As we discussed names for our enterprise, it also turns out a prominent landscape artist named John Dodgson Barrow lived here back in the 1800’s .  While I am not sure if this is who Barrow Street is named after, it is clear he did have some influence.   Then it was a few weeks ago I was reading “The Universe on T-Shirt: The Quest for the Theory of Everything”, by Dan Falk an excellent book on the history of physics, where the book opens with the following quote from the physicist John D. Barrow.

 

“The longed-for Theory of Everything promises to provide the final discovery after which all physics will become the refinement of its content, the simplification of its explanation....Eventually, it will appear on T-Shirts."

 

In essence what Barrow was trying to do was explain physics in simple terms, which is our goal with designing and managing websites. So maybe with choosing the name Barrow, we were on to something, due to some pretty interesting dudes with this last name, that just happened to represent our philosophy when it came to digital. Coincidence, I think not.  And it is far better than saying that we named it after Barrow, Alaska one of the northern most cities in the United States, isolated from pretty much everything.  

 

I bring this up because I was recently asked what my favorite websites were.  When I gave this some thought I realized it was not websites that were visually stunning (which is what this person wanted me to say), but it was the sites I was able to find the information I needed or the ones where I was able to interact with others by providing comments because we shared a common interest.  It other words I like sites that have substance -- which I think most people do as well.  So I would argue even finding the information/community you are looking for is a conversion.  Actually a very important one because your site is then viewed as a resource, which the search engines like a lot and it keeps people coming back for more.

 

Taking this one step further the rise of social networking sites have exploded because they allow us to communicate with our friends and share information from what we deem as a trusted sources.  Rather then turning to Google, you can use Twitter to find information as you follow people that share your interests or you can go to a blog  to obtain that information and see what your peers are working on and thinking.  The important point though is social networking sites are about engagement.   

One thing I am probably guilty of doing is getting a bit too technical when I speak with clients. Not all the time, and it is not because I want to confuse people, but I get really excited when I can show someone how all this stuff works.  I remember having that ah ha moment when I discovered how websites work and are developed.  As a result I always have a habit of showing people what the source code looks like for a website.  To do this in your browser (it does not matter which one, they all have this feature) just go to View > Source.  This will bring up all of the web code for a website.  

 

I know most people do not care about the source code of a website (that is something for us to worry about), but at the same time having a basic understanding of how a web browser renders your website’s code can go a long way into gaining a good idea of how the web and search engines actually work.  The reason this is important is so you can understand how people can find your site when they are searching the web.  The code that sits behind a web browser not only tells the browser how to display the site visually, but that code is what is crawled/indexed by the search engines, not what you see the browser displaying.  

Most of our clients and friends have been telling us for quite some time, "You guys need to have a website."  And I keep saying, "I know but we are really busy."  Well it does make sense that we have a site, since that is what Barrow Concepts specializes in.  

 

As we launch this site and bring Barrow Concepts to life online, we would to like start by thanking all of our supportive friends and clients.  We have had fun creating and working with our clients and look forward to building future blogs and websites that will contribute new ideas and inspire others.