by Elizabeth Brown Lawler

Louisville is, as usual, a little bit behind the rest of the country, but we are catching up fast in the area of online communication and advertising. Just a couple years ago, I knew very few acquaintances who had email accounts. Now I can write five members of my own family, and that's saying a lot! Since things are still in their beginning stages, relatively, everyone is scrambling to offer services just as companies are beginning to request them. If you need anything special here, it can sometimes be difficult to find

Every day, there are many "start up" internet ad companies it seems, but most don't have strengths in all 3 areas of: marketing, design and technical expertise. Usually one out of three.

Most of the designers here only learned to use a Mac for printing applications in the past three years. Now it's rare to find anyone who knows what they are doing on the Web and COMPLETELY IMPOSSIBLE to find a freelance multimedia designer. I think only about five people here have even touched Macromedia Director. Multimedia is another part of my business but I've done 3 times as many quotes/storyboards as I have actual projects. People really drag their feet on that one, and there are only a few actual companies that provide and actively market multimedia in Louisville.

Ad agencies are very slow to get involved. And the start up "internet ad" companies have no allegiances or contracts with clients, often bypassing the technologically slow agencies to service any clients. Creatives at agencies usually don't have access to the one agency PPP account - it's usually some account exec who took it upon themselves to get interested, or the resident "techie". A very few agencies have actually hired web designers, and some others have art directors who are learning.

On the bright side - there are two groups that have formed here to keep up with internet issues: The Communications Industry Council and the "Posse." The CIC is a group of 5-10 executives in different aspects of the communications industry. The Posse is a larger group with people from various backgrounds.

People here are very excited about the Internet, and at a recent Chamber of Commerce Business-to-Business trade show, there were several companies advertising that they provide web services.

The main ISPs are Iglou, WinNet, and NTR.Net, and several newer ones.

(Watch for this area to get updated when the magazine gets updated, scheduled for August... but as usual, client work always comes first!)