“Why should I sign up for the Internet?” asked an elderly gentleman on the other side of the telephone line as I sat in the office of an Internet service provider.
It was 1996 and I was working in technical support during a semester off from college.
The man went on about how he heard about this new concept called the Internet and he didn’t know why it would help him.
As he droned, he spoke of numismatics and his design of a coin many years earlier. I typed his name into a search engine and saw everything he was telling me online.
I read back to him the data I was staring at, for which he was shocked &mdash and he signed up.
The man realized that if the year-old Internet (or more specifically, the World Wide Web) could contain information on him that he never put there, that maybe it would contain other information to better his life.
Time Magazine recently featured an online slideshow of 25 websites we can’t live without, such as books and more retailer Amazon.com, auctioneer eBay, the Internet Movie Database, bookmarker Del.icio.us, and medical WebMD.
All of these sites are valuable for different reasons.
The Internet Movie Database, for instance, is the single destination for movie reviews; this is my IMDb profile where you can see recent comments on films I’ve seen.
I have a Facebook account for interacting with friends, a LinkedIn account for networking with past colleagues, and my Flickr account for uploading selected photos. The list goes on.
Yet, how many businesses are embracing the Web?
How many downtown merchants don’t have a website? I can count on many hands the number of establishments who don’t.
Restaurants could provide an online menu, retailers could have online-only coupons, and service industries can include general information.
How many companies prohibit Web surfing? I’ve worked at firms where the IT infrastructure is set up to restrict visiting external websites in the name of increasing worker productivity.
In reality, by not allowing employees to take advantage of online media, the company suffers and productivity goes down.
Leslie Poston writes in her blog:
Stuck in a rut based in misunderstanding, [companies] cut employees off from the online world, a decision which leaves them trailing behind their more innovative competition.
In the 12 years since I worked at that ISP, I’ve continually argued that companies who do not embrace new technology such as corporate websites, e-mail accounts, and announcing job vacancies on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Craigslist, would be forced out of business by their technology-hungry competition.
Leslie suggests one reason is fear of having sensitive data compromised, a fear that employees might do things online that reflect badly on the company, a fear that sensitive company secrets may leak, a fear that productivity will drop and more.
[Insert cliche here about only fearing fear itself.]
What do you think?
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Ari Herzog is an online media strategist and Newburyport City Councilor-Elect.
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My company allows us full access to the internet, minus the naughty sites. I don’t see it decreasing productivity in the slightest!
And there are so many Ma and Pa stores that MUST start advertising online. For example, Jaci and I have planned almost our entire wedding online. Any small bridal boutiques, DJs, restaurants, reception halls, flower shops, photographers and bakeries that we could not find a website for simply did not get our business! We are talking thousands and thousands of dollars here that they potentially missed out on.
You work at one of the good guy firms.
Under the Freedom Of Information Act, public organizations (market traded or otherwise) are occasionally asked for computer records. You can imagine the potential problems if the corporate server tracks online activity and such personal communication would be required to be turned over.
Side note: How come you post with your name and not linked to your blog?
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