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Lots of intelligent people realize, at some point, that the web represents an ideal media to publish their educated (and sometimes less educated) thoughts regarding just about anything. Furthermore, if it’s done right, there might even be some financial incentive in doing so.

This is wonderful news for both the aspiring web publishers who will enjoy the excitement of making their ideas “public” and the targeted visitors who will have access to newly available knowledge (usually, for free).

To make your web publishers’ efforts worth their while, here are a few “common sense tips” for those who are getting warm to the idea of e-publishing:

Focus on human-sized challenges - Even if your favorite subject is as expansive as “technology” (for instance), make sure to break up your work in smaller chunks so you don’t choke on the amount of content you’ll want to publish.

Become a specialist - Being different isn’t enough, in the age of online publishing. In fact, specialists will inevitably have the upper hand against the army of generalists who aren’t as knowledgeable on given issues.

Web visitors rule - Whatever you intend to inform your visitors about, keep in mind that visitors who like your content have the means to easily make it more popular (through social bookmarking, for instance) so treat them with due respect.

Monetize your hard work - Creating unique content makes a fertile ground for getting enough visitors to, in turn, justify adding “monetizing zones” throughout your published work.

Explore the many “pay-per-click” publisher programs, including Google’s AdSense and stay away from “pay-per-action” schemes (unless you’re a pro) as they’re usually much harder to “convert” into revenue.

Of course, getting paid for your work is always nice.

Update often to add more value - Your initial content is probably fine as it is -but- the world changes and perhaps, at some point, it’s a sound idea to revisit your previously published work to update it, in the hope of adding more value, for your visitors (and the search engines).

Blogs help this occur “naturally” through the addition, over time, of user-generated comments. Publishers will, nevertheless, usually get extra credibility points for doing this, on their own.

Make your own rules - This tip applies to your online publishing work -and- to your life, in general. Doing anything because you’re told to is bound to make you miserable, at some point. The online opportunities are so numerous that it’s hard to imagine you can’t become a happy publisher without following your heart.

There’s never been a moment in human history when publishing to such a vast audience was this easy. Providing information online for other people to learn from is basically about sharing the wealth of knowledge you come across. Obviously, there’s a lot of merit in web publishing.

Bonus tip - If you’re publishing highly unique content, consider making it multilingual using specialized automatic translation tools (and services) which may easily interface with your favorite blog script. Whenever possible, specify the translation is “automated” so that your foreign readers don’t judge your syntax too severely. Multilingual content creation will multiply the potential readership for your content which, by all means, is a good thing for you.

Good luck in your web publishing ventures!

Tags: web publishing, web content, blogs, wikis, web pages, monetization

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While it’s still a common belief, among the general public, that IT companies in India are nothing more than sweatshops, the savvy Canadian business people know the reality is closer to the other end of the rainbow — the technology powerhouse side.

India is already offering IT services that compete with the world’s best and brightest. The information technology outsourcing revolution is well underway, with India being the clear winner. As if this wasn’t enough of a blow to the “local” IT job market, more outsourcing “ideas” might become viable alternatives, for all sorts of companies.

For instance, what if a company’s CEO was fired to be replaced by a tactical team of 10 Indian PhDs with complementary knowledge? Would that be a good thing, for some companies? It seems a growing number of decision makers “in the West” are considering these kinds of alternatives.

Predictably, it doesn’t stop with the CEO but it goes down to command chain as well. When the workforce pool is suddenly upped by tens of millions of university graduates, Western workers risk being evaluated to see if their job couldn’t be done “on the cheap side”. Since the outsourcing trend towards India isn’t limited to IT anymore, expansive cities like Bangalore stand to gain the most.

In today’s Indian employment marketplace, a 15,000$CA IT worker is considered the professional equivalent of a 90,000$CA worker, in Canada. Mathematically speaking, it’s easy to understand why the outsourcing for computer-related tasks has gained such momentum, over the past few years.

So here’s the big question: how can Canada stay competitive in the face of such a qualified, yet affordable, workforce?

More education and ongoing training are two smart ways to keep our workers “attractive” for the most lucrative employers. Furthermore, government policies protecting the “domestic innovators” from global threats, including the outright theft of their hard work, is another pillar we need to build up in order to survive the massive influx of talent being brought, by India, to the worldwide pool of qualified labor.

In the real world, the Canadian government is currently doing very little (if anything at all) to protect its domestic innovators from India’s clear and present “outsourcing dangers”. Some people from Canada, who are familiar with this matter, consider this to be a treason to our workforce.

Getting educated about how India is reshaping the IT industry, all over the world, should help understand what’s in store for many other lines of work, in Canada and everywhere else.

Tags: india, outsourcing, information technology, it, jobs

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At a time when information availability, online and off, is rising to unprescedented levels, almost anyone managing information should pause to think of a strategy to benefit from this digital bounty instead of being drowned by it.

As such, here are the many elements of information management you should consider when devising your very own “strategy for staying on top of things”:

Data - Databases, data warehouses, data cleansing, profiling, integration, metadata repositories, networked storage systems.

Content - Document management, web content management, records management, imaging.

Intelligence - Business intelligence, data extraction and mining, analysis, reporting, dashboards, performance management.

Search - Keyword search, content classification, categorization, entity extraction, taxonomy creation, document search, e-mail search.

Think of these elements as parts of your future strategy for winning in the information age. Whoever finds ways to inch ahead of everyone else in fields related to any one of these elements will stand to win big, especially in our increasingly networked world.

It’s not just about buying a bigger hard drive anymore, it’s about managing the information in such a way that truly empowers you.

Tags: information management, data, content, intelligence, search

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