Sep 28, 2008 Posted in Random Thoughts

Is the Internet Ruining Your Business

It seems a strange question to ask, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t most people agree that the Internet has been the most influencial tool the business world has ever seen – not including Donald Trump, of course. However, let’s look at the facts.

• Most businesses don’t generate any revenue and very few sales leads from their websites
• Email is arguably the greatest time waster ever invented
• The ever-present possibility of surfing the web allows employees to slack off when they should be working
• Cell phones, pagers, blackberries and instant messaging make all of us easily accessible whether we want to be or not
• The Internet has opened up markets so that local businesses may need to compete with competitors half-way around the world

I’m not knocking technology. When used properly, I believe that technology only enriches our lives. However, we’ve now entered the “Interruption Age”. Multi-tasking is a farce. Studies have shown that interruptions like email and cell phones vastly hinder the quality of output of workers. A specific study done by King’s College in London, England compared three groups of test-takers. The first was allowed to take a test without any distractions, the second group was allowed to answer emails and phone calls while taking the test and the third group smoked dope just before the test.

As you would expect, the first group scored the highest. The distracted group scored an average of 10 points lower than the first group while the stoners only scored 4 points lower than the first group. Interesting, isn’t it?

What is the Solution?

I’ve recently been dedicating my total attention to one task at a time. Phones, pagers, email are all turned off and I focus on doing my most important tasks first thing in the morning. This is pretty basic.

At the same time, why don’t we leverage the power of the Information Age? I’ve learned that I don’t have to do everything myself. Instead, I’ve been taking advantage of the global marketplace and I’ve been outsourcing a lot of my more mundane tasks to people who can do these things much better than I and at a much more cost-effective rate.

I’m still in the early stages of this experiment but I’ll be sure to keep you posted with how things progress.