Among the Web's magical powers is its ability to find lost or
missing people. That power has myriad applications that include
finding long-lost friends, relatives, birth parents, etc. But it
also has business applications.
The other day a travel agent sent me an e-mail asking for
assistance with a question. I didn't have the answer but wrote back
that I would try to get it for her. Then in a senior moment I blew
away the message containing her email address.
Determined to find her, I checked the "sent mail" section of my
e-mail program. Her e-mail address was gone but I had her name and
the name of her agency.
Now comes the fun part. Her agency name is a common one, used by
dozens of agencies around the country. I checked the ASTA roster
and found several agencies under that name but none with her
individual name listed. There was no guarantee that her agency was
an ASTA member anyway so I decided to check out the Web.
I spent a little time looking at Web sites with that name,
pledging to myself that I would call at least a few in the hopes of
finding her. Luckily, the first agency I found on the Web and
called was the one she works with as an outside agent and they gave
me the e-mail address I had lost.
As it turned out, working the ASTA roster list in this case
would have turned her up as well. But the Web is the most
encompassing means of locating an individual or a business.
The location of lost (or in this case temporarily lost) people
is just one of the extraordinary search capabilities of this
private detective's dream called the Internet.
And I would think the more specific your information need, the
more valuable this medium becomes. If you're looking for a
seven-night London package, I can think of lots of other ways to
get the kind of information you'd need. But if the client wants to
spend the seven nights only in pubs that were inspired by Sherlock
Holmes, the Internet is the place I'd look (with all due respect to
the British Tourist Authority).
I'd be interested to know how you use the Web, whether to locate
people or firms for business or personal reasons, or to find that
travel "needle in a haystack."