On Words and Business

As a trained librarian, I find it frustrating that the internet is still such a morass of information. Search engines try to make it easier, but their focus and methodologies leave a lot to be desired.

I understand the user-generated part of the equation, but there are times I just wish everything was categorized (by its owners, of course, because who else would have time to review every page?). From a list of subjects. Like library books. That system isn’t perfect either, but it’s better than what we’ve got.

There is so much good information out there, on the free side of the internet house, that it’s a shame we can’t find it when we need it.

Chylinski’s first law of website operability.

A website in working order will remain in working order unless acted upon by a web host technician.

“Nobody know you’re a dog on the Web–or a mechanic, athlete, hacker, marketing whiz, zealot, or SQL programmer. That is, unless you tell them.”

So begins an article in the June 4th issue of InformationWeek on credibility and authenticity on the web.

How do customers authenticate companies, employees, etc., when the only experience they’ve had with them is on the web? We often rely on others’ testimonials and reviews. Of course, these can be faked. This is true of any medium, really, so is the web any different? The article goes on to discuss web identity systems and programs for validation, but for many companies, especially smaller ones, this kind of investment doesn’t really make sense.

The lesson is: be as open and up front as you can be. Be honest and transparent in all your dealings, on- or off-line.  Most of your online communication with customers is through the written word. What you say, and how you say it, matters.

The article concludes: “Which goes to show that Web cred–a measure of authority and influence–is also a delicate thing. It’s tricky to define, hard to earn, and easy to lose”

As the web gets bigger, it gets more complicated and it gets easier to get lost. Estimates state that there are anywhere from 11.5 billion to over 29 billion web pages; and I’m sure you can find even higher estimates. No matter what number you believe, the web is likely at least 2 web pages per person on the planet. And the web isn’t indexed the way your local library’s catalogue is. So it’s very easy for content to get lost.

Search engines build their businesses on making the web accessible. Yet each of them has serious limitations. Websites struggle to rank high on search engines, sometimes employing questionable tactics. As a trained librarian, I wish the web had a standardized index, standard subject categories. It works for books, why not the web? Sites like Facebook, MySpace (name your social networking site) exist for just this purpose–to reign in the content and make it accessible. None of this has to take away from the independent, run by no one nature of the web.

Now if we could just find a way to make this easy. Maybe we could all find the websites we want, and our own sites would be more easily found.

Things go wrong. Technology doesn’t work like it should. And customers don’t always know what they’re doing, even if you think they should. So just make sure your customers know how to get in touch with you. Make it glaringly obvious. In all your encounters.

A CONTACT link on every page. A phone number or email address on the bottom of each page. A HELP link. Something.

I just spent twenty-five minutes on WebEx, ostensibly in a meeting. Yet I actually spent about twenty of those minutes clicking every button, and scrolling through the lengthy help file, to try to find help. I went back to the original email with the link, but there was no hint about how to contact the event hosts. I couldn’t see the presentation slides. WebEx is pretty easy to use–click the link, join the conference. But maybe I did something wrong. Or, perhaps something was wrong with WebEx. Or with the space-time continuum. Who knows. I don’t. There was no way to get in touch with the hosts of the call. So after twenty minutes of trying to fix the broken technology and hearing little of the audio portion, I just hung up and logged off the event.

The post event survey asked for my feedback. Too late, though.