I had the privilege of attending a panel discussion organised by the Optimist Clubs of Barbados on Internet Safety. It was both timely and very helpful in empowering those who were there to be critical thinkers and safe promoters of the Internet. It began with a brief video presentation on eSafety followed by some very articulate secondary school students who shared their views about the Internet. The evening’s schedule was very tight and lots was discussed, however, due to time constraints I was not able to share my views on the matter then so I have posted my comments and some afterthoughts here.

As reported by the Barbados Nation Newspaper, the Minister of Education and Human Resources Ronald Jones announced that he would be moving towards banning the use of cell phones by students at all schools in the island at the start of the new academic year. Though perhaps a good move to stop the use of mobiles within schools along with all ‘wrong doing’ that was made possible with this privilege, what about when these young citizens and prospective employees are outside of school and equipped with such ‘evil’ technology? Is this ban really adequate?

As Internet technology continues to advance at an amazing rate, each wave of change it brings has an impact on how we both live and work in many ways, some are very much welcomed and of course some we rather do without. In most workplaces today the Internet has become somewhat indispensable. It can be considered as a focal point for communication where for example it aids collaboration among employees and also as a productivity booster where it reduces the time we take to perform many tasks. However, on the flip side there is also the growing concern that some employees abuse and misuse this resource.

“Every interaction, every conversation, every exchange of ideas has an effect on others and presents for us an influencing opportunity” (Mackin, 2006). Using persuasive communication theories such as the Cognitive Dissonance theory (Fistinger, 1957) and the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM; Petty & Cacioppo, 1986) I’ll show you how you can make your website a whole lot more influential.

Trust has been identified by many researchers as one of the most important issues for Internet users. According to Whitty and Joinson (2009) this can almost always be attributed to the degree of uncertainty and the element of risk that individuals experience online. As sites provide, request and gather information, and also try to influence behaviour, support and process online purchases, and even strive to form strong relationships that would result in favourable outcomes for the site owner, getting visitors to trust you and your site is of very high importance. Using research in the area I’ll offer some ways that you can ‘build’ trust through your website.