Today was, apparently, the most stressful day of the year. Not bad considering we're only five days in. Allegedly, the combination of a mass return to work, the financial meltdown and the Christmas "overload" meant that we were all doomed from first thing this morning. Well, I did manage to pour a cup of coffee into my keyboard, meaning I had to dash to PC World to get a new one so I could type this blog - that was mildly stressful. But I've had worse days.

Yesterday, for instance; my router broke down and so I had to go and buy another one so I could log the Internet. Was I stressed out? A little, but nothing really to report - I quite like my new router with its blue lights.

These are the everyday facts of life - thinks break, we make mistakes, have accidents - but guess what? We get over them.

So when your web site breaks, or when you lose your password for Facebook, or when you delete your entire Ecademy profile - don't panic. You will get over the problem. Compared with what the children in Gaza must be suffering right now, it's hardly an issue if something goes wrong with the Internet for you.

So here's a New Year's Resolution for everyone - no matter what happens this year to your finances, to your business, to your web site, react positively. You will get over any difficulties. For instance, this is my third recession, but I survived the previous two so history suggests I'll get through this one.

Yet, wherever I turn lately there are depressed people moaning about the difficulties that face them and how this recession is really bad and how they might not survive. Even people who have turned to the Internet for potential salvation are saying it's tougher online than ever before. In other words, there is so much negative attitude and thought around is it any wonder we are in a recession?

So, puff up that chest, take a deep breath, smile and be positive. All in all, if you do that the "most stressful day" of 2009 simply won't arrive.

Labels: future, internet psychology

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Happy New Year; I hope you have enjoyed the celebrations and that you don't start off 2009 with too much of a headache..!

At this time of year, of course, it is traditional to look towards the future and set your resolutions for the coming 12 months. Don't. Resolutions are bad for your psychological health, according to one mental health charity. Perhaps someone ought to tell Gordon Brown about that.

However, forward planning is essential to your mental well being; failing to cope with a changing environment is at the root of stress. The business and Internet world is certainly in for big change in the next year, so if you don't plan to cope with that you will doubtlessly suffer from stress and associated anxiety.

Consequently you need to think about the likely online changes for 2009. There are some fairly obvious things - social networking will continue to increase in prominence and importance, the numbers of people using the Internet will doubtlessly rise and the amount of content available will increase substantially.

Some of the other things you need to think about include the rise in importance of "mashups", the increase in value of "geotagging" and that "reputation management" will also take on greater importance. If you are not planning how to exploit each of these areas during 2009, your stress levels may well increase...!

Of course, planning to handle the recession is going to be another certain way of reducing your psychological health problems over 2009. Today, we hear that in spite of millions of people rushing to the sales, less money is actually being spent. And in the business to business sector, people are not spending in a bid to save budgets and therefore keep their own jobs. Even though these executives know the sensible thing to do is to buy your particular service, they won't because they are protecting Number One first.

So, can you look forward to a good 2009 with a positive frame of mind and safe in the knowledge that whatever you do online will work and therefore help reduce your stress levels? Sure you can - but you must plan in detail, right now. If you have nothing much else in the diary for January use the available time to plan ahead - in writing and in detail - and all will be well. Assuming, of course you take into account the important things online. And if you have never heard of mashups, geotagging or reputation management systems, now - right now - is the time to find out.

Labels: future, internet

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Memory is a strange feature of our brains; it is essential for everything we do (think for a moment if you had to learn every day to walk again as your brain had forgotten what to do.l.!). Yet it fails us so much.

Everyone you speak with lately is worried about the recession. We seem to have forgotten that it was this time last year we were discussing it.

Everyone you speak with lately is amazed at the billions that Mr Madoff has seemingly made disappear. Yet last year at this time billions had "disappeared" from Societe Generale.

Everyone you speak with lately is saying sales in the High Street are down because the Internet has taken away the trade. But that's exactly the explanation for poor sales this time last year.

In other words, little has actually changed in the last year. Bricks and mortar retailers are still apparently surprised that the Internet is "stealing" their customers. Financial regulators still seem amazed that financiers could make off with money. And business people still think the recession is going to happen to other businesses but not their own.

The problem is a deep rooted psychological one - we hate change and have to adapt to it slowly. The recession was actually with us well over a year ago, but we didn't want to accept it because it would mean too much change. The financial regulators know that there are serious problems with their industry, but to deal with it effectively would mean too much change. And High Street retailers accept in their heart of hearts that the Internet will eventually take away all their customers, but to handle that threat involves too much change.

So we all stick our heads where the sun doesn't shine and hope it will all go away. Indeed, that's exactly what most businesses seem to be doing right now. Few people are back at work - most of the UK is still "on holiday". And that hasn't changed from a year ago, either. Or the year before that, or indeed a decade before that. The "Christmas Season" seems to be getting longer and longer each year.

Right at the time we need to knuckle down and get on with things, we take a break. Meanwhile, over in China, India, and Korea, enterprising Internet marketers are - at this very moment - setting up businesses online that will steal your customers and marketplace.

No longer is it possible to hope that change is unnecessary, or that the recession will affect other people, or that you can carry on as normal. We are going to have to accept that radical change is vital to our business survival. Otherwise, this time next year I'm sure my "New Year Message" will be very bleak indeed.

In the meantime, if you realise that change is important in the coming year, but you're not sure how to handle it, this Eight Step Model of change should help.

Labels: internet

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Google doesn't take into account the order of the words that you type into the search box - unless you tell it to by using quotation marks. Now, psychologists from Boston, USA, have found that humans don't either.

It turns out that in familiar word pairs, such as "internet marketing" if the words are the wrong way round, as in "marketing internet", we read them the way we expect them to be. So, you would read "management time" as "time management" or "networking social" as "social networking".

Of course, you'd probably not be noticing any such thing in the words I'd just given you because you have been "primed" into seeing the effect. But for anyone who produces web sites it means you can have web pages that contain words in the "wrong" order that appear in the right order for humans. The benefit for anyone trying to gain higher search engine rankings is that the order of the words matters only a little.

So, for instance, you could write some text that ended one sentence with the word "marketing" and then started the next sentence with "Internet". Humans would see "Internet marketing" as would Google. This helps because it means you don't have to repeatedly use the same words on the page which would become boring to the reader and seem as repetitive to search engines.

In words other this new research shows us you can be more creative with your copy and your headlines, safe in the knowledge that your readers would get the real message.

Labels: internet, internet marketing, internet psychology

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Andy Burnham, the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport has shown, yet again, that Government fails to understand the Internet. In an interview with the Daily Telegraph he proposed that web sites should only be published once they have cinema style ratings so that parents would know what was acceptable for their children.

What tosh. Is he seriously expecting that every time anyone wants to publish something online they'd have to apply to some central agency who would then take several weeks to reach a decision? Is he seriously expecting that parents would take any notice? Is he seriously expecting that every nation in the world would follow suit?

He extends his idea by claiming that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) would then be forced to only provide access to material which has been approved in some way.

Apart from the fact that his ideas are completely unworkable, they'd also be impossible. Technically, you could connect to the Internet without an ISP anyway and besides which, if a British company felt they were restricted by the "approval process" it would only take a matter of minutes to set everything up abroad, out of the clutches of this paranoid Government.

Luckily, the Daily Telegraph itself thinks the plans are nonsense. In a comment piece they said the proposal would be unworkable, but also pointed out that it is down to parents to ensure that children do not access unsuitable material.

Thus it has ever been. Children do see 18-rated movies at a much younger age because they are lent the DVDs by kids in the playground. Children do listen to music with dubious lyrics because they can buy the CDs in the local High Street. Children do see pornographic magazines, because their older brothers let them have a peek.

We already have systems in place to prevent children from seeing what adults deem to be unsuitable. They don't work because parents fail to ensure they work. Even if it were practicable to produce some system for the Internet (and it isn't) it would fail because, like Mr Burnham, most parents do not understand the Internet. Once again, Labour's ignorance of the way the Internet works shows us how important it is that adults learn more about the web in particular. After all, their children understand it very well indeed.

Labels: internet, internet psychology, politics

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At December 30, 2008 5:25 PM  Jeremy Jacobs said…

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