Broken Links

"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change. . ." Charles Darwin

This is probably one of my favorite quotes. And its application to business is endless.

These days, many businesses use the web as a primary tool for marketing. We spend fortunes and endless hours building our websites, creating links and then we forget about them. Did I mention change?

That article in the NYTimes is gone, that link to the local Chamber is broken, that picture of your acceptance speech is missing - your visitors hit a dead end. You spend the time developing interesting content and links - don't let your user experience end on a broken link.

Alexa.com offers a link report and it's free. I recommend you run it periodically to clean up broken links. The first time you run it - you maybe surprised at what you find.

Remember, change is a fact of life and a fact of the Internet!

Making lemonade . . .

Last weekend, I headed off to an industry conference. I checked online and the flight was on time. But when we got to the airport, there was a three hour delay. Apparently, thunderstorms were blanketing the East Coast. Ugh!

I took a seat at the gate and contemplated my fate.

Unintentionally, I took a glance around the waiting area. As you can imagine, there were many disgruntled passengers milling about. Across the way sat a industry colleague, who I did not know that well.

I went up and introduced myself. We had met at a function last February, so we exchanged pleasantries and grumbled about the delay. He in turn introduced me to his boss, who I had not met before. I suggested we grab some coffee to pass the time.

We talked about the industry, we talked about projects and we talked about how we could work together. Next thing we knew, they were calling our flight. When I returned to my office on Tuesday, there was a message waiting to schedule a follow up meeting.

So the next time life hands you lemons and lots of free time – NETWORK!