Balad Air Base now part of Air Force Public Web Published July 28, 2006 By Leslie Brown Air Force Print News SAN ANTONIO (AFPN) -- Airmen in Iraq supporting the 332nd Air Expeditionary Wing at Balad Air Base can expect to see a new look on their public Web site. The Air Force plan to consolidate and standardize the appearance of its sites has reached deployed bases as part of the Air Force Public Web program. The Secretary of the Air Force Office of Public Affairs initiative centralizes Web content and establishes a global network for all of the service's public sites, including those originating at major commands, wings and specialty organizations like the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. The 332nd AEW's migration to AFPW was accelerated when stateside Airmen who were already trained on the new Air Force Public Information Management System, or AFPIMS, deployed to the region. They immediately realized how much easier their jobs would be if they had the Web-based content management system in place at Balad Air Base. "The system we had before AFPIMS involved building individual Web pages for each story we posted, making two versions of each photo (a high and low resolution image), and, for stories with multiple photos, we had to build individual pages for each photo," said Senior Airman James Croxon, who is deployed to the 332nd AEW Public Affairs office. Airman Croxon, who used the system back at Grand Forks Air Force Base, N.D., knew that posting content to the Web would be less cumbersome if AFPIMS were in place at his deployed location. "It has made it easier and faster to post our stories to the Web," Airman Croxon said. "The Web site links Airmen assigned to more than 50 different locations throughout Iraq together. Now, Airmen at our forward operating bases can post their own stories and photos, further increasing the system's efficiency." "Our Web site is the backbone and foundation of everything we do," said Lt. Col. Bob Thompson, 332nd AEW Public Affairs chief. "Our troops send their family and friends to the site. When someone finds out (he or she is) coming here and starts asking questions about the base, the first thing I do is send (him or her) to our Web site." Stressing the importance of migration to AFPW, Colonel Thompson said, "This is the first time in a combat zone that the new Web system has been used. Connectivity in a deployed environment is always a challenge. "Trying to e-mail photos back in the States is a nightmare because they often get stripped off because of bandwidth limitations," he said. Now, Colonel Thompson and his staff need only to send a link to the site, thus saving valuable bandwidth. Besides ease of use and saving bandwidth, there are many other benefits to the system. The AFPIMS allows Air Force Public Web to run as one entity and has the ability to evaluate page visits with a uniform Web-measuring tool so organizations can track "hits" -- the number of times a specific Web page is visited -- to determine what information is in the highest demand. "AFPW also has standardized public Web site appearance across the Air Force by giving content providers one Web publishing tool, AFPIMS, for all to use. Having a standardized Web page format allows visitors to easily find what they are looking for, no matter which Air Force site they visit," said Mr. Les Benito, chief of the AFPW Division at headquarters Air Force News Agency. The AFPIMS program also eliminates the requirement for Web-developing expertise. This gives content providers more time to focus on the content, and security and policy review of information they post to the Web. "AFPW streamlines Web content flow from base to major command to Headquarters Air Force. It has improved security and performance while decreasing infrastructure, manpower and operating costs," said Mr. Benito. AFPW currently hosts 72 of the more than 250 active public Web sites that exist today. According to a 2006 cost analysis, the Air Force expects to save about $34 million annually in system administration costs alone once the system is fully implemented. "AFPIMS has connected us to the rest of the Air Force," Colonel Thompson said. "Flowing the information over the Web has been like turning on a water faucet. We've gone from drought to an oasis of information."