Practical Application

In my goal of becoming a resource for small business owners who are searching for technology solutions I'm always trying to discover practical, real life, examples of how technology really changes things. My wife and I recently had such an experience. So please bare with me as I offer you this simple but practical example of how my family is benefiting from cloud computing. Not too long ago my wife and I finally got on the same page in budgeting our family finances. We were fortunate enough to take part in the Dave Ramsey program called Financial Peace University. It was a great experience that I would recommend to almost anyone. In my opinion the single greatest benefit of the program is that it gets you and your spouse working together on planning for the family finances on a regular basis. You do this by having a budget and regular meetings. These meetings need to accommodate the geeky types that want to spend all day poring over numbers and spreadsheets. They also accommodate free spirits like myself who want to run through the numbers in 17 minutes and then move on to something more interesting.

What does this have to do with cloud computing? Well, when we have our weekly meetings we gather together and review our spread sheet. With Google Documents we were able to create a spreadsheet that we could both access separately and make changes to and those changes were saved to the same place. The fundamental problem with most spreadsheets and financial programs like Quickbooks is that they are not easily shared between 2 or more individuals. Historically the only way to share a common document or application in a home computing environment has been to log on to the same computer using the same user name and password. Usually one person is the super geek and strives to understand how these applications work. They hold the log in credentials or the spreadsheet on their local computer. In our family I'd sit down and create this really cool spreadsheet and then my wife would end up being the one to make all of the updates. She would get frustrated because I had the original version and had not made any changes to it. I was great at creating record keeping systems but horrible at the daily discipline needed to keep them up to date. So she'd get frustrated because she did not know how to use the system I'd created and was not invested in it. Especially because I was not keeping it up to date. We were having the same problem when we completed the Financial Peace University. I created a spreadsheet in Excel 2007 and she wanted to make changes to it but could not because it was on my laptop. I'd email it to her hotmail account and then we were both frustrated when we both made changes but they were on separate sheets.

With Google Documents we were able to eliminate all the frustrations and we did it for free. To create a Google Documents account you simply have to have a Gmail account.....Easy. I already had that. I logged into my Gmail account, clicked on google Docs, and uploaded my document. Then, we created a Gmail account for my wife, I went back to my account and shared it to her and that was it! Now we both make updates, mostly her, and the document is always up to date, always saved, always secure. More importantly we work more easily together and can accomplish our collective financial goals more easily with the use of technology. These are the kind of applications of technology that get me really excited. I hope that you try out Google Documents. I think this is a great innovation for the common man.

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More or less for your money?

What I love about being in the technology business is that I get to work with all kinds of cool new technology. I get the biggest buzz when I can take that technology and help a business achieve a new level of effectiveness and efficiency. I have to be careful that I don't too fascinated with the technology and lose sight of the goal. When I am working with a new customer we spend a lot of time dancing around the dollars and trying to find the balance between the right dollars and the right technology. It's hard to lay out $10,000 for a new solution when you are a small business owner. It's a big risk when you need to lay out big bucks for payroll every month, not to mention health insurance and all the other costs of running a business.

When I had my first company we were young and we thought we were pretty smart. We figured that if people were coming to us for solutions that we should come down from the mountain top with the right answer. In retrospect I think we were is little insensitive to the customers budget. I think we could have done more to earn our $150.+ per hour consulting fee. When customers pay $150.00 or more per hour for consulting what do they expect? Do they want to have me recommend they buy a Lexus when all they need is a Toyota? Do we try and sell them a hybrid with new relatively untested technology when they need a reliable low cost car that still gets high gas mileage? I think if you are paying a high rate for your consultant they should be recommending solutions that are the right fit. If you came to me tomorrow and asked me to sell you a great car its pretty easy for me to set you up in a Lexus and know you'll like it. But that car will likely break your budget. How about a used Toyota Camry with 30,000 miles on it at 1/3 the price?

So what I am trying to say is that if you are paying a high price for your consultant. They should be able to help you by reducing your overall cost of technology and supporting the technology. The right solutions fit right, they are stable, and they should have lower overall total cost of ownership. I've seen the opposite where companies are paying a super low price for their consulting but when you look at the over all picture there are a lot of band aided and constantly breaking solutions in place. What you also see in that picture is lost productivity and frustrated staff. I see this time and time again and it takes a while to fix it. It takes a lot of experience and time to be ready to take these sorts of projects on. This is the type of situation where that is also the most rewarding when solutions are put in place and systems are stabilized. In the end its why I'm in the business.

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Collaboration question?

Collaboration of voice, video and web has been on my mind a lot lately. Many of my customers have been talking about it but more importantly the business community is changing the way they do business every day towards an ever increasing use of collaboration technology. Companies like Cisco's Webex http://www.webex.com/ and GotomyPC from Citrix https://www.gotomypc.com/en_US/entry.tmpl?Action=rgoto&_sf=2 are changing the way we meet, communicate and present information. How much collaboration is enough? Well, the great part is that you can put your "big Toe" in the pool before taking the plunge. I think that if you like the experience and it improves your interaction with your employees and customers it is worth making a major move. In today's business environment it is becoming harder and harder to get face to face with clients. They simply have too much information coming at them. They don't have time to sit down with everyone. What if you could provide a way to talk with clients that differentiated you from your competitors and still brings you face to face. How about a video conference where you present your solution succinctly and you are face to face? You are also progressive. The trick, of course, is getting everything to work. Whats nice is that there are a few phone systems today that are IP (Internet protocol) based that come out of the box with some pretty great collaboration technology. If you are already using something like Webex or GotomyPC regularly and paying the recurring fees its easy to show whether or not there is cost justification. As you would expect, my recommendation is to find a solution provider you trust to provide you with options. I also recommend that you make sure that the solution provider you pick has a strong grasp of IT networking technology.

See you on the web.

Share the Point

I think Microsoft Sharepoint server is a tremendous value for small businesses. With small businesses owners being more and more mobile they need IT platforms that can meet them where they do business. Most importantly, the coffee shop. Sharepoint is included in Microsoft's base server product Small Business Server. It simply needs to be turned on and configured. It allows a person to log into a website using their existing username and password, which is connected to their server, they can access all of their files on the server. I've been in some form or another of sales for the last 15 years. My most common challenge is having the right paperwork with me when I working with clients. Imagine this, you are on site with a client and they want to sign an agreement to use your services. You say, "I'll drive back to the office, prepare the paperwork and stop back later today". or you could say, " just a minute I'll log on your computer download it and print it out". Which one is more efficient? The applications for people who travel the world to do business are even more apparent. This product provides for remote access to files and security. Sure you can just keep all your files on your laptop, but what happens when you spill coffee on the laptop? Lets hope you have your files backed up. lets hope you have them with you. The ease of which you can impliment this solution again falls on the back of your solution provider. This is a prodcut which can grow to be immense in size and complexity. I think that is why it scares many consultants and customers away. The good news is that it is easy to turn on the basic services and put your "big toe" in the pool before jumping in.
If you are a small company and you need a great remote access solution, I would suggest considering using sharepoint as a part of Microsoft Small Business Server. If you already own Small Business Server 2003 you are in luck. A solution provider can lay out a plan and get it turned up for you affordably.

Check it out http://www.microsoft.com/sbs/en/us/default.aspx