The Business Perspective

Dropbox is a great addition to my desktop...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 21:29:00 +0000

When was the last time that you left your office for a meeting only to arrive at your destination without the right file? If that file wasn't on your laptop or a flash drive, you might find yourself up the proverbial creek without a paddle. We all suffer from the risks of working in the modern world, as it gets tougher to remain connected physically and virtually to all of the information we need moment to moment or meeting to meeting. But now, there's a family of applications that can help.

Business owners can find any number of services in the Cloud that offer virtual file sharing. Most are good, a few are great, but only one proved itself sufficiently simple and reliable to find its way to my desktop. With Dropbox, I can drag files into a folder on my desktop, and instantly pull up that file from any device with an Internet connection.

As the owner of the Project Management Office at our firm, I'm constantly working on projects with team members from different department or different companies. To keep everyone connected to the same project information, I set up a Dropbox with a folder for each project, then just keep all of the current information in that folder. I'm never more than a few clicks away from critical data. Even better, Dropbox allows me to share folders with other members of the project team, so that everyone stays connected. It comes in very handy before meetings. I simply drop my agenda, presentations, and documents into the right Dropbox folder, and by the time I walk to the meeting center, I can bring up the presentation on my screen, and everyone can share the spreadsheet on their own laptop or iPad for the discussion.

I've even set up a Dropbox to share files, photos, links and files with friends and family virtually anywhere with an Internet connection. I'll get a lot of use of this Dropbox on vacation this summer to keep everyone up to date with pictures and videos as we drive up the coast.

Your first 2GB of data in Dropbox is free, and business owners can find group accounts with great prices. I recommend taking a look at Dropbox for your file sharing and project or sales needs. I think that you will find that Dropbox is one application that really can make your work life a little easier.

Kindle DX fits business...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 19:07:00 +0000

I’ve longed for an ebook reader ever since Sony first introduced the concept about 20 years ago. Unfortunately for Sony, a combination of unreadable screens, challenging page controls, and sub-par battery life doomed their early attempts. Today, their Sony Reader is playing catch-up to the Kindle.

Amazon’s Kindle certainly proves their potential to change publishing as we know it. Taking advantage of better battery technology, customer tested ergonomics, and outstanding polymer and LCD technology in their screens, the Kindle makes a great format for reading ebooks. It fits the hand as well as any paperback, is easy to read, and lasts an entire vacation on a single charge.

But, I don’t think the Kindle has what it takes to tackle business and education reading. That is, not until now.

Amazon introduced their Kindle DX, and though their hopes may be to stoke additional consumer demand, I see the DX as the perfect business ebook reader.

For one, it’s sized properly for a magazine, not a paperback, so I can read Business Week in nearly its proper size.

Though newspapers have for a while been available for the Kindle, with the DX, reading The Wall St. Journal or New York Times doesn’t require any squinting.

But, best of all for business, the DX finally makes reading PDF documents a breeze. And, for the business user, the ability to manage and display PDF documents makes all the difference. Virtually all of my Power Point files, various performance spreadsheets, and market research reports come to me as PDF files. Except for the lack of color displays, the new Kindle DX makes it easy to flip through all of my PDFs instantly. No more lugging around my laptop to meetings. I just load my PDF copies onto the Kindle DX, and away I go.

Of course, original Kindle users tell me that they can read PDF files too. To them I say, “Byte me…” The original Kindle and Kindle 2 required sending PDF files to a third party email address associated with the device, then paying to download the file to the reader. Often the files would get corrupted or distorted in the process, and reading a research report on PDF on the Kindle’s small screen was murder on the eyes.

With the Kindle DX, I can simply connect it via USB to my computer, drag PDF files to the device, and start reading. It’s free and easy, and best of all, displays perfectly in the larger DX screen.

Finally, a way to make the Portable Document Format truly portable.

I believe that accountants, attorneys, and business people who travel a lot for meetings will find the Kindle DX a terrific alternative to a bulky laptop. And, because of the enhanced display, long battery life, and easy notation controls, the bigger Kindle DX really makes a case for replacing college text books with electronic versions. I recall back breaking treks from Matherly Hall to my office in Turlington with 40 lbs of text books in a backpack in the heat of the Florida summer. I would have paid nearly anything to just carry a Kindle DX with all of my course materials pre-loaded, and ready for note-taking with a handy QWERTY keyboard. Today, I’d pay $489 for a Kindle DX, but I suspect that prices will come down as features continue to expand.

Amazon just needs to add some stylus features, a color screen, and better search capabilities to the new DX, and they will take over the business and college textbook markets for e-publishing. I’m a believer.

Remind Me Again...

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 21:56:00 +0000

The iPhone is taking even business users by storm, so it's time to direct our attention to some business applications for that device that can help a small business user.

We'll tackle email some other day. As far as I'm concerned, Blackberry still rules the roost of corporate email. Apple will inevitably catch up, but for now, RIMM owns that landscape.

Calendars are another issue entirely. The Blackberry sync to Outlook certainly gives me access to my calendar, but the small screen, tight controls, and finicky buttons on a Blackberry Curve, or worse, on the Pearl, make the calendar function downright ornery!

So, Apple has a built in calendar, as well as a host of applications that are available at the AppStore to help.

My favorite so far is RemindYou, which lets you see your next appointment, whatever that may be, on your phone when the screen is locked. Simple. Direct. Effective. Like all things on the iPhone.

No fancy attachments, just a very direct reminder of what you need to be thinking about next in the day.

Take a look at it here, and let me know if it works for you...

Highrise, SalesForce.com and Small Business CRM

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 20:40:00 +0000

Keeping in close contact with customers should be the top priority of any business owner and manager. In my earliest days managing customer relationships and contacts, I had a Rolodex and business card file to maintain contact information. Like most of us, I tried and failed with dozens of electronic gadgets to capture and manage customer data. Even in the early days of computers, I messed up ACT, ACCESS, DBASE 1 and 2, and a host of off the shelf programs to manage my contacts.

My companies have invested unbelievable and sometimes unbearable sums of money on software to manage customers. I've tried Oracle, PeopleSoft, and Goldmine, and OnBase at various companies. Monster.com even spent $1million on a CRM package that they ultimately never launched, and actually affected their quarterly earnings in their startup phase.

Ultimately, it took the Internet to make customer relationship management simple, efficient, and effective. Among the many CRM solutions available online to small business, two services really stand out.

For very small businesses who need a low function but highly usable tool to manage contacts and customers for the life of the company, try Highrise from 37Signals. Readers of The Business Perspective probably know how much I respect 37Signals for their simple, efficient, and effective online products for business. I use the Basecamp product daily to keep teams on task with projects and special programs.

Highrise is the web based contact manager tool that offers you the best features of a CRM that you are likely to use. With Highrise, you and your sales people can:

Add a new lead and set a follow up appointment for key contacts and accounts at the click of the mouse.

Make calls and takes notes to keep information at your fingertips.

Turn emails into tasks, and leverage how email-focused we have become to force action with your customers and sales staff.

Set reminders for appointments and follow ups.

Group information into cases and forums that reflect how your business operates.

Like the range of online solutions from 37Signals, Highrise is available in a free version, then scales very reasonably for small to medium sized teams. Highrise is a great way for a small business to enable a sales or customer service team to work with key contacts and customers and achieve increase your sales. I can't speak highly enough about this company.

If you have an established sales force and have tried and failed with other CRM products, visit SalesForce.com and get a trial. We've migrated our Enterprise sales team to this solution, and the results have been exceptional.

SalesForce.com offers all of the features of the best packaged CRM packages, integrates seamlessly with your other web services applications, and constantly improves its platform. It's also a Software as a Service plan, so the company constantly polls customers, actual users, to find out how they use the products. SalesForce.com then turns that feedback into regular updates to their software. Since you log into the solution on the web, you have no software to maintain or network to manage. As long as you can get to the Internet, you can get to your CRM solution.

SalesForce.com has some special integration opportunities. We've just launched a customer survey to more than 5000 installations. Not only can SalesForce.com handle the email and provide amazing marketing statistics about the email campaign, but it can power your survey and all aspects of those customer communications.

SalesForce.com scales to meet the evolving demands of your growing business. It integrates easily with Google Adwords, so you can manage online campaigns and get immediate feedback on how search engine marketing programs promote sales growth.

Sales Managers love the forecasting features of SalesForce.com, and reporting makes it plain for everyone to see not just which of your sales people are meeting and exceeding their goals, but makes it plain to see how they are reaching those objectives.

I will spend future editions of The Business Perspective on SalesForce.com as our teams employ more of its features, but it deserves your attention, especially as you grow to need a really robust CRM tool to help power your business growth.

GroupSwim Improves Communciation Around the Enterprise

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:02:00 +0000

"Marco"

"Polo"

"Marco"

"Polo"

Too often, office communication is like a child's game of "Marco Polo" with executives calling out blindly with initiatives or projects, and only some of the team hearing the details or reporting back on progress.

Every company suffers from "communication dissonance," that random feeling of disconnectedness that comes from not trusting that everyone is on the same page. How may of your employees know all of your company initiatives? How often do employees get stuck using old forms or contracts? How can you monitor what remote teams are doing to collaborate on projects or programs?

GroupSwim, a great online tool, helps bring together the various forms of communication across your company and foster team awareness of issues, large and small.

My company is using GroupSwim for a Intranet Portal in order to keep everyone connected. We have two offices and a variety of remote workers, each of which has different ways to connect to our network. When that happens, we can't always trust that having information available to the network is the same as having information available to all of our team members.

So, GroupSwim offered us a single point of virtual contact for keeping people informed and keeping information at the fingertips of all of our team members. People can log on, read updates and special messages, get progress reports on current projects, see achievement towards our corporate goals, get the latest phone list or office supply forms, even submit suggestions to our e-suggestion box.

GroupSwim offers much more, though, than just a repository for information and basic file sharing. GroupSwim has functions like a blog or electronic bulletin board where users can start discussions, contribute to projects, and collaborate on any number of programs within the company. It's a moderated function, so managers can stay in tune with what's going on in the enterprise.

One of the core tenets of The Business Perspective is finding low or no cost online services to improve productivity or efficiency in your busienss. GroupSwim offers big value, as they include a free trial, and their monthly fees are very affordable for all businesses.

I recommend GroupSwim for you to try, and I'll keep people posted on how it works at our company in future editions of The Business Perspective

Outsource Your Phones!!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:09:00 +0000

In Part 2 of using virtual services to save money and keep you focused on the real needs of your business, I want to suggest outsourcing your phones.

Not any phones, mind you. If you have up to 4 lines in your business and you are happy with store-bought phones and plain old telephone services, called POTS lines, you are probably in good shape. I'll work on finding deals for POTS in future editions of The Business Perspective.

Today, I mean outsourcing a phone system. If you decide to buy a telephone system for your small to medium sized business, have you evaluated the investment fully? Even a modest Key System, the basic "starter" phone system, will run $5000+, require a modest installation fee, and tie you to your telephone vendor for maintenance and support fees. Are you prepared for that investment? A better question is how can you use that $5000-$7500, plus annual maintenance, to invest back into your business? Whatever business plans could benefit from that money now become opportunity costs lost to a phone vendor.

Consider outsourcing your voice service to one of a number of top quality business voice specialists. Pick a vendor, buy business class VoIP phones, and let a trusted partner maintain your services.

You'll find two tiers of service in the business class VoIP space:

1. Small Office/Home Office (SOHO) depending on a home Broadband connection from a phone or cable company. These services usually deliver a VoIP gateway that connects to your Broadband service and phones. Some of these devices plug directly into your home phone jack, which turns all of your internal phone jacks into VoIP phones. You can use off the shelf phones or pay extra for "optimized" phones that improve the quality of the Voice call. Generally, this is the type of digital phone service that you can order from your cable company or from a national service like Vonage. It's acceptable for a very few number of lines, but does not scale and offers few business class features. You also may not be able to get a business white pages listing for your business number. Avoid it unless you need just 1 or 2 phone lines and free long distance.

2. Hosted PBX - A PBX, or private branch exchange, is another phrase to mean phone system, so a hosted PBX is a service that delivers the features and adaptability of a phone system, but over the Internet. Anyone with 5 or more voice lines in their business should consider the option of a Hosted PBX solution for their business.

A Hosted PBX leverages economies of scale and Internet technologies to move voice calls through your Internet connection to the voice gateway of a major telco company and routes those calls over the Internet to their destination. Typically, services are available on a per line basis, includes a large block or unlimited long distance, and full service features for your business. You can have an auto attendant, call routing, hunt groups within your company, and call forwarding services. The best companies offer conference calling and full integration into your network systems, which means that your phones will integrate with your email service and contact lists so that you don't lose phone numbers ever again.

Because these systems are basically software, there's no on-premise equipment for you to maintain. Essentially, your desktop phone becomes your phone system. The carrier maintains all of the other hardware, and your ongoing maintenance costs are built into your monthly service charges.

I've been on VoIP systems for more than 3 years, and though the quality wasn't always stellar, the services have steadily improved, and the call quality is now virtually indistinguishable from a traditional land line call.

One of the best benefits of a hosted PBX system is portability. When I need to work from home, I just bring my phone to the house and plug it into my Broadband router. Within 30 seconds, the phone synchs with the VoIP provider and I get all my calls as if I am at my desk.

We've moved offices twice as our business grew and changed. Most recently, about half of the staff moved to a new building, while the other half started working remotely. No problem! With hosted PBX, all we did was move the phones and register new e911 addresses with the providers. Everything else is packaged in the software, the phone, and the network.

The only initial expense is for VoIP desktop phones, but just about every provider offers selections from solid vendors like Cisco.

Check out Speakeasy, Bridgevine, and Packet8 to name but a few of the top providers in the category. And, let me know if you have any questions about how to save with VoIP in your small business.

Virtual Outsourcing!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 15:25:00 +0000

The premise of The Business Perspective is that small and medium sized businesses can save money by using online or virtual services to avoid in-sourcing common business practices.

I’ll spend the next 5 days reviewing the top 5 services available online for low or no charge to eliminate real costs in your business.

Today, we’ll tackle the biggest time waster of the decade, email. Not only has business become “managed by Outlook,” when employees seem to function only in response to email requests for action or information, but managing email internally is a technical black hole for expenses. Email causes more calls to the IT department or “tech guy” than any other computer application in your business.

If you own your own email server and pay someone to manage it, STOP!

If you are thinking of buying an email server and paying someone to manage it, STOP!

With the ubiquity of business-class email solutions available online, and dozens of top quality hosted Exchange services to provide Microsoft Exchange platforms on a monthly basis, you have no reason to support email internally. Even giant companies are moving email to the virtual world. Why shouldn’t you?

First, call your Internet Provider and ask if they support business class email. The most important question you can ask is “Do you support domain based email addresses?” If they do, you can use email for your team with your website domain in the address. Otherwise, you are stuck with addresses that end with “@yourisp.net” or something equally “small time.”

If your ISP is too expensive or can’t offer domain based emails, check online. Any number of services will get you online with business class email in a day. Google BlueTie, GoDaddy, or Everyone.net. You should also Google “Hosted Exchange Services” and wade through hundreds of results

I use Cheap Domain Registration.com, a great site that offers hosted business class email from just $8 per month.

For a home based business or small office of under 5 staff, you can be up and running with 10 accounts for under $25 per month. Small business owners can find quality hosted Exchange based services for about $20 per employee per month. Medium sized firms should expect to pay more, but receive a lot more, including archived access, large account storage, and backup/retrieval services. Firms above 50 employees can improve quality and save up to $10,000 by going virtual with their email management.

Email is the first best Internet application, so don’t reinvent the wheel. Log into one of these sites, sign up, and be getting email for your business tomorrow, with none of the hassles of managing your own systems.

It's the Security, Stupid!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 19:34:00 +0000

A simple Google search about "lost customer financial data" yields startling and frustrating results.

TJX (T.J. Maxx and Marshall’s) Largest Breach of Customer Data in ...
HSBC faces probe over lost customer data disc Money guardian.co.uk
Marriott timeshare unit reports lost customer data
WTIC News/Talk 1080 - State Officials Name Companies with Lost ...
Customer Data Lost, Citigroup Unit Says

A National morning news program recently demonstrated how easily a reasonably technical person could steal customer credit card data armed only with simple equipment purchased at a local Radio Shack and sitting in a car in a shopping plaza.

I can almost forgive a company for losing data when they are the victim of a brute force hacker attack, but most of the problems with lost customer information results from a simple lack of attention to security.

Small businesses can protect themselves from the most common problems by following some simple tips:

#1 Keep confidential customer data off of your wireless network. Never put your credit card processors or electronic cash registers on a wireless network. It may cost you a few extra dollars for cabling, but letting a customer credit card number travel across a wireless network invites potentially disastrous trouble.

#2 Sequester your customer wireless network. If you offer a wireless hot spot in your place of business, make it a redundant connection that has no ties to your business network. DSL prices have become so low that there is no excuse for using your business bandwidth to let customers surf the Internet. If you must offer customers wireless access, purchase a low cost DSL connection exclusively for their use. Keeping that wireless traffic off of your business network closes the doors on the most common hacker attacks.

#3 Firewall, firewall, firewall. If you have a high speed connection, you are being probed by potential hackers. Make sure that you have a decent firewall to protect yourself, your business, and your customer's data. Many companies offer software and hardware based firewalls at very little cost to your business. Think of it as an insurance policy. At the very least, a firewall makes it tougher for a hacker to get through your defences and steal your data. Sonic and Barracuda offer several options for a wide variety of business applications. Don't make yourself hacker prone by living without a firewall.

#4 Network Security Software: Most small businesses ignore network security out of simple ignorance. It just never hits the top of the priority list amidst all of the other issues in your business. Take a moment to review this article and start shopping for a basic security solution for your business. Don't leave yourself and your customers vulnerable to attack any longer.

In the age of high speed Internet access and tech-savvy criminals, no business can afford not to take their employee and customer data security seriously. A few simple measures can provide the basic security most small businesses need. But, no one knows your business better than you do. Invest in extra security or the help of a good network specialist if you have special sensitivity to customer financial data.

Speed up Basic Accounting with Quickbooks Simple Start

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 13:28:00 +0000

My wife owns and operates a small business that has no budget or need for elaborate financial and accounting software, so the thought of spending hundreds of dollars on the stock of off-the-shelf products was daunting.

Intuit came to our rescue with Quickbooks Simple Start, a free full service application that you can download to manage income and expenses, develop basic invoices and bills, and provide standard simple business reports.

Virtually every small business could benefit from this solution. Even professional accountants recommend this solution to their small business clients to help them start out with good financial discipline and reporting.

I've used the software and found it incredibly easy to get started. We simply set up the business account details, configured a few menus, and were underway.

The product is for any small business or home based business with few employees. You can easily track all of your income and expenses, build and customize simple invoices, write and track checks, and even manage payroll.

The standard free solution even has 14 basic business reports so that a small business owner can present accurate financial data to a bank, loan officer, investor, or partner in a professional manner.

I was very impressed with the on-screen tutorials, and the free software even comes with limited customer support for the initial period. Simple Start is not a free trial. It's a free edition of the software for your business to implement without charge or penalty. As your business grows and you require the additional services of the bigger solutions, I'm sure that Intuit hopes that you will upgrade to a new edition of QuickBooks, but there's no obligation to purchase anything.

In a world where you get what you pay for, QuickBooks Simple Start is the rare exception to the rule. This package is one of the best free applications that you will find for your business. Check it out, today!

Save Time and Money with Google!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 15:16:00 +0000

Many business owners and managers get caught by surprise at the high cost of general applications for their business computing needs. Operating systems are generally included with any computer purchase, but all of the specialized applications that users require can run up a huge tab.

The Business Perspective has covered a few alternative applications that are available at low or now cost. Names like Turbo Project, Basecamp, Roboform, are great specific applications when specialized needs pop up.

But, what should a new business manager do across their entire platform? What is the essential software that a small business needs on each computer in their business? If you had to buy spyware protection, virus protection, email, security, search tools, basic graphics software, and other general applications for each computer, a business manager can easily spend $300-$500 per machine.

I recommend visiting Google for help. Google has a wide variety of business friendly applications available at low or no charge for small business.

Google Pack, a free download for anyone, offers Google Desktop for comprehensive file search capabilities, Security software for virus and spyware protection, screen savers, file sharing, Instant Messaging, graphics software like Picasa, and even Skype for VoIP calling.

Google Apps is a more complete business application suite that provides each user with email, word processing, spreadsheets, presentation, and other office productivity tools. For a very low monthly user fee, everyone in a business can enjoy a replacement solution for expensive Microsoft productions, all powered by Google.

Visit the Google Options pages to see a long list of great information services, blogs, mobile tools, and free or low cost applications to make life easier for your business users.

Turbocharge your Projects!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 17:46:00 +0000

I manage a lot of projects at work, often with different budgets, teams, and subject matter experts. Planning these projects and keeping everything organized can be a real chore.

Of course, I have the option of buying the latest Microsoft Project edition, for several hundred dollars a pop. MS Project is a great tool, and I use it fairly frequently for charts, planning, schedule adjustments, and budgets. However, most small businesses don't actually use all of the features in MS Project. And, for $400+ per license, few have the budget to buy too many copies.

Enter Turbo Project from OfficeWork Software, LLC. Turbo Project comes in three flavors, Express, Standard, and Professional. Each is available in a Free Trial, and all have similar core features to MS Project.

The Express edition of Turbo Project offers point and click interfaces for creating plans, schedules, and task lists for small projects. It's easy to use, has great features, and a very low price. You'll be able to create Gantt charts, track dependencies, adjust schedules, and print reports within minutes of getting started. I found this edition much easier to use than MS Project.

The Standard package offers better resource planning, budget tools, and resource libraries. You can import directly from MS Project, Word, and Excel, as well. Consider this a full featured Project tool at a fraction of the cost of other packages.

For anyone who makes their living running projects and teams, consider the Professional edition. You can create complex projects, assign resources, track progress, create and manage tasks and assignments. Gantt charts are a breeze, and with multiple views, Professional offers users different reporting options for virtually any stake holder perspective.

All the plans are available on free trial for up to 30 days. OfficeWork Software offers training and webinars, as well as easy access to support tools in the various products. For the price, you can't beat Turbo Project, so if you find yourself managing projects and struggling to do it within spreadsheets and emails, give Turbo Project a try.

Please Log Me In!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:08:00 +0000

So, I work three hours away from my house. I typically commute in on a Sunday night, and return home on Thursday night, with one day a week in my home office. VoIP really makes my life easy because when I get back to the house, I simply plug in my computer, update my Cisco 7940 Phone, and it's almost like being there.

Until, of course, this week. I drove nearly all the way to my office only to discover that my computer was still on my desk... at home! I had to turn around, drive nearly three hours to the house, then leave for work before dawn on Monday.

All of that driving, and wasting $4.15 per gallon gasoline, could have been avoided if only I had known about Log Me In, a remote desktop application available free from Log Me In, Inc, a Boston area tech company with offices around the globe.

According to their website, Log Me In offers businesses with "secure, easy-to-use and cost effective solutions for remotely supporting, connecting and accessing digital information, applications and Internet-enabled devices." They are certainly true to their word. I downloaded Log Me In's software to my laptop, then set up a test. I left my laptop turned on with an Internet connection, then logged into it from a borrowed computer. In just a few minutes, I had logged into the website, connected to my laptop, and logged into my system. I was able to use my local files from my borrowed machine and get work done.

The basic package, LogMeIn Free, provides basic remote desktop applications, and the company offers LogMeIn Pro with expanded features, including file management, shared printing, meetings, and other useful features.

Small business users can use LogMeIn to keep track of the office from their home office computer. They can also let remote workers log into an office machine for desktop printing and easy file sharing. Small businesses that don't have full time technical support for a network will find LogMeIn an inexpensive and easy way to stay connected remotely.

LogMeIn compares favorably with services like GoToMyPC and PCNow from WebEx, but is significantly less expensive to use for most small business owners. It's not difficult to use and requires only basic computing knowledge and a good Internet connection. I'm a fan, so you should certainly check it out.

I never want to forget my laptop again, but it's certainly nice knowing that I can get by for a few days in case I screw up again.

iPhone Turmoil

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 17:46:00 +0000

Well, it's official, our company supports the new 3G iPhone.

When our CTO, an Apple aficionado in every respect, bought the original iPhone, I asked about support for corporate email. I'm a Blackberry addict, and I was curious about how it handled email. That's really all I use the crackberry for, anyway. The original iPhone really didn't do a great job of displaying and automating email functions because it didn't support Microsoft Exchange, the dominant player in hosted email.

With the new 3G phone, email support is better, but still not quite in league with the RIMM products. It's not quite so fast or quite so easy as my Blackberry, and the flat panel keyboard doesn't provide the tactile feedback that the RIMM devices do, so typing will take some major adjustment for users.

The iPhone is by far the superior phone, however, and it offers all the fun applications available from Apple. I'm interested in the new VoIP feature. Some of our team use their iPhones via WiFi in the office, but now, Truphone iPhone app is now available to make your iPhone a VoIP Phone.

It remains to be seen how it will integrate with other systems, but it seems to me that Apple is likely to be the first to merge desk phones and cell phones to operate more artfully together.

Anyone with experience with the new 3G iPhone, please let us know your thoughts. I'm considering a switch, but still on the sidelines.

AT&T is making the move harder to rationalize, too. The price drop on the hardware is wiped out by the increase in service charges by AT&T. For me, with 1000 T*Mobile minutes, unlimited email and unlimited data for $79.99 a month, a comparable AT&T plan would be more than $119. That's a heck of a premium for a slick phone.

Tell me what you think!

Lost in the Online Wilderness!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 13:59:00 +0000

As often as possible, I try to manage business with online tools and sites that can save me time or improve collaboration. I manage projects using Basecamp. I IM with our remote team members using Trillian. I log into email through any number of services. I VPN to my corporate office. I connect remotely with Outlook from anywhere. As much as I might hate it, I live and work online.

So, last week when I cleared my cookies during a basic disk cleanup, I was cursing myself for not protecting my passwords. I can't find my login to Basecamp. I only remember two of my three Trillian IM account IDs. I don't know the new password that IT gave me for Outlook. In other words, I'm lost in the online wilderness without a map or compass.

This week, I'm testing several services that offer tools to store, protect, and manage my user accounts and passwords for all of the different sites that I use.

I started with RoboForm, a password manager and form filler available to home and office users. While it is not an online service, RoboForm is a simple plugin to IE and other browsers so that when I type in typical forms, passwords, links and logins, RoboForm helps me manage the list.

With RoboForm, simply using links and login "teaches" RoboForm your favorites, logins, and passwords. RoboForm keeps a list of my links, and logs me in automatically. Now, the true test is if RoboForm can remember my passwords after I clear cookies. I've tested in on several sites, and so far, RoboForm keeps track of everything even if I screw up and clear all my passwords in Windows IE7.

Though I like to think that I'm savvy about security, I do occasionally see email that makes me think to call my bank or brokerage. Some of these Phishing scams, emails to scam you out of your login or account data, get quite sophisticated and believable. RoboForm fights Phishing scams by entering passwords only on matching websites, so the system won't pass your information to untrusted sources.

I'm still on the free trial period, but so far RoboForm looks like a product I will buy. It's got a great way to keep me organized against my future mistakes with passwords, and save me much frustration combing gigabytes of old emails looking for the right login!

Web Work

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 14:40:00 +0000

Like any small company, ours has tried to keep travel costs under control by leveraging online meetings and collaboration tools. Here's a quick list of some of the solutions that deserve your attention:

Roll Call, an ILD company, offers low cost web and audio conferencing with a full range of features for beginners and advanced webinar gurus. I love it because we get a full service solution without a monthly fee per user. I just send out my bridge and login info, and I'm only charged for the time that I use. The webinar service is top notch and makes it easy for me to work with vendors, customers, remote workers and satellite offices. I can present slides, push content, share my desktop, and give control to other users at the click of the mouse. Systems are so user friendly that I delivered my first presentation with 30 minutes of getting my account.

Basecamp, from 37 Signals, offers some of the coolest project management and collaboration tools available as an web service. I log in, create a portal, add users, and we are off. With Basecamp, I can create milestones, build to do lists, create and assign tasks, collaborate on designs and copy, posts messages, files and lists, track time and progress, and link users anywhere with a web connection. Best of all, for $49 a month, I can have up to 15 projects and unlimited users.

This company has quickly become indispensable to me, and I'm considering their other solutions as well. They have a personal organizer called Backpack, a full featured CRM called Highrise, as well as chat, called Campfire. Each site has simple videos to coach you through how to set up the service. In reality, it's so user friendly that you'll be up and running in minutes. And the company blog is worthwhile reading anytime. It's a real glimpse into the creative people applying interesting design ideas to the Web 2.0+ world. Check them out.

Anyone worried about IM at the office should sit back, take a deep breath and pop a Valium. IM is here to stay, so find a way to leverage it for your business. My biggest gripe about IM is trying to keep track of the different IM accounts and services that I have. Enter Trillian, a cool app that manages accounts for AOL, MSN and Yahoo, and pulls together all of your contacts, IMs and webmail alerts. With Trillian running, I can IM with groups across all of my accounts in one interface, instead of being logged into two or three services. Best of all, it avoids the system crashes that AOL IM used to cause on my system. No spam, no garbage, just easy instant messaging. It's free and easy to install. I require it for my support teams so that everyone can keep in touch regardless of where they work. Get started with Trillian today.

Xobni is In!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 13:00:00 +0000

If you feel buried in email or feel that your life is ruled by Outlook, check out a new service called Xobni, a free download utility for Outlook. Xobni, which is "In Box" spelled backward, is a cool new app to help you organize email, contacts, and appointments across Outlook.

Xobni installs a toolbar in Outlook that basically connects lots of obvious data and puts it at your fingertips. With each new email, you see the sender's full communication history in the toolbar. Power users can add pictures to the Xobni contacts for more face to face appeal. Xobni also extracts phone numbers from email and remembers them with your contacts. Outlook users with telephony integration can likely tweak their service to respond to those phone number fields for one click dialing. I recommend playing with that feature and reporting back to us.

Xobni speeds email searches by effectively indexing your inbox and contact lists. You can see threaded conversations in the Xobni tool bar to make tracking updates effortless. The toolbar includes cool charts to track statistics on who you email, who responds, how fast they respond, ranks of power users, etc.

One of the coolest features Xobni offers is a glimpse at email's social network. By examining and tracking BCC and CC members, Xobni shows you the email networks within your user circles. Sales people love this feature because it gives a quick glimpse at the potential network of their vendors and customers by listing at a glance who people connect with via email.

Outlook makes appointment scheduling very tedious, so Xobni put time in their scheduler. With Xobni, you can schedule appointments at the click of the mouse. The system automatically finds open slots in your schedule and coordinates tracking with ease.

I run several operations projects at any given moment, and Xobni makes it easy for me to schedule appointments, track threads, check contacts, and see who's responding to my project requests in a timely fashion. I recommend downloading Xobni and checking it out. I'm a convert.

From the Hip!

noreply@blogger.com (Mark) — Tue, 27 May 2008 18:02:00 +0000

Small business owners and managers have their work cut out for them, and frankly, we should all be sick of the trouble we have to go through for nearly everything. All the entrepreneurial gurus encouraged us to follow our passion and open a business doing something that we love.

What none of the books, lectures, and videos will show you is how to balance the inevitable tedium with those fulfilling dimensions of your business. The books and records, taxes, advertising, sales, PR, staffing issues, and all the rest of the day to day drudgery that makes everyone question their sanity about opening a business.

Big business has it easy when it comes to the labor saving systems, processes, and tools to make work life easy. IT departments at big companies have innovated so many great tools that the productivity dividend of the past 20 years has been concentrated solely on the medium to large sized businesses who could develop their own tools or manage special software.

The Internet age and ubiquity of online services has FINALLY translated that opportunity to small business owners and managers. So many online solutions, tools, widgets, and resources make it easier for small business owners to find clients, manage relationships, keep track of payroll and accounting, manage telecom, email partners, post websites, and handle virtually any chore in the enterprise. If there's a need, the Web finds a way to fulfill, usually at very reasonable rates.

The Business Perspective will try to bring these services to the forefront for readers and help business owners and managers avoid the tedium and drudgery so that they can spend more time on the passionate side of their business.