Standard Tames Tundra

Standard Insurance Co., a subsidiary of StanCorp Financial Group (Portland, Ore.; $156 million 2003 net income), will post an audio Web log from the frozen territory between Anchorage and Nome, Alaska, dedicated to the efforts of sled racer Rachel Scdoris, whom Standard is sponsoring. The reason for the audio feed is that many of Rachel's fans, who will follow her progress in a 1,000-plus mile race beginning March 5, are, like Rachel, legally blind.

Standard's IT team managed the technical aspects of the www.gorachelgo.com project, coordinating with the insurer's marketing department, Portland-based Overland Agency, which designed the site, and Opus Interactive, the ISP chosen to host it. Once the site is live, the IT group will remain hands-off, consistent with an internal goal of allowing business users of Web sites responsibility for updating content, notes David Bostock, the carrier's applications infrastructure manager. "That is consistent with the direction we want things to go here," he explains.

Bostock says the project provided Standard with a chance to examine new technologies. "We're an Oracle and Unix WebSphere shop, and this is all done in Flash on a Microsoft platform, so it's an exciting opportunity to look at that technology," he relates.

Anthony O'Donnell has covered technology in the insurance industry since 2000, when he joined the editorial staff of Insurance & Technology. As an editor and reporter for I&T and the InformationWeek Financial Services of TechWeb he has written on all areas of information ... View Full Bio