As much as I write about domain names, it probably comes as no surprise I think about them and notice them more. On a recent vacation to Germany, I made many observations on them, and to the fortune of myself and my wife, they did not disrupt the trip. Well, not too much.

One observation I made was the wide use of the German ccTLD of .de. A ccTLD is a country code top-level domain,. A top-level domain is commonly referred to as the domain name extension. Where .com, etc. can be used throughout the world, a ccTLD is ideally designated for an entity in a particular country. Most all of the observations I made of domain names had them ending in .de, both for German-based entities as well as international entities and brands. This was similar to the observations I made in Denmark the year before, where most all domain names ended in .dk.

I can see this for 2 reasons. The first is to direct a German language reader directly to German content on the Web site of an international brand. Have you ever gone to a Web site and the first thing you are presented with is a list of continents or countries for you to select before you get to any content? Identifying a user coming from Germany would lead them to German content, with the occasional option to select other languages. The second is national pride. It can be inferred that though .com is international, it originated in and is predominately used for US Web sites. It also adds a deeper level of identification that it is used by a German entity.

A second observation I made was the widespread use of dashes in domain names. I have a few photos of domain names in action, which represent only a handful of what I observed over the course of the trip. Where dashes can make for a more visually pleasing domain name display, it is easy to forget about them when recalling them from memory or when typing them. In the case of these particular names, a version of the domain names without dashes is not registered.

Whenever I work with a client to select domain names, I recommend they avoid dashes for the reason I mentioned above. I do have some clients who have them and use them, however they have been in use for many years, and in those cases alternate names redirect to the Web sites as well.

If anyone reading has any information or insight into the use of dashes in domain names in Germany, please comment to this post.

Domain Names • Technology • (14) Comments • Permalink

Growing up in Massachusetts I was well versed on the story of the Salem with trials in the town on the north shore of the east coast of the Bay State. But like many things in your backyard, I have only been there once, and that was just a few years ago. The story of the witch hunt came back to mind as I read The Crucible, the play written by Arthur Miller in the 1950’s. Little did I think beforehand I would find lessons of business as well as life in its pages.

Miller’s play was written at the time of anti-Communist sentiment and inquisitions in Washington DC, and these events inspired Miller to write The Crucible as he saw parallels to the inquisition of a few hundred years earlier. The book version of the play has a detailed introduction describing both time periods and how the play came into being, and is an excellent context to the play as well as a recap of history.

My greatest take-away from the play is a quest for the truth. It is needless to say the entirety of the witch trials were based on hearsay and emotion and not the truth. This is not to say business should be totally devoid of emotion or compassion, rather in the face of insanity and chaos that can slip into a business setting, a quest toward facts will more likely than not be the best path to take.

Another take-away from the play is considering the impact of your actions on your environment. Even if a decision you might make is unpopular and pursuing its resolution is the best course to take, you can take steps to minimize its impact on the community you are in. This can be everything from being completely covert to completely transparent. The way information is delivered as well can satisfy those who may not agree with the decision. Sometimes the medium is the message.

Speaking of community, I read this book as it was a gift from Chicago’s One Book, One Chicago program. This is an excellent promotion of literacy around the Windy City where thousands of people are reading the same book at the same time!

I enjoyed The Crucible and recommend it to anyone. It is a well-written story accurately retelling a dark period of the early history of the US. Its script format helps the reader get deeper into the characters and see the story as someone living at that time. Though Halloween has passed, read it now, and then re-read it next October.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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Last night I attended TECH cocktail 6 (TC6) in Chicago, which was attended by hundreds in the tech, online and entrepreneurial community. The breadth of people in attendance made it a successful event, and I met a variety of people I hope to reconnect with in the future. I’d like to think part of the success of the night was my preparation, making sure I was mentally and physically prepared for the event.

Physically you say? Yes – I consider what I wore and carried with me essential for the event. Here’s what I did to prepare for TC6:

• Get my head shaved earlier in the day at The 316 Club
• Pickup my blazer from the dry cleaners
• Eat beforehand – juggling a drink and food is hard to do at a crowded event
• Re-read John Wall’s post The Case for Drinking at the Ronin Marketeer blog
• Carry plenty of my business cards in my front right blazer pocket
• Carry my Moleskine notebook in my inside blazer pocket, and lucky pen in my shirt pocket
• Bring my new folding reading glasses from Peepers.com in my pants pocket
• Wear my green Omniture scarf made by my client Sports Scarf – a promotion at TC6 was giving prizes for people who wore green (they can make a scarf for your company too!)
• Carry a new box of Frisk mints
• Get cash for when the bar closes
• Check my fly – yes, wearing lined pants gives guys a false sense it is zipped
• Walk through my elevator pitch in my mind as I walked from the "L" stop to the venue, trying not to move my lips

I commonly follow these steps for most all networking events. Do you have a checklist or ritual you follow?

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Having the best tools to get work done for my clients is what I strive for. Paying for them is sometimes a challenge, taking all other costs I have into consideration. This is where I have to justify if the tool, whether is is hardware, software or what have you, will make me more productive or give me a competitive advantage.

As a small business owner I have the luxury of making these decisions. Over the years of working for others, this decision making varied. Sometimes my immediate manager would make the decision. In this case the request process was generally fair, especially for the managers who actually knew what I did on a daily basis.

Some of the companies I worked for – usually the larger ones – made these decisions based on blanket policies that set justification based on your title or position and not on business need. Such a policy assumes upper management are typically the ones that need and will use more advanced tools. Whether or not they actually use them at all or to their fullest is more than likely never followed up on. If you try getting any particular tool whose distribution was based on such arcane rules – forget about it, no matter how well you are able to justify its need it will fail.

I have personally encountered this over the years in requests for business cards, email access, software, access to the company’s VPN to work from home, a notebook computer (when I was traveling for work), a decent-sized monitor and a mobile device for email. Though these requests spanned a period of almost 2 decades, I continue to hear such stories today from others.

Such policies are driven by the desire to control costs, and the only costs being monitored are cash expenditures. Opportunity cost is never usually taken into consideration. How much less productive is an employee when they do not have a tool to be more efficient? How about their overall team? Or how about opportunities lost when people are not able to get in touch with people outside the office who do not have a mobile device to reach co-workers? And don’t forget the cost of rehiring an employee who leaves a job if they feel they are not respected to handle the "fancy toys" their managers have.

With the season of generosity around the corner, managers and companies should take a hard look at what it really costs to be in business and not be penny wise and pound foolish.

Business • Technology • (0) Comments • Permalink