if you like) in a future edition of Interaction.

Tech Tips

Grabbing Good "Screen Captures"

With so much of today's information presented on the Web, it's often handy to "grab a screen capture" and insert it into your Word or PowerPoint document to make your point. Here's one way to grab screen captures.

1. With your cursor on the desired web page, press the "print screen" key on your keyboard.



2. Open your Word or PowerPoint document, right click and "paste" the screen capture image or you can paste it using the shortcut Ctrl V.

Oldies, But Goodies

In most Windows applications, these keyboard shortcuts save time:

Ctrl z = undo
Ctrl r = refresh
Ctrl a = select all
Ctrl c = copy
Ctrl v = paste