One of the more interesting things to watch in business is the need for simple answers, regardless of the question. Take RSS and syndication, for instance - lots of PR folks are out there looking for an RSS "strategy" now. Have a look at this page, which tries to explain RSS to the uninitiated (yes, it's old - I point it out because I was pointed to it in email).

The focus of that page is on the utterly irrelevant aspects of syndication - the technical implementation. Sure, that stuff is of interest to those of us implementing aggregators and/or servers (that produce RSS) - but it's not of any use to PR and general business staff. How the content is syndicated isn't the interesting part - it's how the content is produced that matters.

What I'm seeing is a desire on the part of PR folks to have this be magic - to somehow wave a magic wand, and via the magic of syndication, have the stuffy old website suddenly be relevant. I have a hot tip for you - it's not enough. Syndication is a means to an end, it's not an end in and of itself.

What you really need is fresh content. More than that, you need content that is updated on a regular basis. Take your average corporate website - is there any good reason to visit more than once every few months? For the most part, no - the content is mostly static, and almost always completely bereft of actual human voice. There's no there, there, as was famously said about Oakland.

What do actually want? You want people to return to your website again and again. What do you usually provide? Bland oatmeal. Consider your TV viewing habits - do you watch TV shows that cover the same ground relentlessly, or do you watch shows that have plot development and action? Just so with your website - you need to have something that attracts people back. A better color scheme isn't going to do it, nor is just slapping a little orange RSS icon up. What you need is some useful and interesting content. To see the difference, go visit channel 9, and then visit microsoft.com. Which one of those two looks like it might be worth coming back to?