Ottawa Sun
Published: Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Ottawa's missing links

Travelling within the province, our country, south of the border or further abroad often gives you a quick reality check on the indifference to or irrelevance of Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. It’s sad, frustrating, but true.

Based on two decades of extensive travel, let me be generous, when you tell folks you are from Ottawa, Canada, the best reaction you get is “nice city, went there on a school trip in Grade 7” to the more frequent, “huh, where’s that, are you closer to Calgary or Montreal?”

For the past two weeks I have roamed the beaches of my hotel and neighbouring properties here in picturesque Punta Cana in the Dominican Republic and chatted with folks from the eastern seaboard of the U.S.A., France, the U.K., Spain and Russia.

If the Americans are hockey fans, they may know of the Ottawa Senators. As for the Brits, most know that Ottawa is the capital of Canada and we have a Parliamentary precinct somewhat modelled on Westminster Abbey. As for the Spaniards, the Russians and the rest of the Yanks, Ottawa is city; perhaps in passing or in a textbook that they may have heard of, period.

When pressed, they surely know of Toronto, Montreal, Calgary, and Vancouver and can usually name a tourist attraction or sports team or landmark associated with these other Canadian cities. As for Ottawa, well, they smile and then an awkward silence.

So I Googled Ottawa yesterday to get the first 10 listings and quickly figured out why we are as internationally insignificant as a hemorrhoid on a fruit fly’s butt.

The number one result is a map of our city. Numbers two and three are links to our city government website … not helpful in shaping a first impression as I’m confident most readers would agree. Coming in at No. 4 was a Wikipedia link and finally at number five, the ottawatourism.ca website … sadly a touch static, bland, crowded and a tempting click away to daily horoscopes or the Sham-Wow page.

Rounding out the top 10, at six I found a link to Ottawa University. But it is not the post secondary institution of Gee Gees fame, it is in Ottawa, Kansas, for Pete’s sake. As for the aforementioned Ottawa Senators, Google ranks them at No. 7 while spots eight and nine contain links to the Ottawa.com portal which is definitely state of the art web design, circa 2002!

Finally spot number 10 is held ottawakiosk.com, which, to its credit, probably contains more information on eating, dining, staying and doing business in Ottawa than the first nine links combined.

Sadly our city economic development officials, OCRI, the NCC, and a host of other institutions who are either recipients of our property tax dollars directly or should understand that the promotion of the nation’s capital is complementary if not essential to their own success and reputations do not understand the power of the Internet, search engine optimization and competing for global name and brand recognition.

After Oct. 25, the mayor of Ottawa (whomever that will be) should use the suasion of his office to infuse and demand a web prioritization strategy into our paltry economic development, tourism and other international marketing pursuits.

Or maybe he could ask Ottawa, Kansas for some help.