Does the internet help you in your job?

**pluckyduck** · #1 03-30-2002, 01:38 PM

Color me curious, once again. Has the Internet changed your job or your company? How do you use the vast world wide web to do what you do smarter and better?

Now, I'm not talking email, and I'm not talking a company intranet, I'm talking the Internet itself.

Virtually everything I do now is interwoven with the Internet. I cannot imagine trying to get through half of the day with the Internet connection down.

What would I do without the information? Hell, what would I do without Google???

I gather information on potential markets, niches, ideas, whatever, through a google search.
I research mailing list buys, gather potential organizations to target, etc., through google search.
I keep up on what is going on in my industry and related industries and customers' industries through various websites devoted to the topics.
I classify and qualify customers through google searches.
We credit rate customers through the D & B website.
I choose and buy clipart or photos for catalogs or whatnot through online art/photo websites.

I'm sure there's more; that's just what comes to mind at the moment. I must spend 75% of my work day online.

(None of this includes the part where we sell online as well.) If there were no Internet, I'd not be able to accomplish a great deal of what I do....the part that I would accomplish might entail a trip to the Library, which is what I did in the olden days.

What about you guys?

Andrea

magenta321 · #2 03-30-2002, 01:53 PM

At my old job I had my own computer, and a monitoring device. If I ever dared to log on to the internet, I was reported. I never tried it, but several other people were reprimanded for it. The only websites we could log into were the intranet, and www.medicalnecessity.com (the website that tells you what Medicare will not pay for, so you can give the patient a form letting them know that the test they were about to get is going to cost them $2000, and it will not be paid by Medicare, so they had to agree to pay for it).

At my new job I don't have my own computer. There is one communal computer for the whole department, and a long line for it. All you can use are the medical programs on it.

This place only has like 100 employees, so I doubt they enforce those internet rules. However, there is no time for you to dilly dally on the computer. You get on, do what you have to do and get off.

If I need the internet, I suppose I could go into the head honcho's computer and use hers. If I could prove it were very important.

I guess the internet isn't so important in my end of the Radiology field. However, there were times where employees would have benefitted from having the ability to use it (such as applying for conferences, or taking tests which help them to stay accredited, etc).

It would have been nice to be able to use it on free time though. I'd rather go on the internet at lunch time than watch the television.

**pluckyduck** · #3 03-30-2002, 02:42 PM

Margaret -

I understand the temptation for Employers (note capital "E" ) to view the internet as a possibly Corrupting Influence for Wasting Time...but I think that in general that's awfully short sighted. A lot of what can be accomplished through the Internet or improved greatly by the Internet can't even be predicted until employee have access to the tool. Of course, I don't presume to know the first thing about running a hospital......

Anyway, FWIW, here's a site about radiology that I spend time on occasionally. (A segment of my customers are radiology centers.)

http://auntminnie.com/index.asp?sec=def

Seems like a place that the PTB would want their radiology folks to check out occasionally (but what do I know).

Andrea

magenta321 · #4 03-30-2002, 02:57 PM

Thanks for the link. It's really an interesting site, plus they have links for CME credits (earning those credits is what keeps Radiologic Technitians working!).

I don't need credits (I'm not a tech) but everyone I work with does.

Plus I read some interesting things on PACs. We all are at the stage still where we hate PACs (it digitizes radiologic images, so doctors can view Xrays, CTs, MRIs, etc from their own computers, rather than getting the original films), but it's good to know we're all doing it for a reason. Right now the hospital I used to work at had it for about a year. All we focus on is what a pain the system is. It's good to know it is good for something, and maybe after we get more used to it (it's where I am working now as well, but only in CT and MR, I believe).

Way cool. Thanks Andrea!

[/end Radiology tangent]

**pluckyduck** · #5 03-30-2002, 05:35 PM

You're welcome.

At the very least, Internet access is enriching...at its best, it makes a road or a path for you that heretofore didn't even exist.

We were late to install a network PC computer system for everybody in our company. I think it was no longer ago than three years, if you can believe that. (Prior to that we had dummy terminals on a Unix system and only a few of us had real PCs) Anyway, when the whole system was going up, I had to actually defend the reason I thought everybody should have internet access.

I felt as if someone were asking me to defend giving everybody who worked there a pen, you know? Gee, I don't know, it is true...not everybody in the building could possibly be writing at the same time. Maybe we should all just share a couple of pens between us.

Andrea
who obviously won that battle

**pluckyduck** · #6 03-30-2002, 05:40 PM

Oh, Margaret, you'll enjoy this too.

FWIW, I believe that teaching people to shop on the Internet is teaching them an important life skill.

I've turned half a dozen or more of my folks into Internet shoppers. The leather jacket deal got a chick in my warehouse who was afraid a computer would explode if she touched it *wired*. She's got an Amazon account now.

Andrea

murasaki · #7 03-30-2002, 05:40 PM

As a student, I use the internet a lot for research. I use google for various things as well as the links provided by the university library (like the MLA database).

When I worked in an office, I used the internet more as a way of getting information quickly. If I needed information about a policy or funding or whatever, it was usually faster for me to check the internet since most posts/organizations, etc., have webpages. Phone calls and email just took longer. A great deal of the Army & Department of Defense regulations and publications are online as well for quick reference.

I don't think this access has changed the way I work terribly, just made me more efficient without having to wait on/bug other people.

--naomi

**mrisch**[$] · #8 03-31-2002, 04:02 AM

You tell me - if our phones go down for half a day, it causes stress, but we can live with it.

If our email is delayed by 10 minutes, I never hear the end of it.

That, plus all our research databases that we used to dial up to are now on the internet.

**pluckyduck** · #9 03-31-2002, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by mrisch
You tell me - if our phones go down for half a day, it causes stress, but we can live with it.

If our email is delayed by 10 minutes, I never hear the end of it.

That, plus all our research databases that we used to dial up to are now on the internet.

Heck, even I use some of the free lawyerly like databases. I understand the ones you pay for are even better.

Seriously though, didn't the Internet get rid of a lot of the work that had to be done in rooms full of law books?

Did it change "everything"?

Naomi wrote:

Quote:

When I worked in an office, I used the internet more as a way of getting information quickly. If I needed information about a policy or funding or whatever, it was usually faster for me to check the internet since most posts/organizations, etc., have webpages. Phone calls and email just took longer. A great deal of the Army & Department of Defense regulations and publications are online as well for quick reference.

OMG, I

the federal websites!

I have a ton of federal government customers, from military hospitals through the CDC through all of DHH. Research is a blast...so easy. The government puts everything up.

Andrea

cristina1 · #10 04-02-2002, 12:22 AM

The internet really did make our business go more efficient than it ever could be.

Some of the websites we use:

The bank website. Fill out a credit app and have instant approval for the customer. This also helps us with payment options for the customer. It is all done online and very quickly.

Autotrader.com - We list cars and search out cars. Quick and easy.

The website of the local dealers auction, plus a few others - Here, we can look up a particular make and model (plus year, mileage, etc) and find out how the cars do at a wholesale auction. Although we do have book values that you can look up (on another site), this gives real numbers of what dealers are paying for certain cars.

The best part of working on the internet is that I can do a lot from home