J. R. Ransom

What about the idea of looking at 'the Web' from a slightly different perspective? For example, a real estate agency is probably using 'the Web' to interface with the public to sell two real estate products - 1)'themselves' (as the best way to find the house and 'handle the deal'), as well as, of course, 2) 'the property.'

Some do well and their real estate sites help their real world bottom line. Some don't. Kinda like anything. In ten years who will be be doing real estate work? It's likely the one's that do it well on 'the Web'. That holds true for a number of local business categories, particularly retail products. (hint: 'Content is King'.)

But, if you can dig it, the good step now is to integrate the staff into their own little private network with a private dynamic Web site online and make them much better at many forms of 'the Web'. Agents will present their message in a 'magazine' sort of way. And communicate with others on the team.

But it's not just real estate. Real Estate seems to be a big part of actualTaos. It's really a small part of what is actually brewing Taos-wise on 'the Web'.

The point is that efforts requiring you to be 'smart' like business success will indeed be measured by your Web success. We've all got our own promo handled rather well. But what are our ideas? and attitudes? and solutions? The new media technology shows the way. And the better and deeper the presentation, the better, deeper viewers the media attracts. (hint: Look at Skype. Study it, in fact."

The Taos County Chamber of Commerce (TCCC). Well, now that's something that is totally useless to most of us, other than being a sort of 'ad agency'. It's certainly is not plugging Taos businesses into the global marketplace the way 'the Web' does. The visitor's center is pretty cool, however.

TCCC has a new board? So what? TCCC can be whatever it thinks of itself as being. But if the TCCC thinks that it will have any relevance by continuing the use of 'old paradigm' (or lamely conceived) solutions, then it will simply be another marginalized joke.

Maybe the Chamber will adopt some real 'new paradigm' solutions to it's own problem of being relevant. If it doen't it will be bye-bye. What the chamber should be doing will simply be done by others using New Media and 'the Web'. The job is almost done anyway. The Chamber will never be a leader in cyberTaos, except by default.

Believe me, there could well be half a million Web pages generated by 'genuine' taos sites so far, and certainly millions of references to 'Taos' online now. The big picture isn't hard to understand. "The people" of Taos have long ago begun taking their promotion and products and art to people and companies all over the world using 'the Web'. Just spend the time online to see it. (hint: taoslink.com)

Instead of a Chamber there should be 'a club'. And maybe 'the club' should be online for hip local inside people and willing participants. And it could be an online space where we could develop our collective Taos Web presence, or integrate what is there now in cool ways. Like linking arms in cyberTaos to deal with our real competition for a buck - CNN, hotels.com, realestate.com, and so forth. Oh, you like them and think they're good for you? Welcome to 'the Web' said the spider to the fly.

Additionally it will be good to note that Steve Fuhlendorf taking over from Gayle is a good thing because he has studied this a lot. One can only hope that the forces opposing any forward new paradigm movement will not be more than he can handle. Good luck, Bro'. Hope they treat you a lot better than they treated Agnes Oakley.

'The Web' is already helping us create the Taos tradename and global presence, through individual effort, as well as collectively by default. For a genuine Taos Web site there isn't any reason to not take the next step - Reintegrate. The next phase will really help your company, and your bottom line. Here's a hint: 'entertainment and information.'

Everybody's doin' it. Pluggin' in. My God! Look how Feeny is plugging in from Baja. And I've been in New Delhi, India for a couple of months now. Yet I'm still running my tens of thousands of Taos Web site pages. Wow! It's all such a 'new paradigm' sort of thing.

There's my opinion..., Just Between Us.
J. R. Ransom