Category: business advice

You are what you tweet

Being careful with what you post online is essential to maintaining your reputation.

“This software you recommended doesn’t work. I want a refund!”

“Sorry, but I wouldn’t dream of recommending that product.”

“It’s on your website! I trusted your company to give me the right advice. Are you telling me now I can’t believe what you write?”

That recent exchange over a third party ad on a computer advice website illustrated the risks people and businesses have when they post online. Even if the post is an online ad, a comment or something else you haven’t done yourself.

Anything online that has your business or personal name attached makes you accountable to the entire world. This was one of the points in our recent discussion about about why advertising may not suitable for your business website.

So you need to be careful with what’s posted online in your name or by your employees. A few weeks back we discussed how one Engineering company deals with employees using social media with the basic rule you have to act online with the same professionalism as you would in your work dealings.

That professionalism also extends to your online ethics. If you are making recommendations it’s best not to receive commissions, rebates or freebies and if you choose to then you need to be clear about your affliations.

It’s not just websites; Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, any of the dozens of other social media services or the thousands of web forums hold just as many traps for ill considered comments.

The key rule is to never post anything online that you’d be embarrassed to explain to your mum.

There’s a million voices online and if you’re not one of the trusted ones you’ll be lost in the massive crowd. Your reputation is your most valuable asset.

Is Microsoft Office 2010 suitable for your business?

Does Microsoft Office 2010 redefine how businesses use technology?

Last week Microsoft launched Office 2010, the latest version of their business software suite, promising to “redefine how Australian businesses can use technology to save, innovate and grow.” We’ll be seeing the new version appear on store shelves and bundled with new computers from the end of the month.

Like the last few Office versions the 2010 edition sees incremental tweaks over earlier releases rather than massive changes, most of these improvements recognise how peoples’ computer use is changing with increased emphasis on collaboration and the Internet along with more media editing in Powerpoint and data manipulation tools in Excel. The changes are good, but probably not compelling for most business users.

The biggest changes have been in the SharePoint collaboration tools which is where the Microsoft Office franchise is most threatened by cloud computing services like 37Signals, Google and Zoho. For businesses looking at taking advantage of the impressive range of SharePoint 2010 features the backend capital cost of upgrading servers and desktops to meet the needs of the new system will be substantial and there’ll need to be a very good business case for those levels of investment.

Upgrading paths are an interesting change to Office 2010, for the first time Microsoft is not going to offer deals to users looking at upgrading to the new version. What this probably shows is how effective Microsoft have been in selling recent versions of Office in OEM packages, where the software is sold cheaply with a new computer with the catch it can’t be used on any other system.

Taking away the price inducement for upgraders will mean most businesses without volume licensing agreements will move to Office 2010 as they replace that were bundled with Office 2003 and 2007 suites.

This means there will be a mix of Office 2010, 2007 and, in most businesses, the odd 2003 system so it will be important to test exactly how Office 2010 will work in your business. Microsoft have a trial edition of the new package available for download and you should run that on a test system prior to rolling out Office 2010 in your work environment.

A potential problem for early adopters is with file formats, while Office 2010 uses the same names — .docx, .xlsx and .pptx — as Office 2007, there are subtle differences in the data so setting the new systems to save in the old format is probably going to be the best way to go, although this will disable many of the new features in the 2010 edition.

Promising to redefine how businesses use technology is a pretty big aim and Office 2010 doesn’t achieve that, although it is a solid product that goes some way in recognising how work patterns are changing in the modern connected office. It isn’t a bad buy if you find the older Office versions aren’t available or the free and cloud based alternatives don’t meet your needs.

Five ways to deal with our changing economy

The last twenty years have seen massive changes in the way businesses operate, how do you prepare your ventures for the next two decades?

Last week broadcaster Tony Delroy celebrated twenty years of hosting the ABC’s Nightlife spot. The Gadget Guy, Peter Blasina, and myself joined Tony to look at where technology has changed over the twenty years he’s been on air.

One of the things that stood out was how the business world has changed radically; today’s workers have all the tools at their fingertips that once only the the biggest organisations could afford. The amazing thing is the change has only just begun. Most of us are still running our businesses the way our parents did in the age of telex machines and snail mail.

We may have got away with this for the last twenty years, but the rate of change is accelerating and smarter businesses are figuring out how to best use the existing tools while adopting new technologies. Here’s five ideas on how to keep up with our evolving economy.

Train your staff

Last Monday I met a lady who cuts and pastes in the old way, with scissors and glue, because she’s “hopeless with computers”. She’s in her early thirties.

One area we have really dropped the ball in the last twenty yeas is with training, we don’t train our staff sufficiently. For example, simply giving your staff touch typing lessons will improve office productivity out of sight.

Sending the technophobic workers onto an “introduction to computers” course run by most community colleges will have an immediate return on investment, you’ll also probably find the luddites will become your most enthusiastic staff when picking up new technology.

Be curious

We all know people who had to be dragged into the new era, those owners and managers who swore they would never need a fax, mobile phone, a computer or an Internet connection. By not being one of them, you’re ahead of the pack.

Markets are also changing — mobile Internet, social media, higher energy prices and the Global Financial Crisis are all reshaping customer behaviour. A good example is with Yellow Pages where many consumers have stopped using paper directories and now search online. You need to understand where these changes are affecting your business.

Don’t be on the bleeding edge

Early adopters are great for the tech industry as they pay full price and are the crash test dummies for the support sector. As we’ve discussed previously, being on the bleeding edge might be trendy and fun however it’s also expensive and can lead you down some blind alleys.

Sitting back and letting the overhyped version 1.0 of any technology allows you to learn the lessons from others.

Be sceptical

One of the big topics Tony and Peter discussed was the Y2K hysteria. While the rollover presented real risks and the IT industry did a fantastic job of mitigating them, there were a lot of snake oil merchants spreading panic to peddle their wares.

A lot of these people moved on to other technological waves like Search Engine Optimisation and Social Media marketing so have a healthy dose of scepticism when you’re told the world will change unless you buy a certain tech product.

Understand sunk costs

That 486 server or Nokia Banana Phone might have served you well for ten years but it’s crippling your business. It’s time to move on. Similarly any of those bleeding edge technology purchases that turned out not to be so good need to be dumped.

Basically any technology older than five years should be retired unless there’s a compelling business case for retaining it.

Don’t be afraid of failure

As the price of hardware and Internet access falls, so too do the costs of getting ideas, services and products to market. Don’t be afraid of testing new lines.

The key is to “fail fast”, that is to cut your losses as soon as it becomes apparent an idea isn’t working. The sunk cost rule applies here; regardless of how much you’ve spent on an idea if it doesn’t meet expectations cut it fast and move on.

Techonology has now matured to a point where people don’t even notice they are using it, coupled with other changes to society we are going to our market rapidly change over the next twenty years. That makes it a time of great opportunity for entrepreneurs. Understanding those changes and having a team who can react to them will separate the successes from the others.

Is your business dying?

the Internet is more than a marketing tool. Like the motor car and electricity, it is changing business fundamentally.

At the release of a report into technological change and the accounting profession last week, Melbourne University’s Professor Colin Ferguson said “I could see as many as 25% of companies listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX) disappearing in the next decade because of the proposed National Broadband Network (NBN) roll out and other rapid technological change.”.

Professor Ferguson could be optimistic. The Internet today is where the automobile, telephone and mains electricity were eighty years ago — all were established technologies that had been around for a while, but the society wide benefits only began to be felt in the 1930s.

Many industries failed as motor vehicles became common and communities were connected to electricity grids and phone networks. Businesses who didn’t recognise those changes simply ceased to exist while those who survived embraced and adapted to the new technologies.

The best example of why more that a quarter of enterprises will probably fail this decade is that 44% of businesses still haven’t bothered to get a website despite three quarters of consumers and almost all business now researching their purchases online. These businesses without websites are invisible to those customers.

The tragedy is business websites are free with both Sensis and Google offering free Local Business Centre and Yellow Pages online listings. While these websites aren’t flashy, they give the basic information about your business that prospective customers are looking for and filling in the forms only takes a few minutes.

Business Internet though is far more than just a bit of brochure ware on the web, a few weeks ago we discussed location based services like Foursquare and bar code readers like Red Laser. These are small examples of how technology is changing entire business processes and models, not just the marketing.

Like the car, telephone and mains electricity, the Internet fundamentally changes business methods and the markets they sell to. If you aren’t adapting to those changes then your business won’t be around to talk about it in three years time.

The truth is Australia’s National Broadband Network has little do with it. These changes are happening now as pervasive broadband is being rolled out across major population centres. The role of initiatives like the NBN and Google’s US Fibre network is to make sure those benefits are being applied equally across nations and not just in downtown Melbourne, New York or Beijing.

Regardless of where your business is, it’s almost certain your industry is being radically changed right now. Is your business aware, prepared and flexible enough to adapt to those changes?

Are adverts right for your website?

Taking advertising on your website can make a few additional dollars for your business, but as an Australian online retailer found there are costs when being an advertiser.

Yesterday’s Smart Company article on Deals Direct being blocked by Google shows why it’s important to understand the purpose of running a business or private website and whether showing adverts on your site is appropriate.

Deals Direct’s problem allegedly arose because an advertiser placed some suspicious code on the Deals Direct site. Malicious web code is designed to infect computer using what’s known as ‘drive by downloads’

Drive by downloads happen through web pages designed to infect visitors’ computers when the page is opened. Thankfully rare these days thanks to improved security in XP and later versions of Windows, they are still taken seriously when they appear.

The real question though is why Deals Direct, a discount online retailer, chooses to run third party adverts. One of the strange things on the Internet is why many websites run Google Adwords at all.

Google Adwords and other contextual advertising looks at a web page’s content to determine the adverts the site will show.

So a website on plumbing will show tend to show adverts for plumbers and plumbers supplies.

That’s great if you are running a site featuring tips on plumbing or bathroom renovations with the aim of making some money from advertising but if you’re the local plumber, having Adwords on the site may result in your competitors ads  appearing.

Now there are features in the advertising programs to block the ads of competitors and products you don’t want on your page but these take up time which often isn’t worthwhile given the returns most sites have from Adwords.

Even if you are happy to show competitors adverts, there’s also the question of your brand. Do you really want low rent and tacky ads offering teeth whitening and weight loss messing appearing on a web site that tells the world about your professionalism and great products?

For many businesses running ads on their websites isn’t worthwhile given the advertising returns aren’t worth the management time and potential reputation risk raised by the programs.

Like much in the technology field, whether you run adverts on your site depends upon your business and objectives. Although if your business isn’t an advertising driven model like Smart Company’s, it’s probably best to leave third party ads off your websites as Deals Direct have found.

The cloud of capitalism

A simple bar code reader shows how the business world is changing.

Red Laser is one of over a hundred iPhone barcode readers available in the iTunes store. This seemingly ordinary application shows how freely available information over the Internet is changing markets and the way we do business.

We discussed location based services a few week back and Red Laser is a good example of one of these products. Making the application even more powerful are the other services it plugs into — Worldcat is a world wide database of library catalogues and Google Inventory list stock levels in nearby stores, although the Google service is yet to be launched in Australia.

Just those two services show how booksellers are even more at risk, if you see an interesting book your mobile phone can tell you if it’s at the local library and which bookshops near you have it in stock and at what price.

Booksellers, along with travel agents, are used to the effects of Internet driven competition and now almost every retail and wholesale business is feeling the change. The days of hiding your stock levels, prices and product information now gone.

Much of the Twentieth Century saw businesses hoarding information. In most industries, particularly in the business to business sector, price lists were closely guarded secrets and it took hours if not days of messing around with salespeople to get a quote.

Today, if you mess shoppers around they will find competitors who are open with their prices and products. In most cases time poor customers won’t even be bothered calling you as they will find the opposition’s prices  on web and in their mobile phone.

In many respects this is a return to a purer, more honest form of capitalism where traders have to prove their wares on price, availability and quality, not by controlling information in the marketplace.

For the close to fifty percent of businesses who don’t have a website, you have to decide if you still want to be in business as your options are running out.

If you do have a website, a piece of brochure ware asking you to email, call or fax the office no longer cuts it. Technology is overtaking you and the with customer it.

Have a play with services like Red Laser and the various local business products, see how they work and what your competitors are doing because you can be sure your customers are.

Ten tips for event organisers

Some ideas to make your conference more compelling in a crowded and difficult market

The events industry is a sector in trouble from Internet driven change— the effects of the Global Financial Crisis coupled with people’s desire to conserve their valuable time make it essential that a conference or event offers something unique and compelling.

Here’s ten ideas to respect your audience and make the next conference one they won’t want to miss;

Know your audience
Understand who you are pitching to. A recent conference I attended had been pitched to small business owners when the content and speakers were more relevant to public relations and media people. As a consequence half the room were disgruntled with the content. I doubt they’d come to another similar event from that organiser.

Get relevant speakers
The biggest turn off for a conference are speakers who have nothing new to say or aren’t relevant to the topic or the industry. Take some time to choose the right presenters. If you have trouble finding appropriate speakers for a session, it’s better to can the session rather than plonk in a participant who adds little or nothing to the topic.

Proper descriptions of speakers
A one paragraph biography and a ten year old photo is not enough. Where is this person’s website and some video clips of previous presentations? If the speaker really adds value, then you shouldn’t be hiding their talents.

Have a proper website and domain
Setting up a domain name for the event is essential if you are charging substantial fees. If your event is free or there’s a nominal charge to cover costs then a WordPress, Facebook or Eventbrite site is fine but if you are charging $2,500 then then a proper domain with a half  decent website is essential. Cutting costs here is a big warning sign to potential attendees, particularly in the tech and media sectors.

Maintain a blog
On your site you need to have a blog and it has to be kept up to date. As well as a useful marketing tool it’s a great way to have a dialogue with attendees. You will get questions and comments on your blog and you will be rewarded if you listen to those comments and communicate with your audience.

Create a Twitter hashtag
Rather than let your audience guess a hashtag and risk having four different streams running concurrently, publish the hashtag early on your website. This also creates a pre event buzz and gives you the opportunity to gauge the markets view of the event.

Think twice about a Twitter wall
Feeding the Twitter stream to a screen behind the speakers can be a great idea but it has the opportunity to be a train wreck. If the presenters don’t have experience in dealing with live comments or you have a room full of mischievous Tweeters intent on hijacking various sessions then you should think twice before doing it

Wireless networking is essential
Audiences need wireless networks and even high cost events often fail to provide them. If you are charging serious money for an event then buy some routers or, better still, choice a venue that’s realised the it 1980s are over. Also, don’t mess people around with complex logins, the odd leech sitting outside stealing your Intenets is better than irritating a room full of paying customers.

Post your presentations
We’re bound to have missed something so follow up with posting the presentations online. Depending on the event you may choose to lock them behind a paywall accessible only to conference attendees and supporters and that’s your call. However the lesson from TED is if your event was truly valuable, having the videos free to the public is going to help your conference in future years.

Allow discussion
Your audience is smarter than you and your presenters. By giving them ample microphone time to comment or question the speakers you add value to the event and maybe even find smart people for your next conference. Lecturing the audience only works if the presenter is an unchallengeable leader in their field. This factor is even more important if you are running a social media function where the speakers have spent the last hour proclaiming the importance of dialogue.

Giving the audience the stage is about respecting their intelligence, and we all want smart people to attend our events. Respect cuts even deeper, event organisers need to respect the technology and the economic changes that are challenging the events industry.

Those who do remember their job is to add value to smart, motivated folk will be those who prosper in a crowded, challenged market.

The company you keep

What you do on the Internet has real ramifications for your reputation. Take care with the people you meet and the groups you join online.

It’s an old but true saying that you’re judged by the company you keep and this applies online as much anywhere else in personal and professional life. Last week I was reminded of this three times.

Early in the week I was asked if connecting with someone on LinkedIn was an endorsement. I thought that was an odd question as LinkedIn has a separate function for recommendations and so I didn’t pay it much attention.

A few days later an industry group leader told me she’d assumed an individual was legitimate because I was a member of their LinkedIn group. While it was a compliment to think my opinion meant that much, it worried me as I didn’t really know the group’s founder and I certainly wasn’t endorsing his business.

Finally, at the Media140 Conference in Perth last Thursday, employment branding specialist Jared Woods gave an interesting overview of how an Engineering firm deals with social media issues in the workplace.

Jared described the company’s  basic rule was if you state that you work for the organisation then you have to act professionally and in a way that doesn’t discredit yourself or the company. Which means no more drunken photos posted on Facebook or joining bad taste causes and online groups. By all means post silly pictures, but forget mentioning who you work for.

The killer line from Jared was social media gaffes can not only damage a business but they can also damage employee’s professional reputations. Just as the employee is part of the brand, staff have their own personal brands.

This isn’t new, there’s dozens of true stories of how people have lost jobs through inappropriate blog or Facebook postings and ten years ago the infamous Claire Swire incident nearly cost a group of young London lawyers their jobs .

All of these examples show just how important it is take care with everything you do online. You are not anonymous and most things you say and do on the Internet will be stored somewhere.

So play nice and remember not to post anything you wouldn’t like to see next to your name on the six o’clock news.

The youngster myth

Making guesses about your customers is a risky business. You may well be surprised at what you find when you get to know them.

Last week Smart Company looked at Domino’s successful iPhone application which over 12 weeks has generated more than two million dollars in sales.

Asked about the app, Domino’s chief executive Don Meij said “the company saw it mainly as a marketing tool that would help it to target its demographic of younger consumers”. That comment illustrates how widespread the myth that mobile Internet and social networking are just toys for young people.

Website monitoring company Pingdom, recently looked at the demographics of social network users and found the biggest group were aged 35-44 with those over 35s making up 57% of users.

Similarly, a report last year by the Nielsen research company found over half of US iPhone users were older than 35.

From personal experience I’d suggest one of the biggest demographics for the Dominos iPhone app are time stressed parents either stuck in the office or realising they haven’t organised any food apart from red lollies for a 12 year old’s birthday party an hour before the event.

Along with the youthful user myth there are two other dangerous misconceptions about Internet usage — that older people are “rusted on” to the old way of doing things and that the young will drift across to the more traditional forms of retail, media and marketing as they age.

The reality is the drift isn’t happening; Marc Fron, the New York Times Digital Chief Technology Office, observed at last week’s Media 2010 conference in Sydney how readers under 30 have almost completely abandoned newspapers and show no signs of changing their habits.

Which leads to the other myth, that older users will continue to stick with the tried and trusted ways. The reality the older age groups are drifting towards online tools as they find the net is cheaper and easier to use.

In short, it’s a dangerous business making assumptions about who your customers are, particularly if those assumptions are based on tired and untrue stereotypes.

So get to know your customers, you might be surprised at what you find.

safety in the cloud

Cloud computing is changing the way many enterprises work, along with the massive cost savings and productivity gains there are some risks.

Cloud computing, where data and applications are accessed through the Internet and stored on remote computers, is one of the concepts that’s dramatically changing business.  Like all changes that disrupt existing ways of working, it comes with it’s own set of challenges, opportunities and weaknesses.

One of the weakness often cited about the cloud is the security risk; how you can’t be sure your data is secure and safe from prying eyes. Last week’s story of Indian hackers attacking Melbourne businesses shows the opposite is true.

Some Melbourne based businesses were reportedly finding their systems had been breached and data left inaccessible by hackers protesting attacks on Indian students. The story itself is little suspicious given these allegedly l33t hackers can’t secure their own Ning page against multi level marketing spammers, but it is feasible as computer security is poor in many homes and offices.

Computer security is complex and costs a lot to do well. Many systems are run by overworked techs who simply don’t have the time to keep track of the fast evolving world of computer security and most businesses don’t have the resources to properly secure systems.

For the cloud computing service providers, security and data integrity are their core competencies. Keeping their clients’ data safe and their services available are their two main objectives. Any cloud service provider that forgets this is quickly out of business.

The cloud’s real weakness is in the Internet connections — should your ISP have a hiccup, the mobile service drop out or your router stop working then you have a problem.  A well timed Denial of Service attack, where thousands of hijacked computers tie up a victim’s Internet service, can bring even the best run cloud computing service to it’s knees.

Denial of Service attacks are what happened to the Australian Parliament House website last week as a protest against the Federal Government’s Internet filtering proposals. This technique is probably the most effective and quickest way to bring down someone’s web services.

What all of this shows is technology is complex and whether we’re talking about cars, water, electricity, telephones or the Internet, everything is prone to failure in it’s own unique way and we have to manage the risks involved. In this respect, cloud computing has some downsides while running your own systems presents other weaknesses.

We’d all like to legislate or engineer risk out of our lives, indeed the belief this is possible is one of the causes of the Global Financial Crisis. However risk will always be part of life and balancing threats against rewards is a fundamental part of doing business.

When selecting the right tools for your business you need to understand the risks and plan for them. For many businesses, the risks of a losing connection to a cloud server are vastly outweighed by the costs and complexity of maintaining their own computer security. The right choice for your business is up to you, choose wisely.

The coffee revolution

One of the great misconceptions about the internet is how it isolates people from society. The truth is the net is a window on the real word that allows you to discover the networks that can help your business.

One of the great misconceptions about the internet is how it isolates people from society. The truth is the net is a window on the real word that allows you to discover the networks that can help your business.

A good example of this are the “coffee mornings” springing up in our cities and towns where business people are using internet channels like Twitter and web forums to organise meet ups at cafes, which in turn develop into new business and social networks.

Because the coffee mornings are informal and have no organisers, obligations or rules, beyond making sure you pay for your coffee and eggs benedict, people feel free to come and go. They are perfect for time poor or isolated business owners, particularly those working from home or trying to juggle their family and business commitments.

The great thing with these coffee mornings is how they help develop useful business networks. People who otherwise would have never met are now becoming friends, mentors, clients and business partners.

There are always some losers from new opportunities and in this case it’s the structured business networking organisations, as there are no stiff membership fees or obligations to network and get referrals.

Unlike many traditional chambers of commerce the coffee mornings lack committees and officials, so they aren’t dominated by the small cliques you often find in formal business groups.

A whole way of doing business is changing from something as simple as groups of people deciding they have enough in common online to get together for coffee.

While this is bad news for those who’ve paid for networking type franchises, it’s a wonderful opportunity for business owners to connect with fellow entrepreneurs they otherwise wouldn’t have connected with – particularly those in regional areas.

If you want to organise a coffee morning in your suburb or town, get on the internet. You’ll be surprised at the like-minded business owners, customers and supporters who are on services like Twitter and Facebook.

Should you find there is already one happening in your neighbourhood, go along. The lively, intelligent people you meet might help you see some of the opportunities, and threats, on your doorstep.

The new economy

The final slide of Steve Jobs’ iPad launch sums up where the new economy is going. The tech and creative industries have come together and the results will be the great drivers of economic growth for the next 50 years.

The final slide of Steve Jobs’ iPad launch shows how the tech and creative industries are coming together.  The results will be the great economic drivers of the 21st Century.

Steve Jobs’ launch of the iPad was the classic  succesful Apple product launch before adoring fans however the bigger picture from the show is identifying where the world is heading as technology and arts come together.

With Apple and Jobs this is nothing new. Apple’s great success has been from incorporating well designed and Engineered product in markets where their competitors have been more on price points and often poorly implemented features.

Releasing products that work well with inuitive interfaces has allowed Apple to sell their products at a premium while their competitors in the computer and mobile phone markets have found themselves dealing with declining margins.

Regardless of wether the iPad itself succeeds or fails it shows though is how powerful the combination of good design and clever Engineering are in the new economy.