The Planet Blog

On a lonnnnng international flight from Sydney, Australia, I sat next to a small business owner who was flying from one of his offices to the other. I’m not usually much of a plane talker. Neither of us were very tired, and we were both far from “economy-sized” guys in economy-class seats, so it would have been an awkward 15 hours of thinking, “I hope this guy doesn’t hog the armrest,” if we didn’t at least acknowledge each others’ existence. So we got to chatting.

He asked me what I did, and after the standard follow-up questions about what in the world a Web Hosting Evangelist does, he started telling me about his business. He owns a growing sunscreen company that does a good amount of business online. He wasn’t a technical guy, but he had a high-level understanding of how his business was using technology.

To begin, he asked me what kinds of facilities we operate. Then he rattled off a lot of other questions like how we ensure that servers stay online; what we do in the event of a site going down; how much servers cost; how we could scale his infrastructure; and how he could be sure support is available when he needs it. After a few minutes of evangelizing, he seemed pretty impressed with how well we were prepared to accommodate the needs of small business owners, but he didn’t say much.

I could tell that he was thinking about something, and after a few minutes, he revealed, “As you were explaining all the safeguards you have in place and the precautions you take, the whole thing seems too good to be true. I was just thinking that I am completely owed good answers to all of these questions – that you need to convince me why I should trust you with my data. Then it struck me … Why should I trust me with my data?”

It’s reassuring for business owners to have complete control over every aspect of their operations, but that control might come at the expense of not getting the efficiencies, expertise and pricing third-parties can provide. He explained that if I asked him the same questions he asked me, he wouldn’t have a single response. But the fact that he could see his hardware and touch his server was the subconscious reminder that he was in control.

His site is hosted on a shared server with a company in the U.S., and his offices in both countries operate from a centralized accounting platform. The server hosting the platform … an administrative assistant’s workstation in one of the offices. This setup worked very well as long as 1) the admin didn’t need to use the workstation while the accounting system was being accessed; and 2) the office’s power and network connections kept the server online 24×7. While he wasn’t setting any records for uptime and speed, his system worked the way he needed it to, and he didn’t have access to any other ways of doing it.

That’s how a lot of small businesses operate: a sort of “just get it working” mentality. The fact that you are reading this blog would suggest I might be preaching to the choir here, but if you’re holding back on a decision to make a change in the way you manage your IT until you get all of your questions answered, make sure you’re concurrently asking yourself the question, “Why do I trust me with my data?”

To make sure this mid-air observation wasn’t a fluke, I posed a question on Twitter this morning: “What do you think is the most important aspect of a business relationship?”

The first response: “We don’t think there is one lone aspect that can be singled out. There are many important aspects. Trust would be considered one.”

Many thanks to @hightekhosting, @complexgeek, @pratt, @pacoblue, @bill1282, @fborrero, @undefined and @buxombbws for the responses and ReTweets!

-Kevin

P.S. I’m including the picture from Sydney so that I can try to expense the flight.

A couple of years ago I wrote a three-part series about the Internet social scene. (“Three-part series” makes it sound very official and important, doesn’t it?) I really enjoyed writing it because … let’s be honest, I’m a social butterfly. And I love the Internet. We’re like two great tastes that taste great together. So when Kevin asked if I could do a follow-up about how the game has changed, I was stoked.

Today, social sites have become a huge part of our culture. They are how we communicate, how we receive information and how we socialize on a daily basis:

• We keep up with friends and acquaintances via status updates and photo uploads.
• News stories spread like wildfire across Twitter, Facebook and Tumblr feeds.
• RSS readers let us know immediately when a Web site posts an update, whether it’s a blog, news source or promotional feed.
• Smartphones are now the equivalent of pocket-size computers that allow you to surf the ‘net, get your e-mail and check all of your social networking sites from anywhere.

It’s a 24/7 information blitz that keeps us plugged in, informed and juiced up on more information than we can process. It’s overwhelming at times … even for a junkie like me.

The social networking landscape has changed a lot in the last two years, the biggest change being its acceptance as a genuine, measurable, and necessary addition to the way people and businesses market themselves. The power of a successful social networking plan is undeniable. For the first time, we had a presidential candidate who embraced new media and used it to elevate his campaign to a level never before seen. Blogs, e-mail blasts, a modern Web site and the use of social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook helped his campaign message resonate with a growing social media generation.

I’ve seen firsthand what a great social media strategy can do for a business. Coffee Groundz is a coffee shop/bar/café/hang-out that opened two years ago in midtown Houston. The owner’s dream was to create a community atmosphere that was conducive to both hanging out and business meetings … a place that simply felt like home. To kick off his business, not only did he create a Web site, but he signed up for Twitter and Facebook. He began hosting “tweet-ups” for his “fans” and “followers” that have become huge events. He brings in live musicians, exhibits local art, holds charity events and hosts social networking breakfasts. He built his business as a community – harnessing the power of social media.

As a side note, he also chased a bank robber through midtown and handed him over to police, so he’s sort of a superhero. News of the robbery and pursuit spread via Twitter and Facebook within minutes of his tweets about it – long before any news outlets reported on it. That’s power.

We can’t deny the importance of social media any longer. Turn on the TV and you’ll probably see:

• Congressmen tweeting during sessions and votes
• Advertisers replacing Web site addresses in their ads with Twitter usernames
• Shows like “Entertainment Tonight” covering Twitter stories
• Letterman and Conan often referencing – sometimes cynically – the social media sphere
• CNN constantly posing questions to their Facebook and Twitter followers
• Companies offering Twitter- and Facebook-exclusive deals and promotions

Imagine harnessing all that power for your business. How many people could you reach? The evolution is happening, and if you haven’t embraced it, you’re already way behind.

Do you know what the best part about it is? It’s free. Sure, it costs man power and time, but those are two things you already pay for. When has there ever been a time that an advertising tool was basically free? Who ever heard of free billboards or radio spots or TV commercials or newspaper ads?

Embrace it. Use it. Make it a required part of the way you market yourself and your business.

You know what I do remember? When people thought Web sites were unnecessary and the Internet was just something to “play” on. Ha!

Follow us on Twitter: @theplanet or http://www.twitter.com/theplanet

Join us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/theplanet

Become a part of it!

-Ali

Given the ever-evolving social media landscape, it can be difficult for a company to evaluate if, how, when and where it should participate.

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been throwing around a few ideas about how we can communicate with our customers more often and get feedback.

Enter twitter: A community-driven platform built to communicate what different members are doing in real-time. It starts a new conversation.

Follow us on our official twitter page – @theplanet – where we will regularly answer the status-centric question, “What are you doing?”

If you are not a part of the twitter community yet, now’s your chance to sign up and join the conversation. We also want to learn about you!

I apologize if this announcement post seems a little disjointed. I wanted to make sure each one of these entries was exactly 140 characters.

-Kevin

Edited: Our official account was previously @theplanetdotcom but has been updated to @theplanet.

I’m Kevin, and I’m the “new guy” at The Planet with the peculiar “Web Hosting Evangelist” job title. This customer evangelist role is a new one at our company, so it’s likely to change a bit as I jump into the job. I can give you a quick run-down of what I’ll be doing, and you can decide if you want to create a “Kevin Hazard Is Amazing Fan Club” or just not read my blog posts. As Chevy Chase explains in Caddyshack, “In one physical model of the universe, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line … in the opposite direction,” so the best way to approach “what” I will be doing is to back into it from the other direction: Why am I doing it?

The “Why”

As you probably know if you have read any press releases, articles, or interviews about/by anyone The Planet,

“The Planet is the leading provider of On Demand IT Infrastructure solutions, hosting more than 22,000 small- and medium-size businesses and 2.8 million Web sites worldwide. By offering the best choice of servers, software tools and world-class support, backed by state-of-the-art facilities and unmatched network connectivity, The Planet helps turn information technology into a powerful competitive advantage that enables customers to successfully grow their businesses.”

While that description accurately and succinctly summarizes a great deal of information about our company, it doesn’t tell much about “who” the company is, and it is certainly not blog fodder. I was hired by The Planet to use a bit of my uncanny wit and debonair charm to provide a little more “corporate transparency” for you. We are not reinventing the wheel by having a blog, but it is one of the “best practices” for beginning the move toward transparency on the large scale.

My goal is to provide a bit more insight into The Planet’s day-to-day business. I may snap some pictures of day-to-day life around the office or interview (read: question mercilessly) some unknowing Planet employee. Do a quick search for “company evangelist” or “corporate evangelist,” and more often than not, you’ll see the word “listen” at least a dozen times. In a word, I’ll be a “listener,” proactively maintaining great communication in the provider-customer relationship.

The “What”

1. Improve the User Experience.
2. Refer to Responsibility #1
3. Refer to Responsibility #1

Those extensive responsibilities are fairly broad and quite general, but entirely accurate. In addition to making some magic happen here through our blog, I will work with our Web development team to improve the user experience on our corporate site and in our order process, from your first click to your server’s provisioning … and even through the “eternal life” of your account (sorry, a little “evangelist” humor). We’ve already got a solid plan of attack to begin some of these experience improvements, and we will tap the advice of you, our customer (or prospective customer, wink-wink) to ensure we continue on the right track to provide the best hosting experience in the industry.

I have already seen a few blog content suggestions in the comment sections of other posts, but if you have any other content requests, drop them in a comment on this post or send me an email at khazard (at) theplanet (dot) com.

- Kevin