Articles

The old phrase, “you don’t know what you are missing out on” is definitely one to consider applying to old business Websites.  The Web has been around for long enough now that many businesses are starting to outgrow their Websites, without realizing it.  Many Websites that were built in the early 2000s are still around.

Certainly, if you ask a business owner whether they want to outlay a large amount of money to completely rethink, redesign and rebuild their online presence, they might wonder why they should fix something that does not seem to be broken.  The uninformed economic decision might always be to keep maintaining the old site, with the occasional update, rather than start again.  They might have moved premises a couple of times in that time, replaced their car two or three times, replaced pretty much all of their computers and printers, phones, fax and coffee machine, but the most critical face of their business – their Website – sits there chugging away year after year without being given a thought as to how it might perform better, as all their other shiny new acquisitions have been.

So here are a few reasons to consider whether it might actually make good economic sense to invest in a new Website.

1) New standards
Website standards have changed significantly in the last few years.  For starters, old websites were designed for 800 pixel wide screens.  Now the base line is 1024 pixel screens.  This a) makes old Websites look too small and b) gives new Websites a whole lot more screen real estate to deliver content to the viewer.  The code behind Websites has evolved a great deal as well.  With the release of HTML5 and CSS3, an entire new level of Website creativity and content delivery can be achieved.

2) Changing expectations
As we all well know, when we visit Websites on the Internet, we are getting more opinionated and judgmental about what we see.  It is most likely as a result of information overload, but our tendency to hit the back button within seconds of seeing a Website is getting stronger.  We also expect more of any Website that we have decided to spend more than a few seconds on.  We want the navigation to be intuitive, the information to be comprehensive and the overall look, feel and style of the site to be professional, friendly and appropriate.  Older Websites, which were often built on limited budgets, by people who might have been programmers rather than communications or business experts, may not be good enough any more.  You may very well be losing business without even knowing it, as more people hit the back button a little bit too soon.

3) Keeping up with the Joneses
Each day you leave your old Website as it is, is another day that you give your competitors an opportunity to forge ahead of you and win new business from discerning clients.  Sitting pretty might be a good strategy while your site is bubbling away in search engines and getting reasonable response rates, but over time – and without you knowing – you may start slipping down against other Websites.  Web usage is surging, so if your site traffic is remaining flat, chances are your competitors are picking up the extra business with their more sophisticated, social-media savvy and dynamic Websites.  When customers are comparison shopping (which we all do online as it is so easy), your site and your competitors' sites stand side by side in the visitor’s mind and they will most likely return to the sites they consider to be more user-friendly, more informative and more professional.

4) Mobile is booming
The statistics on people accessing Websites on their mobile devices are staggering, and growing every day.  Old sites almost certainly are not very mobile-friendly, especially when many new sites now are designed with dedicated mobile versions.  It is now possible to have a completely separate ‘style sheet’ to deliver your Website to mobile devices.  Clearly you are going to be better off if the growing mobile audience is going to be able to view your site easily.  Anyone using mobile Apple devices is not going to be able to view any Adobe Flash content by default, so if your old site has any Flash (and some old sites are all Flash), all your Apple-using visitors are going to be disappointed.

5) Websites are now part of the social media landscape
Old Websites were built as stand-alone entities.  They might have had databases and other functionality, but they tended to be built without regard to the wider Web.  Nowadays, Websites form a dynamic connection to the social Web, not just with like buttons and links to Twitter, but as conduits of content from all over the Web.  You can be feeding the most relevant, live, dynamic content from a multitude of sources, both your own and from others in your industry and beyond, to enhance your Website’s information and appeal.  You can also provide the tools so that others can easily spread the word about your Website.  This amplifies your presence greatly and is another thing you are missing out on by hanging on to your old Website

6) You have evolved, why hasn’t your Website?
Many Websites are now only vague reflections of the actual business they represent.  Someone many years ago, sat down and wrote a few pages of text about their company, grabbed a few images and asked a Web designer/developer to put it online.  Meanwhile, their business has grown, evolved, expanded into new areas, re-defined, consolidated and changed their customer base and service offering.  None of this is reflected in the Website, because it was all too hard to sit down once again and come up with a whole new Website full of content.  This is verging on negligent.  People make up their mind about your business when they see your Website, yet you are telling them that you are the same business you were 8 years ago!  No wonder you are not getting the right kind of leads from the Web.  Websites define you and they also qualify leads.  Your Website must be brought up to date to re-define your current operation and attract the customers you want now.

7) It’s not that expensive
How much has your Website cost you?  Not much, if you haven’t touched it for years.  The original cost would have amortized many times over and no doubt with just a few new leads it would have paid for itself years ago.  However, the thought of spending a big chunk of money right now may not seem that appealing.  It seems strange, but many businesses, even when they know their Website has been a big asset to them, still baulk at forking out the investment for a new one.

Perhaps it is because Websites are so virtual and their benefits seem intangible.  In fact, the benefits are both intangible and highly measurable.  Branding, positioning, reputation, communication… all of these more intangible functions are performed by a Website.  To achieve the same things without an online presence is very expensive.  Printing, print advertising, point of sale, expos and conferences all cost a great deal more in total than a Website.  Their impact is even less measurable, too, yet many business continue to sit on their old Website and spend far more money on traditional media and marketing.

When it comes to tangible benefits, Websites are unbeatable.  With tools like Google Analytics, every single visit is tracked, every search term used to find you is logged and over time a massive amount of rich, interpretable and informative data is collated to help you continually improve your Website and measure the effectiveness of all your marketing activity.  The value a modern Website can bring you far outweighs the setup and maintenance costs

It is hardly surprising that larger companies invest millions of dollars into their online marketing, including setting up entire teams of in-house staff to manage the assets.  They are not doing it for fun, they are doing it because it makes economic sense.  Smaller businesses need to realise the cost benefit of online marketing and invest proportionately to get the desired returns.  It won’t happen if you don’t do anything, but it will definitely happen with the right help and support from a speciality service provider and consultant, combined with a little bit of time, effort and investment on your behalf.

8) It’s not as hard as you think
Just like any project, a new website is just a process that needs to be embarked upon with a clear vision for the desired outcomes and a methodical step-by-step approach.  It may seem daunting, or you may be remembering last time you did it and shuddering, but with the help of professionals who know how to manage the process, it really is quite easy, once you break down the steps and address them one by one.  There are many elements to a successful modern Website and you will have to spend some time thinking about your business and defining what you do and what you want.  This can be a lot of fun and is actually an awesome opportunity to take stock and think about where you are going and where you want to be.

Your Website can become your tour guide for your business into the future as it defines where you are going, what you want and how you are going to get there.  With great design, content, navigation and interactivity, your multi-dimensional, multi-media presence can become a beacon, lighting the path and guiding people to your door.  All you need to do is bite the bullet and do it.  Just like it is easier to sit on the lounge eating chocolate than it is to go to the gym, it might be easier to keep your old Website than create a new one, but as we all know, in the long run, we are all a lot better off if we get off that lounge chair and hit the exercise mat.  The long-term gain of doing something far outweighs the short-term gain of avoiding what you know is the right thing to do.

If you want to find out more about taking the big step and rebuilding your online presence strategically, professionally and wisely, contact us.  We can show you, as we hope this article explains, how valuable a decision it could be.

By Stefan Sojka

It’s time to add Writer/Producer/Director/Actor to the résumé.

I got my first answering machine somewhere back in the late 80s.  I’ll never forget the horror of hearing my own voice on that micro-cassette tape.  I re-recorded that message at least 50 times before I was happy.  It was the first step on a long and slippery slope into business-oriented media production.

Before the answering machine, the only people who spoke into microphones were Shakespearean actors.  There was no purpose, nor facility for the average person to lay down their voice, let alone film themselves.  Humans had only barely gotten used to using phones – and not very well at that.  Without the feedback loop of listening to ourselves speak, or seeing ourselves on video, we were oblivious to how ordinary we all looked and sounded.

Fast forward a few decades and media production tools are everywhere.  By the age of three, most kids have been filmed more than any actor from the golden years of Hollywood, photographed more than Marilyn Monroe and laid down at least a few dozen answering machine messages and karaoke tracks.  Everyone is now expected to be a multi-media artist.  Every computer (every phone, just about) is a recording studio, movie production house and photo lab.

So why don’t more businesses use audio and video to communicate?  Why is it so easy to film baby’s first steps, but a guided tour of your offices with a few valuable insights into the services you provide hasn’t been made yet?

We might have the recording tools, but what about the lighting, audio engineering, script-writing, voice-over style, storyboard, green screen and a dozen other elements of good production that don’t come packaged with every laptop sold?   Making quality media is not that easy and putting in a great performance does not come naturally to most people born before the video age.

The only way to overcome your fear is to just have a go.  Write a script, rehearse it, film it, watch it back, cringe with utter embarrassment, then do it all again, slightly better each time, until you begin to like what you see.  Experiment with lighting and sound, posture and pace.  Before too long, you will learn how to look and sound great.

Without fail, anyone who actually perseveres will transform into a more appealing media-friendly version of themselves.  With a little experimentation on the technical side of things, using reasonable quality gear and the awesome editing software that is available these days, you can cut a perfectly respectable piece of promo in no time.

If it all gets too hard, get some training; voice, TV presenting, script writing and video editing.  No one really has a good excuse anymore for not picking up all the skills necessary to become a savvy and sophisticated spokesmodel for their own business.

We all know how effective great multimedia is – we consume it every day by the Gigabyte.  I know if I am researching a product or service, I will devour whatever media I can find.  Your customers are doing exactly the same thing.  You really would do well to get your personalized message in front of them.  If you have a particular expertise or specialist knowledge, the world is hanging out to hear about it.

Every businessperson is now a media performer and producer.  You just need to decide, right now, that you are going to be a really good one.  Lights… camera… mouse… action!

By Stefan Sojka

Don’t throw the real baby out with the virtual bathwater.

There is something about online business that tends to set us up for a huge amount of misaligned expectations.  With everything just one click away, the hidden complexities of Web functionality lead people to believe that it all happens auto-magically.  Some coder just copy-pasted in a few lines of recycled PHP and ‘whammo!’…instant global success story!  I have had people seriously enquire about replicating eBay and/or FaceBook for $5K and honestly believing that should do the trick.

It’s kind of understandable.  Most of the hard work is hidden in scripts and files and thanks to the limitless talent of a planet full of awesome GUI designers, everything looks so slick, clean and simple.  The Internet is the most complex entity in the known Universe, yet its astounding success is due to its belying simplicity.   If it didn’t look and feel easy to use, it would still to this day remain the bastion of computer scientists, hackers and brainiacs.

As a business owner, I still need to contend with the complexities.  If my business model is almost exclusively an online model, such as selling downloadable software, I am going to need a team of coders on hand to manage the high level of sophistication involved; security, functionality, payment, membership management.  Imagine; a Website as deceptively lightweight as Twitter requires 140 employees to keep it running – at a loss!

The big growth area now seems to be hybrid businesses, with one foot in the online space and one foot in the real world.  Think of pizza delivery.  You need a complex online system to manage and process customer orders and an efficient off-line operation to get the pizza to my door within 30 minutes.  Similarly, sites like Groupon rely enormously on the online component delivering deals and getting online exposure to billions of users, but without the real-world participating businesses delivering on those great offers, Groupon’s image could turn sour real fast.

Then there are your businesses that most of us are engaged in, that operate primarily in reality but use the Web to promote products/services and attract new business.  Even the simplest of “brochure-ware” sites need to be created to a high standard to reflect the quality of the business and to have some basic technical expertise applied, even if it is just for contact forms, updating content and measuring the site’s performance.

There is no avoiding the fact that I have to get the technical stuff right.  But what will really make or break the operation is everything else.  If I expect that the code will magically solve all my business problems and make me an overnight squillionaire, it will be at my peril.  Technology alone will not cut it.  Why does software keep on getting upgraded?  Because it will never be perfect.  It’s what we do with it and how we integrate it into our business that counts.

Here’s what I focus on; customer service, communication, quality control, administration systems and processes, accounts, building relationships with valued associates, ensuring (not assuming) that I am on the same page as my customers, diarizing everything, keeping time-sheets, keeping my desk tidy, my files organized, and my inbox manageable.  You know, all the stuff that prevents my life and business from descending into a chaotic nightmare and will only get worse the more things grow.

Every business now must have a layer of technology surrounding it and you have to get the right solutions and systems in place.  But as technology pervades our lives and the lives of our competitors, it’s the fundamentals of off-line business practice that will determine our ultimate success.

By Stefan Sojka

Complacency was once a desirable state of the masses – a place where we could raise families and live nice quiet lives.  Progress was someone else’s problem.  The networked world has pushed us all into the rapids, sink or swim.

Before we all plugged in and turned on, most advancement in society, economics and life in general was pursued by scientists, policy-makers and big business, running their own agendas of discovery, vote-winning or competition.  The rest of the world moved at a fairly steady pace; birth, childhood, school, work, marriage, procreation, retirement, death.  Our ambitions were modest, our scope narrow and our acceptance of our position in the scheme of things was never an issue.

One forgets how recent the global travel phenomenon is, or the notion of having more than one vocation (or partner) in a lifetime, mature age university education or reality TV.  All of these activities have opened our eyes to a broader, deeper, richer life (except, perhaps reality TV!)

I would argue, however, that there is an innate part of us that actually likes being complacent, that could spend our entire lives chasing nothing, kicking back and watching the world go by.  It’s the part that yearns for a sea-change and a house-boat.

The irony is that the only way we’ll ever afford a sea-change is if we work real hard.  Yet, we wage an eternal battle against that voice inside that thinks we are already there, sitting pretty.  “I have a Website.  I’m in Google.  I use email and have a fancy smart phone – I’ve made it.  In fact I’ll go on FaceBook and tell everyone how awesome I am.”

How many Websites do you see that haven’t been updated for five years?  News pages with ‘news’ from 2006?  Websites that are still 800 pixels wide, reflecting a screen size standard that has long been superseded?  Coming soon?  Under construction?  Page not found?  Each instance is a shining example of complacency.  Isn’t the Internet supposed to be a revolution in communication and the opportunity of a lifetime to be seized by one and all?  What’s going on?

I am always amazed at how many people’s entire business plan for their Website is to have accidentally managed to get on page one of Google for a couple of good keywords five years ago, or to sit on a pay-per-click campaign they haven’t reviewed since it started.  See the panic set in when a few other Websites start pushing them down the list, or begin bidding against them for paid listings until they drop off the page completely.  Sitting pretty is no way to survive on the Internet.  Getting busy is.

Do I want to be a distant memory, locked away in the deeper recesses of the Web, or an uppermost thought in the world’s collective mind?  I have to stay fresh and keep up to speed.  However well I might think I am doing on-line, I can always do better.  However hard I might be working to stay in front, someone else is working harder, to re-make, re-model and re-invent themselves and their market – my market.

I may not like it, but things are moving very fast.  Everything is feeding back on everything else in an infinite evolutionary loop.  Keep up, or risk being left out of the loop altogether.

I would love to be sitting pretty, but now is not the time.  No house-boat this year.  There’s a lot more kayaking to be done, thrashing about with the paddle, trying not to get overturned, mid-stream.  I’ll have my sea-change… someday.  It certainly won’t happen by itself.

By Stefan Sojka

It’s easy to believe that the Web has transformed over the last few years into a high tech Grand Slam, where the only contenders are the mega-corporations with Internet superstars providing the pre-match entertainment.  There’s still plenty of action away from centre court.

I was a huge Deep Purple fan when I was about 14.  Please keep in mind hip-hop, electronica, R & B or grindcore had hardly been invented.  Three choices:  Rock, Pop or Country & Western.  Besides that, I was trying to learn guitar and Smoke on the Water enabled me to instantly play a hit song with no lessons …or practice!

In those days, Rock superstars were about as inaccessible as today’s celebrities, not because they had a wall of agents and publicists protecting them, but simply because there were no means of communication.  If you didn’t find them in the local phone book, they were out of reach.  You could join the fan club, but that meant becoming the pen friend of the band’s single most obsessed and deranged follower and still never meeting the band.

This could become a column about how to follow your favourite artists online, but I only have one page, so I’ll get back to my point:  I recently contacted the bass player and keyboard player from Deep Purple and they both emailed me back personally.  This got me thinking…

According to www.internetworldstats.com, there are almost 2 billion people using the Internet.  If you can imagine applying any ‘bell curve’, or ‘long tail’ graph to this population, you will find a massive swell around the YouTubes, Mashables and Lolcats, with thronging hordes milling around Internet superstars like Ashton Kutcher, Justin Beiber and Community Channel.  These destinations are largely one-way streets, more like mass media.  Huge audiences eliminate your opportunities to interact personally with the object of attraction.  It’s out in the ‘burbs where the real action is.

Every has-been, wanna-be, could-be, also-ran, did-run-once-or-twice and going-to-do-it-again is out there – you and me included.  We don’t get a million hits a day to our blogs and videos, but maybe 10s or 100s, even 1000s.  We get a couple of emails a day/week from people who stumbled across us while Googling something else.  Think about it – everyone is out there!  And the ones who aren’t being bombarded with attention are more than likely quite happy to get some.

Scientists, musicians, sportspeople, business owners, charity workers, teachers, inventors, builders…. need I continue?  Whatever you want in life from the Internet is available and it is extremely likely that it is not happening in a high-traffic supersite.  Network science dictates that, like the deeply profound and effective work our subconscious does all night (and all day, for that matter), the less clicked regions of the Web are where we are going to find the answers, make friends, collaborate, instigate and activate.

Think of exactly what you would like to know, do and become in your best-lived life and I bet you will find the people to help you if you start looking and asking.  For me, it begins with old rockers like Deep Purple’s band mates and probably ends with me inviting a whole bunch of them to guest-feature on my concept album by simply emailing me their contributions to my tracks as MP3s.  For you, it might be a super-talented 3D artist who can render your invention so you can win your pitch to those venture capitalists to get it made.  Or perhaps a massive niche market in a non-English-speaking country accessed via a local bi-lingual micro-blogger.

Your ultimate personalised network is out there.  Get off the beaten track and start clicking.

By Stefan Sojka

In this age of information overload, everyone is desperate to push through the crowd to find whatever attention space is left on humanity's virtual Bondi, lay down their digital beach towel and bask in the sun.  I need a good strategy.

It must be the Antarctic chill of winter that’s causing me to think of beach metaphors, or maybe it’s the increasingly icy despondency I’m feeling as I realise that I am a member of a species who now has to compete with billions of others for any recognition and validation, while my biology is programmed to be satisfied with finding a mate, a spot on the beach and perhaps a little respect from the head of the village.

Now, maybe there is very little separating my fingertips from world domination, except perhaps my own incapacity to manipulate the world to my ways.  Surely the entire planet wants to read my blog, laugh at my YouTube videos, buy my stuff and be swayed by my politics?  If only they weren’t all thinking the same thing about themselves!

What makes it so infuriating is how easy it seems for some people to crack it.  That “Evolution of Dance” guy, Mr “Leave Britney Alone” or even such luminaries as Twitter’s Biz Stone or the YouTube creators.  Film yourself doing a stupid dance or build a stupid Website that mimics SMS and the world is your oyster.

I’m starting to work out the secret.  It’s the same secret AC/DC stumbled upon back in the 1970s when the guys first started out.  They’ve continued doing pretty much the same thing for over 35 years.  Keep it simple, and play it loud!  Simplify, then amplify.

Regardless of my field of endeavour, I must refine and perfect it, optimise and distil it to its purest form, to give it the best chance of catching on.  MacDonalds did it with its franchise system, Apple did it with the iPod, Thomas Cruise Mapother IV and Eric Banadinovi? did it with their stage names – in fact, the more I think about it, anything that has struck a chord with the masses and found its day in the sun has this fundamental quality:  a perfect form, able to be repeated, replicated and broadcast.

Even the most complex idea can succeed when its essence is simple and its processes refined.  Man on the moon.  Google.  Sat-Nav.  Word™.
Less mess, more elegance, less instructions, more usability, less clicks, more downloads.  Simplify.  Amplify.

If I am to have half a chance at getting anything to go viral, catch on, hit the charts and make the news, I’ve got to get this right – and so do you.
De-clutter the office and home, avoid anything we know is a waste of time or dead end, then take what we have of value and perfect it.  Make every email, flyer, blog post, press release and domain name more succinct, readable, usable and catchy.  Hire designers to improve aesthetics and other professionals to re-engineer every aspect of what we do, if we can’t do it ourselves.

Learn from nature, the ultimate engineer of efficiency and economy facilitating abundance.  Extreme complexity exists; our grand plans no doubt contain labyrinthine sophistication, but the underlying formulas by which they are created must be forehead-slappingly pure.

Imagine.  I have a dream.  Just do it.  Think different.  Intel inside.  Six Hats.  Linux.  E=mc².  Om.

The universe expanded from a single point.  What’s my point?  If I find it, I’ll go off.  With a bang.

By Stefan Sojka

As my life becomes increasingly interwoven in a tangled web of networks, gaining a perspective of how I fit in has become my life’s mission.

Network science is very new.  Sure networks have been around forever, but no one really stopped to think about just how complicated and powerful network behaviour is, until the mid 90s when the Internet kind of shoved it in our faces.  Albert-László Barabási’s book ‘Linked – How everything is connected to everything else and what it means for business, science and everyday life’ is an easily digestible summary of the Princeton Press scientific publication he co-wrote, “The Structure and Dynamics of Networks”.

The mathematics is staggering, describing how the simplest of connections and interactions can evolve structures and behaviours as phenomenal as our very own selves.  Individuals within a network need only perform the simplest of tasks to make this happen.  This is how civilizations, viral outbreaks and multinational corporations come to be.  Networks cause FaceBook, Beached Az, spam, Google, blogging and crowd-sourcing.

The more I think about it, the more embedded I seem to be.  So, it’s time to use these networks to my advantage.  The best thing I can do inside a network is to be active.  The simple tasks of emailing, clicking, posting, rating, linking and uploading are my means to participate.  My networks co-exist on- and off-line.  So here’s how it works and can work for you, if:

I join my local Rotary Club, a member invites me to join my local Chamber of Commerce, the local council holds a “Home-based Business Week” workshop and emails the Chamber asking if anyone would like to present.  I put my hand up.  At the talk, someone from NSW DSRD (Now Industry & Investment NSW) is there and invites me to speak at another event.  Someone at that event from the Department of Innovation invites me to a Hong Kong Trade and Development Council event in Sydney.  HKTDC asks if I would like to attend a trade show in Hong Kong, sponsored by AusTrade.  Much net­working ensued there.

Two months later.  I get a call from the Sydney Morning Herald asking me about my experience.  I get a decent sized article in the SMH business section.  Someone from Crikey.com.au calls me to ask how I do my PR and how I managed to get publicity in the SMH.  I tell them “it just happened because I work my network”.  They are intrigued and are interviewing me for an article about PR.  I will post that interview on my Website, along with all the other news stories about this chain of events.  I start popping up in Google for all kinds of searches because of all these activities.

I am now writing about all of this in this column, which I landed as a result of meeting the editor on a chat channel in 1995.  This column will become another news story on my Website.  Someone will read it and contact me about something.

And on it goes.  Such is the science, and behaviour of networks and what happens when I work them.

Perpetual promotion.  Try it for yourself.

By Stefan Sojka

Lately I have become fascinated with three things:

1. The recent discovery of hundreds of planets orbiting stars in our galaxy ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extrasolar_planet )

2. Advances in understanding of life on the microscopic scale.  Watch this ( multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/anim_innerlife.html ) and prepare to freak out when you realise this is going on inside you in 100 trillion different locations

3. Henry Markram’s Blue Brain project – an attempt to build a detailed, realistic computer model of the human brain                        ( www.youtube.com/watch?v=LS3wMC2BpxU )

I guess I am quite fortunate to be a member of the only species on earth capable of even beginning to comprehend the nature of the universe and to wonder about my place in it.

Here we sit, on the wafer thin surface of a tiny planet, after 4 billion years of evolution, where cellular life forms have tried and tried again to self-organise into the best co-operative self-perpetuating civilizations they can – without a brain between them.  Now our planet owns trillions of brains, including 6 billion big enough to organise the civilization we live in today.  Great apes, aping the same net­working capacity on a global scale that our cells have been using microscopically for eons.

Yet sometimes we seem so dumb.  We struggle in relationships, battle with each other and worry ourselves sick.  When are we going to ‘get it’?

If you ask me, it is when we finally surrender to the process.  Life got us to where we are, so it’s time we started living.  Whatever I am doing, wherever I find myself within society’s matrix, I really have no other choice but to try to be the best ‘me’ I can be.

As I take stock of the year that was and get set for the next orbit around the sun, it’s time for this revolution’s resolutions.  I am going to honour and obey my cellular civilization and I am going to maximise my contribution to human civilization.  In other words, I am going to be healthy and do good work.

And if you aren’t going to do the same, then get out of the way.  I am going to start choosing my clients, rather than letting them choose me.  If they aren’t operating at least on the same level as I do, ethically, I’m not going to let them drag me down.  I’m pursuing perpetual promotion.  Onwards and upwards.  Evolution and creation.  I’m stepping up and stepping out.  I’m not going to let evolution’s efforts to get me here be in vain and I sure don’t want to find out that there are civilizations living on those exoplanets more advanced than ours.  Aren’t we supposed to be a competitive race?

We’d better start working as a team.  In 2010, let’s all lift our game, raise our standards and spend each day on our human scale, using our microscopic inheritance to fulfill our cosmic calling.

In a galaxy, 4 billion light years from here, beings just like us might be observing an exoplanet we call ‘Earth’ preparing to come alive.  Closer to home, inside my own head, I can imagine this scenario …and feel pretty glad to be here.

By Stefan Sojka

As much as we can’t imagine life without computers now, for the entire history of humankind, up until the computer, one could hardly imagine life with one.  Everyone just got on with it.  Sydney Harbour Bridge was constructed with pencils and paper, slide rules and the occasional abacus.  The entire workforce was managed with ledgers, index cards and rubber stamps.  Workers were paid by cash and perhaps some of the bigger transactions were done with hand-written promissory notes.  Though typewriters and telephones were in use, most communication was surely face-to-face, or scrawled with fountain pens.

What’s my point?  That somehow everything still worked.  Huge projects, like hydro-electric schemes, subway systems and even the Opera House, with all its curvy complexity, were completed well before anyone “needed” a computer to get anything done.  Systems and networks existed, such as information and project management.  Most importantly; humans interacted with other humans, agreed, shook hands, signed contracts and made it happen.

We are being mesmerised into thinking that somehow it is only since the birth of ‘Web 2.0’ that we have had the ability to socially network.  We forget that before FaceBook, we had a little black book.  While computers and the Internet have certainly facilitated and amplified net­working to unfathomable scales, most real business is done in person.  Politicians might all use Blackberries and iPhones, but they haven’t moth-balled the two houses of parliament just yet.  Most offices still have board rooms.  Trade shows and Expos seem to be experiencing a boom right now.  Computers do make them far more efficient to organise, while at the same time, people are realising how awesome they are at generating new business and engaging with our peers.

Off-line net­working is one of my most valuable assets as a business.  Sure, I want to tip all my contacts into my email list, and refer people to my Website at any available opportunity, but I would be missing out on a huge opportunity if I didn’t work my real-world life as much as possible.

I joined my local Chamber of Commerce and my local Rotary Club.  I attend many business events, Expos, functions and launches.  Recently I joined a chapter of BNI, a hugely successful global network of business owners existing for the sole purpose of promoting word-of-mouth marketing.  Even though my business is very much focused on the Internet, I still like to meet my clients in person and work predominantly with in-house staff.  I am a people person.  Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer to engage face-to-face – at least until virtual reality evolves sufficiently into fooling my senses that I am in the same room as you – and that is still quite a long way off.

If I can work the world just like our forefathers did, then enhance all those engagements with Web technology, like collaboration tools, Web-based communication and marketing, I’ll be unstoppable.

By Stefan Sojka

It’s not as difficult as you might think to become an Internet superstar.  The Web is engineered precisely to facilitate such phenomena as FaceBook, YouTube and the ‘Evolution of Dance’ dude.  In this simple how-to guide, I’ll show you how it’s done.  The key is to be everywhere and do everything.  In a networked world, the one with the most nodes wins!

Remember Neo, in the Matrix?  Remember how he/you felt when he/you realised he/you were the one?  “That’s right”, grinned Morpheus.  This is your ‘I know Kung Fu’ moment.  You are the Internet, and the Internet is you.  Your DNA is the meme.  You’re unique, just like everybody else.

Have Geek Will Travel
You will need your own personal nerd.  The Web, for all its point-and-click convenience, is a ridiculously complex environment.  He/she will configure your server cloud, sync your mobile devices with your laptop and ensure your Websites are cross-browser compatible, fluid, elastic and WC3 compliant.

Arsenal
Rule-of-thumb:  If it was reviewed on Wired, TechCrunch or EnGadget, buy it.  Essentials include an HD video camera, podcasting microphone, iPhone, digital pen, electric car, pocket laser projector, Adobe Everything and a DJ console, so you can guest DJ at all your own launches and seminars.

Go Viral
The best way to permeate cyberspace is by infecting it.  I don’t care whether you wipe out on a skateboard or David Hassel-scoff a hamburger, what’s important is that the video is a calculated strategic element in your self-replicating pandemic.

Blog
Blog long.  Blog often.  With 112 million blogs, you do have to work hard.  Strategy is everything.  Post comments on the top 100 blogs with witty retorts and demoralising put-downs, always linking back to your own Blog.  Fear not, once the momentum of all your other activities kicks in, your archived ramblings will re-surface like the creature from the black lagoon.

Social Butterfly
Two mantras:  1. “Add Me” 2. “Thanks for the Add”.  Set targets – say 5,000 per day, per site.  Here is your starting point:  en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_net­working_websites.  Nurture every friendship, acknowledge everyone’s feelings and compliment their every photo upload.  This is your fan-base.  You are a one of their's.  It’s a 200-million-way street.  Drive it.

Authority
You are now an Internet marketing genius.  It’s time to share your knowledge.  www.squidoo.com makes it easy to build a soapbox and begin proselytising.  When you have posted enough material, go to www.lulu.com and self-publish your how-to book.

Life Stream
Upload your entire life to the Internet – and tag everything.  Quantity, not quality.  If you upload enough old photos, school reports, love letters and phone disconnection notices, you will come up on page one in Google for everything.

We live in a paradoxical universe.  Ubiquity is singularity.  If you are everywhere, you will be in one place – at the top!  ‘X’ marks the spot and you have the X-factor.  ‘Me, Star Wars Kid’, you ‘FailWhale’.  See you at the end – and on the cover – of 'Time'.