A beginner's guide to using the Internet. Includes tips for finding useful information, definitions to common terms, and suggested sites.
A fool's guide to finding your way on the Web
Once upon a time not so very long ago, businesspeople scoffed at the idea of installing fax machines and setting up 800 numbers. Such systems seemed indulgent, showy, simply a waste of money. In 1997 there's a new object of people's contempt: the Internet.
Indeed, if today's business world were divided into Internet haves and have-nots, the 'nots would rule. Last year a Dun & Bradstreet small-business survey found that just one in six business owners had E-mail. And that's the most common form of Internet use. This year the ratio shifted, but still, just one in four is on-line. And only 5% of those surveyed by Dun & Bradstreet consider the Internet a key technology that affects their business.
Many suggest that drawing such a conclusion is a huge mistake. Experts--and those who do use the Internet--warn that businesspeople will have to master that technology, and soon. Frequent users swagger with their information-access superiority. Small wonder, though, since they do have the capability to procure data that would make an Internet-illiterate competitor swoon.
Yet there's another side of the coin: it's possible to have too much information. "Net heads" often find themselves deluged by E-mail. And people taking a 10-minute "surf" of the Internet's most engrossing feature, the World Wide Web, often look up and discover that three hours have passed.
So a surprisingly large number of people are actually beating a fast retreat from the electronic frontiers. In the past year 9.3 million people who had taken a spin on the Internet at least once said they no longer considered themselves "current users," according to a survey by the Emerging Technologies Research Group, a division of the FIND/SVP research and consulting service in New York City. In his new book , Data Smog: Surviving the Information Glut (HarperEdge, 1997), David Shenk warns that information, once viewed as a tool, has now taken over people's lives.
Others pooh-pooh Shenk's notion that a crisis is at hand. "What may look like information overload is really just competitive advantage," says Seena Sharp, principal of Sharp Information Research, a business-information specialist in Hermosa Beach, Calif. "There are so many who don't know how to effectively get information from the Internet that those who do have a real advantage."
It makes sense to use the Internet--in part because it gives you a leg up on competitors, most of whom aren't on-line. But you must treat it as you would any potentially valuable activity--go in armed with technical know-how and a good sense of what you're hoping to find. To that end, numerous articles that attempt to list quality Web sites have been published. That can be helpful, but at best it's a piecemeal approach--about as efficient as a busy executive who tries to save time by answering only every third phone call. With millions upon millions of Web pages, many changing daily, even hourly, you need a philosophy, a strategy for getting solid facts fast.
Even with so many users focusing on the Internet, little conventional wisdom has emerged. So Inc. pressed a plethora of Web-literate business individuals to analyze their own habits to find out what works and what doesn't.
The following are suggestions on how to use the Internet, especially the World Wide Web, to build your business--for market research, competitor intelligence, even outsourcing. The goal is to learn the apparatus and keep the quality of information as high as possible, while avoiding a black hole of wasted time.
Take a Byte
Now is a good time to learn how to navigate the Internet. The longer you postpone the task, the more onerous it will seem, like waiting until adulthood to learn a foreign language. You can try to figure it out yourself, read a book, take a class, or have others train you. Deborah Hollander Schwartz, a publicist with Jaffe Associates, a Washington, D.C., firm offering marketing and communications consulting to those in the legal profession, found the perfect teacher--her 13-year-old son. She paid him $10 an hour.
"You'll be frustrated in the beginning," says information specialist Sharp. "You're going to be spending a lot of time figuring it out. You have to learn the shortcuts, and the only way to really learn is to do it."
Did You Hear the One About the Web Site That...
Once you know the basics, there's the matter of continuing education. Just as the landscape of your own industry evolves constantly, so does the Web. For staying current, jumping in and trying things no longer becomes time effective. A better solution is to consult others regularly.
Look for two kinds of people: the most technically advanced Internet users and the most passionate colleagues in your area of interest. The first group will save you time by briefing you on the latest technological advances. They can get to know your needs and keep an eye out for you. I've developed such a relationship with one fellow. When I see him, I review a list of questions that I've compiled, along with notes and intriguing clippings that I've collected regarding on-line developments.
The second category includes people who need to know the same things you do but who are way ahead on Web knowledge. They can provide excellent road maps to useful sites. Instead of chatting about family or the ball game, try batting around Web tips. I've collected tons of good information that way, such as the best sites for finding foreign companies' phone numbers and E-mail addresses, and for checking financials, the weather, and the news.
When It Comes to the Web, No Company Loves Misery
As Dorothy discovered in The Wizard of Oz, you might find the best things right at home. For example, Jaffe Associates has a weekly internal E-mail newsletter called Virtual News. Employees serve up Web tips, including ones on the sites they're most excited about. Similarly, engineers at Waid & Associates, an environmental- consulting firm in Austin, Tex., E-mail one another about great sites.
Ironically, the Internet has people searching the world for information when the best data can be found right across the hall. An ambitious solution is to link your company's computers so you can implement an intranet, a companywide information-management system set up on the Internet. After discovering that its engineers weren't even aware of relevant work already done by others right within company walls, Waid & Associates made plans to set up its own intranet.
