It was a call from a woman who works for one of my clients. I don't know her well. She works at the front desk, and we say hello when I go on through, but I'd never really talked to her before. Anyway, she called my office and asked that I call her back and left her home number.
When I talked to her, I found out that in addition to doing the work she does at the front desk, she's also an independent film producer. She actually has several extensive credits. The front desk job is a way for her to keep body and soul together while she looks for funding and blocks out projects. That was why she wanted to talk to me.
She'd heard that if you went on the Internet, you could find ways to finance film projects, and she wanted to know if I knew how to do that. I told her that I didn't, and began to suggest some steps that she could go through to find the answers for herself. Then she stopped me.
"I've never really been online," she said.
"Well," I replied, "This will probably be your reason to go online, then.%
The fact is that most people won't go online just because it's the thing to do, or it's trendy. They have to have a reason. You can even shift the wording on that around just a bit. People won't go online and stay there, unless there's something in it for them, some benefit. Here are some of the reasons that I've found. If you're already online, use these reasons as a checklist to think up other things that you could do online to increase your investment in time and equipment and subscriptions. If you're not online yet, look for the possibilities here.
Folks go online to make money. I don't mean that they go online to register for some kind of lottery or set up a dot-com business that makes millions. Sure, some folks do that. But other folks go online for things that relate to money.
Paula went online to find funding for the films she wanted to make. The reverse of that is people that go online to save money. That's what takes a lot of people over to E-bay and some of the auction sites and sites like priceline.com. They're looking for ways to save money.
There are sites and other resources online that can help you make money and save money. Maybe some of them are for you.
Some folks go online to look good to other people. I'm not getting into the validity or the worthiness of motives here. One of my best friends went online because he wanted to send E-mail back and forth to his grandson. It was important to him to look competent in the boy's eyes.
Then there was the fellow at one of my clients who started going online to pick up news headlines at sites that he'd heard me talk about in a speech. I'd mentioned clipping services that could pull down stories by industry.
He thought that was a great idea. The reason he went online was to sign up for the Wall Street Journal, and use that personal journal to get stories that he could check in the morning so he'd be up on the current news when he hit the office. He wanted to look good. Is there something online that will help you look good?
The same fellow, once he got started, found that his position in the company was enhanced because of the information he had. That's kind of a power motive. And there are folks that go online strictly for that kind of power motive. If it's organizational or political power that you want, you'll find that information and online connections can help. In a purer form, they can deliver the kind of power that comes from knowledge.
One antique dealer that I know finds that online he can pick up lots of information about the things he regularly bargains for. That puts him in a much stronger position when he's negotiating. For him it's a power motive. For someone else, it might be a money motive. This isn't a game of pin the motive on the action. Instead, it's a way to look at reasons why folks go online. Is there something online that will give you information or connections that enhance your personal power?
Some folks go online for love. I gave a speech in the upper Midwest a couple of years ago where one of the women in the audience approached me shyly after the speech was done. It seems she'd read a couple of those articles about people getting online and falling in love and so forth. She wanted to know if that was possible, and she wanted to know if it was safe.
I said that sure you could meet people online and set up relationships even at a distance. In the right circumstances, those could be healthy and loving relationships. I know that because the most beautiful woman in the world and I met online, and knew each other there as friends for quite a while before we ever met in person and moved our relationship into a totally different level.
Other folks go online for another kind of love -- the kind that comes from relationships. There are lots of special interest chat rooms out there that have nothing to do with romantic love, but where the relationships that are developed give kind of love result the Greeks used to call agape. The Greeks had lots of words for love, and this particular one meant the love of friendship.
There's family love, too. My two grandsons live in Germany. My daughter communicates with me regularly by E-mail, and on a good day that E-mail includes some of the latest pictures of the boys. There's simply no way I could stay in touch as easily with my three children the most distant of whom live 3,000 miles from me and 6,000 miles from each other without the Net. Who's online that you'd like to reach?
Finally, lots of folks go online just to make things easier. When I get up in the morning, one of the first things that I do is check my news files. It's a quick skip for me through the daily pieces of Business Week, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, relevant industry news sites for industries where Iâll be speaking soon.
I simply couldn't do that as easily in any kind of physical world. When it's raining out I really think about that, because I don't even have to go out to the front yard to pick up the paper. Instead, it's right there on my PC. It's easier.
Benefits are the things that humans look for that get them to do things. They come in all kinds of forms. All those forms are available online. Online youâll find things that can improve your financial situation, make you look good, increase your personal power, improve your relationships, and make your life easier. But youâll never get those benefits if you don't go online. And, your friends who aren't online won't get those benefits until they do, either.
Here's a quick review of the checklist. What is there online that
- Will make you rich?
- Will make you famous?
- Will make you powerful:
- Will make you loved?
- Will make your life easier?
For every one of those you identify, you've got one more reason to be online.
Created/Revised/Reviewed: 6/30/00
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