Rivermark was the project code name for what later became one of the most profiled and exciting programs Whirlpool Corporation did in the last 10 years. In the initial 3 person team, I was responsible for scoping and developing business opportunities in an emerging space: the networked community. This happend in 2nd half 1999.

They were building a community of houses in the San Jose technology corridor, and wanted to explore up-market features like connectivity. From that idea, we developed a significant number of potential business opportunities. These were evaluated with the help of Andersen Consulting (pre-Enron!).

My task was to evaluate service opportunities. Anything that was not tied to the sale of a hard good was a service opportunity. So I went broad: software, general services and consulting were the three areas that were interesting. We envision a community portal (much like today's wikis) called "Family and Friends". We saw the interest in online cooking help and general housemanagement topics. We also saw the opportunity for B2B services: a consulting arm that would help the builder understand and profitable position/market these new products. I presented these ideas to a significant portion of the US leadership, including the executive committee in their annually retreat in Dunrovin.

In the end, I drove the development of more than 2 dozen business cases for services.

In December 1999, we presented our findings to the board, where we got approval to move ahead as a separate business unit called "Integrated HomeSolutions", a name that I came up with.