Yes, yes, we all know how important the Internet is (and will be) to the insurance business, both on the back end (between carriers and agents, for example) and on the front end (as a customer touchpoint). The key is to make smart use of your Internet facilities and sites. There are many books out there purporting to help you do just that. And many of them can put you to sleep. At least four, thoughdiscussed belowaddress some important industry questions and provide researched, creative, and sometimes unexpected answers.

The QuestionsWhat are the elements and design of a usable Web homepage? (Its not magic and its not by accidentbut it does matter.)What patterns does the Internet exhib it, and what implications do they have for creating a successful Internet strategy? (Activity on the Web is the result of uncoordinated actions of millions of people but the results follow strict laws.)How can the Internet be used forsuccessful marketing? (Traditional mass marketing approaches havent worked because the Internet calls for a different approach.)Is going paperless possibleor even desirable? (Many campaigns to eliminate paper fail because they dont understand where paper is critically important.)The AnswersHOMEPAGE USABILITYHomepage Usability: 50 Websites DeconstructedBY JAKOB NIELSEN & MARIE TAHIR(2002, NEW RIDERS PUBLISHING)Every carrier and agency site must have a home page. Generally its the first thing a visitor sees. If the home page doesnt appear immediately relevant and accessible, visitors will click the Back button, never to return. So the home page has a special role to play and its critical to the success of the site.Nielsen and Tahir devote the first 50 pages of their book to an overview of the principles of homepage design. The discussion is so clear, well organized, and convincing that you want to immediately check your own homepage, something Nielsen anticipates and helps you do. The results of a self-evaluation can be discouraging but certainly provide specifics to focus your improvement efforts.The balance of the book examines 50 homepages, mostly by well-known organizations, such as Amazon, Citigroup, and ESPN. Each homepage is reproduced in living color and the accompanying text offers in-context concreteness the earlier general principles section lacks. The book itself is attractive and accessible, and it lends itself to browsing as well as reading through. Highly recommended for everyone with a strategic or practical interest in a Web site.

WEB LAWSThe Laws of the Web: Patterns in the Ecology of InformationBY BERNARDO A. HUBERMAN(2001,THE MIT PRESS)Huberman argues, convincingly I think, that even though the Web has been created byand continues to evolve throughbillions of separate, uncoordinated human actions, the result exhibits law-like behavior that one would expect only from a deliberate, planned effort. To ignore the laws hes discovered and reported on is to relegate your efforts to almost certain failure.Whats perhaps most important about his insights is that distribution patterns on the Web dont follow a bell curve, a model with which were all familiar, but a power curvea (more or less) straight line that exhibits the same proportions no matter which section of the curve you sample. (Those of you familiar with chaos theory or fractals might find this sounding familiar.) Thats significant because given data on any part of the curve you can predict what some other part of the curve will look like.It suggests that no matter what anyone does, a few sites will receive a great number of visits and most sites very few. That could have significance for carriers who think they can sell through the Web, sharing sales with 10 or 20 other sellers. It isnt likely to happen. A very few sites will win the lions share of attention, with interest falling off rapidly for the rest. Its a winner-take-all pattern.The worry that the Web will lead to competition strictly on price appears unfounded. In fact, relevant information and the recognition of a good fit between needs and offering is stronger on the Web than traditional sales channels. That suggests hosting really useful content on Web sites and making great efforts to tell people aboutand encourage them to visitthe site. (People dont search randomly, but try to pick up pointers from other sites, friends, publications, and so on. Social-based searching may be more important than search engine use).Hubermans book is not the easiest of reads, but it provides crucial information Internet strategists need to know.