Technology can be a real driver of growth for small businesses — but putting IT to work can also throw up a whole new handful of problems. Tell us your war stories, share your problems and suggest solutions in this group blog, where you'll find others in the same situation.
Wednesday 9 December 2009, 5:19 PM
Google Groups joins Google Apps
Blogs, wikis, social networks, YouTube and Twitter are changing how many of us connect with others. Yet within most businesses, especially large corporations, the software hasn't evolved much over the last decade. While traditional business technologies give companies the necessary security and controls, they do so at the expense of rapid innovation. Businesses shouldn't have to make this compromise.
This is one reason why customers are so enthusiastic about Google Apps. It offers enterprise-grade security and control while letting businesses instantly tap into a swift stream of innovation, based on services tested by hundreds of millions of people around the world. We've launched over 100 improvements to Google Apps in the last year, and the pace of innovation continues to increase.
Today, we've announced the launch of Google Groups to Google Apps Premier and Education Edition users. Google Groups is one of our most widely used applications, enabling everyone from the local hiking club to the family next door to create mailing lists and discussion forums. Now employees within a company can create groups for their departments, their teams or their projects. Employees can use these groups as mailing lists, but they can also share documents, spreadsheets, presentations, calendars, videos and sites with groups, instead of many individual recipients. They can choose to receive communications directly to their email inbox, in a digest format, or in the Groups forum view, and can access all the information in the groups archive, without the intervention of an IT administrator.
Friday 4 December 2009, 12:32 PM
Does BT understand Twitter? Contrasting views on the power of social media
I've personally had a great experience with BT on Twitter. But views expressed on the relaunch of BT Tradespace suggest they don't really understand the power of social media as much as they pretend they do.
Let me start off with evidence that BT does understand Twitter.
I left BT as a customer several years ago for a better offer on combined home phone and broadband. No ill feelings; I just wanted to save money. But BT managed to sully their image with me by subsequently passing my details to their telesales team who over the past few years have frequently called me to try and win me back. It's had the opposite desired effect.
In fact it got so bad that I decided to add my name to the Telephone Preference Service, making it illegal for BT or anyone else to cold call me at home. Still the calls came and the operatives calling on behalf of BT didn't even know what the TPS was, let alone how to get my name off the calling list. After the last call caught me while I was scanning TweetDeck at the same time, I posted a moan on Twitter.
Within 10 minutes I had a message from @BTCare on Twitter expressing their sorrow and aksing me to give them my phone number so they could remove me from their database. I obliged and I have to say, touching wood, that I haven't had a call since. The power of Twitter in business well illustrated, I returned to TweetDeck to applaud BT, delighted that it's using the methods I choose to use to communicate to sort a problem I would have had NO CHANCE of getting fixed on the phone through clueless call centres. I frequently tell this story when I am speaking on the power of Twitter at events or doing social media consultancy, as it helps businesses understand how Twitter can be used.
BT get Twitter I thought.
So image my surprise when I read this week in Computer Business Review an article on the relaunched BT Tradespace, quoting Ivan Croxford, general manager of digital services at BT Business:
"Facebook especially is not that good for B2B, although Twitter is more useful. The clear difference here is that Tradespace is entirely focused on SMBs and giving them an opportunity to market themselves online."
(The full article at http://bit.ly/6GZMGB)
To suggest that BT Tradespace, a social network for business with 350,000 members, provides a better alternative for sourcing and serving customers than Twitter gets me wondering if BT REALLY understands the areas in which it operates and likes to give the impression it understands.
There are 27 million tweets a day, a large chunk of which is people posting requests for recommendations and sharing needs which require matching products or services -- they are asking their contacts, which on a public network like Twitter extends to 47 million people, for help. It's the power of crowd sourcing and word of mouth -- what we usde to do before Google convinced us that a robot and a database provided a better alternative. BT seems to think this either isn't happening or somehow doesn't count as offering business opportunity. By excluding Twitter in this way, not only is BT offering no assistance to SMEs to help them reach those people asking for help chossing suppliers, it's discounting the REAL power of social media in favour of peddling its own alternative. is there more potential in 350,000 users than 47 million? BT seems to think so, so doesn't search Twitter for opportunities.
This is just on Twitter. Ivan is even more dismissive of Facebook, which many consumer focused small businesses are finding is helping them reach new audiences and drive traffic to ecommerce websites (many of which are probably hosted by BT).
It amazes me that a company with BT's clout can't manage to produce something like the Twitter Sales Leads tool we launched this week, which taps into the potential of that service as a lead source. But then if BT doesn't understand what Twitter is about, how is it ever going to think it should be working WITH it for the benefit of small businesses, not against it.
I'd love to read your thoughts on this. Do you think BT is right to write off the new business potential of Facebook and Twitter?
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Friday 4 December 2009, 10:18 AM
Windows Home Server Power Pack 3
It's been in beta since July 2009, but Microsoft has finally released the Power Pack 3 (PP3) service pack for its Windows Home Server (WHS) storage and backup operating system. This is an important and timely update as one its main features is the addition of full Windows 7 client integration.
With Windows Home Server-based products starting to appear in the small-business market (for example, the HP StorageWorks X500 Data Vault), it's worth briefly explaining these Power Packs.
Delivered via Windows Update, Power Packs are separate from any updates and service packs for the underlying Windows Server 2003 SP2 operating system on which WHS runs. Customers running WHS PP3 will not need to do anything to the server itself if automatic updates are configured, although the connector software on each client should be updated manually as this doesn't happen automatically. An automatic server reboot will occur after PP3 is installed. For those who have been trying out the beta, this will need to be uninstalled before the release version can be installed. Full instructions can be found at the official Windows Home Server blog.
Shared WHS folders are now integrated into Windows 7 Libraries
Windows 7 clients can now see the shared folders on the WHS machine integrated into the Windows 7 Libraries. The common shared folders (Photos, Music, Videos, Public, Software) are added automatically, but users' folders can also be added manually if desired. A new shared folder, Recorded TV, is added to WHS as part of the new integration with Windows Media Center on Windows 7 and Vista clients. This integration also allows automatic archiving of recorded TV content and optional conversion to several mobile video formats.
Windows 7 clients will wake up correctly for scheduled backups using WHS PP3
Fixes for Windows 7 clients include suppression of the Windows Backup warnings in the Action Center and correct implementation of wake-up for clients that are in sleep or hibernate modes during scheduled WHS backups. Windows 7 clients are also now correctly identified in the WHS console. Recognising the increasing popularity of netbooks, the WHS console now supports low-resolution displays (1,024 by 768 minimum).
On the server itself, the upgrade to Windows Search 4 is the biggest change. Microsoft claims this improves the speed and reliability of searches for users accessing the WHS machine via the remote access portal. It also adds support for indexing EFS-encrypted files.
Looking at the broader picture, this service pack could be an important milestone for WHS for business users. Much of its lack of success in the consumer market has been down to spectacularly poor marketing by Microsoft, compounded by serious problems with the original release. With this third round of fixes and enhancements, WHS should now be sufficiently stable and mature to attract a small-business audience — it certainly has features that are perfect for many small branch offices. Hardware manufacturers will no doubt be watching HP's toe-in-the-water activities closely.
Kelvyn Taylor
Thursday 26 November 2009, 10:20 AM
Why smart new businesses are looking for leads on socnets, not Google
I was asked to speak to a group of recently unemployed people at Whittle College in Chelmsford last night about digital marketing. I gave Google about ten minutes of a two hour talk. And here's why.
The people I met last night were inspirational. Faced with unemployment after the recession left them facing redundancy, each one has embarked on getting themselves trained up in new skills -- mostly project management through Prince II -- to face the job market once more. Several of them were looking at starting their own businesses, joining the 300,000 new businesses recently started in the UK as a result of people finding themselves in the same boat (source: Enterprise Nation suervey at http://www.newbusiness.co.uk/news/300000-home-firms-started-recession). They'd booked onto the Digital Marketing workshop to help them understand how to best market those new business ideas of theirs.
It would sound odd that I barely touch upon Google and search engine marketing/optimisation in a talk on Digital Marketing, but I genuinely believe that the results you can expect to see through that route are a fraction of what's offered on social networks, especially for businesses that are only just establishing themselves.
Let me try and explain two things I've noticed.
First off, how new technology can change behaviour in a generation. When I ring a doorbell I use my index finger. I guess many people reading this article will. Ask someone in the generation below us to ring a doorbell and they use their thumb. Why? Because they spend all their time texting on their mobile phones. They do that more than using a conventional keyboard. So their thumb has become their dominant digit. Mobiles are MUCH easier to use if you lead with your thumb. You only need to look at an older person trying to text quickly with their index finger to see how a generation has adapted.
And that same younger generation also never visits Google. They can't comprehend a web where their friends and contacts aren't instantly on hand. The web to them is Facebook and MySpace. If you want to know something you ask your friends -- just like we did before Google came along, in fact. The idea that you try and get answers from a robot and a database seems to them as old fashioned as our belief that Yellow Pages is the best place to find businesses. Unless Google adapts to support the needs of the generation below us, it could disappear once that same generation is in the workplace and making buying decisions.
Which leads me on to my second view. How useful is Google? Really. I mean if you're looking for a business. I once did an exercise to find a PR company in Huddersfield. I reckon, through other research methods, that there are around 11 PR companies in Huddersfield. If you type "PR company Huddersfield" into Google you get 132,000 responses (there are only 146,000 people live in Huddersfield!). For me, only three of those 11 companies websites get directly referenced on Page 1 of Google. That's a 15% rate of accuracy. And 131,989 results I could really do without.
It's like a conversation with Rain Man! If I asked a friend for a recommendation of a PR company in Huddersfield and he droned for hours about everything that even slightly touches upon the subject, obscuring the information I really asked for with with everything else he knows no matter how poorly qualified or relevant, I'd never ask him again. And yet people think Google is the best thing since sliced bread! Why?
More and more people, even of my generation, aren't going to Google for answers any more. They are tapping into the crowd available to them through sites like Facebook and Twitter. Why search through databases of historical documents for something you need when you now have access to millions of people to ask? We're going back to what we used to do before we relied on Google to give us answers, as we can now millions of people sit behind my keyboard and screen, only 140 characters away.
And with this comes enormous potential for businesses. While many companies with established ways of thinking are scrapping over the top positions on Google through expensive SEO or even more espensive Pay Per Click programmes, I think the smart money is heading towards tapping into social networks and listening out for people who are quite happy to share a need. And with every need comes a sales lead!
Here's an exercise to prove the point. Try going to Twitter search and typing "i need" and a keyword that describes something you do. Then try "can recommend" and another keyword. Then "can suggest". And then try all the keywords associated with your business. Surprised by how many people ask for recommendations of suppliers of products and services that match yours on Twitter? Why would you be! It's word of mouth marketing brought into our super-connected era. And these people want answers. They don't care who gives them necessarily, so long as it's from a real person that they perceive to have considered their response. A result of that kind from a real human being beats an algorthimic response on Google any day.
And this is what smart new businesses are exploiting. Using tools, of which my own companies Twitter Sales Leads tool is just one, it's possible to monitor Twitter and other social networks to look for instances where someone is posting a need for what you do. And this is a real sales lead! It's so much better qualified than a click from Google at 50p a go. With Google marketing you pay for the click in the hope that a number of those visitors to your website lift the phone or fill out a form to start a conversation about whether you can help them. My guess is that 2% of those costly clicks will do that; the other 98% are worth nothing. On Twitter, you get to speak to someone with a need directly -- you're already in the sales cycle. And what does it cost? Twitter Search is free, but even the fee for the tools to better filter results to focus only on prospective sales leads are minimal compared to what most companies are prepared to throw at Google and SEO/SEM experts.
The way people are using the Internet is changing. And with it businesses need to change how they engage with customers. Start using your thumbs rather than your index finger!
I'd welcome your comments.
Ian Hendry
CEO, WeCanDo.BIZ
http://www.wecando.biz
Tuesday 24 November 2009, 11:28 PM
How to estabish your company on the world wide web and keep it there!
There is a lot written about search engine optimisation. I will be running a website-based business, and the website is yet to be launched. What do others feel is the key to a good presence on the internet? Is it about your metatags or your sitemap? Or is it about the success of your online advertising using Google or Facebook Adwords? Or is it a good structure and lots of linking? Or is it having 10 billion friends on Twitter. I am yet to find people who can give me a balanced view on this. I am also a bit concerned that none of the above is directly linked to the quality of the product! This website is to do with education for law and medicine on the internet, by the way. Do you think that getting into ZoomInfo PowerSell, heavily biassed to US businesses, would help? My company is an English business, so may not have even come across their radar which does track anything coming out of SEC not the FSA. Yours, in desperation!
Tuesday 17 November 2009, 5:18 AM
Entrepreneur: Is Your But in the Way? (Part I: Capital)
Entrepreneur: Is Your But in the Way? (Part I: Capital)
Author: Eric Everson, Founder: MyMobiSafe.com
I would start a business BUT… I want to grow my business BUT… My business would be more profitable BUT… STOP the madness and get your “BUT” out of the way!
Every year people all around me use this time between now and the remainder of the year to hypothesize and dream about what the next year will mean to them. One of the topics that invariably surfaces year after year is this certain matter of entrepreneurial destiny. Perhaps you are one of those very people… if so, you are thinking some variation of: I’m going to start my own business next year.
For far too many entrepreneurial dreamers, one thing always seems to get in their way… I call it their BUT. To level with you as an entrepreneur myself, I get it and I’ve certainly had to overcome my BUTs along the way too. I am an innovation entrepreneur and I specialize in mobile technologies, so as one could imagine my biggest BUT usually boils down to capital. In today’s economy where it seems more likely to fund a venture by investing in lottery tickets than to actually get a real line of small business credit, capital can be a barrier to entry that many entrepreneurs face. Don’t let capital (or especially the lack there of) steamroll your entrepreneurial dreams, just get more creative!
Do you remember what made the 1990’s so great? No, I’m not talking about Kurt Cobain and baggy jeans, I’m talking about the times when a garage startup was a much cooler place to be than a corporate office. Looking back at some of those greats the one thing that stands out is that they didn’t let their BUT stand in the way of launching their companies. Sure some (including so many of those that got swept up in the dot-com bubble) were not the greatest business ideas on the planet, but somehow even they figured out how to materialize the dream of entrepreneurship. It all comes back to getting creative when faced with hurdles of capital.
Do you really need a million dollars to start a company? Hell no! If the 1990’s taught us anything it was that those entrepreneurs that survived without huge Venture Capitalist investments often emerged as stronger financial managers as their businesses gained traction. If you can manage your business through the tough times of startup on limited capital, then chances are if the economy takes another dip (which seems as certain as Christmas lights in December) you’ll be more equipped to weather the storm.
Getting creative in launching your startup means defiantly rejecting the barriers that stand in your way and looking for efficient alternatives. Do you need that huge telecommunications system as a startup? No! Chances are a decent phone and a Skype account will provide you with all the international calling you’ll need to set your business in motion. Do you need to rent that commercial property? Look around for alternate locations (hint, hint – they weren’t called garage startups because they rented out space on Main Street). I started my first venture out of a spare bedroom and felt like I’d hit the big leagues when I moved into the attic of my father-in-law’s dirty axle shop. Start by throwing out all that _____prenuer.com trash about investing countless dollars into a franchise and consider launching your own version of that kind of company (at a fraction of the cost). Check your corporate ego at the door and decide what you REALLY need to start your business and find it at the best possible price you can get it... don't be afraid to get creative, even barter if you must!
Above all else, get your BUT out of your way! I’m posting this as Part I, if you like it let me know and I’ll keep it coming and if not I’ve got a whole other kind of BUT for you. :0)
Eric Everson “The MobileTech”
Eric Everson is a leader in mobile technologies and is the founder of the U.S.-based MyMobiSafe.com. If you would like to contact Eric Everson for interview or with consulting related inquiries contact him directly at EricEverson@Hotmail.com
Monday 16 November 2009, 5:59 PM
This Crap Site
How utterly stupid - I am ranked #40 in the top 100 - as a member of this site.....
I mean HOW utterly stupid.... I have done sweet FA, I have only rejoined this site after a 3 or 4 year absence.....
And I have only posted about 3 comments so far - and if that is what it takes to become so highly ranked; it really is pathetic.
Monday 16 November 2009, 3:45 PM
Microsoft Security Update: November Patch Tuesday
Apologies for this late update to our core Patch Tuesday update. Here is a summary of the update ....
The November Patch Tuesday update from Microsoft follows the largest patch and security update in Microsoft’s history. This month there are six updates to Office, Active Directory and Microsoft’s Office application suite.
These six updates have a low impact, bar one patch to Excel which may cause compatibility issues for some applications. The main cause for concern here is that Excel is a primary if not essential element to many environments. For example most banking, trading floor and insurance platforms. Therefore any change must be tested rigorously.
Whilst there are few applications in our sample that are affected, the ChangeBASE AOK team recommends that the Excel update (MS09-067) requires particular attention in any environments where there is a significant dependency on this,
We have included a brief snap-shot of some of the results from our AOK Software that demonstrates some of the potential impacts on Microsoft Office deployments with the following picture.
Testing Summary
MS09-063 : : Marginal impact and negligible testing profile
MS09-064 : : Marginal impact and negligible testing profile
MS09-065 : : Marginal impact and negligible testing profile
MS09-066 : : Marginal impact and negligible testing profile
MS09-067 : : Moderate impact and negligible testing profile
MS09-068 : : Marginal impact and negligible testing profile
The full posting of these results can be found on;
http://www.changebase.com/News/NewsPage.aspx?page=20091110-01_PatchTuesday.xml&style=~/Style/PatchTuesday.xsl
Sunday 15 November 2009, 5:13 PM
Marketing Suggestions from an Ambivalent Windows 7 Customer
Part of the work that's been keeping me busy the last few weeks have been involved with evaluating Windows 7 Embedded and/or the final released version of Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate, Business, Supreme (whatever). The ambivalence is because I don't think it buys me much of anything I don't already have with Windows XP Pro or Embedded.
The Quebec CTP 2011 is Windows 7 Embedded and I've been working with it trying to determine if there is anything my company might gain by using it instead of Windows XP Embedded. Not much.
However if Microsoft wanted to truly create something worth buying, they might consider the idea of merging Windows 7 Ultimate-Whatever with the Embedded product and allow customers the option of “building” or compiling images using the Quebec infrastructure. Combine that with a “license” to build up to 5 images, the customer then could put as much or as little as wanted into those 5 systems.
If Microsoft really wanted to make things work well for their stockholders, they would put it on a subscription model, allow customers to download upgrades for a fee to their licensed systems.
The Quebec ISO is practically a live DVD image. It will install itself and put what the customer wants on the system compile. It calls home to the mothership and gets registered. It requires an Internet connection.
Yes the customer of this particular version will need to be more knowledgeable than the typical Joe Sixpack BUT Microsoft does has a fairly high percentage of those since Windows has been around for a long time. I could see it being an attractive package for Windows wonks. It might even boost sales a bit by appealing to the techno-snobs and Windows fanbois. They'll just have to have it.
(You know if you ignore the word Windows, it sounds a lot like Linux, if you get rid of the stockholders.)
Sunday 15 November 2009, 4:35 PM
Karmic Koala Krashes
I've been fairly busy the last few weeks and some of it was because Ubuntu 9.1 served up a unexpected & nasty surprise. It will not load properly on a DELL Dimension 2400 desktop. This particular model is somewhat ancient as computers go BUT it still is a Celeron (P4 class) running at 2.6GHz with 2 GB of RAM. I am loathe to replace it because it has been extremely reliable for over 5 years now. It works about as well as anything with a near 3GHz processor currently available save the dual core CPU's.
I have tried installing 9.1 using two methods. One was the on-line in-place upgrade from 9.04 to 9.1. The other was a full install ISO image. Neither method worked, both crashed on the next boot after installation.
At first I thought it is was an issue related to grub but that wasn't the problem. Increasing RAM size also wasn't the issue. The original 512 MB memory was twice as much as required minimum. One GB of RAM didn't help resolve the issue.
The really annoying thing is that a trashed install of 9.1 kills the previous installs like 9.04 on the same disk. Even selecting previous installs or the recovery options crash.
I suspect the Intel 845 chipset is the issue, in that I've installed Ubuntu 9.1 on later model chipsets and not had any problems. I've backed up a few steps, wiped the drive and re-installed 9.04 on it and everything is running again as well as it was 2 or 3 weeks ago. This particular system is my “server”. Lots of backed-up files on large hard drives. It cannot be unreliable.
The primary reason I have invested so much time and energy into Linux, Ubuntu in particular, is to wean myself and my household off Windows. Especially now. The price for Windows 7 shrink-wrap significantly approaches the price of a new hardware platform. The economics get even worse when talking about buying refurbished computers. Putting Windows 7 Home Premium on a salvaged computer system makes even less sense.
What has been damaged more than anything else is my trust in the Ubuntu programmers and test engineers. I had gotten to the point where I believed that installing anything from Ubuntu was not going to be an issue requiring lots of remedial work. It was stable, able to install on practically anything without crashing. That trust has been severely damaged.
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