A search for men’s shoes on Zappos.com results in a visitor’s ability to browse 14,072 items, while women have 33,710 options. Did you know there are 73 active professional wrestling organizations in the United States? My favorites are “Wrestlicious” and “Wrestling Association of Championship Krushers.” Check your local papers. They might be coming to a fairground near you.

A device I recently encountered in several local fast food restaurants epitomizes consumer choice – the Coca-Cola 120-Flavor Choice Beverage Dispenser. Even though only a woman and her young son were in front of me when I went to get my drink, ten minutes passed before it became my turn in line.

“Billy, do you want Fanta Fruit Punch?”

“No.”

“Fanta Lime?”

“No.”

“Diet Coke Vanilla?”

“No.”

“Diet Coke Lime?

“No.”

“Coke Rasberry?”

“No.”

“Coke Lime?”

“No.”

“Caffeine-Free Diet Vanilla Coke?”

“No.”

“Caffeine-Free Diet Coke with Lime?”

“No.”

“Powerade Zero Strawberry?”

“No.”

“Powerade Zero Lime?”

“No.”

“Sprite Zero Grape?”

“No.”

“Sprite Zero Lime?”

“No.”

I like choices as much as the next person, and I can’t blame Billy for wanting to hear all of his options before making a decision (Minute Maid Orange Lemonade, in case you were wondering), but at some point, too many choices can become overwhelming and counterproductive.

I hire experts in fields I don’t specialize in to either make choices for me or to present me with a narrow list of options they created based on their expertise. A good vendor understands their role as an advisor and counsels clients appropriately. After all, if I was as educated as they are in their field of expertise, I wouldn’t need to hire them.

I was recently searching for an accountant. I met with several, but I never felt the “I’m an expert, you can trust me” confidence emitting from them that I desired. I wanted them to talk about the things I needed to consider and help me choose the options that were right for me. During those meetings, I asked most of the questions and frequently received the response, “that’s a good question.” I know. If it wasn’t, I wouldn’t have been asking it.

I’m not an expert in the accounting field. I shouldn’t have been asking the questions. They should have, and I should have been responding, “I hadn’t thought of that.” I’m certain there were numerous questions I didn’t even know to ask. I wanted these accountants to step up, be experts, and bring my attention to the important choices I needed to understand and consider, while they took care of the rest.

I encourage companies in the service industry to think about what their customers really want. Customers are seeking service providers to help them feel confident in their choices when those decisions are related to areas outside of the customer’s expertise.

Unlimited choices might be good in certain instances, such as when you must have crunchy because smooth just won’t do or if you absolutely refuse to eat any M&M that isn’t green, but most business executives don’t have time to mull over an endless list of options, so they rely on consultants to simplify some of their decision-making processes.  And what happens if consultants don’t? Well, I read a few books and bought TurboTax.

One phrase that continues to cling to life, especially related to web development, social media, and email marketing, is “Content is King.” This phrase, referring to the creation of desirable, relevant content being the path to success, has a foothold that it doesn’t appear to be in any danger of slipping out of, most likely due to having actual meaning. Not only is good content required to engage your existing audience and attract new readers, but it is also necessary for the success of your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts.

Matt Cutts from Google stated in an SEO video article (see below) how good content is vital to successful search engine results. According to Matt, Google continuously updates Googlebot, which is software used to collect documents from the web to serve as the foundation for Google’s search engine. These updates increase Googlebot’s intelligence so that it is more likely to find quality, compelling content for search engine users. Matt says that, in reference to SEO and HTML techniques, you can “do brain-dead, stupid things to shoot yourself in the foot,” but if you have good content, then Google wants to return it. Matt states that Google makes “it so you don’t have to do SEO, and we still find the good content.” If search engine intelligence continues to increase and the sources of content that is available to users continues to expand, companies should begin to consider another well-known phrase – “quality over quantity.”

Content may drive traffic and search engine rankings, and keyword-riddled articles posted four times a day might be great for SEO purposes, but how long will your audience continue to read them? Even though content may be king, its kingdom of readers may quickly diminish if companies don’t find a balance between quality and quantity. Quality content is necessary in all aspects of business, from product brochures and websites to social media and public relations. Messaging should be concise, relevant, and engaging if companies want to elevate its information to content royalty. For this to occur, quality writers must become valuable assets in every company, either as a member of their staff or from an outside agency. The Bureau of Labor Statistics is already predicting a trend of escalating technical writer employment, stating that employment for this position is expected to grow by 17% between 2010 and 2020.”

I don’t want to generalize, but my experience is that a good writer is an underappreciated asset. Most companies seem to believe that writing is a skill that any employee possesses as a secondary ability to their primary job function. Most people can write, but can they write well, and if not, does it matter? It should. The ability to clearly and concisely communicate ideas, instructions, or sales propositions to potential or existing clients is invaluable in helping to establish an understanding. Complicated or convoluted language can cause you to lose or never establish that understanding, which can result in the loss of an existing or potential client and possibly search engine ranking.

Intelligent and concise writing is poised to make a comeback in the very near future as the importance of good content continues to grow and its impact on a company’s online identity increases.

The following illustration will be part of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital’s water safety campaign and will appear in an advertisement in the June issue of Nashville Parent magazine.

My first stop for inspiration, after spending forty-five minutes on Facebook begging people to take care of my crops while I was away from the farm, was Yahoo’s main page. I know! Yahoo of all places. People still occasionally Yahoo things instead of Google them. I haven’t started Binging yet, but I have it on my bucket list. I just need to get over how intimate it sounds. What did you do today? I Binged Saint Bernhards. Then I Binged Ferraris. Before I knew it, I was Binging my favorite comic strip.

Here is a list of things I discovered during one of my days seeking blog inspiration:

I read a news story about a website called Fiverr.com, where people post things they will do for $5. The headline read, “How Fiverr.com is changing the creative economy $5 at a time.” I was amazed at what people will do for a Benjamin. I mean a Franklin. No, I mean a Lincoln. Some of the options on Fiverr.com include:

• Someone will meditate on my financial abundance for 5 minutes straight for $5. (Do you see the irony in this one?)
• Someone will send me positive energy for 50 days for $5. (This is a very cheap energy alternative the government could consider tapping.)
• Someone will make a pterodactyl noise for me for $5. (I seriously considered this one since I was growing tired of my “That’s So Raven” theme song ringtone and needed a new one, but I wasn’t certain if the pterodactyl sound had been scientifically verified.)
• Someone will crochet a fried egg toy for me for $5. (I lost the one I received for Christmas when I was a child and have been looking for a replacement ever since.)
• Someone will shout anything I want while wearing a banana costume for $5. (No commentary necessary to describe how awesome this one is. I hope creative agencies around the world are preparing for the effects this will have on the pricing of their services. I don’t know about you, but with gas and fabric prices as high as they are these days, I can’t shout messages in a banana costume for less than $7.50.)

I read a news story about how architects will answer the problems of rising oceans. Instead of scientifically determining why water levels are rising and addressing those directly, we’ll all live in amphibious homes that will safely raise and lower when needed. In other news, it has been discovered that house boats have changed their names to amphibious homes.

I read a news story in the Finance section on how to be popular at work. It explained that you should learn to build rapport with your co-workers, and then goes on to say it is an unconscious attribute that people are born with, so there is some advice to build on. The article did state even if you aren’t naturally good at building rapport, you can improve on what little ability you have. One way is to visualize that the person is an honored guest in your home. I tried this once, but my boss already knew where the bathroom was and didn’t want to see my impressive Harry Potter decorative plate collection I keep in my desk drawer.

I watched a video in the News section titled “What happens after we die?” I was excited to find out that someone who had passed away had figured out how to carry an iPhone with them into death (as most people hope to do) to shoot the video and was able to stream it back to YouTube for everyone to see (and for Google to own forever). I was more than a little disappointed when I realized this was just a Reader’s Digest version of afterlife predictions by various religions, from Egyptians to Vikings, but no actual afterlife footage. Yet another misleading headline.

I learned a lot of things I didn’t need to know during my journey for blog inspiration, so I’m not certain that a random sampling of the news is the best way to generate ideas. What I do know is that if I ever need my caricature painted on a bean, but only have $5 to spend, someone out there will be able to give me the help I need.