The Company
Founded in 1852, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) represents 125,000 members of the civil engineering profession worldwide, and is America's oldest national engineering society. ASCE's vision is to position engineers as global leaders building a better quality of life. The Society is now celebrating its 150th anniversary.

The Problem
ASCE wanted to use the Internet to deliver diverse industry knowledge and technical information to civil engineers worldwide, through the creation of a virtual trade show. In addition, ASCE wanted to provide exhibitors with the ability to reach a larger audience for a longer period of time than a traditional trade show would allow. Given the content-rich nature of the site, ASCE knew they needed a content management solution (CMS) to manage all of the information. ASCE was looking for a solution with the ability to:

Manage all types of content including PDFs, streaming video, audio, PowerPoint presentations Allow non-technical staff to add and update content without complex programming or need to know HTML. Develop an attractive site with sophisticated navigation and performance features. Integrate with outside data sources such as content provider YellowBrix The Solution

Based on ASCE’s requirements and budget, Fig Leaf Software, a Washington, DC based web design and development firm engaged by ASCE, recommended PaperThin’s CommonSpotä Content Server. CommonSpot was an excellent fit for several reasons. In implementing CommonSpot, Fig Leaf leveraged many of the product’s powerful out-of-the-box features, such the ability for non-technical contributors to post a wide range of presentation types. Content contributors from ASCE attended Fig Leaf’s public training class, and were then able to load all of the diverse presentations onto the CE World virtual trade show site, www.ceworld.org.

ASCE anticipates between 60,000 – 80,000 visitors to the site per month and wanted to ensure high performance, given traffic and diverse content types. CommonSpot's intelligent caching system automatically and transparently caches static versions of dynamically created pages as appropriate. This enables a rich, adaptive assembly of pages without compromising performance, typically associated with purely dynamic approaches. Leveraging CommonSpot’s open architecture, Fig Leaf was able to easily integrate a news feed from content provider YellowBrix to distribute customized news to the site. Fig Leaf also customized the navigation features to meet the customer’s design requirements.

CE World which launched officially on July 1, 2002,features traditional and multi-media presentations spanning 14 specialty areas of civil engineering, from critical infrastructure to sustainable development. On the site, a visitor can view an author's slide show presentation, watch a streaming video of a large-scale civil engineering project, listen to an interview with an industry icon and stay abreast of industry news and technical developments -- all without ever leaving their desk.

"We were surprised and delighted at the volume of presentations that were initially submitted for publication,” commented CE World Project Manager Bob Silverstein. The scope and depth of presentations will expand through the ASCE 150th Anniversary Convention on 3-7 November 2002. “This site is a great home for content that has not been published elsewhere,” added Silverstein. The site also provides resources that attendees might expect to find at a live trade show, such as product collateral, demonstrations, business cards/contact information and speaker presentations. A ‘Hall of Nations’ section provides contact information for civil engineering organizations worldwide. ASCE is promoting the site through traditional on and offline media, and has developed an innovative means for driving visitors to the site. A ‘decoder’ sticker has been placed on advertisements in various publications. Visitors need to peel off the sticker and hold it over blue boxes, which can be found in several locations on the site, to see whether they have won a prize, directing traffic to key locations within the site and offering a creative user experience.

The ROI
ASCE had very clear tactical and financial objectives for measuring the return on investment of this project. Deploying their site in CommonSpot allowed ASCE to accomplish their key tactical goals of building a fast-loading, dynamic, easily navigable site. According to Silverstein, “The CommonSpot solution allowed us to create and manage an attractive site that is easy to maintain, has user-friendly features, and the flexibility to design and create web pages that meet a variety of presentation requirements.” From a financial perspective, the ROI objective was to have the site be entirely self-funded, with fees from virtual trade show exhibitors and sponsors funding the cost of building and maintaining the site. ASCE actually surpassed this goal. “CE World has already generated revenue exceeding the cost of building the site,” noted Silverstein. “Our sponsors were so enthusiastic about the idea, that several of them signed up sight unseen.” ASCE plans to continue to add new content and exhibits to the site on an ongoing basis.


Technical Environment

CommonSpot Server: Version 2.5
Operating System: Windows 2000 Server
Database: Microsoft SQL Server 2000