Amanda Gome

Want to get things done? Raise your voice. No, LOUDER. And you can make yourself heard here by joining our blog audition.

Coping with the internet

Typical. A Tuesday bloggist has fallen through. The excuse? Too busy travelling, selling and making money to write a blog once a week – gratis – for SmartCompany.

But our techs have just told us that our technology, which is meant to make life easier, stipulates that we cannot have three new blogs every day; there must be four or the entire system goes haywire.

That got me thinking about technology, building a website and my top three tips.

First the internet is a mess, a maze and a menace. The technology behind it is wild and unpredictable. Trying to get straight answers from technical people on why something goes wrong usually elicits a range of vague responses including my favorite: “It’s the gremlins in the system again.”

My tip: set up a good cop/bad cop system. The good cop ensures work on the site continues while bad cop rings up and yells, insists on digging down, working out what happened, apportioning blame and making sure it doesn’t happen again.

My second observation is that building a website is like renovating your house: the builders will have three other jobs going, so you’ll need to shout louder than the other clients to ensure you are noticed. That way, there’s strong chance your job will be finished first and, possibly, on time.

Finally, always choose web builders who have worked in your industry and on similar projects. At least that way they can make educated guesses about what needs to be done while you – the client stare into the middle distance and nod silently– because all that yelling has made you hoarse.

The upside of all this is we’re looking for a new bloggist to fill next Tuesday’s spot or you’ll get me again.

Send in your blog. We’ll run it on Tuesday and see what the SmartCompany community thinks. If they like you, you get the gig.

And if we like you, we’ll give you a free ticket to attend a sales workshop by renowned sales guru Jack Daly, courtesy of The Executive Connection. (You can blog on it.)

Auditions are being held daily 24/7 online. Send trial blogs to feedback@smartcompany.com.au.