The Official Broadlook Blog

Recruiting and sales activity involving the Internet should be deliberate.

Broadlook Project 1200

Manually searching a company website, LinkedIn, news groups, and other sources for contact information is incredibly time consuming. The question to ask yourself is simple: At the end of the process, can I repeat it, automatically? Take Broadlook’s Profiler and Market Mapper technology as an example. A manual process of identifying 1200 companies in a national niche market and then finding all the names, titles, emails, phone numbers and bios takes about three man-months. This is desk-building 101. If you want to get into a new market and be competitive, you need the data. Using Broadlook’s solution a single person can accomplish the same results in three hours over a three-day period. In addition, the process can be repeated on demand, with the press of a button.

To Improve Results, Apply the “After Show Effect”

By Donato Diorio, CEO of Broadlook Technologies

Has your company’s tradeshow involvement increased again as the economy has improved? 

Many businesses that we interact with say “Yes.” So, if you’ve decided to join the trend to get “back into” trade shows, answer this question. Do you want to continue with the status quo of generating leads from your investment or reach a new level of return on investment? Okay, so the answer is obvious. Read on to learn more.

Consider this scenario… 

You picked the right trade show, you got people to your booth.  You’ve had great conversations and ended up with a pile of business cards.  Your sales team is excited!  What next?

There are many facets to success at a trade show: The elevator pitch, pre-show marketing, booth setup, etc.  (If you don’t have a good elevator pitch, here is a blog that can help you develop yours. “Nailing the 30 Second Elevator Pitch”)

For the sake of this scenario, our fictional vendor is TabletCo.  They sell the hottest new Android Tablet for the educational market.

A prospect, Harry, walks up to your TabletCo booth.  He loves your product! Harry is excited about using the tablet at the school where he is a History teacher.  The school district is large. It is a good opportunity.  Some further questioning yields the fact the entire school district wants to have a tablet for each student.  Being a conscientious sales rep, you get Harry’s card.  You are all set for the follow up…or are you?

This is the disconnect point.  Not just in sales at a trade show, but sales in general.  Important questions:

1. Is Harry the decision maker?  Can he say YES to a purchase?
2. If is he the decision maker, is he the ONLY decision maker?
3. What is the approval process for purchasing at Harry’s district?  Is Harry even aware of the process?
4. Is the information on Harry’s card current?  He is a teacher, did you get a cell phone, direct line and email address?
5. What happens if Harry moves to a different position in the next week?
6. What happens if Harry gets laid off?
7. What are the names, titles, emails phone numbers and backgrounds of other people that will participate in a decision?

Simple questions.  Do you normally have the answers after the show?  Why is it important?

Having multiple points of contact is the single greatest factor in getting a sales advance.

What is a sales advance?  It is not a sale.  A sales advance is forward movement in the sales process.

Having, and leveraging 3 points of contact “after show” will give you a 9X success factor over following up with a single contact.

Did you get 3 points of contact or a single card? How do can you turn a single point of contact into multiple points of entry?

Take a look at this. Here’s a scan of my business card. A typical card that you may collect at a tradeshow.  

 Now, here’s the outcome of using our Profiler solution to find additional contacts.

After spending $1000′s at a trade show, every lead is precious. Don’t waste them.

**

Introducing Broadlook’s “After Show” Services

How does it work?

1. After the trade show, you use Profiler(tm) to mine for additional contacts or contact Broadlook to begin a data services project. You must provide a list of the leads you collected at the trade show.
2. Broadlook cleans and enhances your contact list with our Profiler technology.
3. You receive of names, titles, emails, phone numbers and professional bios from contacts at companies that have already expressed an interest in your offering.
4. Attend our webinar titled, “Sphere of Influence” to learn a proven sales approach to leverage the newly acquired contact names; and advance your sales 9 out of 10 times. See athe webinar schedule here: http://www.broadlook.com/events/ for the next presentation.

For more inforrmation call us at 877.977.8080.

Best,

Donato

Picture this if you can.

Twenty (20) deep sea fishermen work for the same company.  Their job is to essentially catch grouper, trout, snapper, sailfish, swordfish and other deep runners of the wide open ocean. 

Each morning, they get up and put on weather appropriate wardrobe, gather their tools of the trade; fishing pole, tackle box and bait, and then take off to the deep seas.  They get to the pier to board their charter boats to venture out into the abundant and untamed waters and game. All 20 of them turn around and sit down on stools and drop their bait and lines into a small aquarium.

Huh…?  Does this make sense?

The aquarium is nice, organized and the fish are contained.  Albeit the fish have been caught over and over again and dropped back into the aquarium for someone else to catch and use.  The fishermen don’t have to work very hard, but they are willing to sacrifice quality for ease of catch, knowing full well that the “big catch” is out there in the deep seas not in a small glass box. 

Even if someone comes along once every couple of months to replenish new fish and clean the alga-filled tank, the thrill of a new catch is short-term and doomed to repeat the above.

Then all the fisherman head home, talking about the “few nibbles” they got and the one or two small fish they caught, but doubtful if the company will be able to meet its revenue requirements with the results.

Ridiculous?

Really?

Then why do companies continue to buy lists and subscribe to expensive databases as a primary source of leads for sales, marketing and business development?  Even worse, they do so and hope for different results each time.

Insanity has been defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

The analogy that the Internet is the ocean and the variety of available prospecting databases is aquariums is fairly accurate.  And no matter how attentive database providers are to the refresh of contact information within, claiming that editors, researchers and or technology are updating the information daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly, it can never reach the dynamic nature of the Internet.

Dedicating the resources necessary; both tools and training to teach and aid sales and marketing professionals to deep-sea fish in the Internet Ocean for dynamic, fresh information about companies and contacts can fundamentally change the quality of their sales efforts, marketing initiatives and ultimately their bottom-line results. Otherwise, don’t be surprised by the results if you find your sales, marketing and business development professionals all huddled around a database dropping their lines in for leads. Reaching revenue goals will be increasingly difficult. Even impossible.

By Dan Hughes, CSO Broadlook Technologies

Visit Broadlook’s website: http://www.broadlook.com

by Donato Diorio, CEO, Broadlook Technologies

There is the common, but false belief that a successful CRM implementation is complete once users are up and running and the technology replaces the manual tasks of tracking prospect/customer information. That is certainly a milestone, but not the end of the CRM implementation journey. Invariably, real-world usage leads to requirements not foreseen in initial CRM planning.  Salesforce.com pioneered the AppExchange™ and solved the challenge of the second implementation. 

Thousands of apps, ready with tested business logic, encompassing millions of lines of code can seamlessly plug into Salesforce to complete the second implementation. Before the AppExchange, companies would find themselves with a total re-engineering effort or CRM failure. Well done Salesforce!

 What is the Third Implementation?    

Today, the focus now turns to the third implementation; and it is all about data. Unless specifically addressed, every CRM has a problem with dirty data.  Regular de-duplication is NOT the solution. De-duplication treats a symptom of the dirty data disease; it does not cure the disease itself.  To cure the disease, you must stop dirty data from ever getting into the CRM. Dirty data can enter a CRM via a user, application or the system.  Each source of data needs to be addressed.

Enter the CRM Data-Plan

A CRM Data-Plan is a single-point-of-truth for treating data across an enterprise. It consists of a robust set of rules that details standards for treating data. Amazingly, less than 3% of CRM administrators have a CRM Data-Plan.

The challenge for CRM providers is that they cannot solve the issue with a one-size-fits-all solution. The business requirements of some companies call for verbose data, while others may prefer a high usage of abbreviations. 

A good CRM Data-Plan ensures that company names, titles and all forms of CRM data are normalized to a single standard.  With a systematically applied Data-Plan, gone are the days of searching for a company in your CRM five different ways. Multiple sales reps no longer work on the same account listed under several different company name formats.  Marketing has the ability to segment markets and get a stronger perspective on customers and prospects.  CRM data augmentation is no longer a nightmare.  With a strong CRM Data-Plan, you no longer have to fear importing new data in your CRM and hearing the word “foobar” from your CRM administrator. The efficiencies gained are tremendous. 

Enforcing the CRM Data-plan:  Introducing CRMShield™

Without a method, an unbreakable method to enforce your CRM Data-Plan, the plan is a paper tiger.  Broadlook’s CRMShield™ empowers CRM administrators to seamlessly create a CRM Data-Plan and enforce it for users, vendors and administrators.

Using a single global standard crafted by your CRM administrator, CRMShield™ protects and cleans your CRM in real time. Say goodbye to duplicate and dirty data. The CRM Data-Plan is saved in the cloud, at a single location, therefore the entire enterprise, small or large is protected.  Changes made to the CRM Data-Plan propagate to the enterprise so all data, even from different silos, conforms to a single standard. 

Take the Dirty Data Quiz

The Dirty Data quiz serves as a report card. How does your company rate?  Do you have a CRM Data-Plan?  Is your CRM administrator helping or hurting? What are the steps you need to take to keep your CRM clean? Visit: http://www.broadlook.com/dirtydataquiz

Try our Free Tool: Create your own CRM Data-Plan

Every company should have a CRM Data-Plan. With this free website, you can get started on the road to a clean CRM system. Visit: http://www.broadlook.com/crmdirtydata

By Dan Hughes, Co-Founder and CSO of Broadlook Technologies

I just got back to the office from the American Association of Inside Sales Professional (www.aa-isp.org)

annual conference held in Minneapolis the week of May 10th. It is a good conference with a bright future attended by many professionals; executives, directors, managers and personnel who operate on or within an inside sale unit.

Like many conferences, there were speakers from various walks of business life. Some are authors, a few are “subject matter experts’, while others actively manage, oversee or operate within their own inside sales team. Many topics were covered, but often mentioned within each presentation was the point that each sales call that all sales professionals, whether inside or outside, should add-value.

Well, I should hope so. But often times this is easier said than done.

The critical part of adding value is to know what is valuable to each individual you attempt to connect with. This is particularly true if you execute your sales process via the phone, email, web-conference and the web.

So how does one accomplish the task of knowing what is valuable to the target individuals of prospect companies you wish to penetrate or major accounts within which you wish to expand?

The good sales professionals at least know the general overriding challenges that target contacts have in common and face routinely. They include these common challenges in initial conversations, establishing some knowledge and credibility, and then qualify if their target contacts experience the same challenges and are interested in hearing about how solutions to address these and possibly other challenges.

Unfortunately, most sales people don’t get this far. The good ones do. But how does one take it to the next level?

How does one begin to uncover information about the individual players, the company, their relationships, the market and industry within which they compete in order to begin to really understand what is valuable….in order to add-value.

Research. It is a simple answer, but difficult to do if you have neither the skills nor tools to do this quickly and effectively.

Within websites, press releases, social networks (linkedin profiles), blog posting and responding, twitter, tweets and retweets and many more, may reside the information necessary to begin formulating that which is important to each of your target contacts so that you can truly add-value.

It is time consuming, particularly if you do not have the right tools, but then again so is calling 50 times without a response.

I would much rather spend the extra time to “know” my target contacts as best as possible so that I can ascertain what, along with the general overriding challenges, may be most valuable to them so that I can attempt to truly add-value.

At the bare minimum, my efforts will be appreciated by my target contacts and they will know that what may be valuable to them will help me potential add-value to them.

By the way, anyone who wanted to make a sales calls and add-value to me earlier this week, would have earned a great deal of “points” could they have told me where to get a great hamburger on Nicollet Avenue in Minneapolis.

By Dan Hughes CSO and Co-Founder of Broadlook Technologies

“Closing the sale.” Where do we get this phrase? Or how did “I am about to close a big sale”, “When are you closing that deal?” or “Let’s review the pipeline to see what sales are closing this month” enter into common vernacular of the sales organization?

Probably because it is meant to represent the end of a sales cycle or the end result of a sales process well-executed. Maybe the sales systems we put in place needed an end point. But does it really? I have used it for years and have really never thought much about it up until recently.

As we continue to train and teach Sphere of Influence selling, it forces us to examine the programs we implement, as well as the mindset we wish to enforce and support that helps them (and ultimately your organization) succeed. I am slowly coming to a conclusion and am considering attempting to make a “new sales language” that is more in line with the desired outcome.

Follow my logic here:

A suspect, a lead, or a target actually begins closed. And it is our efforts as a marketing organization and through our sales professionals that begin a process of introducing our company, educating as to our value proposition, understanding their challenges and objectives, and presenting solutions that represent the slow opening of a relationship of exchange, trust, and potential transactions. The sale is actually opening. Therein lies the possibility of earning a client, and then a vendor, whereby a long term exchange of dollars for valuable services is present and the ultimate objective. Should the transaction actually take place, the event of a sale, and client, is actually opened, not closed.

This actually could change the mental state of selling organizations, particularly in the B2B world, that sees the initial transaction as the beginning of the opportunity as opposed to the closing of one. By opening opportunities to sell additional products and services, companies get referrals and build the brand.

As I see it, it would deem more appropriate to now say “I am about to open a big sale”, “When are you opening that deal?” or “let’s review the pipeline to see what sales are opening this month”.

Where is the first place to start using this new language? Right here at Broadlook. I will let you know how we decide to instill this mindset at Broadlook Technologies. Don’t be surprised in our future conversation if you hear me say “When are we opening our sale and getting you your license keys?”

By Donato Diorio, CEO of Broadlook Technologies

Warning:  This Article is not for tech guys!

Broadlook has just completed developing a new, revolutionary tool for any CRM user.  It is called CRMShield™.  CRMShield solves a serious issue faced by every business that uses a CRM: data duplication. CRMShield will be shipped in May and is included free in every Broadlook product that works with contact information.

Is your company at risk?

Some people want nothing more than to be normal, others would take exception to that description, myself included.  When it comes to your CRM, being Normal is a very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very good thing.  The reality is that over 30% of the information in most companies CRM is duplicates. That is not only ugly, but it causes problems for your sales team and costs your company revenue.

In simple terms, I’m talking about Clean CRM Data.  If you asked your tech guy, he would call it “Data Normalization”.  If you are a tech guy, we covered this…come up, stop reading!

Understanding the problem

Nearly every CRM company and internal corporate IT department has taken a stab at solving the problem of data normalization.  Unfortunately, no one has done it right!  Why?  Think about it: when you buy a CRM, it is usually empty.  If you import dirty data from an old CRM, the new CRM will be dirty. The problem is not the result of you forgetting to turn on a feature in the new CRM. Massive duplicates and miskeyed data does not become a problem until after you start to use the CRM. When a CRM is implemented, it is typically at that time the buyer realizes there is a huge problem with the information.  Without some systematic way to start with and keep information clean, duplicates will be introduced and someone has an opportunity to make more $$ on professional services.

Dirty data is a profit center.

While dirty data can lose you revenue, it is good for service providers; you store more due to duplicates and eventually someone will need to clean that data.

An unending cycle

So, you bit the bullet and spent the money to have your data cleaned, now what?  Unless you have an enforceable, real-time strategy to keep your data clean, the cycle will continue.  Six months to a year after “cleaning” your data, it will go from pristine to ugly again and the cycle will continue. Efficiency, revenue and opportunity will be diminished.

How does data get dirty?

There are 3 ways information enters a CRM.

Hand Entered.  This is a common method that takes place literally every day.  Did you know there are over 20 ways of writing the company name “The Container Company Corporation”?   Some people are verbose and will type out the entire company name, others will take shortcuts or just mis-key the information.  We are all unique, and unfortunately for your CRM, that can lead to 20 instances or more of the same company in your CRM.

Product Imported.  Many software products have the capability to directly import data into a CRM.  What rules do those products obey?  Do the rules that they use match your company rules?  Do you even have a set of rules that your company follows? What happens when a duplicate is encountered?  Unfortunately, most of these questions are never asked.  The result: more ugly data.

Mass Imported. Mass imports are most often done by the IT department of a company or by your CRM vendor.  Guess what?  Mass imports can be the worst offenders.  In some cases, the person charged with doing the import is exceptional and it is done correctly, however, this is rare.  When I say rare, I mean 1 out of 1000 rare. The challenge is that in most cases no one has the proper tool set or has done the in-depth question asking that is necessary to do it 100% correct.  For what they have at their disposal, and by measuring the best consultants compared to their peers, many of them would get an “A” under those parameters.

I contend that most imports that are generally considered successful would get a flat “D” on my score card.  If you think your process was good, read on.

Establishing a lasting solution

Solve a problem at its source and you solve it for good.  The best way to get control of your CRM is to create and enforce a Data Plan.  This is not a minor undertaking, however, for any sales team over 5 people it is critical.  The quiz below is dual-purpose; it will teach you what you need to do and give you a scorecard of where are now.

QUIZ: Is your company at risk?

So, where does your company rank in terms of the sources and impact of duplicate data?  Take a moment to take the quiz below. How do you think you will do? I want to hear from you! Send how you did to Donato Diorio (ddiorio@broadlook.com).  Good luck.  Be honest!

Data Plan. 15 points.  Does your company have a standard format for CRM data?  If you don’t, this is where you start the entire process.  To comply with best practices, your Data Plan should be centrally stored, accessible in real-time and treated as a single-point-of-truth for your company.

Staff Training. 5 points. Has your staff has been trained on your Data Plan and is it easily accessible?  While this is a great step, it is not as important as making the CRM enforce your data plan automatically.  If your CRM does offer a feature like this, the training is most important for your IT department who can circumvent the constraints put on the average user.

CRM Cleaned. 10 points.  Has your CRM gone through a full normalization and de-duplication process?  Once you have your Data Plan developed, you need to ensure that the data you have meets the plan.

CRM Enforcement. 20 points.  Is your Data Plan enforced by your CRM?  This is tremendously important. The reality is that not one CRM provider (that I have seen) has a detailed data normalizer that can enforce your data plan like like Broadlook’s CRMShield™.  If your provider does not have this feature, it means you must either build or find an add-on to the CRM.  An even better option is to would be to provide all users to the CRM a tool like Broadlook’s Contact Capture to enter contacts into your CRM.  Contact Capture is FREE (not trying to sell anything here).

Product Enforcement. 10 points.  Do other products you use to access or bring information into your CRM comply with your Data Plan?  Beware of products that dump data to a Excel or CSV file.  Sometimes it is unavoidable, however, direct exporting systems that can comply with your Data-Plan and do de-duplication in real-time are always a superior choice.

Vendor Enforcement. 10 Points. Do your vendors that provide you with list data deliver it in compliance with your Data Plan?  Some vendors may push back at first. However, it has been my experience that the entire process will go smoother if both sides can comply with a similar format.

Import Enforcement. 20 points. Do any mass import capabilities comply with the Data Plan?  The rules that imports adhere to should not be able to be circumvented by the IT staff.  If the IT staff needs to change the rules, the Data Plan, being the single-point-of-truth for your company’s data should be modified.

URL Enforcement. 10 points.  Do you have a URL (website) field for each company in your CRM? The URL of a company is more important than a DUNS number, location or anything else.  It is the single best piece of information that can be used to update company information over time.

Less then 20 Points – F

20 – 40 Points – D

41 – 60 Points – C

61 – 80 Points – B

81 – 100 Points – A

Knowing how your data and processes rank is a great start. If your results do not make the grade, don’t worry. Broadlook’s CRMShield™ is on the way.

By Dan Hughes (CSO for Broadlook Technologies)

In my daily conversations with the best and brightest in sales, marketing, recruiting and sourcing, it is fascinating to see just how pleased some are with splashing around in the shallow end of the data pool. They seem satisfied with swimming in and amongst their CRM, and online database or a high traffic active candidate job boards as the safe or easiest source for the information, fully aware that it may not be the best nor most updated data needed. The general feeling is the information they get, without a great deal of effort, is all that is needed to launch a successful email campaign, a compelling initial sales call or high touch recruiting call.

Perhaps so.

But not one person I speak with dispute that “knowing more” about a particular or set of contacts would have a positive impact on their marketing, sales or recruiting activities. Not one person disputes that having multiple points of contacts in a target prospect or major account will improve their results. Nor will anyone argue against the position that knowing more about a contacts personal interests and accomplishments will not only aid in the ability to engage but differentiate from the competition.

Unless someone does not have a computer or has been playing “Cast Away” with Tom Hanks since 2000, most all of the data sets, multiple points of contacts in target organizations, personal interests, accomplishments and more, are available within and throughout the Internet. Websites, backlinks, industry directories, social networks and search engines are home to just about everything a sales, marketing or recruiting professionals need to step up their game and impact their results.

I call this the deep end of the data pool; home to the company and contact information that can make a difference.

So why don’t more go swim into the deep end to get the information that can make all the difference in their e-marketing campaigns, their sales calls or their recruiting touches? Who is afraid to swim in the deep end?

Either people are afraid to go there or they don’t know where and how to look.
It is my hope that it is the later. For those who do not know where or how best to research or source all of these real-time, dynamic Internet data sources, there is help. Broadlook has the best software applications, services and training to teach people who are brave enough to swim in the deep end, where to look and how to get the critical company and contact information quickly and effectively.

If you played games in the water as a kid, you know the most fun is in the deep end. For sales, marketing, and recruiting, it is where you can find the most up-to-date information and gain a time and information advantage over everyone else who is still playing in shallow waters.

By Dan Hughes Co-Founder and CSO of Broadlook Technologies

I remember a favorite question my father asked:  Is the horse that wins 10X the prize money, 10x faster than the others?  Often times, the winning horse wins by only a nose.

So the answer is “No”.  His lesson was that the winner only has to be a fraction better than the nearest competitor to win the prize.  What was I willing to do to be just a little stronger, faster, smarter and better than the next person in any of my endeavors?

Do not the same dynamics take place in sales?  Is the sales professional who secures the deal, make quota and achieves the financial rewards 10X better the next?  I content that it is the little things that makes the difference.  I believe a big differentiator is the ability and willingness to do the extra “Due Diligence” necessary to Know Everything possible about a company, contacts and the industry at large.

Having observed hundreds of sales operations; I am fascinated by both the hunger and satisfaction of finding a single point of contact and their email.  And that’s it.  These are the professionals who work hard to generate leads and make the persistent calls necessary to escort a sales opportunity to completion.

It’s resembles watching a mouse finding a scrap of cheese, grabbing it and turning high tail to run back to the hole to eat away…when there is a whole slice just around the corner available to be had.  If they had just looked a little more, they would have found enough to last a week.
An email by itself is a simple nibble of cheese.  Why not feast on the wealth of additional information potentially available?  Due Diligence is the differentiator between a failed campaign or a first call attempt and one that generates advances.

Why do the majority of marketing and sales professionals do this?
I am inclined to believe that we all are under the gun regarding our use of time, and are not sure where and how to look for the complimentary information that would make the difference between failure and success.

My personal “AH-HA” moment:

Back in 2005, I read of a Bay area technology company that delivers enterprise incentive management solutions to companies with direct and or distributor sale forces.  I believed the company to be a good fit for the Broadlook solutions and began my Due Diligence process.  It sounds more arduous than it was as I have the benefit of using Profiler to information mine the website and web footprint of the company.  Upon completion, Profiler found several hundred contact points including key decision makers in sales, operations and financial along with their bios and emails.  It also located the President’s contact information, including the email from a source outside the website.

I clicked the source and saw that his email was located from a chat group called Seabiscuit Live, a forum dedicated to fans of the famed racehorse Seabiscuit and the impending movie soon to be released.  My target President had written a personal note to the author of the “The Story of Seabiscuit” telling of his enjoyment of the book and his eager anticipation of the movie.

I was equally a fan and decided to leverage this information in my initial outreach to the President of this company.  My email subject line read something like this:

Subject:  Introducing Broadlook Technologies – I am also a fan of Seabiscuit the horse

I sent it off.  To me surprise, the president called me within 5 minutes and without saying “Hello…how are you?”, jumps directly to his point as asked “How in the H*ll did you know I am a fan of this book?”.

I responded, “funny you should ask, come to my desktop and I will show you Profiler”.

Subsequent comments required me to teach this “due diligence differentiator” to each of his sales professionals and Profiler for every sales personnel at the company.  They have been one of Broadlook Technologies longest running clients with tremendous productivity and quality of information improvements throughout their entire sales operation.

Now, had I just grabbed his email at first site and fired off a whole bunch of email and phone calls without regards to this additional information, I doubt the results would be the same.

What do you think?

What are you missing that could the due diligence differentiator between a successful engagement with a prospect, candidate, company, market influencers.

Steven Covey published The Seven Habits of Highly Successful People and it was a great book.

When Dr. Covey came out with a new book, The 8th Habit, I was skeptical. Why didn’t he think up the 8th habit right from the start?

Now I understand it. Ideas evolve. We are the sum total of your experiences at any point in time. You create a set of rules that you believe are universal. In my case, I am the author of The Seven Laws of Internet Search.

It has been about a year and a half and now, guess what? I came up with another Law of Internet Search. The 8th law could not have been created by me…unless I was able to observe people learning and implementing the first seven laws in their Internet search activity.

Here is what I observed: The Internet is “non-homogeneous”. The idea of homogeneity also resonated with me as I wrote the original seven laws. I played with the idea of a Law of Non-homogeneity. This means that the Internet exists in many different formats and there is no way to query everything, with a single method or game plan.

“Non-Homogeneous” sounds ugly. To define something with “non” in front of it…it would be like cheating. Each of the seven laws of Internet Search is meant to be a simple axiom of advice. I failed to get my concept of Homogeneity into the laws.

Why did I fail? It is simple.  Each of the seven laws is a solution. Whereas “non-homogeneous” or “non-homogeneity” was talking about a problem.

What was I trying to get at? It is also simple. The Internet is not homogeneous, therefore, many different methods are needed to search it. It is those very search mechanisms that the 8th Law takes into account. The 8th law is The Law of Environment.

In fact, the 8th Law is so important, I have moved it the top spot in The Laws of Internet Search. It is now The 1st Law of Internet Search.

To understand the Law of Environment.  Get your mind around the concept of the Internet having many modalities. Many sites, each with it’s own set of rules or search environment.

Next.  There are some simple questions to ask.   What is the access method?  What are the sites restrictions?  Etc

In addition to the simple questions about the environment, the more advanced Internet search may want to dive into further understand the full capabilities of the search environment.

Once the simple questions about the environment are answered, the Internet search can proceed with quantifiable expectations on what to expect from their chosen search medium.

For example, it is important to understand that Google will only give you a maximum of 1000 results from any search.  Even if Google reports that their are 2450 results, you only have access to the first 1000.  Understanding this is understanding the limitation of the environment.

Here are the The Laws of Internet Search, Reloaded

1.  Environment
2. Permutation
3. Completeness
4. Iteration
5. Frequency
6. Process
7. Taxonomy
8. Measurable Results

Dr. Steven Covey, now I understand. Looking forward to the ninth law.