Black & Veatch and It's About Being Informed

I like reading the Black & Veatch website.  I learn something and I feel it makes me smarter.  Those are two very good reactions from a reader of your website content regardless of the business line or industry.

Consider the following six ideas the next time you go to a website and read their content:

1. We live in a world of ever-rising content.  A tsunami of information.  Google search "coffee cup" and you get 265 million links.  Type in "coffee cup" in a month and see the growth in links in just that 30-day period.  Type in "Black & Veatch" and you get 4,520,000 links.  Deciding what to read and where to read in the context of why is getting much more complex for any audience.
2. The only number that matters is 1,440.  This is the number of minutes in a day.  Remember that time is a non-renewable resource.  Subtract out all the necessary daily activities and you probably have around 40 minutes of reading time.  The people you want to reach don't have huge amounts of time to spend reading your website.  The absolute key is thinking about your where, when, and how information users regarding what they want and how they value it.  Understand your website users' needs.  It no longer matters what you think you are teaching your clients and customers with your website content - it only matters what they learned.
3. Your audience is in control.  Black & Veatch doesn't control their content or audience - without them, their content didn't happen.  People will take the time for your content that they, not you, find valuable.  Also, please don't think incremental change in the social media pyramid space.  Incremental change is really just going backwards in the world of "It's about being informed."  Your audience doesn't think in terms of informational incremental change.
4. Peoples' experiences drive engagement.  Does the Black & Veatch website make you smarter (it does me)?  Does it draw you in and provide a story of value?  Is the Black & Veatch website good at explaining the world?  I think it is.
5. Brands are essential.  Brands differentiate everything.  This includes the Black & Veatch brand.  What is your brand in the minds of those people you must reach?  Does you website content facilitate this branding effort?
6. Your news and content must be credible, trustworthy, transparent, engaging, and convenient.  The professional services industry pretty much nails the first three.  If you go back to the number 1,440, engaging and convenient are the key drivers of any website and social media plan.  In general, engineers need to get better at thinking in terms of stories.  The ability to communicate with an audience in terms of a story is critical.  The world of communication is basic - it's typically people talking to people in terms of stories.