A Day In the Life Of a Web Integrator

Want a feel for what makes today's Web integrator tick? To find out, we followed one for a day. And we don't mean a single executive. rather, we decided to document a company as a whole, from its CEO to its vice president of marketing, from its graphic artists to its IT staffers, capturing the ins and outs of being an e-business solution provider from start to finish.

Our subject was Logical Design Solutions (LDS), a pre-IPO Web services company with an impressive client list that includes industry giants such as Aetna/U.S. Healthcare, AT&T Corp., Bell Atlantic Corp. and Lucent Technologies. We recently spent a day in LDS' downtown Manhattan office, which takes up two floors in the building at 55 Broadway. Here's what we saw.

CEO Mimi Brooks, at LDS' downtown Manhattan office, founded the company a decade ago.

Paul Fried (below center), account executive of business development for LDS' financial services practice, discusses a few last-minute points with project manager Norma Coronado and engagement manager Ralph Porpora before they head out to an off-site client meeting.

Tom Shea, vice president of sales, catches Brooks in the hallway just before she heads into a project meeting. He asks for her opinion on a number of personnel and strategy issues.

Brooks sits in with a project team to check on the progress of a Web design for one of LDS' start-up clients. creative producer Steve Treiling scans the designs on-screen.

Wayne Schwartz, interactive technology developer, takes a phone call about a client project he is working on, while LDS system administrator Alex Vedda tends to Schwartz's desktop computer.

Junior graphic artist Staci Gluckson looks over Web designs for a client project.

LDS employee Judy Cameron participates in a card-sorting experiment in LDS' Usability Center, where LDS developers test human interactions and responses to Web applications. Cameron is told to sort the individual Web site features into the general categories she believes offer the best fit. Developers in an adjacent room, who are monitoring her actions through a remote camera system in the ceiling, can then use her responses to help design user-friendly Web sites.

After putting in a full day at the office, LDS employees, including communications practice leader Len Genovese, head home for the evening. Genovese and his LDS colleagues will be back bright and early tomorrow morning to start a new day at Internet speed.