The Bully and The Business
It's a short hop from the Internet to insanity.
OK so the Internet isn't really that insane, is it? Information overload. Your brain is screaming from it. And according to a recent study from the University of California at Berkley*, you are not alone.
If you're drawing in breath today, hold steady, and plan on a long night. You've got 36,650 words to read before you hit the sack. 146 books a year. A 223 page book every 2.5 days. Television, radio, print media, and the Internet are locked in a grim tug of war for your attention, and your money. Own a business? Drag out the double mocha, you're in for an all nighter. You've got twice that to do.
Actually, if you are a small business, a member of the gang that makes up 80% of the global economy, you grapple with the unruly child that is the Internet all day, every day. If you risk sleep your competition sneaks into your school and bullies your customers for their lunch money. They leave you dazed in a dirty corner of the play yard wondering what ever happened to location, location, location.
Knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. It's the new word. It's the new adage soon to be the old stand by. Get in front of your customers, teach and be taught. In 1999 the global market hiccupped. Now, almost six years later, as the globaleconomy grinds back into gear, the interface between business and the Internet becomes crucial. Victor Hugo once said "there is nothing so powerful as an idea whose time has come." In this new information age, cooperation between click (the Internet) and brick (the traditional business) is an idea whose time has come.
Like it or not, the landscape has changed. Knowledge is cleaning up the play ground and leading both sides to the negotiation table. And it's has business people starting to talk seriously about the future of the global market place. Knowledge has business looking hard at the prevalent question: "So I own a business, now what?"
Have you surfed the web recently? Does anything strike you? It's a one-on-one interdependent relationship. The Internet has turned the world into a community. Oh sure, it's a world of content, and millions of people are braving the vast pages of cyberspace; but they are, on average, doing it alone. The web today is about finding the right moment to share a laugh, the right moment offer support, the right moment to talk, the right moment to buy one-on-one.
It's a face-to-face, personal, intimate business. If you own a business that has its marketing tools in place, they are your business face (which translates into you). It doesn't matter what you're selling - ideas, advice, a better way to do this, to do that or the latest greatest "got to have it" widget - it's you that they are coming to see.
People can smell the bully coming almost the instant they log on. If the average human walking the earth today is absorbing the equivalent of 36,650 words a day, as a business you've got twenty seconds to get it right. One branded identity with one fully focused customer, for 20 seconds. And the statistics are, if they like you they've got to come back six more times before they become believers. If there is one compliment that can be given to this beast called information overload it's "thanks for teaching us to discern." We're smarter consumers and businesses now and we are asking the web to communicate consistently and honestly.
There are people who sit in dark rooms and count things like this. And they are saying we can expect a 30% to 50% increase in Internet usage over the next few years. A ray of sunshine? Sure it is - more business, more customers, more people seeking what you have to say. Get a web page, get a voice. Make it distinct, clear, and powerful. More influence, with a good web presence, on the global playground. Got something to say? If you build it right, they will come - on their cell phones, their PDA's, their Blackberry's, their PC's, and all manner of web-enabled devices.
More than 20 million people bought something in the short time it took to add to your information overload. Who's wasting time? Maybe that's the question everyone (every business?) should be asking.
Shhhh, the competition is sleeping three thousand miles away, hurry - it's an awfully big playground now.
* "How Much Information 2003?" Senior Researchers: Peter Lyman and Hal R. Varian
by Brian Bowser and Ash Harris of www.ShakeYourBusiness.com
About the Author:"How Much Information 2003?" Senior Researchers: Peter Lyman and Hal R. Varian
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