Build It, Grow it, Improve it

This post has been on the to-do list for months, but a recent conversation with the president of a small business declared to me that it was time to git ‘r done!

This SMB Exec has been working on a new and improved Web Site.

Actually they have been working on it for a very, very long time. And even though this new Web Site is not even live yet, he is already planning to redo all the design.

So, How Long Will That New, New Web Site Take?

I don’t know – plain and simple

So what we have here is a new Web Site that no one has seen. And no one will see until it reaches its ‘2.0′ version.

What’s Next Version 3.0?

Now the historical part, Mark Gould at Enlightened Tradition pointed me to John Gruber’s blog.

The article deals deals primarily with the R&D and design stage of product development (Apples’ iPhone in this case) But it i is a valid concern for all parts of IT, including SMB Web Sites;

Start with something simple and build it, grow it, improve it, steadily over time. Evolve it.

The SMB Takeaway

Get it out there, build on it, improve it.

But there is no point in trying to wait for that one vague future day that everything is perfect. It won’t happen

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People, Not Tools

Just a few weeks ago I wrote: Hiring SME IT Leaders; Results or Skills?

Johanna Rothman wrote: People Are Not Tools and says it much better than I did.

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Photo Credit cloois via flickr

My Car 2.0

My car went into the shop for its first service last week. Along with the usual maintenance items, I asked the dealership to check out a little gremlin in how the transmission was shifting gears.

They upgraded the software!

Yup. Software.

The software that controls the engine management system.

As you might have guessed, when I told some friends that my car had to go in for a software upgrade, that drew a few chuckles!

The point of this story?

Technology is embedded in what we do. On both a personal as well as a business level.

We can look nostalgically back at the old days, but what we do with tech will keep marching on. We need to adapt our businesses. We need to ensure that we are leveraging and managing that technology as much as we can. It is simple;

If we don’t in our businesses, another business will.

We can look at 20 years into the past. Can we look 20 years into the future?

Can we know what that will be like?

I can’t. 20 years ago, could we predict cars with GPS, in cabin DVD, Blutooth, adaptive lane control. etc etc?

The only thing I can say for sure is that it will be different. And unless we want to join the lines of buggy whip makers, we will have to keep adjusting, keep changing.

This post was inspired by Frank Reed

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Image Credit purpleslog via flickr

On-line Backup – Speed Bumps

I previously wrote about some of the due diligence questions to look at on looking at hosted, on-line backups.

Michael Krigsman at ZDnet has some personal observations from experience on that very topic.

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Photo Credit gwen via flickr

SPAM Exists, Get Over It

In the “old days”, circa 10 years ago, to avoid E-Mail SPAM you bought anti-spam software and your IT staff would spend hours tweaking the rules that the software used to decide what to block (and what not to block).

These filtering rules got pretty complex, as spammers quickly learned not to use a pure word. You probably have seen SPAM emails with misspellings this in the title; Viagra, V1@gr@, vi@6ra .. you get the idea.

The trick was to build filters that would catch as much of that crap as possible, but without stopping the legitimate e-mail.

Today?

Anti-spam tools now are mature and can be contracted out to service providers for about 2 bucks per person per month. These tools are now mathematically driven and rarely (but still occasionally!) block legitimate e-mail.

The point is; there is no excuse any more for your staff to wade through through hundreds of SPAM emails looking for the few that are not SPAM.

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Published; The Hard Questions For Your Tech Team

Thanks to Jim and Ian, Canadian Business Magazines entrepreneur supplement PROFIT published another article by me on asking the pointed questions that ensure you are getting the most value out of your IT Staff or suppliers

The column is for growing business owners, ‘C’ level execs and managers, and briefly covers;

* How quickly can we fix breakdowns?

* What’s our long-term plan?

* How are we managing our tech spending?

* What will we do if a tech disaster strikes?

* How are we using technology to boost productivity?

The full column is here!

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1 Simple Way to Never Miss That Sales Team E-Mail

Marketing expert Seth Godin has a brief  rant post regarding his frustration at being unable to contact the sales teams at several organizations via an e-mail address.

After searching for that type of product or service, he found the web sites of some businesses that met his criteria. Next step, Mr. Godin starts looking for some pricing information, and…. was having difficulty finding a way to contact the business sales team to get that information!

Yes, as a SME, your Web Site must have the Contact page within 1 click of every page, and I am going to assume that your business would not give Mr. Godin that same problem. I know that your Contact Us page clearly  gives your sales@ e-mail address, your phone number, the works.

What I wanted to expand upon a little, is  how you can ensure that those critical e-mails coming from people who actually found your Web Site actually get monitored by more than one person.

Which of these methods do you currently do?

If you are like many businesses in the SME space, these critical functional e-mail addresses usually work as follows;

* Someone is assigned to manually check an e-mail in box for sales@yourcompany.com. (probably others such as HR@, info@ too)

* Or perhaps one individual has an e-mail alias (secondary address) for this functional sales@ account.

The Problem?

Those methods both require humans and are prone to error.

First; an individual is assigned to do the e-mail check. If that individual is sick one day – will someone know to take on that task? Or will that sales request languish until the one person responsible returns?

Secondly, in the second example, where the e-mail is assigned as an alias, again human intervention is required. Does someone check that e-mail if that individual is sick, or on vacation? How about if that individual leaves your business? that alias must be transferred to somebody else. If you forget to do that, any e-mail saying; ..we need your product tomorrow! is gone to that great computer in the sky.

The Other Option: The Distribution List

Using Distribution Lists is a far more effective, less error prone method of dealing with those critical  sales@yourcompany.com and other functional (eg. HR@, info@) e-mail addresses.

This does assume that you are using an e-mail platform that supports creating these distribution lists. (some Web Only E-Mail programs may not) But rather than relying on one individual to look for these important e-mails, create a a Distribution List (the exact steps will vary depending on your e-mail platform) then assign two or more individuals to that distribution list. In this case all team members assigned to the list will receive that critical e-mail.

With some mail servers, you can even have a central copy of that e-mail stored in a common public folder before the distribution list sends copies to all memebers of the list. This gives you a permanent copy of that e-mail.

The SMB Takeaway

I know you have great people, but if one individual has been checking that sales email address for years, I guarantee that it will be easy to forget that a plan B must exist if that individual is away.

That individual can still be the primary person to act on all email coming in through your distribution list, but since the backup individual automatically gets a copy – they cannot forget that they are that human backup!

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Real SMB IT: Back to Square One For Some SMB Websites

I know – broken record again.

Excellent example here of the verbal diarrhea that too many SMB’s consider content on their Web Sites.

“I understand being vague, but I have no idea what this Company does. At some point you have to say what you do.”

Follow the link to see an excellent sample of Web Site gibberish.

Here is what you won’t see;

* Any attempt to engage, entertain, or a call to action

* Any attempt to identify my pain, my problem and how you can help

How do you introduce yourself at a luncheon with your local Chamber of Commerce?

If it is two paragraphs of verbal diarrhea, sorry to hear about that.

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Photo Credit cindy47452 via flickr

Is Generation SaaS Here?

Treb Ryan at Sandhill.com posts the argument that this recession may be just the nudge required to push Software as a service (SaaS) over the tipping point of user adoption, possibly leaving installed software packages as a footnote in the history of the Internet.

I easily fit into most of the boxes that Mr. Ryan argues will spell the decline of the old school complex, application architecture.

….expensive, difficult to use, challenging to integrate and complex to install

Check, check, check, and check again!

I know I may sound like a broken record if you have been reading this blog for a while, but for those of us the SME space, there are still a few land mines that we have to beware of.

1) A SaaS provider of ours recently unilaterally changed the terms of our agreement. Will that have an effect on you if it occurs to you?

2) A lot of the providers in the SaaS space, and a lot of the reams of digital ink written about it are still very US-centric. What are the liabilities and jurisdictional risks we need to consider? As an example, if I, as a Canadian business, do business with Cuba – am I liable for a visit by the US Patriot Act police if my data is hosted on a SaaS vendor’s servers in California?

The SMB Takeaway

I am not saying that these are necessarily deal breakers, but a full evaluation of the risks, as well as the benefits are required to calculate if it is the best option for you.

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Real SMB IT: Hardware And That Damn Morning Coffee

Let me paint a picture of two scenarios here, if they have not happened to you yet, buy a lottery ticket, because sooner or later, they will!

Scenario Number 1!

It is too early in the morning, but you manage to pour yourself that coffee, sit down at your desk, and promptly spill that coffee all over your notebook keyboard.

Scenario Number 2!

It is still too early in the morning, you still manage to pour yourself that coffee, power up your computer…. and meet;

a) a black screen
b) a blue screen saying something along the lines of BOOT ERROR KERNEL FAULT IN MPORTDRV.SYS
c) Maniacal laughter as your PC grinds to a digital halt

OK, so number three was exaggerated, but the first two were not!

As an owner or manager of a smaller business, I am sure that your technology service provider set up a server for you. They probably handed some backup tapes to whom ever is sitting closest to the server as well!

But are you actually using that server?

Or are those proposals, invoices, and reports just sitting on each persons computer or notebook?

uh huh??

You probably have most of them on your machine right?

The SMB Takeaway

Your Tech Services provider may have set up your server to back up all your data, but most likely they did not set it up to back up data on every individuals personal computer!

And if your data is not on that server when the coffee meets the notebook keyboard….

Good luck with any data recovery.

Even if you travel a lot and absolutely need your data, every few days make sure that you at least make a copy of it on your server. If your machine dies, at least you have something!

An ounce of prevention….

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Photo Credit cathyse97 via flickr