I set up a small group of volunteers to promote a free support service for public health employees having problems with their management. All area health services have corrective mechanisms that employees can appeal to - but any appeal to them almost always worsen the situation.

We had a website which we thought we could promote by distributing within hospitals business cards displaying the site address. Even though what was being offered was very relevant, this promotion generated very few hits to the website. Why could the staff not even bother to have a look? From this we formed a theory.

Working people do not use the Internet for anything but their immediate needs [such as buying theatre tickets online]. The great majority of people searching for information to expand on what they already have on a topic are students and retired people.

I believe that the potential of the Internet to get a message out is exaggerated. The average person feels to be inundated with information in text form and is turning off it.