If you've got it, flaunt it: December 02, 1996 issue of New Thinking

December 02, 1996 New Thinking:
If you've got it, flaunt it

Website content management

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December 02, 1996

If you've got it, flaunt it

By Gerry McGovern

As humans we always try to extend ourselves so that we are larger and more capable that what we physically are.

Company A has ten times the turnover and makes ten times the profit of Company B. Both have websites. Company A doesn’t believe that the Internet is important and its website reflects this view. It has the corporate logo, some brief information on the company and its major product ranges. It has a What’s New section, but the last entry there is three months old.

Company B believes that the Internet is vital to its future and its website reflects this view. It has comprehensive information available on every aspect of its business. Its What’s New page is updated daily where appropriate, and it even has a What’s Next section, flagging products and initiatives under development.

Company B has ten times more useful information on its website than Company A.

Right now, because the vast majority of transactions are done offline, customers will be aware that it is Company A which has the larger product range and the longer established reputation. However, as online becomes a more important element in the overall business mix, it will be Company B who will look larger and quite possibly, in time, be larger.

I’m not talking here about being large for largeness sake. I’m saying that unless you represent appropriately what you actually are on your website, future online consumers will not necessarily know what you are, what your strengths and range of capacities are. If your competition does represent itself to its maximum potential, then you are at a disadvantage.

There is knowledge in the world. But if nobody knows that this knowledge exists, does it for all practical purposes exist? If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it fall, has it made a sound? In the not too distant future, if you have information useful to your customer base and you don’t place it on your website, does that information for all practical purposes exist?

Once upon a time, people believed that if it was in print then it must be the truth. So much happened that never appeared in print, yet when we look back to the thirteenth century, we look back through the eyes of letters and words, printed on fading parchments.

It may be that for the child and adult of the digital age, the search for knowledge and information begins and ends on the Internet, with that which is not online essentially not existing.

Make no mistake, we are building a new world here. A world whose present foundations are those of text, numbers and simple images, but which over time will embrace much more visual and spatial dimensions.

You have what you have in the physical world. But unless you now begin the process of ‘photocopying’ and transforming what you have into a digital, online form, then what you have may fade away into the recesses of a forgotten past.

Basically, if you’ve got it, flaunt it... in digital form!

Gerry McGovern

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European Association of Directory Publishers

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If you have information useful to your customer base and you don’t place it on your website, does that information for all practical purposes exist?