Chamber offers path to the Web

Kathy Eldred is by no means a complete novice when it comes to the Internet. “I figured out how to pay my bills online, you know, check your e-mail – things of that nature,” she said.
But when it came to building a Web site for Charlie’s Old Time Rubbish Removal, her husband’s nine-year-old trash-hauling business, Eldred was stumped.
“This was something totally different, because being business-oriented you don’t want to do something that’s going to give you a negative impact,” she said. “Not really knowing how to go about doing it, or who you could trust to really make sure you’re really going to get where you need to be” was “a little nerve-wracking.”
Still, in the age of Google, Eldred knew that even a small-town trash hauler would benefit from a Web presence. So she turned for help to a new initiative the North Kingstown Chamber of Commerce has started to help get its members online.
Karla Driscoll, the Chamber’s executive director, said some of her members had no experience with computers, e-mail or the Web, so she needed a simple way to assist them. The solution she settled on involves using the Chamber’s Web site, NorthKingstown.com, to create a directory of individual pages for her members.
The idea was brought to Driscoll last fall by Barbara Jackson, a Chamber member who three years ago co-founded a software-as-a-service company, now known as 3 Step Networks, that helps organizations create and manage their own “branded networks” – sort of a cross between directories and social-networking sites. The cost is minimal – $2.50 to $5.50 per user, per year, depending on how many features are included – and Jackson said it offers a low-hassle way to create a Web presence.
Driscoll agreed. “Even if it’s just a basic paragraph, let’s get something out there,” she said. The directory has two components. One is a listing of the Chamber’s members sorted by the names of both the business and its owner, and the second is a customizable Web site for each business. In most cases, that is a simple description of the company and its contact information. If a business wants to buy a domain name – say, www.charliesrubbish.com – they can have that redirect to the Chamber page.
The solution may not be perfect – for one thing, 3 Step Networks’ logo is far larger than the words “Charlie’s Rubbish Removal” on what is ostensibly the latter’s Web site – but Eldred said the Chamber’s assistance was a huge help to her. They even took pictures of her husband and his trucks to put a friendly face on the site.
The first week after the site went up, Eldred got four phone calls from people who found it, and one became a customer – exactly as Jackson had hoped. “Charlie, I don’t think, even has his phone number on the truck,” she said, so until now “you literally had to know Charlie to get him to come pick up your trash.”
The service also offers a new perk Driscoll can offer as part of a membership, which costs $200 a year for the average small business. “Sometimes it’s hard to see what a Chamber does – it’s not material,” she said. “So we wanted to be able to give them these Web pages as complementary.”
The Chamber also has been offering training sessions on the basics of the Web.
Eldred’s husband, for one, was impressed. “He really did think it was cool,” she said. “He honestly wouldn’t have had a clue how to do it – it’s not his end of it – that’s maintaining the trucks, being out there doing all the heavy lifting.” &#8226