"Web World = Everything" says Tom Peters in his book "Re-Imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive Age". He says that the web is "bureaucracy free, systematically integrated, knowledge based, time and location free, instantly responsive, customer-centric and mass-customization enabled."

I do not know about you, but I find this both very exciting and very scary at the same time. What makes it exciting is that as I sit here in West Linn, Oregon, I can reach an audience of professional women anywhere in the world. I can compete with the big boys (and girls). I can see how it could transform my business. What makes it scary is that I am not a computer/internet person. I do not spend a lot of time at my computer surfing the internet (I would rather be sewing or playing with my son). I am taking a proactive position to learn how I can use the internet to grow my business. How can the internet change your business? Watch my web site and see how it will be transforming my business. AJ Weinzettel has written an article on how you can make the internet work for you.

Do you stand in front of your closet trying to figure out what to wear to work? When you go clothes shopping do you have a hard time figuring out what to buy? If you say yes to these questions, here are three questions to consider:

1. Do the clothes fit your body?

2. Do the clothes fit fit your personality?

3. Do the clothes fit your audience.

When determining if the clothes fit your body, look not only at whether the clothes are too big or too small, but think about whether the clothes enhance your body type and your body portions. You can find lots of help about this on my website. Click on "Your Style 101: 10 Basic Fashion Tips" to get more information on determining what clothes fit your body.

The next factor you need to think about is 'do the clothes fit your personality.' Are you a casual person? Are you playful? Are you more on the serious side? Let your clothes project your personality.

Finally, your clothes should fit your audience. Consider. what is your profession and who is your audience? Are you an interior designer selling to wealthy individuals, or a tax preparer to everyday people? How you present yourself projects an image. In her book "Casual Power" Sherry Maysonave helps you determine how to dress for your audience. She says that if any of these factors are out of place the impression others have of you can be diminished.

Remember we can only make one first impression.

For more information and for help selecting just the right clothes, contact me at joy@designwithjoy.com or call 503-655-2682.

Wouldn't it be nice to form a personal relationship with Google, Yahoo, and MSN?

Wouldn't it be great to have your website at the top of the search engines?

In business we use personal relationships to promote ourselves and get referrals. Once the personal relationship is built and strong there is more trust.

It is the trust which brings repeat business and referrals. If you use this same logic on your website, your personal relationship with the search engines increase.

For example, let's say your website has 5 pages of information on the services you offer. When the spiders / bots crawl your site, the amount of information they take back to index isn't that much. This means that your personal relationship with the search engines is not very good at this point.

So, let's say you increase the number of pages / content on your site to 50 pages. Do you think the personal relationship with the search engines has increased? Of course it has!!! Google, Yahoo, and MSN now know more about you and your services. This allows the search engines to better index your site.

The only way to get the search engines to know your website is to give them what they want, content.

A.J. Weinzettel
OpenMetrics, Inc.
aj@openmetrics.com
www.openmetrics.com.