While we certainly continue to work to remain the premier Columbus SEO firm, we always enjoy seeing other businesses in Central Ohio succeed in various technology related industries. This week, Forbes declared Columbus the number 1 “Up and Coming Tech City in the United States”, and we are proud to be a part of this effort. I realize that this recognition is centered around the phenominal research work that is done by the wonderful people at Battelle Memorial Institute, but any spotlight that is directed at our city in terms of our technical future is good for all of us. After all, the more technology firms that move to the area, the more likely those firms will need the services of the leading Central Ohio web marketing firm, SEO Columbus.
As a part of our spotlight on corporate SEO over the next couple of weeks, I will focus on some Central Ohio based corporations and dissect the web marketing efforts that they have in place. I hope that this recent Forbes recognition places a renewed focus and responsibility on the area’s businesses so that they do work to become innovators and leaders in the technology industry. One of my biggest gripes about many of the larger corporations in Central Ohio is that it is full of crotchety old companies that are stuck in an old school mindset - businesses like Nationwide that still use *gasp* Lotus Notes for their internal email application and operate almost all of their business on outdated 35 year old Cobol mainframe systems. Unfortunately, since a business is only as innovative as the people leading it, there are very specific reasons for the lack of advancement in the area’s tech industry over the last 10 to 15 years. Hopefully, this shift led by cutting edge large firms such as Bettelle, as well as smaller industry expert driven firms such as our own SEO Columbus will keep Columbus at the top of this list for a few years - until it is no longer “up and coming” but rather “arrived”.
Thanks for posting, Ed. I know that Notes has its fair share of supporters, but it isn’t exactly a strong recruiting point for new IT talent when the company is using Lotus Notes. There are a lot of large companies that use Notes, but I think the days of IBM being considered innovative ended about 20 years ago. My point was more in regard to central Ohio companies being innovative and stepping out on the ledge and not as much a swipe at Lotus Notes, although I do believe that one is symbolic of the lack of the other. I don’t feel that companies like Nationwide are disadvantaged necessarily by using Lotus Notes (although they probably are somewhat), but rather companies like that are disadvantaged because of the technology leaders they have in place that are making decisions such as using Lotus Notes. On an SEO note, just take a look at Nationwide’s new website, which has nothing to do with Lotus Notes. Here is a company that will pay to put their name on anything for sale, yet they don’t know how to build a site that will generate millions of dollars in free traffic every single day. That is what I hope changes in the central Ohio technology industry - for these businesses to realize that this isn’t 1988 and if they don’t catch up and keep up, they will be passed up.
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edbrill said,
March 13, 2008 @ 5:22 am*gasp* I guess Nationwide doesn’t mind being part of a community of tens of thousands of companies — including thousands of new ones annually — that use Lotus Notes to run their businesses. IBM continues to significantly invest in Notes and Notes 8, which shipped last year, delivered a major update in terms of usability, openness, and integration.
It’s always easy to take a shot at technology that has been around for many years, but is there a reason that you think Nationwide or other Notes customers are disadvantaged? IBM runs a $96 billion company on Notes, and the most profitable company in the US is a Notes customer.