If it looks like a duck...

I've been thinking a lot about communication lately. I've talked about ways the town can improve communication on the blog and with friends and it's had me thinking a lot about how I communicate with others and generally how I interact with the world. I'm surprised at how much I do online. I watch some of my favorite shows on my computer in the morning. I read news articles on my phone. I'm generally always connected to FB. I sort of use twitter. And I happen to believe that virtual communities can complement and even strengthen real communities.

So I came across this article on Nerdist by a woman who complained that someone she knew didn't have a FB or twitter account. Her question was what are you trying to hide? How can you possibly get a date or a job if you don't have an online presence that can be easily googled? A little extreme, but interesting, I think. And ties into a lot of the things I've been thinking about regarding communication.

This morning I started googling a company called Hydra Renewable Resources and here's the thing. In a world where online presence matters, particularly I would think, to a high tech company that doesn't have a traditional storefront and is talking about spending MILLIONS of dollars in a community, why do they have a barely working website? Seriously, 90% of the links don't work. Is this a reflection of the quality of their work? Why when I do a little further digging do I end up finding an older version of their website (these things never really go away on the internet!!) that says they had a relationship with the same project they denied having a relationship with last night?  Did they think we couldn't figure that out?

But this leads me to my next question: Why didn't the TC figure that out? They had apparently already been briefed on the company in groups of 2 and had ample time to look into it, right? With Josh's help this morning we looked up the company and found a couple red flags within 10 minutes that probably should have already been addressed by the council.

This certainly doesn't mean that we should abandon the idea, but I do think we should proceed cautiously.

We live in a digital world and I believe that your online presence matters---websites, facebook and Linkedin profiles reveal information about you. If you're a company that plans to launch a multi-million dollar project, you should have all your online ducks in a row.