Chapter Fifteen. Putting it Out There—on the Net

“Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.”

—MITCHELL KAPOR, FOUNDER OF LOTUS DEVELOPMENT CORP.

IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER, I described the concept of putting your corporate values, commitments, and missions out for people to see them. What better way to do this then over the Internet? During my quest for the best service providers, I went to the website of every one of the companies I portrayed to see what they had to say about themselves. Not surprisingly, each of these companies stated clearly on the World Wide Web what they were all about, what they believe in. I thought it would be interesting to review these company websites now.

Before we begin, I want to point out that this is not a critique of any individual company’s website design or appeal to me. Websites are becoming more and more e-commerce–focused, so the emphasis on most websites is a combination of selling products and services or providing customer service once the sale is made. Each of these sites is designed differently, depending upon the objective of the site itself. Some I personally like better than others.

What I am interested in sharing with you, however, is the stated commitment that each of these companies is making to what is valuable to them, their values. By seeing these values in print, we can assess whether these companies live by these same values in their daily service to their customers. Assuming that they do, we can only assume that this plays at least a part in the ways in which they separate themselves from the others in their industries. I also want to provide some examples of ways in which your company might incorporate your value system into your website.