Sunday, March 28, 2010

Some of my friends and readers may think I'm newspaper bashing, but it's not true. I love newspapers. So it saddens me to read in the NYTimes that 2009 was the worst year for the newspaper industry ( http://tinyurl.com/yao4fmf) since 2008 (which was the worst year since the Depression). But it is even more depressing to read (http://tinyurl.com/ykev33j) that Tokyo researchers have created a robot that performs what the article describes as "journalism". Wrong. A robot may be able to take a series of sports stats and turn it into a reasonable facsimile of a sports story. But a robot cannot be a journalist. Sadly this is an craft grossly undervalued at most newspapers today.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Will your industry go the way of newspapers - or business cards?


It is said that long-term thinking to the Japanese business person is 10-20 years out, while long-term thinking to a US business is next year.

Nowhere is this dichotomy more evident than in the publishing industry - newspapers, magazines and books, but most notably newspapers. Until I was laid off in September 2008, I had spent my entire 34-year career in the newspaper industry. The demise of newspapers we are seeing today should be no shock to industry observers, insiders and executives. We knew more than 10 years ago that the industry would change systemically as the Internet took hold. But we didn't act. Today, we see the results.

Although there's not much to be done for newspapers, other industries can learn from the newspaper case study. It begs the question: do you know where your industry is going and are you positioning yourself to be a strong business in the future?

The other day I was discussing these trends with a friend in the commercial printing industry whose bread and butter is business cards, brochures, letterhead and envelopes. How well are printers positioning themselves to a new error of business-to-business communications?

Business cards, for example.

Almost everyone has a stack of business cards stuck in a drawer or shoved into a Rolodex. And we take pains to get nice business cards designed and printed that show ourselves off since they are often the first impression anyone will have about our businesses.

But already alternatives to paper cards are cropped up and although no one's predicting their demise any time soon, it doesn't take Nostradamus to figure out that the day will come when we carry our B-to-B communications in digital form on smart phones and share on the go with other smartphones. In fact, some of that is already happening.

Bump is an iPhone application that senses when another iPhone is nearby. If that iPhone has the Bump application you can simply knock the two phones together (think fist bump) and share your contact information, photos, or files.

Go a step beyond and you are at Dub - an online application with a component for the iPhone and other smart phones. Dub let's you build an online business card to send to others. When you receive a Dub card, it goes directly into your contact management program as well as keeping an copy of the card on your searchable Dub online account.

Visually, Dub is a little limiting, so for more snap, there's BusinessCard2. This site lets you create an online business cards with tabs and hyperlinks that can display more information about your business and your experience. But it's not really a business card unless it's mobile - at least not to me.

For that, get outside the box and visit IPromoteDigital. There you can create "media cards" that allow you to build in audio, video and short presentations using standard (or for a higher price - customized) Flash templates. Ipromote then burns your presentation onto a business-card sized CD (forget using these if you have a slot-drive iMac) with a custom label. Carry these in your wallet and hand them out at the next networking event. But the coolness factor doesn't come cheap. Be prepared to plunk down $500+ for the better package. And iPromote is a one way street without an online component.

SnapDat may be the best bridge between the print and digital card. You can upload your own card to your iPhone or create a new card including uploading your logo. You can have multiple cards so if you have a hobby, you can create a personal card you only give to friends or other hobbyists. Information and design can be unique for as many cards as you want. When you receive SnapCards, the contact info is automatically read and included in your contacts.

Sure, we are a long way from eliminating the paper business card, but clearly there are a lot of companies looking forward to the day when those little paper rectangles are in the Smithsonian next to the rotary dial telephone.

The key to successful business? Tap into the little visionary inside and start thinking about where you're going and what your industry will look like in five years. It's a good bet someone else is.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Freebies!

Launch a new business on a shoestring and you learn pretty quickly how to root out free - or really cheap - tools to help.

Gone are the assistants, the smartboards in the conference rooms, the corporate-paid web conferencing contracts and, of course, the expense account.

So this is the first in an occasional series on Freebies to help small business do more with a lot less.

Today, it's Timebridge (www.timebridge.com) which is a free tool to help plan meetings and conference calls. This is cooler than winter's in Des Moines. And it is extremely easy to use.

Sign up for a free account (so far I have gotten very little unsolicited email from them - so that's a big plus), let the program connect to your calendar. Now you're ready to plan a meeting.

Let's say you've got three people you have to pull together for a conference call. Through the Timebridge web page, you pick five times out of your calendar that you are free, enter the email addresses of the three attendees and you're done.

The program sends emails, gives the attendees a nice interface to select their available times and to name their "best" time. It also puts tentative appointments on your calendar so you don't accidentally schedule over one of your proposed times.

The program will remind you if you are getting close and not all of your attendees have responded yet. Once responses are complete, the program will send out messages letting everyone know when the meeting is scheduled and giving a free conference call number.

A paid account gets some additional tools like the ability to schedule web conferences through Timebridge.

There is even a local interface you can install on your Mac or PC that lets you check your meetings or schedule meetings directly from the app.

This is a small app that does its job very well. And did I mention it's free?
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What's your favorite free application? Cast your vote and help other small businesses.

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

What's your favorite Irish song?

Download an Irish songbook with the lyrics to 53 of the best Irish songs. Your favorite is probably in here. Don't just bang on the table tonight, sing along. It's our way of celebrating the wearing o' the green with you today. Download it.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

5 tips for a better online meeting

If you've participated in more than a few online meetings, then you know that sometimes it's like watching an old Japanese monster movie where the audio is out of sync.

Whether it's a free tool like DimDim or a more full featured paid product like Adobe Connect or WebEx, the issue here is often just presenter awareness.

These five tips will make your meetings more effective:

1. Click first. Unlike meetings where you are all in the same room, online attendees don't see everything instantaneously. If you are showing a presentation, you need to move to your slide (or web page or document) before you actually start talking about it. That way it has a chance to refresh on the attendees' screens at about the same time you start talking about it. If you start talking and move to that slide at the same time, you will be way ahead of what your attendees can see. Give it a 10-count and you'll be good. You might have to practice these timings to get comfortable but they will make a difference.

2. Practice economy of movement. The screen sharing will capture every click of your mouse and key on your keyboard. And that all takes more time to refresh and redisplay for attendees than it does for you as the presenter. If you are typing, making a mistake and backspacing, the website will send every keystroke. The more refreshing and redisplaying, the greater the potential for your attendees to fall behind. Practice getting places efficiently.

3. Check in. In many presentations, especially if there's a large group, presenters will mute all the attendees (see #4). That is a good meeting practice, but also means they lose the ability to tell you if there's something wrong or if they don't see what you think you're showing. Build in places in your presentation where you stop and confirm that your group is still with you. If you have muted their phones, don't ask them if they are all with you since if they're not, they might not even realize it. Be specific. And also ask only for those who might not be with you - that way everyone doesn't feel obligated to unmute and answer. For example: "Is there anyone who doesn't see our registration form on the screen?".

4. Mute me. If your vendor supports it use the mute button. In a lot of calls, even if you want to have discussion, you want to minimize the normal office background noise. Not everyone's office phones have a mute capability so if you can do that from the presenter dashboard, take control of it. But remember to unmute for discussion.

5. Keep it simple. Powerpoint presentations are very useful tools in web meetings. But too often they are laden with type flying in, photos fading in and out, animated gifs and even video. Many web meeting vendors have methods to show video. But the bells and whistles of the Powerpoint may often be more of a drain than an advantage. Not everyone is sitting on a T-1 or a LAN and you should plan to make your presentation workable for the lowest connection speed possible in your meeting.

6. Polling. OK, I know I said 5, but this is a good one. Many systems will give you the ability to poll attendees before the end of the meeting. This is a great way to get feedback, either on a presentation or a product, or just even to gather information for a follow up call.

Web meeting vendors differ but some of these gadgets and options do make a difference in the overall meeting experience as well as the information and takeaways - for both the presenter and the attendees.

Saturday, March 6, 2010

Do you meet online?

Time and travel are expensive propositions and more and more even local meetings seem to be held online. Busy executives try to cram more meetings into less time and turn to online tools to make it possible.

But all online meetings are not created equal - in price, in feature set or in overall experience. This week, we're going to focus on some tools and tips to make online meetings more effective. And we'd like your help.

The weekly poll is on how you use online meetings and what tools you use. Take a minute to answer a couple of questions. It's anonymous so no irritating sales call will follow.

Collaborating together and sharing experiences and ideas is the best way we can all grow and thrive!

http://ping.fm/ILXe8

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Prioritizing email

Email remains the biggest communication method and the biggest time drain for employees and businesses. Yesterday, I realized that I had sent and/or received more than 100 messages. As a small business owner in one day that's astronomical. I also know that many messages are never opened which necessitates a follow up phone call that always seems to start with: "Did you get my email?"

There are a lot of methods you can use to help you sort, manage and prioritize email messages. But one of the easiest is to write a better subject line.

How many messages in your inbox have the subject line of "catching up"? Or maybe "follow up"?

Here's a method to help you write better subject lines that contain action messages. This will be great for them, but won't help you too much unless you can persuade your contacts to follow a similar informational message.

First, every message should have a tag on it that indicates the action step the message requires.

1. INFORMATIONAL ONLY. This is for messages where you are providing information someone wanted from you. Use this in cases where nothing else is expected of the receiver.

2. RESPONSE REQUESTED: Use this if you are sending something and would like to get some kind of feedback, but it is not a requirement that you do. Such as if you are sending information and would like to know that the receiver has it.

3. RESPONSE REQUIRED: This email contains something I need you to respond to. Sometimes questions or action items are buried so deep in a message that the receiver doesn't even see them (no, not everyone reads every word). This lets the receiver know that there is something they must answer in this message.

4. ACTION REQUIRED: Messages often contain to do items or meeting requests. In both Outlook and Entourage there are much better ways to handle these. However, a large number of people still use the email format as a way to schedule meetings or assign tasks. If you've ever missed a deadline because an action item was buried in an email you never read, you know what I mean.

Once you've got that introductory phrase established, try to write a little bit stronger subject line to follow.

Yesterday, for example, I received an email from a colleague who is involved in a non-profit group with me. She forwarded me an email from an online service. The subject line was just a forward and there was nothing else in the body of the email. This necessitated that I send her another email asking her why she send me that email in the first place. That's just extra data that neither of us needs. Instead, I would propose this. RESPONSE REQUESTED: Does this xxx notice affect us?

In another example: I sent an email yesterday that included information on several things. At the very end was a question, I needed an answer to. Probably the best course of action would be two emails: one would be INFORMATIONAL and one would be RESPONSE REQUIRED.

You and your workgroup will have to figure out the methods and terminology that work best for you but implementing the concept will be a huge step in helping make your mailbox work for you rather than being a slave to it.
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