No Stinkin’ Website?? No Stinkin’ Sales!!
A “greasy-haired propeller head” responds to Gene Marks' BusinessWeek opinion piece. How much do you suppose a CPA knows about web marketing? Right: probably not much. Subject matter experts are typically not qualified to make grand pronouncements beyond their realms of expertise. It's a mystery then why BusinessWeek would give Gene Marks, CPA, its...
Anticipating the Next Big Thing: Energy Resource Decline
White-Knuckled Anxiety 2008 was certainly a year of "interesting times," as the Chinese proverb says. The evening market reports became an exercise in white-knuckled anxiety that rivals even the best Hollywood thriller. And while media pundits of every stripe play the blame game, few focus attention on those pins that first pricked the mortgage bubble:...
Search engine strategies for local business
In my work with small, local businesses, I often run into entrepreneurs who feel that the web can't be much benefit to them. They advertise in the newspaper, they rely on word-of-mouth, they don't intend to sell online, or sometimes they're uncomfortable with computers generally. These folks are among the 47% of small business owners...
Usability beyond the web
For Christmas last year my dad decided to give my grandfather a truly useful gift: his first mobile phone. It didn't go over so well — Gramps could not decipher the phone's symbolic markings and had trouble managing its tiny buttons. Twenty frustrated minutes later he declared this newfangled doohicky a piece of garbage. Who...
Revenge of the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker
In recent months I have been doing more work for area businesses interested in taking advantage of rising demand for local goods. Their customers suddenly have a taste for all things local and, contrary to prevailing wisdom, are willing to sacrifice both convenience and low prices for the sake of shopping locally. "Local" has become...