Portals for the People

First came email. The ability of anyone in an organization to send messages to anyone else at any time didn't just make communication faster -- it changed the nature of organizational life. With more people than ever in the loop on critical decisions, people who had relevant information or powerful ideas had a better chance than ever to influence the outcome of those decisions. Hierarchies of position gave way to hierarchies of expertise.

Then came intranets. Companies are ever-changing collections of business units, R&D programs, project teams, marketing campaigns, HR initiatives -- all of which, until the rise of the Web, were invisible to most of the people who worked at those companies. Creating one-click-away archives of PowerPoint presentations made by a company's sales staff, or of status reports on a company's new-product team, didn't just make sharing work easier -- it made the entire company more transparent. People who had never gone on a sales call could see for themselves how the company was presenting itself to customers; people whose work was affected by a particular team could look directly at what that team was doing.

Oliver Muoto believes that we will soon experience the next great wave of digitally driven change. Leading that wave will be new services that he calls "B2E (business-to-employee) portals" -- or, more simply, "people portals." Think MyYahoo! for your company. A people portal is a customized, personalized, ever-changing mix of news, resources, applications, and e-commerce options that becomes the desktop destination for everyone in an organization -- and the primary vehicle by which people do their work. "Each person's 'start page' reflects a unique view of the world -- a set of requirements and desires, of likes and dislikes," Muoto says. "At the same time, everyone is using the same basic services, and that improves the cohesion of the company. The user -- in other words, the employee -- is in charge: It's not 'the company'; it's 'my company.' "

Muoto, 30, is cofounder of Epicentric Inc., a San Francisco-based outfit that is helping a growing number of high-powered clients to develop B2E portals. Its killer app is a collection of 200 "modules" that accelerate the process of designing and deploying such portals. Some of those modules are Web-software building blocks. Others hinge on content partnerships -- deals with Web companies to provide news headlines, stock quotes, or weather reports. "You have to deliver a wide range of functionality, and you have to deliver it fast," Muoto says. "People expect more than what most intranets offer. They want more than just links. They want news. They want applications. They want commerce. And they want all of it their way."

Muoto understands this impatient mind-set firsthand. A fast-talking, fast-walking bachelor (did we mention that he has been named one of the most eligible men in Silicon Valley?), he is the son of a Polish mother and a Nigerian father. He was educated in Nigeria before attending the University of Southern California, where he first indulged his entrepreneurial spirit by organizing a student dry-cleaning service and a marketing business that sold ads on local cable stations. As soon as he received his diploma, he headed for Silicon Valley -- and life as a self-confessed "startup junkie."

In 1997, after working at five other startups, Muoto teamed up with his friend Ed Anuff to launch Epicentric. The company, with four offices across the country, now has more than 70 clients, including Autodesk, Lockheed Martin, Motorola, and Sun Microsystems. Its chief investors include France Telecom and Reuters. In a series of interviews with Fast Company, Muoto explained the power of people portals.

What's the difference between a company intranet and a people portal?

An intranet is a collection of links to various resources -- most of them internal, some of them external -- that may be useful to people in a company. Let me emphasize the word "may." Most intranets capture what leaders in the company think is important: They reflect a top-down view of what's happening in the organization. And very few intranets are designed with the user experience in mind. The attitude is "It's work, right? So why worry about making the intranet as much fun, or as colorful, or as easy to navigate, as the most popular commercial Web sites?" Let's be honest. When the Web came along, lots of companies just took their existing applications, spent a few million dollars to create a Web user interface, and -- presto! -- they had an intranet.