Citation
(2007), "Whats on the web", Strategic Direction, Vol. 23 No. 11. https://doi.org/10.1108/sd.2007.05623kag.001
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2007, Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Whats on the web
This site takes a light-hearted approach to sharing business tips and advice, through the use of articles by various authors. There are hundreds of articles to get through but they are in no way organized.
All the articles are simply listed on one page and there is no search facility to filter them. However, following a link to www.goarticles.com on each article does allow you to do this.
Although the site does provide advice for free, it is over-crowded with adverts and pop-ups, making it unattractive and hard to use. If you are looking for a web site that gives you quick, informative business advice, this is not it. However, it provides links to sites and articles that can amuse and entertain as long as you are prepared to sift through it all. There are, sadly, some html howlers on the home page which suggest the site is insufficiently proofed or irregularly checked.
Strategy plus
This site accompanies a magazine offering business strategy advice. It allows the user to browse an extensive “e-news” archive covering approximately seven years of information provided by Strategy+Business for free. By signing up to the site, which is quick and easy, requires very little personal information and is completely free, you are able to view all of the articles in the current edition of the magazine or search through their entire back-catalogue. This makes the site an excellent source of information as it allows you access to all of the articles published which would cost $48 annually had you subscribed to the magazine. The site also comes well presented, is easy to navigate around and allows easy access to all information.
The idea center
This site is basically an extensive advertisement for ThoughtOffice and eXpertSystem products. However, as the title of the site implies, all the products on sale here are original and potentially very useful. The main objective of the ThoughtOffice software is to boost creativity and ideas when writing, and it even claims to completely cure writer’s block. It works by suggesting similar or relevant ideas to that which the user is writing about and includes 7,370,000 quotes, lyrics, images, definitions, synonyms and word associations to help you beat writers block. There are packages for different forms of writing too, which includes ones for business, marketing, writing speeches and even one for fiction writing. The site is simple in structure, offers an innovative idea for assisting writing and includes a free trial version of the software. Worth a look.
A load of …
We last looked at this site several years ago and it has made great strides since then. Business Balls offers free ideas for team building and motivational exercises for businesses, with an emphasis on these being ethical and enjoyable. Most of the ideas presented here are light-hearted fun and intended for “learning, self-development, helping others and bringing more compassion to work and beyond”, such as quizzes and games. The site provides a whole range of activities, which are a little different and unorthodox, but could be effective once put into practice. The recently added “Space Business Balls” is effectively a business version of “MySpace”, which allows you to create your own profile for free and post blogs and information. There is a lot of useful information here, along with plenty of humorous material; probably a lunch-break diversion.
Big business
Goliath is a thoroughly comprehensive, quality site for business documents and includes some exclusive material. It mainly deals with news articles, company profiles and industry reports. Unfortunately none of the information here is free although they do offer flexible payment packages. The site allows you to buy individual articles or reports without subscription, which can prove to be very helpful. Purchasing a subscription is also flexible as there is an option to join up for as little as $49.95 a month. However this is quite expensive when considering there are other high-quality free sites elsewhere, the content is also extensive and thorough. Not bad, but not perfect either.
And finally
Online provider of office space, officebroker.com, have recently revealed some of the most embarrassing e-mail blunders they have come across:
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A business manager accidentally sent details of all his employees’ salaries out on a company group e-mail. However he recovered quickly. Realizing his error, he set the fire alarm off to clear the office before going round and deleting the e-mail from every inbox.
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An ad agency received a request from a client whose company manufactured mobility equipment to: “Produce a brochure about our wanking aids.”
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Following a sick day, an employee who sent an e-mail to a friend explaining his illness was due to “class A’s”. Unfortunately, he sent it to everyone in his company including the senior management. He now works elsewhere!
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A company which included 24,000 e-mail addresses in the “To” box of a message. Many intended recipients probably never got to the actual message because it took them so long to scroll down to it!
We’ll give you some more in the next issue.
Contact us
For a particularly interesting and useful site you could always try the Emerald one! And if you have any favorite (or otherwise) sites that you would like us to review on these pages, please drop us an e-mail and we will submit them to our reviewers’ usual rigorous analysis.