The New Small Delivers Big Technology Insights for Small Business

Big business used to have a monopoly on resources and tools that virtually kept customers hostage if they wanted a certain level or type of service.  This is no longer true, and Phil Simon’s The New Small: How a New Breed of Small Businesses Is Harnessing the Power of Emerging Technologies will show you exactly how small businesses just like yours are playing and earning big using tools and technologies that used to be out of reach for us.

Phil Simon: An Advocate and Example of Entrepreneurial Spirit

I don’t normally start a book review by talking about the author.  But this is how I was introduced to The New Small: Phil Simon contacted me and asked if he could send me a copy of his new book.  After a while, he called and we had a really terrific chat about the exciting technologies that make owning a small business today so rewarding and exciting.

Phil actually consults with companies on how to optimize their use of technology.  He’s the author of two other books: The Next Wave of Technologies and Why New Systems Fail. Phil is one of the more accessible authors out there; what I find most inspiring about Phil is his boundless energy and ability to reach out to anyone he admires and wants to learn from. This tone comes through clearly in the book.

It’s a Biz Book.  It’s a Tech Book.  It’s Full of Ideas

Phil told me that he wanted this book to read like The Tipping Point. His intention was to pull together trend and research information supported by case studies that small business owners could relate to and use in their business.

The book is written in four main parts:

Part I: Trends and Five Enablers: This section will give you a framework and overview of the business landscape today. It will prepare you for the meaty information that’s to come and give perspective to what drove the companies that were profiled to use the strategies they did.

Part II: The New Small: This is where you’ll get a lot of the case studies that provide real-life examples of how businesses like yours adapted to trends.  There are 12 short chapters that each dig into a critical business challenge and then show how a wide spectrum of companies overcame a challenge using technology.

Part III: Becoming One of the New Small: If you’re interested in using technology to build and grow your business, this section is priceless.  It gives technology consulting advice in a language and context that’s easy for anyone to understand and apply.

Part IV: Thinking Ahead: In this short section, Simon gives you the proverbial pat on the back and sends you on your way with some parting words of advice.  The lesson I took away is that adaptability and openness to technology and change are the successful small business owner’s best friends.

Is The New Small For YOU?

I normally wouldn’t go on and on about a technology book.  I mean, how exciting can a discussion on e-mail, cloud computing or networking be?  But when you see how Simon has linked marketing, sales management and finance, then you suddenly get interested.

This is a book I’d recommend to small business owners or anyone who has the decision-making power to evaluate, choose and implement new technologies in a business.  I’d even stretch that recommendation to anyone who can make recommendations about which technologies will improve your business operations and productivity.

Earlier in the year, I did a series of articles and webinars on how to make your small business and your marketing look like a bigger company.  There was a lot of interest in this topic, and if you’re someone that’s set that goal for yourself this year, The New Small will give you the information, insight and inspiration you need to get that done.

If you’re interested in learning more about how to use technology to build and drive your small business, pick up a copy of The New Small. You can also check out the book’s website, The New Small.  Tweet the author @philsimon or @thenewsmall.

From Small Business Trends

 

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Virtualization and Health Care – The Cure-All for Partners?

No soothsaying required: Healthcare IT is the future and it’s growing. That’s why VMware is pushing desktop virtualization as a way healthcare professionals can access their EMR systems and patient records faster. Read on to learn how the company plans to push its virtualization solutions into this expanding vertical:

Healthcare organizations are looking to increase the use of electronic health/medical records (EHR/EMR) and VMware wants to help, especially with the recent round of incentives by the Federal government — which mean healthcare environments have money to spend. Plus, with the growth of a EMR systems and the surge of healthcare professionals using devices and services that access these systems, the need exists to manage and maintain it all.

VMware sees virtualization as the key to that maintenance, and the company is positioning VMware View as the right tool for the job, since the product was designed to integrate with hospitals’ private clouds and data centers. With the technology, centralized virtual desktops can be available on nearly any computer on the hospital network, making physicians’ work mobile and information instantly accessible. Likewise, the central management capabilities of the virtual desktop interface eliminates the need for individually maintaining what could be thousands of computers on a network.

VMware also believes clinicians should have the ability to move freely in a healthcare environment, and virtualization can help bring critical patient information to tablets and other mobile devices. VMware’s ThinApp, which enables those mobile devices, can be utilized as part of VMware’s healthcare solution services.

So what’s the channel angle with all the buzz? Even though VMware’s press release (replete with supporting quotes from hospitals) is high in caloric fluff and low on nutrition, it’s a good indicator of where VARs looking for high-dollar deals should be focusing. What’s more, VMware isn’t the only virtualization game in town, but the release shows that virtualization in hospital environments is useful technology, despite all the EMR intricacies.

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Google Begins Soft Censorship Of Arbitrary Piracy-Related Queries

The efforts of media companies to quash online piracy are a bit like someone trying to put out a forest fire with a wet noodle. The latest pathetic flail comes in the form of coercing Google into censoring its results for some search terms. A number of words will no longer be autocompleted or trigger an instant search, among them the interesting and perfectly legal “bittorrent.”

It’s a new high for antipiracy theater, because you can of course still search for the terms by hitting enter, and get the same results as before, including direct links to torrent files hosted on well-known indexers. The move will accomplish two things, though: first, it will damage consumer trust of a company whose services are ostensibly objective, and second, it confirms for the hundredth time how quixotic and misguided the efforts of the MPAA et al. are in every action they take.

The actual censorship (I use the word lightly) is a joke. A leakier sieve than this was never wrought. While “Bittorrent” is blocked, “torrent” is not, and while some popular cyber lockers are on the blacklist (Rapidshare, Megaupload), others aren’t (Drop.io, Hotfile). As far as preventing piracy, the policy is worthless — incompetent. I have no doubt that this list was put together by the media companies, because Google would have done a far better job of doing it. The team responsible for executing this probably lost more time to derisive laughter than long lunches.

As for the damage it does to Google’s reputation, it’s really nothing that wary web users weren’t already aware of. The algorithm and Google’s results have always been at best pseudo-objective, and Google has made these kinds of gun-jumping censorship mistakes before. But when word gets out to the millions of people who don’t care about DMCA requests and cyber lockers that Google is allowing music industry officials in between them and their search results, there may be… well, let’s be honest, there will be a small ripple of outrage, then people will forget. But a reputation as a search-broker for big business isn’t what Google wants. Blocking a few dirty (yet very common) words is tolerated as it protects our sensitive children, who know nothing of such things, but this? Not so much.

Of course, the practical effects of this move will be utterly nil. The companies and websites being soft-blocked are livid, but the media industry wants nothing to do with them anyway, and Google holds all the cards, so there’s not much the offended parties can do.

Will Google expand the blacklist? Will the terms ever be hard-blocked? I’m guessing that the media companies expended a lot of time and capital just getting this non-result, so I doubt future changes will be soon or serious. Google can plausibly demur on broader censorship, calling this little blacklist a gesture of good will and referring the MPAA and RIAA to the allegedly infringing sites themselves.

More analysis and comments from the affected companies can be found at TorrentFreak.

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We love hearing things like this. People don't need to be downloading illegal software.

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LinkedIn Buys Business Card Converter CardMunch, Will Offer Its Services For Free

In perhaps one of the most like-minded and forward-thinking acquisitions I’ve ever seen, career-driven social network LinkedIn has bought CardMunch, a Shoeboxed-like startup that scans your business cards and accurately converts them into phone contacts using Mechanical Turk. The price of the acquisition was not disclosed.

From the CardMunch blog:

“Our long-term vision for CardMunch has been to help manage business contacts and help you to leverage your contacts and connections for doing business. With that in mind, we are thrilled to announce today that CardMunch is now a part of LinkedIn! LinkedIn is the world’s largest professional network and as such, provides the perfect platform for us to execute the CardMunch vision.

That’s not all; we have even more good news! Starting today, the current version of the CardMunch app will be completely free! Yes, you heard right, the current version of the CardMunch app is now a free service, which means that you can capture and transcribe as many business cards as you like, free of charge.”

The best part of this deal is that the CardMunch business card scanning services, which used to cost $2.99 for the app and .25 cents per card after the first 10 cards, will now be offered for free with a refund given to people with pre-existing credits.

Seeing as though getting a leg up in the social game is all about the social graph a.k.a your contacts list, this could prove to be a very wise move for LinkedIn as people are now incentivized to upload their business contacts for utilitarian purposes. The use of CardMunch is effectively social networking lead generation, when viewed from LinkedIn’s standpoint.

As of today LinkedIn’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy will apply to the data users upload to CardMunch. The company also says that it will be adding new features in the coming months and may require users to “use their LinkedIn accounts to access CardMunch.” Exactly.

You can download the application gratis here.

CrunchBase Information

CardMunch

LinkedIn

Information provided by CrunchBase

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Wow what an awesome idea. I know a few people that will get this right away.

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Can MSPs Work Closely With Corporate IT Departments?

Instead of competing with corporate IT departments, a healthy number of managed services providers (MSPs) cooperate with corporate IT managers — creating a virtual bridge between MSP and corporate IT. Tools like ConnectWise StreamlineIT and Autotask Taskfire can help the process. But the effort also takes serious commitment from MSPs. Here’s the update, including a FastChat Video conversation with ConnectWise CEO Arnie Bellini.

First, the news angle: Back in November 2010 at the ConnectWise IT Nation conference in Orlando,  Fla., CEO Arnie Bellini hinted that ConnectWise was preparing to re-brand and enhance a tool called Downstream IT. Fast forward to the present, and ConnectWise today launched StreamlineIT — which essentially allows ConnectWise to run within a corporate IT department. The net result: MSPs and IT managers together can monitor and troubleshoot technology operations more rapidly. Bellini offers more perspective:

Bigger Trend

StreamlineIT (and its predecessor, Downstream IT) are part of a larger trend within the managed services market. While some MSPs certainly compete with corporate IT departments, anecdotal evidence suggests some MSPs prefer to partner up with their corporate IT counterparts.

Two other prime examples: Autotask offers TaskFire, a tool that also connects the dots between IT service providers and corporate IT. Plus, N-able Technologies — an RMM (remote monitoring and management) software company — has partnered up with MSPs to sell RMM software into mid-market corporate IT departments.

Notes Autotask Chief Marketing Officer Bob Vogel: “In a nutshell, Taskfire allows service providers who run their businesses on Autotask to deploy a robust hosted service desk solution to their clients to use for internal IT. While the Taskfire solution can be used as a stand-alone internal IT solution, it is tethered directly to the solution providers’ Autotask service desk and the systems share a common workflow automation engine that can seamlessly route tickets between the internal and external resources.”

Check in with VARs and MSPs running Autotask, and you’ll discover that 75 percent of that community has at least one customer that employs internal IT staff. So, connecting the dots between IT service providers and those corporate IT departments is a natural opportunity, Vogel says. He says TaskFire also provides corporate IT departments with “an outlet [to IT services providers] to handle peak loads, special projects, and resource back-up when internal IT staff are off on vacation, get sick, or quit.”

Meanwhile, N-able in 2010 spent considerable time routing mid-market corporate IT leads to VARs and MSPs. On the one hand, MSPs can use N-able’s software to remotely monitor and manage SMB customer networks. But on the other hand, MSPs can work more closely with mid-market corporate IT departments that also deploy N-able’s software.

Reality Check

Of course, some MSPs have no plans to work with corporate IT departments. In fact, some MSPs decline potential customer meetings if corporate IT staff members are involved in the process.

Still, there seems to be a growing trend toward co-managed IT, as the examples from Autotask, ConnectWise and N-able show.

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Posted In: FastChat | Help Desk | On Premise | PSA | Sales | Service Level Agreements | Software as a Service and Hardware as a Service | video

Tags: Arnie Bellini | Autotask Taskfire | Co-managed IT | ConnectWise Streamline IT | FastChat Video | Mid-market Managed Services | N-able Technologies

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Small Business News: Doing Business With the World

Small Business News: Doing Business With the World

By Small Business News on January 25, 2011

Small Business News

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Small Business News

January 25, 2011

By Small Business News

Why settle for your local market when you could be doing business with the world. A survey shows small business owners are already moving in this direction at least in their thought process. What about you? Doing business globally has never been easier no matter how large or small your firm. Here is an overview of small business and the trend toward international marketing. Can you find your niche?

The Big Picture

Learning more about global exporting. A Website established by the U.S. Department of Commerce and the the U.S. Small Business Administration will answer questions posed by small business owners about exporting. The site, called Six Steps to Begin Exporting, helps small entrepreneurs decide whether they are truly ready to get involved in international trade. news-press.com

Three tips for taking your small business global. Data indicates that 40 percent of the world’s small businesses are actively interested in getting involved with global trade. But how do you know whether your business is actively ready to make the leap to doing business as a global leader. Here are three tips to consider before taking your small company international. Mirror

Saudi Arabian SME’s among the world’s most confident. Where are the most confident and optimistic small businesses on Earth? Saudi Arabian SMEs, according to a survey by the Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation Limited, are the most optimistic about potential for growth in the next few months with businesses from many countries in the developing world seeing much greater optimism in the coming months than similar businesses in  more developed markets. What does this mean to you? U.S.-Saudi Arabian Business Council

Success Stories

Forty-two percent of Malaysian SMBs already do business internationally. And a survey shows that half of these businesses plan to expand their international operations while another 15 percent of domestic businesses plan to take their operations global within the next two years. What factors account stronger small business global trade and how can conditions of stronger international trade opportunities for small businesses exist. The Star Online

How to turn a small business into a global leader. Entrepreneurs of a small British firm plan to turn their small semiconductor company into an international leader in the technology industry. But how does any company go from an admittedly innovative idea for a revolutionary product operating on a fairly small scale to a global venture with an unbeatable brand? Financial Times

The secret to small business global success. International success for small businesses doesn’t need to be sexy or high tech. Just check out the winner of the UPS “Growth through Global Trade Award” SteelMaster Buildings LLC for a picture of how successful international small business trade should look. Can you see your small business here and what steps should you take to make it happen? The Global Small Business Blog

Tech

Small businesses lead in cloud revolution. Small businesses, particularly those with between 1 and 99 employees, are leading adoption in cloud technology over larger firms and this includes the home business industry, an Arizona researcher reports. So who’s bringing up the rear? Perhaps not too surprisingly it is larger industry which seems content to rely on internal technology solutions despite cost savings that are spurring the small business growth. IT World Canada

Markets

China offers opportunities for clean-tech, green technology. Business opportunities for clean-tech and green technology businesses may have never been higher in China. Some high profile deals inked with the world’s second largest economy make it clear. Though these deals are certainly on the large side, an opportunity for U.S. companies including small businesses seems fairly clear. Read on!  ZDNet

Events

First of its kind U.S. global business forum. If you want to learn more about growing your small business globally and would like to connect with a potential of entrepreneurs from 30 or more countries, it’s time to pack your bag and head for Kansas City for the first annual conference of Futurallia, a global business forum networking more than 800 small to medium sized businesses globally. For more on the three day event read the full story above. Bixby Bulletine

Environment

Can business lead on global climate issues? Yes, says Peter Paul van de Wijs, managing director of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and in fact even small businesses interested in improving efficiency can sometimes make as much or more of an impact together worldwide on changing behaviors towards the environment than public policy. Businesses have decided for themselves the importance of a more sustainable energy future. How can your business do its part and probably profit in the long run? The Sustainable Business Blog

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App turns desktop wallpaper into a changing photo collage

If variety is the spice of life, then most of us live a fairly bland existence on our desktop computers, whose background wallpaper we tend to leave the same, day after day. Enter Wallcast, a new application that transforms desktop wallpaper into a dynamic photo collage featuring a rotating selection of the user's favorite pictures.

To get started, users of Wallcast — which is now in beta — create an online account, upload at least five pictures and download the free desktop application. Wallcast then turns the user's static desktop background into an array of photos that's refreshed every three hours, or however often the user requests. Users can select a background image from among various options offered by Wallcast. Meanwhile, each Wallcast account gets a unique email address, so pictures can be added online, by email or via a separate iPhone app. Even friends and family can be invited to contribute photos to a user's Wallcast account, and Wallcast will detect and display those new photos automatically. Wallcast is available as a free download for PC and Mac; its iPhone app is available through Apple's App Store.

Created by Canadian LimeFlag, Wallcast may well end up serving ads if its terms of service are any indication. If that's the case, then an even better approach might be to offer consumers something like this as a brand butler service instead, with no ads to spoil the personalized effect. How could your brand help consumers personalize their computers even more...? (Related: Digital photo booth uses free photos as brand marketing tool — Collaborative photo books help groups tell stories — Online portal gathers wedding photos from guests.)

Website: www.wallcast.com
Contact: wallcast@limeflag.com

Spotted by: Marie Asselin

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Cloud printing on the go

Cloud printing on the go

Monday, January 24, 2011

Labels: Google Apps Blog, mobile

Cross posted on the the Gmail Blog and the Google Mobile Blog

Back in April 2010 we announced Google Cloud Print, a service in beta that allows printing from any app on any device, OS or browser without the need to install any software. Just last month we opened Google Cloud Print to users in the Chrome notebook pilot program. Today we are very pleased to announce the beta launch of Google Cloud Print for mobile documents and Gmail for mobile, which we will be rolling out to users throughout the next few days.

Imagine printing an important document from your smartphone on the way to work and finding the printout waiting for you when you walk in the door. Just open a document in Google Docs or an email in Gmail in your mobile browser and choose “Print” from the dropdown menu in the top right corner. You can also print certain kinds of email attachments (such as .pdf or .doc) by clicking the “Print” link that appears next to them.

This feature will be rolling out today and tomorrow for English speaking users in the US and will work on most phones that support HTML5, such as devices running Android 2.1+ and iOS 3+. To get started, you’ll need to connect your printer to Google Cloud Print. This step requires a Windows PC for now, but Linux and Mac support are coming soon. You can learn more at the Google Cloud Print help center.

Posted by: Tyler Odean, Google Cloud Print Team

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German food store offers recipe kits for individual meals

Rather than stocking everything a consumer might need at any given time, German Kochhaus — or “Cooking House” — focuses on a set number of meals each day. The store displays a series of packages that include a recipe and just the right quantities of all the necessary ingredients.

Launched in September 2010, Kochhaus — which bills itself as “the walk-in recipe book in Berlin” — typically displays some 20 recipes at any one time, each displayed on a table with the associated ingredients. Starters, salads, soups, main courses and desserts are all represented in the mix on any given day. “No dish costs more than €10, about $13, a serving; no dish takes more than one hour to prepare; there are no more than 12 steps to any recipe; there are never more than 20 recipes to choose from in the store, although two new ones are rotated in each week,” marketing director Dorothée Stöber told The New York Times recently. Kochhaus uses local and organic ingredients whenever possible, and it has hired the Berlin Workshop for the Disabled to package most of its dry goods. Most recipes, meanwhile, are in-house creations. Individual ingredients and wines are available in the shop too, as well as pans, bowls and other implements. Wine-tastings and cooking workshops are on the way. Meals are purchased by the portion, with delivery available in the local area.

Offering the opportunity for consumers to show off their culinary skills, while never stretching them too far, Kochhaus has found an innovative way to tap into dining trends. Grocery retailers around the world: how will you do likewise? (Related: Upscale meals-in-a-box feature healthy global cuisine — Recipe kits bring the world to your dinner table.)

How to avoid being fooled by social engineering techniques

1. Remember that if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is.

2. Ask yourself—why would you be singled out for a windfall or other special treatment out of the millions of other Internet users. If you can’t find a good reason, it’s probably a scam.

3. Don’t believe everything you read. Just because an email or website is presented attractively doesn’t mean that it’s telling you the truth.

4. Be patient. Too many users end up the victims of Internet crime because they do not stop to think, but instead act on impulse clicking on a “sexy” link or an interesting looking attachment without thinking of the possible consequences.

5. Unless you’re certain of a person’s identity and authority to request such information, never provide your personal information or information about your company/organization.

6. Don’t reveal personal and financial information in email. Be wary of emails that ask you to follow a link to enter such information.

7. If you think an email may not be legitimate, attempt to verify it by contacting the company or organization directly. But don’t use the contact information provided in the email to make contact, it could be bogus; look up the organization’s contact information yourself.

8. Double-check the URLs of websites you visit. Some phishing websites look identical to the actual site, but the URL may be subtly different.

9. Be cautious about sending sensitive information over the Internet if you’re not confident about the security of the website.

10. Be suspicious of unsolicited phone calls and emails that ask for information about your employees or other information. It could bea scammer calling.

Ready-to-plant mats grow into vegetable gardens

As we've tracked the urban gardening trend over the past few years, we've seen several initiatives designed to help those born without a green thumb reap the rewards of homegrown produce nonetheless. Now, California-based Amber's Garden has taken that concept even further with a series of preseeded mats that need only be planted in order to enjoy produce grown at home.

Constructed of burlap and a paper-like material made of plant fiber, Amber's Garden Ready-to-Plant mats are designed to take the guesswork out of seed spacing, seed depth and when to plant. Packed with a variety of vegetable seeds — properly spaced and chosen in part for their similar depth requirements — the mats can simply be planted in a sunny garden spot or cut up to fit patio containers and then watered. In addition to holding the seeds, the biodegradable paper-like layer serves as a weed barrier for the first eight to 10 weeks, making the process of growing a garden as effortless and rewarding as possible; there's not even any need to transplant once the seedlings have grown. Harvesting can typically begin 30 to 35 days after planting. Available varieties include an Asian garden mix, summer crop, salad garden, salsa mix and pumpkin patch, among others. Pricing for a 6-foot-by-14-inch mat is USD 18.99.

Ease of use is clearly a defining characteristic within the urban gardening trend, and Amber's Garden mats may just represent a pinnacle in that respect. Home and garden retailers around the world: one to get in on! (Related: Online gardening service sends seeds when it's time to plant — Gardens for rent by the season, with vegetables pre-planted — Homegrown vegetables, no green thumb needed.)

Website: www.ambersgarden.com
Contact: www.ambersgarden.com/contact.html

 

Now that is taking the initiative.......

Destination: Dial Tone -- Getting Google Apps to 99.99%

Can your company afford to be down 46% more than our customers?

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People expect email to be as reliable as their phone's dial tone, and our goal is to deliver that kind of always-on availability with our applications. It's been a couple years since we blogged about the reliability of Gmail, so we thought we'd share some changes to our Google Apps service level agreement (SLA) and some new data.

Strengthening our SLA
We're pleased to make a couple changes that improve our SLA for our customers. Unlike most providers, we don't plan for our users to be down, even when we're upgrading our services or maintaining our systems. For that reason, we're removing the SLA clause that allows for scheduled downtime. Going forward, all downtime will be counted and applied towards the customer's SLA. We are the first major cloud provider to eliminate maintenance windows from their service level agreement.

We're also amending our SLA so that any intermittent downtime is counted. Previously, a period of less than ten minutes was not included. We believe any instance that causes our users to experience downtime should be avoided -- period.

Gmail: 99.984%
In 2010, Gmail was available 99.984 percent of the time, for both business and consumer users. 99.984 percent translates to seven minutes of downtime per month over the last year. That seven-minute average represents the accumulation of small delays of a few seconds, and most people experienced no issues at all. For those few who were disrupted for a longer period of time, we're very sorry, and Google Apps for Business customers received compensation where appropriate. We're particularly pleased with this level of reliability since it was accomplished without any planned downtime while launching 30 new features and adding tens of millions of active users.

Seven minutes of downtime compares very favorably with on-premises email, which is subject to much higher rates of interruption that hurt employee productivity. The latest research from the Radicati Group found that on-premises email averaged 3.8 hours of downtime per month. This suggests Gmail is 32 times more reliable than the average email system, and 46 times more available than Microsoft Exchange®.¹

Fortunately Microsoft Exchange® customers can still benefit from the reliability of Gmail with Google Message Continuity. Comparable data for Microsoft BPOS® is unavailable, though their service notifications show 113 incidents in 2010: 74 unplanned outages, and 33 days with planned downtime.

Email is much more complex than your home phone, so making it as reliable as the dial tone is no mean feat. Despite our best efforts, we will have outages in the future. But we're proud of our track record so far and we're working hard to make it even better. Every time you reach for your phone you expect it to work. And we believe that is a worthwhile benchmark.

Untitled

In my work helping small businesses improve their blogs, I've found some common mistakes that can kill your blog -- drive visitors away and make them never want to come back.

Fix these problems, and your business blog will start to get noticed and attract new clients.

Here are 10 of the biggest blogging flubs, and how to fix them:

1. Weak headlines. On the Internet, if your headline doesn't entice me, I'm not clicking and I'm not becoming a customer. If you do nothing else, at least learn what makes a compelling headline. Headlines that ask a question can be great. List-based posts often do well, too...like this one. The headline should have at least one key word that relates to the topic or theme of your blog.

To learn more about the psychology of what makes people click on headlines, read Psychotactics' free report, Why Do Some Headlines Fail?

2. Weak opening paragraphs. Your post should not take five paragraphs to get to your main point. The first paragraph should include key words for good search engine optimization (SEO), and touch on what you will cover in the post.

3. No social sharing. Many business blogs have no easy way for visitors to share them. At the very least, install a Tweetmeme button or a plug-in such as Sexy Bookmarks. The latter will give visitors the option to share on dozens of social sites including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Reddit, and StumbleUpon.

4. No photos. You'll be amazed at how much more interested readers will be in your posts if you include an image with each one. It will immediately make your blog look more professional. You can find free images (in exchange for a credit link) at Flickr Creative Commons or stock.xchng.

5. Not scannable. Most people don't read online, they scan. If your post isn't scannable with at least a few bold headings, readers will move on. Great blog posts have subheadings, or bolded lists like this one.

6. Too-long paragraphs and sentences. People read differently on the Internet than they do in print. They're generally looking for a quick read when they're online. If your paragraphs run on for miles, that's a turnoff. The same for long, complicated sentences. Break up paragraphs -- two sentences in a paragraph is great online -- and break up meandering sentences into two or three sentences.

7. Posts are too long. Posts of 1,000 words or more work on a few sites such as Copyblogger, but for the typical small-business blog, shorter posts are best. If you have a lot to say, split your topic into multiple posts or create a blog series, which helps drive subscriber signups. Aim for 400-500 words.

8. Rambling posts. Make one, focused point, and you're done. Going off on a tangent only confuses readers. If you want to discuss a related topic, create a follow-up post. 

9. Tone is too formal. I've seen business owners sign posts with a letterhead block including their street address! A blog is not a letter you're going to mail. Instead of a formal signature, enliven your byline with a link to your site. Also, don't use jargon that could alienate new readers. Write like you're talking to someone.

10. Links are naked or dead. Newbie bloggers often throw links into posts raw, like this: http://www.mywebsite.com. That's bad blogging form, tipping off readers that you're an amateur. Enliven words as links instead. Then, check to make sure they work. It's a big turnoff to click a link only to find it goes nowhere. By Carol Tice

Got any questions about using your blog to help your business find customers? Leave a comment below, and I'll try my best to answer.

A Facebook life, rendered in book form - Springwise

Facebook users can already see their online content made tangible on real-world notebooks, mugs and photo albums. In fact, with Kodak's Picture Kiosks, they can even print out their Facebook pictures at Target. Now adding to the mix is the SocialBook, a project currently seeking funding on Kickstarter that aims to bring the user's whole Facebook experience into the concrete, physical world.

SocialBook — also known as “The Facebook Book” — is a personalized, 8.5-by-11-inch book that can be created from the status updates, published pictures, wall messages and comments shared between the user and as many as 10 selected Facebook friends. Pages in the SocialBook follow the chronological order of the user's Facebook account, and its Facebook-blue cover — available in paperback or hardcover — is customized with the user's Facebook account name. Pricing will depend on the length of the user's Facebook history, ranging from USD 25 for paperback and USD 35 for hardcover for up to 6 months' worth of online life (up to 50 pages) to USD 100 for paperback and USD 110 for hardcover when the user's history spans two years or more (up to 400 pages). SocialBook aims to raise USD 10,000 on Kickstarter by Feb. 5; each pledge can be counted as a pre-order for a Facebook Book of corresponding length. Shipping within the US is free.

Consumers' social lives may be increasingly lived online, but that doesn't mean the need for tangible offline evidence has disappeared. How can your brand help bridge the OFF=ON connection?

Website: www.yoursocialbook.com
Contact: yoursocialbook@gmail.com

Spotted by: Susan Hurwitz 


via springwise.com

What will they think of next?

Web 2.0 Pays Off for Businesses

How is your company using Web 2.0? (Or is it?) McKinsey & Company recently released the results of a survey of how more than 3,200 companies in a range of regions and industries use Web 2.0 tools and technologies. Companies were asked about the business benefits and organizational impact of 12 Web 2.0 technologies: blogs, mashups (a Web application that combines multiple sources of data into a single tool), microblogging, peer to peer, podcasts, prediction markets, rating, RSS, social networking, tagging, video sharing and wikis.

In this fourth year of the study, Web 2.0 continues to grow. Two-thirds of the respondents reported using Web 2.0 tools in their organizations. The percentage of companies using social networking (40 percent) and blogs (38 percent) rose significantly, as did the number of employees using Web 2.0.

And those numbers will only increase. Two-thirds of respondents who are currently using Web 2.0 say they plan to boost future investments in these technologies, compared with slightly more than 50 percent who said they would increase spending last year. “The healthy spending plans during both [2009 and 2010] underscore the value companies expect to gain,” the study reports.

Now, this being a McKinsey study, the companies surveyed were not exactly small businesses. “So what does this have to do with my company?” you may be asking. Here’s why you should care, and why—if you’re not already implementing Web 2.0 tools in your business—it’s time to get cracking:  Nine out of ten respondents said Web 2.0 technologies resulted in at least one measurable business benefit. More specifically:

When working with customers, businesses reported Web 2.0 led to:

• Increased marketing effectiveness – 63 percent
• Increased customer satisfaction – 50 percent
• Reduced marketing costs – 45 percent

When working with suppliers/partners, here’s what they reported:

• Increased speed of access to knowledge – 57 percent
• Reduced communication costs – 53 percent
• Increased satisfaction of suppliers/partners – 45 percent

There were even measurable results internally: 77 percent of respondents said use of Web 2.0 technologies gave them faster access to knowledge within the company. (In other words, it helps you get things done faster—and every entrepreneur knows how crucial that is.)

However you slice and dice this study, it proves two things: One, that businesses can derive measurable benefits from Web 2.0; and two, that you’d better get in on the Web 2.0 game—because big companies certainly are.

From Small Business Trends

Web 2.0 Pays Off for Businesses

Pano Zero Client

The heart of the Pano System is the Pano zero client, a whole new class of desktop computing hardware.  Pano endpoints are referred to as "zero clients" because, unlike traditional thin clients, they have no CPU, no memory, no operating system, no drivers, no software and no moving parts.

They simply serve to connect peripheral input-output devices – a keyboard, mouse, VGA display, and audio output – along with other USB peripherals to a virtualized Microsoft Windows desktop operating system running on a server in the data center.

Panos not only help you cut the costs of hardware and IT support - they also conserve electricity, using as little as 3% of the energy consumed by even an EnergyStar certified desktop PC.

Panos connect using the purpose-built Pano Direct Protocol over standard UDP protocols on your Ethernet LAN, along with leveraging your DHCP and Active Directory servers, making them easy to integrate into your existing LAN and security management infrastructure. 

Panos are also stateless – in other words, they not store anything at all about the user, the desktop virtual machine, or any data used by it. This provides both enhanced data security, since they never contain data that might be lost or stolen, and productivity benefits.   It saves you time shutting down and booting up, and you can immediately resume work with the same set of open applications and files – for example when moving from your office to a conference room to make a presentation or when finishing up work at home in the evening.

The clean and functional design of the Pano was created by Whipsaw, one of the world's leading industrial design firms, helping it fit into modern office and public environments unlike bulky PCs.

For more information, please download the Pano System Data Sheet.

And for more on how a true zero client works, please download the Zero Client Reference Architecture.

 

We are able to make this dream a reality with the proper implementation from Business Remedy and our staff which includes a certified Project Manager. 

Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (info@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.

 

 

Are you being ignored from social media?

We’re just two weeks into 2011 and you may already be feeling a little social media frustrated. It’s okay, you can admit it. You can admit that, despite all your best efforts, your social media accounts are failing to connect with the right people. In fact, sometimes you’re left to wonder if they’re connecting with anyone. You’re not seeing any replies, no retweets and your follower count has been stuck at 200 for three months. What’s going on?

It’s a question I get a lot from small-, medium- and even large-business owners when it comes to the status of their social media accounts. When things aren’t going quite the way you’d hope, sometimes it can be tough to figure out why. However, below are some common reasons I see for why businesses find themselves social media ignored.

1. You don’t update enough: If you want people to connect with you, you have to be present. You have to constantly be updating your accounts, sharing information, talking to people, and acting like you’re part of the community. While we’re all busy and it’s sometimes hard to fit yet-another-task into your schedule, it’s all part of creating that social presence. If you’re having a difficult time finding time to Facebook, schedule it into your day or week. The same way you schedule in all your other work, schedule in these types of tasks to make yourself accountable for them.

2. You go update overboard: Woah, Nelly. Slow down. It’s not necessary to post a new Facebook update every five minutes. In fact, you really don’t want to. By posting too much information you begin to overload your community and make it difficult for them to keep up with your updates. They may also suffer brand blindness – failure to notice your avatar because it’s all they ever seen. If you’re not sure how many times you should updating you may want to take a look at how often some of your favorite brands update their accounts. What frequency seems to be working for them? Don’t be afraid to experiment and see just how much (or little) your customers want from you.

3. You’re not providing enough value: One big mistake I see brands make with social media is that they update for the sake of updating. It’s almost as if it’s Wednesday at 9am and they suddenly realize they haven’t said anything all week. So they’ll log into Twitter and write about what their cat did this morning or how much traffic there was on the freeway coming into work. While it’s fine to share lifestyle tweets, you want to make sure you’re also providing value. You want to create a strategy for the type of content you’ll be sharing and how you’ll communicate with your audience. Whether you decide you want to share value through posting links, writing great content, offering deals & promotions, or just having above-and-beyond levels of customer service is up to you. However, you should know what that value is and what your goal is for being there.

4. You don’t respond to others: Are you monitoring your social mentions so that you can respond to people who mention your brand or who ask questions that you can answer? If not, it would help the health of your account to start. The point of social media is to be social. Take time to track down the people talking about your brand or to monitor keywords appropriate to your business, and then hop into the conversation. There’s nothing worse than a brand that has a Twitter account but doesn’t respond when you ask them a question. It’s like you’re there, but ignoring them.

5. You’re too salesy: We like marketing in social media the same way we like it everywhere else – subtle and when it doesn’t feel like marketing. If you try to use social media to “sell” your customers, you may actually be turning them off. Instead, use these platforms to let them get to know the person behind the brand. Once they form that connection with you, they’ll be much more interested in hearing about what you do for a living and how they may be useful to them. Avoid being salesy as much as possible. Instead, just be a person with a no agenda.

6. You’re hiding from your customers: Do your customers know these social media accounts or are you hiding from them (look into our presence management plans)? Are you promoting your Facebook account from your Web site, in your email newsletter, on your Web site? If you’re not and you’re simply hoping they’ll find your social accounts on your own, well, that may be a big reason why your numbers aren’t growing. People can’t connect with you if they don’t know you’re there. Make sure you’re promoting your presence.

Business Remedy is the leading Houston IT Support & Houston Managed Services provider here to help via the web (http://BusinessRemedy.net), email (info@BusinessRemedy.net), or phone (832-261-4113). We are standing by to help you with all of you Technology requirements.

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We sell Vipre for less than you can buy it anywhere else! Contact us today for more information via info@businessremedy.net or call us at 832-261-4113.

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IT Best Practices

 

No one set of rules can protect every business, but thoughtful owners 

and managers take steps like these:

1.  Close security gaps: Laptops travel, and contractors and visitors connect 

to your network. Protect network endpoints, not just perimeters.

2.   Integrate defenses: Combine antivirus, firewall, intrusion detection, and 

vulnerability management at endpoints, and add encryption if they travel.

3.   Patch software: Threats evolve, so close vulnerabilities quickly by applying 

updates from Microsoft® and other software providers.

4.  Update virus definitions: keep your virus definitions up to date so your 

antivirus software recognizes new threats.  

5.  Alert employees: Warn them about attachments and links in unexpected 

email, and in software downloads before they are scanned for viruses.

6.  Don’t invite trouble: File-sharing services and websites may install malicious 

code automatically. Stop them with training, policies, and software.

7.  Strengthen passwords: Require passwords that mix letters and numbers—

never names or dictionary words—and change them often.

8.  Schedule backups: Implement and enforce backup schedules for your servers, 

desktops, and laptops—and automate as much as you can.

9.  Back up complete systems, too: A “down” server means lost business, so back up 

the operating system, applications, configurations, and settings, not just files.

10.  Keep off-site backups: Make sure files and systems can survive fire, flood, 

vandalism, sabotage, loss of your facility, or even a regional disaster.

11.  Test backups: Don’t wait until recovery to discover a resource, process, or 

technical shortcoming—test the entire cycle.

12.  Get help: Call Business Remedy 832-261-4113 or toll-free at 1-855-765-4444 to make sure these rules are held while you run your business. We are also available via our website BusinessRemedy.net and email info@BusinessRemedy.net

 

PandaLabs Highlights 2010 Security Risks in Annual Report

Panda Security’s PandaLabs has released its 2010 annual security report, covering a range of issues including malware, cybercrime and social media exploitation. What were trends and how do they relate to the channel? Read on for some interesting details …

According to PandaLabs, in 2010, cybercriminals created and distributed one-third of all existing viruses, which allots to 34 percent of all malware that has ever existed and classified by PandaLabs. That’s a huge chunk of gunk, but despite the numbers, PandaLabs saw a light at the end of the tunnel: new threats are decreasing since 2009. That’s a shift from a constant trend of 100 percent increasing threats since 2003. According to PandaLabs, 2010 saw only a 50 percent increase.

That threat could be, in part, by non-malware and virus threats taking over. PandaLabs’ research claims that in 2010 hackers exploited social media in part through fake websites and acted quickly on zero-day exploits to do damage and steal user information. Facebook and Twitter were prime hunting grounds. What’s more, ‘cyberwar’ was seen as a rising trend, with the Iranian infection of Stuxnet infecting nuclear power plants, along with ‘cyberactivism,’ seen during DDoS attacks in support of WikiLeaks.

The data here would suggest that security risks that directly affect information, passwords and sensitive documents are more valuable means of threats rather than malware and viruses. Still, Banker Trojans were the most prevalent malware in 2010, followed by viruses and worms. ‘Rogueware,’ or fake antivirus software, is a growing trend, making up 11.6 percent of all the malware gathered in 2010, according to PandaLabs. (‘Rogueware’ was an ominous occurrence during my time as a help-desk tech. Many of these programs mask themselves as enterprise-level protection programs, even duplicating the Windows tray icon. To be safe, a full re-image was often required.)

Even with all the infections in the world, Thailand, China and Taiwan topped the charts with 60 percent to 70 percent of the world’s infected computers — an interesting dichotomy — along with the welcomed drop in the amount of spam — from 95 percent of all e-mail traffic in 2009 to 85 percent of all e-mail traffic in 2010.

You can check out the full report here, but I think you can easily sum up the threat landscape simply: More direct, more devious and more elaborate. Information is a commodity and cybercriminals have upgraded from vandalism to theft. Security VARs can take this information and use it to develop more sophisticated forms of security that exist beyond end-user protection and dive deeper into data-loss prevention.