This past week, I closed my personal website. Bolt Records was something I desperately needed back in the 90's when it was launched, but had become a $15 a month expense that I simply did not need anymore. Why is this?

When it was launched, the Bolt site served a few key purposes. First and foremost, it was to help ease the burden I was feeling in fielding requests for my music. I had spent years in manufacturing or burning and then packaging and shipping CD's for customers and fans. With the widespread adoption of mp3 files, I no longer felt this was a necessary practice. The site could help me eliminate more than half of this effort. As well, the site helped me to alert people to, and update ongoing artist activities, share band photos and related images, maintain a way for people to contact me via email, and promote related links. If you think about it, all of these abilities and practices have been replaced by new platforms like YouTube, Facebook, MySpace and other similar venues.

But what is at the heart of all of this aside from the removal of costs associated and the elimination of weekly trips to the post office? Why does the new way feel so much better than the old? My relationship with consumers has changed. I am no longer sharing information from the top down, as I see fit. I am no longer controlling the message as I perceive it may want to be perceived. I have joined with my audience and have become an equal voice.

In my current practice, open conversation has been provided. This is huge. I now know what people expect to find (if they comment) and what they want that may not be there. I find out what they like and dislike. I find out what they need and find out who they know. My insight into how to nurture, extend and continue relationhips within their worlds has been deeply enhanced. I don't need what had become, for me, a vanity site.

I'll bet your organization would be enhanced by this sort of evolutionary step as well, regardless of the platform you choose. It's not about what tools you have, but how you decide to use them. Move from your controlled structure to being a center of gravity. Embrace agility, networking and relationships over maintaining singular authority. There is a new communications model. It is expected by many in your audience who experience this in so many places now. Shouldn't you consider that they have the same experience when visiting your site?