7.1.

WHO

Alaska Native Heritage Center staff

Rex Poe III (Project Manager)

Margaret Nelson, Vice-President of Operations/Chief Operating Officer
Steve Halloran, Director of Marketing
Dena Sommer, Assistant Marketing Director
Pat Petrivelli, Cultural Programs Officer

Other Team Members

Scott Gere, Impact Web Design

Sandy Wise, AT&T Alascom

Resumes for all of the individuals named above are attached.

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 1 10/15/2008

7.2. WHY

ANHC will enhance the economy of rural Alaska by electronically promoting both arts
from rural Native communities and travel to rural Native communities. Users will access
information on the Center’s web site and through touch-screen kiosks at the Heritage
Center’s Welcome House. These two modes of access are referred to collectively as the
CultureNet for purposes of this proposal.

The CultureNet will serve an educational function as well as a marketing function. These
two functions will be closely integrated, but also clearly identified. The goal is for all
users to be aware that the opportunity to purchase rural products is available as part of the
CultureNet, but not to mix extensive advertising in the more educationally focused pages.

Integrating these two functions will allow ANHC to link the site more extensively, both
with other cultural sites and with other sites marketing artwork or travel opportunities.
This will increase the audience for both the marketing and educational functions,
improving revenues to rural Alaska and the general public’s access to accurate
information about Native cultures more dramatically than either function would do as a
stand alone project.

Educational materials will include, but are not limited to: information about Alaska
Native visual and performance artists – their tools, techniques and the traditions they
draw on; Traditional Environmental Knowledge (TEK) about the plants, animals and
weather patterns of Alaska; information about significant historical events for Alaska
Natives generally or with regard to specific cultures or communities. The Anchorage
School District’s Indian Education Program and the Alaska Humanities Forum have both
expressed an interest in helping ANHC to integrate these materials as a part of the K-12
curriculum and will be approached about potential classroom uses for the CultureNet
during the summer of 1999.

The use of web sites and kiosks as an educational tool is well established. The following
sections focus specifically on why this method of sales will be helpful as a marketing
tool.

Arts

The Producer:
"It costs $2 for a gallon of heating fuel here, $2.50 for gas... People here can't imagine
what it's like to have a secure job. Carving represents food and heat. Yet we have no
bargaining power with the buyers. We have to take what they offer. We're so entrapped
by poverty that our way of thinking is buried by need." Paul Apangalook, Gambell ivory
carver.

Gambell, Alaska is a community of St. Lawrence Island Yupik Eskimos found in the
middle of the Bering Sea. Gambell has an unemployment rate which hovers around 80

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percent. However, of the 650 residents, approximately 150 derive some income from the
sale of artwork, every family has at least one artist and every household is directly
impacted by this income.1

The people of Gambell have traditionally decorated all of their tools and made carvings
of the animals they depend upon for their diet, so the prevalence of art in this area is not
new. Nor is the general mode of production, people carve using walrus ivory, they sew
with seal fur or make etchings in whale baleen.

What is different today is that the pieces are made primarily for use by others, and they
are made in order to pay the bills. Gambell has several famous artists, working with both
traditional and contemporary themes and the community derives substantial income from
their work, but people still feel that they are poorly informed about the markets they are
trying to reach and exploited by the buyers who can afford to travel between their world
and the world where the products are sold.

Art has been an attractive option for many rural Alaska Natives not only because it
meshes well with their traditional lifestyle and values, but because it meshes well with
the rural economy of the past few decades. The jobs that do exist in rural areas tend to be
either seasonal, part-time, or both, such as commercial fishing or signing on to fire-
fighting crews. A household can supplement these forms of income through various
forms of transfer payments from the state and federal government, through the sale of
artwork, or some combination thereof. With transfer payments becoming less available,
art will be one of the few ways for people to increase their income without having to
leave their communities behind.

The primary challenge limiting the number of Native artists who can rely on their talents
for substantial income is geographic. Rural Native artisans generally have two options
for getting their products to their largest market: Alaska’s out-of-state visitors. They can
sell to one of the buyers who travels to villages specifically for that purpose, typically
paying the artists less than half of what the product will sell for in town, or they can come
to town themselves. By selling directly at festivals, markets, or in office buildings, they
will get a better gross price for their work, but this profit is offset by the cost of the plane
ticket and expenses for room and board in the city. This amount can total anywhere from
$200 to $1,000, depending where the artist is from and whether they have friends or
relatives to put them up.

In a 1994 survey of 72 "key informant" artists from 9 different rural communities, the
Alaska State Council on the Arts (ASCA) found that 58.3 percent attributed less than half
of their cash income to selling arts or crafts. Only 13.9 percent made all of their income
in this way. At the time, art was a symbiotic part of a communal exchange which also
relied on subsistence, seasonal wages, and transfer payments to support the community as
a whole, and many artists did not perceive their limited arts income as a problem. Now,
with the impact of welfare reform, there is a growing awareness throughout rural Alaska

1
From Anchorage Daily News 9/21/97. See Appendix C for full article.

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 3 10/15/2008

that it is necessary to increase both demand and supply for quality Alaska Native arts,
but, once again, it is geography that makes it difficult to confront this challenge.

The (potential) Consumer:

Alaska’s visitors have far less exposure to authentic Native arts than to a range of
products made out of state, including tee-shirts, baseball caps, and imitations of Native
arts and crafts such as ulus from Canada or plastic totem poles from Taiwan. The stores
tourists frequent have a very limited supply of Native art because retailers perceive it as
too expensive, difficult to transport, and not intrinsically appealing.

With the current growing interest both in Alaska and in Native American products
generally, there is a vast potential market consisting of people who may never come to
Alaska, or who will visit only once, but would still purchase Alaska Native arts if it were
convenient to do so. Efforts to reach this market through mail out catalog sales have
generally been short lived due to the expense of production and difficulty reaching the
appropriate markets.

Solutions:
The Heritage Center visitor experience will expose over 10% of Alaska’s annual visitors
to more information about Alaska Native art products as well as providing them with an
opportunity to meet artists and watch them work. This creates a human-interest angle
which makes the finished product a part of the consumer’s known world in a way that it
wasn’t before – intrinsic appeal is greatly increased when a personal story can be attached
to the artwork.

The information provided on the CultureNet will replicate this effect. The images and
text will give a feel for how the products are made and the lifestyle of the artists
themselves. In future years, video clips and sound bites may be added to enhance this
effect.

The presence of the kiosks in the Heritage Center will impact visitors who do not use
them as well as those who do, by making them aware that the Heritage Center provides
for web based research and purchasing, encouraging a visit to the web site at a later date.

This method of sale makes it easy for consumers to decide what they want after
returning home from Alaska, when the “should’ves” kick in or when Aunt Bertha &
Uncle Harry’s anniversary is coming up. It also makes it easy for past visitors to suggest
the Heritage Center web site to friends & relatives back home as a good place to find
something for the person who has everything.

CultureNet will make it easy for individual Native artists from any rural community to
participate, whereas buyers typically only visit communities which have several high
quality artists who can help make the cost of their trip worthwhile.

Costs for this method of promotion are relatively low, meaning that the artisan can keep a
larger percent of the profit. Each artist will be able to advertise only the amount of

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 4 10/15/2008

product that they either have on hand or are willing to make within a set time period and
the computer will change the number for remaining supply with each recorded purchase.

Rural Tourism

The Producer: Often, the local people involved in village tourism presentations or
tourism management are not very familiar with their potential market. Villagers are
nervous about how tourists will behave both in dealing with tour guides, dance groups
and other “paid performers” and in dealing with the rest of the community. This
nervousness can prevent communities from offering a product at all, and can hinder the
impression of “friendly welcome” by those who do invite guests.

The (potential) Consumer: Marketing of rural tourism has been overly focused on
advertising these types of trips within the state. Potential customers need to be excited
about going to rural Alaska before they arrive in Alaska, so that they will schedule
enough time and money to include it. As with arts, marketing has tended to assume a
pre-existing interest, but many potential consumers do not understand why the product is
worth seemingly high prices. Visitors to Alaska worry that a village visit will be either
“too phony” with everything choreographed or “too authentic” lacking in comfort or
interest compared with other tourism experiences. Many villagers do not recognize a
need to explain that visiting will involve a small plane which may or may not take off at
the scheduled time, that it may involve bumpy rides on 4-wheelers, eating local food, and
staying in a place with no plumbing. Since the consumer does not know to ask these
questions, facts which might be viewed in a positive or a negative light when they are
anticipated become “unpleasant surprises”. The difficulty of arranging a village visit may
put off some potential customers before they even get there.

Solutions: It is necessary to provide more in-depth education about what the villages are
and what to expect there in order to inspire both interest in this “exciting adventure” and
confidence that visitors will be comfortable there.

The Heritage Center’s virtual presence, like the facility itself, will emphasize the idea that
although ANHC is an exciting destination and the only place to meet Alaska Natives from
all culture groups at once, it is just the tip of the iceberg. To truly appreciate the richness
of Native cultures, visitors must spend some time in a Native community. The
CultureNet will provide “Things to Know Before You Go” including both practical
concerns and advice about respectful behavior.

Impact

Promoting Rural Tourism:  Even if only one percent of all nonresident visitors to the 
Heritage Center will respond to this information by deciding to visit to a Native 
community, it will help to support and sustain the estimated 250 tourism related jobs 
which currently exist in rural Alaska.  The kiosk will also create sufficient demand for the 
creation of 30 or more additional rural job opportunities.

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 5 10/15/2008

These numbers are based on mid­range nonresident visitation projections, and the 
conservative estimate of one percent choosing to make a rural tourism purchase.  These 
numbers would indicate approximately 1,250 extra visitors to rural tourism programs in 
1999,  growing to 1,500 by 2004.  Typically, 65 percent of visitors to rural Alaska opt for 
low end tours with an average cost of $200 while 35 percent opt for low­end tours, with 
an average cost of $200, or high­end tours with an average cost of $400.  If CultureNet 
users respond similarly, this provides for an estimated $351,000 in additional revenues to 
rural tourism in 1999, rising to $405,000 by 2004.

Furthermore, according to the Alaska Visitor Statistics Program, the number of repeat 
visitors to Alaska is growing rapidly, and the Rural Travel Information Kiosk will have an 
even greater impact in this category, as people will be able to plan their visits to rural 
areas more conveniently in advance.

Arts and Craft Sales:  Alaska Native arts and crafts items sold through CultureNet will 
start at $20 plus shipping and handling in order to make the cost of shipping and handling 
a worthwhile margin for the consumer.  They will range up to approximately $3,000 for 
fur parkas but it is expected that there will be greater demand for items in the $20 to $50 
range.  

The appeal to make a purchase through CultureNet will be strongest for three groups of 
users:  those who are physically at the Heritage Center and would like to send a unique 
gift to friends or relatives without needing to fit it in their luggage home, persons from all 
over the world who are captivated by the Alaska mystique (or know someone who is) but 
do not anticipate visiting the state to browse such items in person, and past visitors to 
Alaska who have a fairly clear idea what they are looking for and just need a convenient 
way to get it.

Arts and crafts sales through CultureNet will begin in May of 2000, and will start 
modestly by featuring 12 to 15 artists.  It is expected that the arts and crafts area of 
CultureNet will be visited by at least 10,000 individuals from these 3 categories and at 
least 50% of visitors will make a purchase, with an average purchase value of $50.  This 
creates total revenues of $250,000.  Assuming a 50/50 profit split between ANHC and the 
artists, $125,000 would be shared among approximately one dozen artists, creating a 
substantial increase in arts related income for all participants.

In future years, there will be a sharp increase in the number of users visiting CultureNet 
overall, a steady increase in the percent who are willing to consider purchasing art over 

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 6 10/15/2008

the internet, and a steady increase in the number of artists featured in this area of the site, 
increasingly the likelihood of a good fit between product type and consumer interests.  By 
2004, growth in this area and in general social acceptance of internet sales will allow 
revenues to increase dramatically, to $750,000 or more.  Revenues of $375,000 to artists 
will support approximately 27 full time equivalent jobs at typical wages for rural Alaska.

Education:  CultureNet has enormous potential to play an active role in both youth and 
adult education.  During the winter months, when the focus of the Heritage Center’s 
physical facility changes from attracting tourism revenue to providing cultural and 
educational programs, the focus of CultureNet will reflect a similar change.  While sales 
of arts and crafts and promotion of tourism will still be available, more staff time will be 
dedicated to using CultureNet for educational purposes.

During the 1999 – 2000 school year, ANHC will provide field trips to at least 10 K­12 
school groups from the Anchorage area, at least 3 from elsewhere in Alaska, and at least 3 
from elsewhere in the country.  School groups will be provided with written materials 
offering several options for follow­up classroom activities, and many of these options will 
involve using the internet to provide students with images, video clips and other 
interactive materials that make Alaska Native culture come alive.  

In future years, when these lesson plans have been evaluated and expanded, they will also 
be distributed to schools that have not visited the Heritage Center, providing material that 
will help schools throughout the country fulfill their “Native American Studies” 
requirement with lesson plans that focus on the living cultures of contemporary people as 
well as history and traditions.

In the area of adult education, CultureNet can provide materials appropriate for college 
and graduate level courses or independent research projects focused on Alaska Native 
cultures.  It can also be used to provide various kinds of technical information useful to 
Alaska Natives.  ANHC staff have met with Doug North, President of Alaska Pacific 
University, to discuss providing distance education programs as part of a collaboration 
between the two institutions.  These programs would focus on the business end of rural 
arts and tourism endeavors, drawing on both APU and ANHC staff for the necessary 
expertise and the description of case studies.

In all of these areas, the addition of networked video teleconferencing capabilities will 
make it possible for CultureNet to take the face to face interaction between Alaska 
Natives and other peoples which is the Heritage Center’s unique institutional strength as a 
physical facility and extend it into the world of long­distance communications as well.

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 7 10/15/2008

See “Wired Eskimos” in Appendix D for examples of educational uses of the Internet in 
rural Alaska which serve as positive role models for programs that ANHC will implement 
in the future.

Other Benefits:  CultureNet will be an important component of the Heritage Center’s 
overall marketing, public relations and development strategies.  CultureNet will make 
ANHC more accessible to teachers, researchers, journalists, travel agencies, gift shops, 
foundation and corporate donors, rural Alaska Natives, and members of the general 
public worldwide.  It will help enhance the economic viability of the Center while also 
fulfilling the Center’s mission to perpetuate, celebrate and share Alaska Native cultures in 
its own right.

Current visitation projections call for ANHC to attract 125,000 visitors during the 
summer visitor season in 1999, growing to 160,000 by 2001.  This will fuel a growth in 
the sum of admissions and gift shop revenue from $2,347,400 to $3,186,999.  These 
projections factored in CultureNet as a part of ANHC’s growth, and while the impact of 
CultureNet cannot be identified separately from other factors that will enhance ANHC’s 
reputation, it is a crucial part of the plan to achieve this increase.

As such, it will support the many direct benefits provided by the Heritage Center’s 
physical facility, which include the following:

• ANHC will provide informal educational experiences to upwards of 125,000 visitors each
year.
• ANHC will create over 100 jobs, at least 80 of which will be held by Alaska Natives.
• Revenues to Native artists from gift shop sales will total $275,000 in 1999, $506,880 by
2005.
• ANHC educational programs will be available to over 77,000 Anchorage youth, both K-
12 and college level.
• Quality in Alaska Native Arts (QIANA) program funding will provide seed money and
technical assistance workshops to 20 Native artists per year.
• Staff training programs will provide transferable job skills for over 30 unemployed or
underemployed Alaska Natives per year.

In addition to these quantifiable benefits, ANHC will have numerous indirect benefits for the
community of Anchorage and for Alaska as a whole. These include the economic impact of
providing an attraction which will encourage visitors to stay an extra day in Anchorage, the
social impact of promoting cross-cultural understanding, particularly amongst our youth, and
the diverse benefits of helping the rest of the world understand that Alaska is special not only
for our majestic landscapes, but also for the many proud peoples who live in those
landscapes.

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 8 10/15/2008

7.3. WHERE

Phase I: 2/99 – 5/99

Design and content work will take place at ANHC’s current offices on the 3rd Floor of the
CIRI Building in Midtown Anchorage, and at Impact Design’s offices, also in Midtown.

Actual installation of the touch screen kiosks and all of the network components which
will make them effective will take place at the Heritage Center construction site located
in Northeast Anchorage near the intersection of the Glenn Highway and Muldoon Road.

Phase II: 5/99 – 10/99

Phase II consists of observing and evaluating how users interact with the content
provided on the CultureNet thus far. These activities will be based from the new Alaska
Native Heritage Center Welcome House during the summer visitor season of May
through September.

In October, an Alaskan consulting firm will be hired to help with the visitor conversion
study (see the Evaluation section on p. 6 for more information) and it is likely that this
study will be conducted from their offices.

Phase III: 10/99 – 5/00

At this point, ANHC will have enough information about what type of people visit both
the physical Heritage Center and the ANHC web site to begin promoting the Electronic
Cooperative to a more extensive client base. Promotions will take place at the Alaska
Federation of Natives convention in October and through extensive mailings to rural
artisans and travel-related businesses.

The other work indicated during Phase III will be done by ANHC staff at the Heritage
Center’s Welcome House. If it is determined that ANHC needs to purchase a network
server for the web site, a consulting firm will be hired to help with this process.

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 9 10/15/2008

7.4. WHAT

This proposal falls under the Internet Connectivity Projects for Alaska Science Centers
initiative. ANHC intends to use a phased approach in order to find the best way of
applying communications technologies so that the system will be uniquely suited to the
needs of rural Alaska.

Establishing the CultureNet

Although web sites exist which encourage both the arts and travel markets for rural
Alaska, they are typically affiliated with a specific community or region and do not catch
the average consumer’s interest. Interest in Alaska Native products tends to be, at least in
the initial stages, a broad general interest. Many of these sites can only be found by
searching on words the average American has never even heard, let alone typed.

The Alaska Native Heritage Center is ideally suited to this general interest, and in fact
will serve as a place to encourage new or deepened interest in Alaska Native culture in
both its physical and virtual forms. The Heritage Center’s Grand Opening in May of
1999 is currently budgeted at $100,000 and the Anchorage Convention and Visitor’s
Bureau has agreed to provide $75,000 worth of marketing assistance to ensure
nationwide coverage for the event. In other words, the Heritage Center will be a hot issue
prior to and during the summer of 1999, attracting a high frequency of web visitors.
From the first month of operations, the web site and kiosks will make it possible for the
Heritage Center to share the benefits of this notoriety with rural Alaska.

After the initial interest has worn off, it will still be possible for the Heritage Center to
attract visitors through strategic placement of links, bringing visitors to the site out of a
general interest in indigenous cultures or a general interest in Alaska. The Heritage
Center will also seek links which will attract browsers who are looking for a unique gift
and may not have considered either of these areas of interest before.

During the 1999 summer season, ANHC will be introducing both the marketing and
education functions of CultureNet in a limited fashion, working largely with materials
that are already developed.

On the marketing side, these materials will be developed with the assistance of the Alaska
Tourism Marketing Council and the Alaska Native Tourism Council, using text and
images that these two agencies have already developed. Any changes to this material will
be implemented in consultation with the tour operators represented.

On the educational side, ANHC will provide access to a variety of background

information that was gathered as part of the development process for the Heritage Center.
Five Cultural Advisory Committees consisting of 9 or more Alaska Natives from the
region to be represented provided the advisory oversight for this process. The material
includes over 100 interviews of Tradition Bearers throughout rural Alaska about

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 10 10/15/2008

traditional construction techniques and about the themes represented in the Cultural
Galleries, which were independently chosen by each Cultural Advisory Committee (these
themes are provided in Appendix B). In addition, ANHC has inherited a database of over
500 Alaska Native artisans from the now defunct Institute of Alaska Native Arts (IANA),
including information about each artisan’s skills, willingness to lecture or demonstrate,
and over 1,000 slides of representative work. The CultureNet will be used as a way to
share certain information from this database with other cultural centers throughout the
state and with the general public.

The touch screen kiosk will be equipped with a keyboard in order to collect contact
information for those users who would like to be added to ANHC’s mailing list or who
are willing to be surveyed about their Heritage Center experience in the future. It will
also be equipped with a printer so that users can have a hard copy of information about
specific rural travel experiences to take home with them and consider further.

In addition, there will be an information desk near the kiosk with two staff members
trained in answering questions about rural travel experiences in order to provide quality
information to all Heritage Center visitors regardless of their level of comfort with
technology.

Evaluation

Between the 1999 and 2000 summer seasons, ANHC will evaluate the kiosk and web site
based on user feedback from on-line surveys and surveys taken on-site at the Heritage
Center. In addition, ANHC will ask all users of the kiosk or web site who download or
print information to provide their full name and home phone number so that they can
potentially be surveyed later. This will allow ANHC to hire a consulting firm to conduct
what is known as a Visitor Conversion Study. A random sample of network users will be
called to determine what percent of users did in fact visit rural Alaska. This number will
be important as a way to give the evaluation process a quantitative measure as well as
qualitative statements (i.e., if people love visiting the web site, but don’t buy anything, it
needs to be changed…). This number will also play an important role in attracting new
clients to add to the network during 2000, and in determining an appropriate fee for
placement on the network.

By 2000, the Heritage Center will have added a larger number of clients to the travel
function of the network, and will include new or revised content on many existing clients.
In addition, the network will serve to educate people about Alaska Native arts and crafts,
and will market arts and crafts products made by a limited number of producers.

The particular systems that will be used to permit network-based sales in 2000 will be
determined through client outreach efforts and an assessment of available technology and
market conditions as of January 2000. In particular, ANHC will assess trends in the
average level of technology literacy amongst Alaska’s visitors. It is expected that full-
scale e-commerce will become a more viable option as the average visitor age grows

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 11 10/15/2008

younger, while the technology involved becomes cheaper and easier to operate on both
the retailer and consumer side.

In addition, ANHC will have to research the level of readiness to participate in internet
based sales that exists in Alaska Native villages. Currently, there is great variation
between one village and another in terms of their access to the internet and training in its
use. One option under consideration would involve using high school students as the
coordinators for art sales, as all village schools have internet capability. Other options
will be discussed with potential clients between 1999 and 2000 as part of the CultureNet
evaluation and survey research.

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 12 10/15/2008

7.5. HOW

Phase I: 2/99 – 5/99 – Technical Benchmark

• Installation Complete: Touch-screen kiosks and all related network equipment are
installed and fully functional at the new ANHC Welcome House.
• Rural Travel Content Complete: Content has been acquired from the Alaska Tourism
Marketing Council (ATMC) and the Alaska Native Tourism Council (ANTC), any
modifications or additions by ANHC staff are complete.
• Staff Training Complete: Not more than 4 staff members will have the ability to
change content on the web site and kiosk. This item is complete when all 4 staff have
been identified by ANHC and trained by Impact Design.

Phase II: 5/99 – 10/99

• In-house Evaluation Complete: Random visitor surveys used to obtain an overall

evaluation of the Heritage Center will include quantitative information about
awareness of the kiosks and positive or negative response to them by users. Surveys
of staff will include qualitative information about observed visitor response to the
kiosks.
• Visitor Conversion Study Complete: An outside evaluation firm will be hired to call
randomly selected user phone numbers from those gathered by the CultureNet to
determine what percent of CultureNet users visit rural Alaska. This information will
be used for marketing purposes during Phase III.

Phase III: 10/99 – 5/00 – Commercialization/End-user Benchmark

• Client Outreach Complete: Client outreach efforts will be based on materials

distributed from a table at the 1999 Alaska Federation of Natives convention and on
mail-out surveys which will be sent to artists registered on the Silver Hand list and to
rural travel businesses as recommended by ATMC and ANTC. The goal is to obtain
responses from at least 50% of clients who participated in CultureNet’s travel
marketing during 1999, as well as at least 10 travel related businesses not previously
included and at least 40 Native artists who would consider marketing through
CultureNet. Based on these responses and other relevant information, ANHC will
arrive at fixed annual fees for both travel related and arts related clients.
• Business Plan Complete: Results of client outreach, audience evaluation efforts, and a
study of other relevant market factors will determine the feasibility of entering into
full-scale e-commerce or some other combination of web-based sales and traditional
sales techniques as well as an approximate prediction of income and expenses.
• New Content Developed: ANHC will add both travel and arts content to the existing
marketing/merchandising function, as well as a variety of educational materials
developed or approved by the Cultural Advisory Committees. The number of travel
related clients participating in CultureNet will increase by 150%, a minimum of 12
Alaska Native artists will agree to market their works through CultureNet on a trial

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 13 10/15/2008

 basis, paying a minimal fee to participate from May through September of 2000, and
the amount of educational content provided will increase by 200%.
• New Technology Implemented: Hardware and software purchased as necessary to
implement new CultureNet-based sales techniques. Databases constructed and
linked. System field-tested by sample clients.

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 14 10/15/2008

7.6. WHEN

Phase I: 2/99 – 5/99 / Benchmarks

• Installation Complete: 3/1/99

• Rural Travel Content Complete: 3/31/99
• Staff Training Complete: 4/30/99

Phase II: 6/99 – 10/99 / Benchmarks

• In-house Evaluation Complete: 10/15/99

• Visitor Conversion Study Complete: 10/31/99

Phase III: 11/99 – 5/00 / Benchmarks

• Client Outreach Complete: 11/30/99

• Business Plan Complete: 1/31/00
• New Content Developed: 3/31/00
• New Technology Implemented: 5/1/00

Alaska Native Heritage Center Page 15 10/15/2008