Does your company website make sense?

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , ,
Posted in An Internet Marketing Journal

So you’ve got a website and you’re proud of it. In fact, many of you were probably excited to tell people once it was up and going.  I’ve got some questions for you. What is it for? What does it do? How do people find it? How do people use it? Do you know the answers to any of these questions?

I think most company websites are there just to provide a presence on the web. It’s something to put on the business card or at least a face that people can find when they’re searching for you by name. If it is and that’s your only goal – well mission accomplished. You probably achieved it. All that it takes is a pleasant graphic, contact information, maybe a list of clients and maybe the president’s bio. Voila’ – you’re on the web.

What if you hope that one person, one small person finds your site and contacts you for work. Could that be you? How much thought did you put into that? Well 105% of people don’t put enough thought and 95% of those didn’t think at all. So in one paragraph, let me tell you what you need to consider when putting your website together.

If your company name is Hodgkins and you make custom pens, www.hodgkins.com is probably not your future client’s first keyword search when looking for a good pen manufacturer. Consider www.custom-pens-by-Hodgkins.com. If the first page is all about your company history, Google won’t know what your site is about. Make the first page about custom pens. Your desire to feature yourself and your company’s 30 year track record isn’t as important to ‘searchers’ as finding the right color pen. 1. What’s important to the customer? 2. How are they looking for me? 3. What do I have to offer – IN THAT ORDER. Then design a site that meets those requirements.

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List of Retailers Closing Shop in 2009

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Niche Affiliate Marketing

(See the comments section for the list of retailers thriving in 2009)

This was originally compiled after seeing a forwarded e-mail back in January. Since then, I’ve updated it as news came out. If there are more, please tell me and I’ll add them to the list.
___________________________________________________________
Apparel/Accessories:

* Ann Taylor: closing 117 of its 959 women’s-clothing stores

* Caché: closed 14 stores (but, according to AZbiz.com, is also opening stores and currently has 295 across the country)

* Charming Shoppes(operator of plus-size women’s apparel stores Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, and Catherine’s): has closed 150 of approximately 2,360 stores

* Club Libby Lu: All

* Eddie Bauer: filed bankruptcy – August 2009

* Foot Locker: closed 140 stores out of more than 3,500 in North America

* The Gap: closing 85 of its 2,677 Gap, Old Navy, and Banana Republic stores (but, according to AZbiz.com, also repositioning and opening others)

* Goody’s: Closing 287 Stores

* J. Jill: announced about a month ago that it will be closing all 78 of its kids and men’s stores.

* Lane Bryant, Fashion Bug, Catherine’s: 150 stores

* Lillian Vernon: filed for bankruptcy

* Macy’s: closed 11 department stores this year

* Mervyns: will liquidate and close its 149 remaining stores after the holidays

* Pacific Sunware: closed all 228 stores that were branded as Demo stores featuring “urban-style” clothes. [Note: one report puts the total at 154 stores.]

* Shoe Pavilion: liquidating and will close all stores by the end of the year. It had 117 stores when it filed for Chapter 11 reorganization

* Sigrid Olsen: all 54 stores (operated by Liz Claiborne), were closed

* Steve and Barry’s: Closing all 173 stores

* Talbots: closed 22 stores, 2 percent of its total

* Wilson Leather: closed 160 stores, 62 percent of its total, and converting the remaining stores into a new women’s-accessories concept
___________________________________________________________
Automotive:

* Pep Boys: closed 31 locations, about 5 percent of its auto-supply and -repair stores

* GM: File For Bankruptcy
___________________________________________________________
Casual Dining:

* Bennigan’s Grill and Tavern all 200 company-owned restaurants were closed as part of a Chapter 7 bankruptcy liquidation filing in July

* Mrs. Fields: filed for bankruptcy

* Starbucks: closing 600 underperforming stores, 19 percent of its total

* Monell’s Restaurants: All Restaurants Nationwide – Files for Bankruptcy
__________________________________________________________
Department Stores:

* Boscov’s: family-owned retailer filed for bankruptcy protection; may still have to liquidate its inventory to satisfy debts; has 29 stores

* Dillard’s: closed 3 stores, may close more

* JC Penney: closing a number of stores after January

* Walgreens: Cancelled 30% of its approved-for-development stores – and slowed growth from 450 stores/year to maybe 200
___________________________________________________________
Electronics/Entertainment:

* Blockbuster: Closing 960 Stores!

* Circuit City: DOA 3/9/2009 All 721 stores closed!

* CompUSA: liquidated all 103 of its stores in January

* F.Y.E.: (For Your Entertainment): closed 100 stores, about 12 percent of its total; the Trans World Entertainment stores had operated under a variety of different names including Sam Goody, Suncoast Motion Picture Co., and Wherehouse Music, before being united under the F.Y.E. brand name.

* Fry’s Electronics: 17 stores

* Hollywood Video: nation’s second largest video-rental retailer closed 542 stores (plus another 378 operated under the name Movie Gallery) under Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, which ended in May

* Movie Gallery: Closing 400 stores, may close completely.

* The Sharper Image: closed all 184 stores as part of a bankruptcy liquidation

* Tweeter Electronics: filed for bankruptcy in early November, and will only accept gift cards through December 31st or until its stores close
__________________________________________________________
Home Furnishings:

* Bombay Co.: filed for bankruptcy, closed all 388 stores in January

* Pier 1 Imports: Closed 50 stores, down from their original 125 projection

* Ethan Allen: closed 12 retail design centers and two service centers

* Home Depot: closing 21 out of 2,141 stores

* Home Depot Expot: Closing the remaining 34 stores

* Kirkland’s Home: home-decor retailer is closing 130 stores, about 37 percent of its store count, by the middle of next year

* Levitz Furniture: filed for bankruptcy; closing remaining stores

* Linens ‘N Things: liquidating and closing all 370 of its stores

* Mikasa: dinnerware and home-decor retailer in January closed all 86 of its outlet stores

* Lowe’s: plans to close some stores

* Wickes Furniture: closing down
_________________________________________________________
Jewelry

* Friedman’s/Crescent Jewelers: liquidated and closed 377 of 565 of its stores as of the end of July

* Piercing Pagoda: Closing all stores

* Whitehall Jewelers: in the final stages of liquidating and closing all 373 of its stores

* Zales: closed 105 stores, 3 percent of its total

* Shane Co.: Reorganizing – Filed Bankruptcy in January
_________________________________________________________
Other:

* Bank of America: to close 10% of their 6,100 stores / branches

* CostPlus World Market: trimmed about 6 percent of its stores, closing 18 of 314 locations

* The Disney Store: closed 98 of its 322 North American stores after being reacquired in March by The Disney Co.

* Office Depot: Closing 117 Store

* Rent-A-Center: closed 280 stores, about 8 percent of its total stores

* Piercing Pagoda: closing all stores

* Ritz Camera: Closing 300 Stores

* Southern Building Company: Files for Bankruptcy
__________________________________________________________
Telecommunications:

* Sprint/Nextel: closed 125 stores, about 8 percent of its total
__________________________________________________________
Toys:

* KB Toys: closed 156 stores, about 26 percent of its chain, a year ago after emerging from Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection. (Note: A spokesman for the company was quoted in October 2008 as saying, “We just opened 30 stores recently and we continue to serve the families that shop at the more than 460 locations nationwide.”)

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High School Reunions After Facebook

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , ,
Posted in The Social Media Phenomenon

We grew up watching sitcoms, movies, hearing stories and reading books about the 10 and 20 year reunions. Typically they’re giant surprise parties. “Can you believe how much weight she gained?”, “He’s still living at home?”, “I never thought he of all people would be that successful”. That’s the kind of stuff we grew up hearing. But now that slide show of pictures that was going to guffaw everyone is played out everyday. The weight, the jobs, the families – they’re common knowledge. Putting the surprise party away, what does the reunion become?

That’s my question and point of discussion. We don’t need to have reunions for the surprise anymore. The catching up part that was really the purpose of the reunions is not really a good reason to have them. So, what reason could we have to gather a bunch of people that started their adult lives on the same day, in the same place wearing the same mortar board hat?  Maybe we could do something philanthropic?  Something for the school we graduated from, perhaps.

What do we wish we’d had the day we graduated? Is there some knowledge that would have been useful had it been passed on to us then? What do we have that any other group of people don’t have? What impact can we make? How can we forever change the purpose of the high school reunion?

Let’s do something that will make us proud to have attended the reunion AND something that will be so cool – people will not want to miss it. Let’s be the Class of ’92 – the class that had class.

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How To Turn an Idea into a Business

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , ,
Posted in An Internet Marketing Journal

So you’ve got this idea or special knowledge or hobby and you want to turn it into money. It’s done millions of times and I highly recommend it. If it is something you like to do, why not profit by sharing it with others who need it. So I’ve put together this little guide on how to get from A to Z. I hope you find it useful.

STEP 1

The first step you should take is to determine what you have. What assets can you put together to market? Let’s use an example for this road map so that you can get the gist of what I’m talking about. For this example, we’ll assume you’re a therapist who helps people recover from muscle injury. You’ve been doing it so long you know all the exercises people need to do, when to do them and how to measure their own progress. And you’re thinking you could turn this knowledge into a business. So Step 1 is make a list of everything you have – your assets. In this case they might be:

 

Testimonials from your clients

Primary Information (PI) on how injuries occur. (Primary information is stuff you don’t have to research – you just know).

PI on how to do 22 exercises

PI on using muscle assessment tools

PI on common mistakes

PI on the answers to most FAQ’s

PI on the FAQ’s.

Anecdotes

Famous clients

Scientific Studies, Reports, proof

Photos of the equipment, customers, places you worked, you at work

Certifications and degrees

Written information on any of these topics

All the written information in electronic form

All the written information in paper form

Doctors, Nurses or other professionals who will speak on your behalf

Doctors, Pharmacists who already prescribe what you do

Doctors, Nurses or other professionals who would be happy to “prescribe” your “video” or website once made

 

What exactly is this pile of assets you have at your disposal already? This will go a long way in determining the cost of your project moving forward – and how long it will take to start selling products.

 

STEP 2

Testing and Research.  We don’t know what people are already looking for yet.  The best way to learn what potential customers are interested in is to find out what they’re currently looking for and get in their way.  This is not always easy; however, it becomes very valuable once you achieved this arena.  For instance if we determine what keywords people use when searching for ”at-home therapy” information and built a website that rose to the first page of Google for that keyword, we’d really learn what the people are interested in knowing.  We could track what topics they clicked on, where they navigated on site and over time figure out what really interests these people. However, getting to the top of Google is not easy.

 

If you could put a bunch of pamphlets in waiting rooms of therapy clinics and see what people pick up and read, that would be helpful. A good test here would be to put out the same pamphlet with different names (Advanced exercises, At home therapy, etc. ..) What pamphlets do they pick up before they meet with the therapist and what pamphlets do they pick up after? The idea here is to find the traffic and get in the way. And if you don’t already have content written, these two methodologies (among others) can be a lot of work to build the appropriate content.

 

Find blogs in your industry and interject yourself into blogs bringing up ideas and judging responses would be another research tool.

 

Without a product, starting on Radio or TV at this point would be less effective because the only information you garner is from the people who call the 800 number to request or order something.

 

Using a web analytic tool to measure traffic on your website is good because you can continually move information around, add new information, make highly trafficked information easy to find, delete information not being clicked and add new stuff.  In this manner, you can create a site that’s got the information people are looking to read.

 

Whether you do this stage in doctor’s offices with physical pamphlets, on the web, using keyword search tools or via some other marketing avenue – testing is important. From this original testing and research step, the goal would be to know what niche or focus your users are interested in. The product you think you want to develop for sale is likely not the same product that people will buy.  While you’re thinking “at-home muscle therapy.com”, your customers might be searching for “muscle recovery exercises”. If you can’t get in their way – they won’t find you. 

 

 

STEP 3

 

Product Creation – From your testing you should know now what product you want to try to put together. If you’re talking about building a website, you should know what keywords you want to use based on their profitabilty, search volume and competition. This is the time you put all that information together and create the product/website.

 

STEP 4

 

Marketing

 

Marketing is more testing and research but with a product to prove performance. This is the point at which you would create a shopping page on your website or begin marketing the website. There’s no right or wrong here – only successes and failures. Driving traffic is done many, many ways. The more targeted traffic you drive – the sooner you’ll learn how well your site works.

 

There are so many ways to market the website, it’s not worth going into detail. Some of them are marketing via affiliates, Google AdWords, Banner ads, Article marketing, Blogs, etc. . .  Pick one and start testing whether it’s working. It would be important to have marketing assistance during this process because you’ll want to make sure you’re always doing an A-B test and you’re always comparing one thing to another, not several different things at once.  The result of successful marketing is profit.

 

If you want to do this on your own, I recommend one service SiteBuildit. They literally help you with every step – all right not every step. You’re still going to have to provide the knowledge and content.  SiteBuildit is built around the idea that Content is King. If you build a site that has lots of relevant information, and is structured so people can find it on Google – visitors will come time and time again. Furthermore, SiteBuildit will help you monetize the site in a variety of ways (google ads, affiliate ads and your product). Check out SiteBuildit or contact me if you have other questions.

 

Stay tuned for Using Social Media to Drive Traffic!

 

 

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Finding Employment with Social Media

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , ,
Posted in The Social Media Phenomenon

What is Social Media, otherwise known as Web 2.0? It’s where the internet has evolved at this point – it has become a medium of social interaction. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, LinkedIn and lots of other sites do nothing other than connect people. And their popularity has changed the web forever. Now, even business sites have blogs where you can post your questions, complaints, successes and others can see them – and interact, and be connected. The web has become more than e-mail, more than Amazon, more than eBay and it can be a great tool to find employement with your next employer.

I was speaking with an unemployed friend earlier today, and subsequently found this “how to find a job on the web” article (http://snurl.com/9nzc3) on MSN.com. It seems finding employment in this economy has become a hot topic. While the MSN article talks about using your blog as a resume of sorts. That’s just the tip of the iceberg.

Let’s say you want to work for Microsoft up in Seattle. And before I continue, if you don’t know where you want to work – that’s probably something to work on first. In an environment where no one is hiring, don’t wait for the want ads – they’re probably not coming. Instead what companies have people that do what you do? Which ones sound fun?When you figure that out, head to LinkedIn and search for that company (like Microsoft)- then write down the names of the people you find who are working there.  Go to their website and use Google to find more names.  In LinkedIn, what public information can you learn about them? What do they do? How do they describe themselves, their jobs? Then head to search.twitter.com and search for these people, or enter www.twitter.com/thatperson’sname. When you find them, “follow” them.

Now go to www.twollo.com and tell Twollo to alert you whenever someone is talking about your company, and conversations revolving around terms that you use in your job. Follow the people who are talking about those things.  Head to twittergroups.com, Facebook and MySpace and find out if there are groups for your company’s fans, programmers, whatever you do.  Go to buzzaround.us and search for the company you want to work for (they search blogs and mirco-blogs) And finally, does the company have a blog? The CEO of GoDaddy has a blog right on GoDaddy.com – do the companies you want to work for? Now, start reading what people are saying.

Use these outlets to learn what these companies are doing? What aren’t they doing that you’re finding others in your industry are? Use your knowledge of the industry to write blog articles, and post links to these articles on your different pages and sites. For instance on Twitter write “Check out this article about how (my industry) is changing in 2009″. Better than that, turn your blog post into an article and post it on ezine.com – and send your followers there.  Put links to the articles or your blog on your Facebook page, your LinkedIn page and your other sites.

Then when you get an interview or are engaged in an employment discussion – you’ll know what’s going on in the company. You’ll know what people are saying about it, what the CEO intends for the future and what how you can fit into the company.  They’ll already know that you’re qualified, eager and up-to-date with current technologies.  That kind of drive is hard to pass up.

I know this sounds like work – but this is not an easy employment economy. But the work will pay-off . Think about it – if someone spent that much time learning about your company – would you want to hire them?

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Adventures of Mark and Dan – Dim Me Sum More

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in The Adventures of Dan & Mark

By Dan

Adventures don’t have to be big, or epic.  Sometimes trying to find an address in a new city is an adventure. Well, now that I’ve got the Garmin – that won’t be an issue. Nonetheless, we did have a small adventure this week. What’s funny is I didn’t expect the adventure – that’s what made it fun I suppose.

Originally, I intended to make my normal trip to Atlanta to see Mark and his family. But then I remembered that I ought to see if Mike Goode, who also lives in Atlanta, would be up for lunch or something. I haven’t seen Mike since 1990 (maybe for a few minutes in 1992) so lunch promised to be nostalgic and likely short. Nevertheless, I really did want to see Mike again and hear about his adventures over the last 19 years. 19 years. . . that sounds crazy.

So I sent a message to Mike and learned he was up for lunch. I said “what part of town?” and he said “Royal China, 12:00″. That was promising from the get go. Not only does he lack wishy-washy’ness’ or the inability to make a decision – but he’s efficient. Two e-mails and we’ve got a date, time and place. Not bad.

I told Mark I’d pick him up on the way (in the spirit of efficiency) and this adventure began. The Garmin Navigator eliminated any crazyiness associated with finding the place – but finding the place was where it began. We pulled up to a non-descript, typical Chinese restaurant – except for the fact that the parking lot was full. Not only full but the kind of full where you know pulling into the drive that you’re either going to get lucky and park next to the front door or you were going to park next to the dumpster of the neighboring business. We did the latter.  Walking up we then noticed that everyone entering the place was Asian. Now this has got to be a good sign. Not only is this place full, but Asian people are eating there.

Seriously when you go out for Chinese – do you ever see Asian people there? No – that’s because Chinese food is really just food influenced by Chinese recipes but Americanized so that we buy it. We figured immediately that we were in for something good.

Then we entered the place and the noted that the daily specials board was written in Chinese – no English anywhere.  At this point I’m thinking Mike Goode is cool – and he’s picked the perfect lunch spot for adventure seeking boys like Mark and I. Looking around to make sure Mike wasn’t already there, we decided to get a table and wait for him.

Immediately a woman  pushing a cart with dinner rolls in plates of 3 pulled up. She asked in broken English if we wanted some and we said yes, but somehow it was more difficult to get that across. She also gave us a plate with three little shrimp ball things. Cool, bread and appetizers and we haven’t even been given the menu yet.

As we waited for Mike, I decided to try one of these dinner rolls, bit into it and found it to be filled with some sort of red, barbequish meat (that I didn’t like). Almost immediately upon realizing that these weren’t dinner rolls more people in carts with food started coming up to our table. Crazily, we didn’t recognize any food on any cart and decided we better wait for Mike – so we shooed them all away (politely of course).

Everything was plated on small appetizer plates and came in groups of 2, 3 or 4.  And most of it was wrapped in rice tortillas, or bread or something else. And the ‘cart pushers’ didn’t really speak that much English. It was really quite amusing and fun. Well Mike came right away which ended the amusing part but enabled us to start the food adventure part. (I’m going to skip the parts about Mike – what he’s doing and how cool he is because that’s a different story).

So we found out that we were eating Dim Sum (is that spelled right?). It’s like Tapas, but in a Chinese restaurant. It’s not fixed price dining like a Brazillian joint because you pay for each item. There is no menu, which is kind of like a buffett. But it’s more like a moving buffett and you’re wearing a blindfold. Anyway, the food was cool. I can’t tell you what we ate because I don’t really know. Some of it has shrimp in it, some had pork in it – but they were all too different to figure out.  I just know it was a cool adventure and we were both surprised that we hadn’t experienced Dim Sum before. And even stranger is not knowing what it was at all.

Now it wasn’t over there. But, I’ll just say that if you get a chance to go to a Korean cafe, order Bubble Tea. You won’t be disappointed.

Small – but fun. Another good adventure.

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How To Choose A Home-Based Business

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in An Internet Marketing Journal, Niche Affiliate Marketing

Why even write this article?  Mainly because most people don’t realize what kinds of businesses are available and most don’t realize that successful home businesses require some work. So that being the case, some advice on how to make this decision could be life changing and lead you closer to making a successful decision.

Let’s start by saying that the home-based business is the last great American tax shelter.  It’s an opportunity to turn your ordinary expenses like rent, mortgages, utilities,  and lawn maintenance into tax deductible expenses. If you don’t know what that means here’s a quick way to understand it. Your income determines what tax you owe the government. If you’re in the 10% tax bracket and you make $30,000 – then you owe the government $3,000 in taxes. Now if you’re allowed to subtract some of your normal expenses from your income, then your taxable income is lower. Let’s say you have $5,000 in expenses (rent, utilities, etc) – then your new income is $25,000 and now you only owe $2,500 to the government. Just by having a home-based business you will have saved yourself $500 in taxes. That’s cash in your pocket. I don’t give specific tax advice so talk to your accountant about the specifics or buy this great book and learn for yourself.

Now, if your business expenses are tax deductible expenses – wouldn’t it be good to deduct some other things you’re already going to pay for this year? This is the first lesson in choosing your home-based business – figure out what you like to do and already spend time and money doing it. Do you have hobbies? Do you travel? Do you go to cooking shows, take cooking classes? Do you spend time and money going to NASCAR events? Figure this out – it’s important because it ultimately gives you two advantages. If your business is based on things you like doing – you’ll probably spend more time on it and will be more successful. And if your business is also your hobby – pursuing a profit from that hobby makes the expenses tax deductible.  That’s a win-win situation.

Now you must decide what format of business to start, this is different than figuring out the subject of your business. You’ve got several options like starting a business from scratch (such as a lemonade stand) like deciding to sell quilts you make.  You could become a franchisee or a rep. of a business that already has a business model like selling Pampered Chef equipment. A little less common is becoming an affiliate on-line and making a ‘commission’ by selling other people’s products and services through links. Network marketing is a solid option as well and usually gives you the opportunity to sell products and to get paid by helping the network marketing company grow. And finally you could build a website of your own and combine all of those things. Either way – no matter what you choose the business is yours and you must act like you have a business and run it like you have a business.

So how do you figure this out? Some of this depends on the time you have available – but more importantly what kind of time you’re willing to re-prioritize to the business. Watch this 6:30 second video and hear what Robert Kiyosaki has to say about this. If your goal is financial freedom, then you  need to consider the residual income opportunities of each model. Making quilts and selling them to neighbors is a good idea if you like making quilts and have run out of room to hang them. But once you’ve made your last quilt – the income ends. That doesn’t mean you should run from the quilt idea. Let’s just figure out how to turn that quilt hobby into a business that will pay you while you sleep. What about creating a website around quilts? There’s a great service out there that will help you do just that. It’s called SiteBuildit and it helps you from beginning to end. They help you figure out what to call it, how to make money from it, how to build it, how to make sure people find it, etc. They’re the best if you have a hobby but don’t know anything about building a website. This is a way to sell your quilts, make money after you’ve made your last quilt, turn your quilt making into a tax deductible activity and profit from something you enjoy.

Building a website does take more prep time than becoming a franchisee, rep or working for a network marketing company. Where building your own website is open to any subject, choosing an existing company that fits is a little bit less open. For instance, I don’t know of a network marketing company that is somehow related to quilts – but there may be. Contact me if you’re interested in this but need help finding one – they’re not necessarily easy to find. They do run the gamut though- from health to travel to auto to kitchen to self-help tools. There really are a lot out there. This model typically provides residual income that keeps paying you long after you’re done working, takes little prep work to get ready and has a good support system in place. If the only thing you can think of when you hear network marketing is Amway, hassling your friends and home parties – think again. The internet has changed all that. Some of the most successful network marketers haven’t had a single party and have only recruited people who were already on-line looking for a network marketing opportunity.

Lastly, and easily combined with the rest is the on-line affiliate. Many, many companies provide personalized links to their products and services. When people click on these links and then buy products at that website – you get paid a commission.  Think about it this way, imagine telling your friends that you just say The Curious Case of Benjamin Buttons and then getting paid when those friends see the movie. I mean, if you are doing the marketing for them, shouldn’t you get paid? They’re obviously profiting from your word-of-mouth marketing help. This is the way on-line affiliates work. This is a good option for people who love doing stuff on-line – but doesn’t necessarily provide long term income. This is a good one to combine with the rest.

Start by figuring out what you like to do. Watch that video and decide what kind of business you want to start. Check out SiteBuildIt and learn about building your own site. Talk to your accountant or buy that tax book so you know what kinds of expenses to start tracking AND contact me if you need any help. Having your own business is cool. Having one that is so successful you can quit your job – that’s priceless (as they say on the commercials).

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You Want Me To Think?

Posted By: DanRMorris | Tags: , , , , ,
Posted in Life's Experiences

Have you seen Wall-E yet? What about the Jetsons? Just like you, I used to wonder what life would be like in the year 2000. Would we really have robots and hovercrafts and jetpacks? Would dinner just appear on a platter? And would we really all wear the same outfit? Well, it seems in 2009 life hasn’t changed as much as I thought it might, but one things that seems to be coming true is the advance of brain reduction technologies.

In the Disney movie Wall-E, society sits in hovering chairs, in front of computer screens content to just sit there, being entertained and fed without thinking. How far away are we, really? Remember when calculators became small enough to fit on a watch? Do you really need to know what 12 x 12 is anymore? That’s the argument I made back then. If I can have a calculator on my watch – why do I have to do flash cards? That was just the beginning.

I’ve got tons of phone numbers stored in my head from my youth, but only 6 or 7 from my current friends and family. My phone stores them – why should I remember them? I can just press speed dial or look up my friend’s number in the contact list. My kids have no idea how long it takes to microwave popcorn because there’s a button that says ‘popcorn’. No reason to read the directions, plug in 3:00, or monitor the progress – there’s a button.It says ‘popcorn’. And cops who used to walk the beat – now they ride segues. No need to walk, when you can just stand there.

Well for Christmas we got a Garmin GPS navigator for the car, and today I drove to Atlanta using the Garmin. I plugged in the address and whoosh – away we went – just listen to the computerized voice tell me where to go. It even took me a different way to my friend’s house. I didn’t even bother to look for landmarks or street signs – why would I? I have a Garmin. And then when I got there I just “Saved This Location” for my next trip. Guess what? I don’t even have to remember his address now.

So in 2009, be conscious of progress, or one day Progress will be defined as: the absence of thought.

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