Albert Einstein On Experimentation, Investigation, and Internet Technology

Albert Einstein didn't just pioneer modern physics with his enduring and revolutionary theory of General Relativity, he also said some smart stuff about the value of independent curiosity and experimentation. Let's apply some of this to how you can use the internet to help your business.

Words of Wisdom

1. "The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing."
2. "Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new."
   

If Al's second quote scares you, fear not; we're talking about research on our dime, not making mistakes with clients' time and money. Here's what it all boils down to:

• Ask, ask, ask, inquire, question, and ask some more.  Then experiment, test and do some more experimenting.
• Investigate and Innovate—don't be afraid to lead rather than follow. Then when you've got it all figured out, be sure to keep testing—and verifying results.
• Never settle into a finalized "method," because the only constant in the internet world is the light-speed change (get it, physics people? light speed... constant?). Yesterday's thinking never works for today's internet.

At CDLLC: we've already done the research. The experimentation, the investigation, the trial and error for you, on our dime. We've got close to fifty combined years of experience with this stuff. And we keep doing the research. It's part of our business.

Tested results are what matter, not just copying what you read in an instruction manual, or delivering the status quo, or doing what everyone else is talking about and doing. With the internet, any documentation on the right way to do something, especially SEM and SEO, is outdated by the time it's published.

And Google's "what matters and what doesn't" rules aren't published at all; experimentation and ongoing research are the only way to ensure the great results we deliver.

We're fond of saying that most of what we do isn't rocket science. Dr. Einstein, tongue planted firmly in cheek, would have said the same about his work. And he's still the guy we all go to when it comes to relativity... and space... and time.

It's time for your business to get serious about its Internet Presence. We're here to help.


-Crockett Dunn
Owner CDLLC

-Jeff Yablon
Chief Operating Office, CDLLC
President, Answer Guy Central Business Support Services

"Never trouble another for what you can do yourself." -Thomas Jefferson and Web Design

In his letter to Thomas Jefferson Smith in 1825, Thomas Jefferson included the following two items in his Decalogue of Canons for Observation in Practical Life:

• "Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today."
• "Never trouble another for what you can do yourself."

Just as with our friend Confucius, TJ's wisdom applies to your business web presence.

In web context the translation is this: Eliminate the bottlenecks that slow down and reduce efficiency in your web content publishing process. i.e. : reduce unneeded expenses of both time and resources.

Everyone is a content contributor—or needs to be. Why send word processor documents to a webmaster for translation to "Internet language,"  when you can handle most of the work yourself in your content management system (CMS) , having authors self publish? Yes, there are times when you might want the kind of relationship with your webmaster where he does certain things for you that you could do yourself.  However, if someone's time is more valuable spent programming and working on databases and web servers than acting as an administrative assistant, shouldn't you strive to work that way?

With CMS, you can often publish web information as easily as you can write it on a word processor. That's the kind of process CDLLC implements, and you should ask us how simple it would be for us to do it for you.

Save time. Increase efficiency. Save money. Make your life and those of the people you work with easier and more satisfying.

Or just keep throwing away money instead; your choice.

-Crockett Dunn
Owner CDLLC

-Jeff Yablon
Chief Operating Office, CDLLC
President
Answer Guy Central Business Support Services

From Web Pages to Web Sites, or Confuciansim Part III

"Good people order and arrange"

Had enough Confucius yet? 'Cause that old dude had the Internet pegged!

Remember the days of the coal-and-steam-powered internet, when you had to walk miles in the snow to a university to make changes to your website, and ration your disk space usage because there wasn't enough to go around?

Ah, sweet memories. Your personal "Home Page." Your Corporate "Home Page." Build it once and it'll last years . . . just like a when-the-heck-did-they-last-change-that-thing old billboard!

Guess what? They don't make 'em like they used to, and you can't build 'em the way you used to.

That shoddy billboard became the cover page for a leaflet, as you created specialized pages with unique information to grab peoples' interest. And yep: that Web PAGE became . . . a Web SITE!

Content multiplies. Suddenly there are more pages, more information, more content that needs to be grouped and arranged according to context.

Sounds like a lot of work, doesn't it? It can be. Without site management tools, or a Content Management System, whenever the hierarchy of the web pages changes, a new navigational menu needs to be programmed. And today a good website has to change fast. Monthly, weekly, even daily, depending on your objective and audience.

This is not your father's shoddy old billboard.

One (huge) benefit of building your site on a Content Management System is the automation of menu creation. Manually programming a navigational menu on every one of those pages becomes a thing of the past. And you can even make the changes yourself, easily, using a method that feels just like using a word processor.

Ordering, arranging, re-ordering, re-arranging, it's all simple.

So why aren't you using a CMS ? It probably comes down to inertia. Your old, billboard-style web site is good enough for your needs.

Maybe, but that's becoming a less-and-less valid way to look at doing business on the Internet. No, you may not need an e-commerce system, because not everybody "sells stuff" online. But if your web site is to be worth any more than your "when-the-heck-did-I-last-use-one, anyway?" business cards, you need more. And without a CMS in place, you're making your job harder, and more expensive.

And that old billboard? You know how you laugh every time you pass it and wonder why its owner doesn't update it? Case closed.


-Crockett Dunn
Owner CDLLC

-Jeff Yablon
Chief Operating Office, CDLLC
President, Answer Guy Central Business Support Services