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Article by Sam Martin, PE, CVS, President of OfficeOnWeb, Technologies. 11/1/2000

One of the greatest benefits of the Internet is the vast amount of useful and valuable information for your business and personal use. There are vast numbers of newsletters, professional discussion groups, news groups, bulletin boards, chat rooms, electronic magazines, and so much more, available at a click the mouse, on almost any subject imaginable. The disadvantage is that there is so much information available that you run the risk of "information overload." As a result of the volume of information available, it can be difficult determining what information can be of true use to you.

Many Internet information services are like the "Perspective Section" in your newspaper. The key to making good use of it is to not take everything at face value. The "opinions" offered are best measured with respect to the expertise present in the person and/or organization giving the information.

Here's how you check the expertise presented in a discussion group or other resource. 1. Use the links provided by the discussion presenter and measure the opinion in relation to other's people's responses. 2. If an opinion is offered, wait and see the responses to that opinion. 3. If you get more than three negative responses to the opinion, check everyone's credentials and expertise, then measure the potential gains of accepting and acting on the viewpoint, versus the potential losses. There are lots of well meaning people providing incorrect information out there, and if you accept everything you read and act on it, it can hurt your business.

How do you avoid the information overload?

First, select only groups that appear they can give you useful information. Check their information archives, if they provide them, and determine if the previous information offered appears to be applicable. If it does, only then should you subscribe to the service. Second, only maintain subscriptions to newsletters or other resources that provide useful information more than 50% of the time. If they cannot provide this kind of reliability, you are unlikely to get enough useful data in relation to the time commitment involved. Third, measure the information provided for its potential value and test it before you accept it. If the service doesn't consistently produce the right kind of information, remove yourself from the subscription list.

The Internet is the most valuable information resource I have ever encountered. Manage the information available and you can enjoy and gather its benefits. As long as you walk with caution, you may recognize the "pot of gold" that pushes your business towards even greater success.

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Did you know that in 1998 more than 95% of OfficeOnWeb's new customers made a profit from their web site within their first year of operation? Sad, but it is true. This compares to less than 20% industry wide ever even breaking even. Why? Professional and directed expertise. This industry average for people leaving their current web service provider is 4% per month! That's nearly 50% over a year! Ours is less than 1% per year. That is because we endeavor to make our clients money and don't just offer a "pat solution" that we know has a low probability of ever making our client a profit. Some of the features that make up the level of success that our clients enjoy are:

 Five redundant backbone connections

 99.999% up time on UNIX servers

 Redundant OC-3 connect to all five backbones

 Full data center services

RAID 5 system with weekly backup of critical systems

 True Web Developer Services

 Large support site for clients and visitors

 Four level or higherencryption on all e-commerce solutions designed by Office On Web (this is the government standard required if Government people are to use a site)

 We NEVER host a commercial site on an access server (that is really bad, but common in dial up providers)

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