Cutting Edge of Communication

Want to know a secret? Email is not a key source of communication anymore. I get more good information via snail-mail now than through my email box. People are on the move so often now that email is a burden for sending and receiving detailed information. It's great for passing along meeting notices though.

The artificial limitations built into email make it difficult to manage for a large number of users. Too many places limit the amount of storage space you can use. Another common issue is the size of files that can fit through the filters. Good information anymore is larger than 5MB. A good picture is larger than 5MB!

Email creates a way for trackable communication. If you need a timestamp to identify when you sent something then email is absolutely the way to go. For every other type of non-marketing communication email simply is not the best route anymore. FTPs create a simple way for safe file transfer or even a free website where you can upload files for someone to download. Need to share pictures use something like Flickr online which allows you to do more than simply view the pictures.

Information is more than 1 dimensional. Remember that the next time you are typing up that long email with lots of files. Think about if there's a better way to control the flow of what you need to share. New communication methods only make things easier for others, not harder.

Time Makes All Things Better

I've recently been buried in project work and have not had the time to update this blog as regularly as I'd promised myself that I would. A funny thing has happened in the time that I've been away though. Traffic has actually increased since I've been gone. Organic hits from Google, Yahoo and AOL have actually been keeping traffic to the site growing even with a lack of posting on my part. We have gained subscribers to the email update as well.

I'd been growing a little disenchanted at the time it takes to make these regular updates but it looks like it actually does pay off as time goes along. It seems like we are striking the right cord with the audience at large and they want to hear what we are talking about in the industry.

Going back through some of the keyword searches that drive people to this site it seems like it's primarily warehouse and industrially focused. That could be in part because that's the focus I tend to have and it reflects posts I put more thought into but regardless I believe that is the direction I'm going to continue to lean towards moving forward.

Thank you to everyone who has stuck around this far. It looks like we're going to be back in business because it does actually work. I think it's safe to say it won't be a post everyday necessarily, but a few posts a week should be about right. Remember to invite your friends to read, invite coworkers and lets get some conversation going on the site.

The purpose of this medium is to provide an avenue for deeper thoughts on the subjects presented here. There are too many small business owners buried in the long-term operations to see that they may not be doing right on the day-to-day. There are too many operators who don't have the time to keep up with the latest trends in their industry. There are too many people who don't fully understand supply chain and logistics. Hopefully we can continue to educate and improve the state of business Supply Chains.

Advanced Web 2.0

Yesterday I discussed how to set yourself up to take advantage of blogs and their content. Today we'll shift gears just a little bit and discuss some of the other tools out there for finding the information you need. There are sites out there in the world that have a mission of finding the popular and interesting articles in the world. The most common of these sites are digg.com, del.icio.us, reddit.com and stumbleupon.com. These sites collect stories tagged by users as popular or interesting. They sort out the good from the bad for you.

At the end of many blog posts (and even news articles now) are links asking you to "Digg This" or "Stumble It" or "Share this post." These sites provide a unique service where they find "the best of the internet" so that you don't have to go looking for it. Over time they have developed a large enough following that their communities find and review their content for them. They essentially are just aggregators of stories. If your small business has been lucky enough to be mentioned in one of the articles headlined there you've probably seen the traffic spike it can cause.

Aggregators are another useful tool for finding information. If you are looking for ways to actually use Web 2.0 technology to help your company you may want to look at Social Networking. Social Networking is simply a website that allows individuals and companies to create a profile of who they are, what they do and what they are looking to accomplish. These sites provide a place to post pictures, videos and discuss very current events. You've probably heard of the most popular two: Myspace and Facebook. There are many stories out there about how businesses have created pages on these two pages and been very successful at attracting both talent and new clients. It's amazing how far reaching these sites are. Myspace is the 6th most visited page on the internet. Facebook is the 7th. That's a lot of potential eyes for what you are offering.

For the more business oriented social network, look no farther than LinkedIn.com. Linked In connects professionals to other professionals. Instead of worrying about keeping all of your business cards with you at all times, just keep your bookmark to linked in. It outlines your network of contacts to 3 degrees of connections. Through this site you can ask questions to the open boards, recruit new employees or find businesses to help with problems you need solved. The site is gaining so much traction that many people are beginning to put their Linked In profile web address on their business cards.

I'm seeing more and more of the tasks that businesses do on a day-to-day basis moving to the internet. Microsoft and Google are leading the charge to put everything they possibly can onto the internet. Google offers an entire MS Office style suite of products online and is even currently scanning in millions upon millions of books to create a searchable online library. E-commerce is a growing industry while brick and mortar stores continue to either grow slowly or die out entirely. Selling your product or service over the internet is the wave of the future. If doctors can perform surgery over the internet then almost anyone can sell their product online.

Most importantly to many businesses is online advertising. It seems to be everywhere. Most webpages you visit probably have some level of advertisements. Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and many, many other companies offer online advertising tools. If you want to just test the water, simply sign-up for a program offered through one of the big three and see if it helps your business at all. If it does then it might be worthwhile to sit down with an expert and put together a true online advertising platform and plan.

There are all kinds of ways to take advantage of the internet to advance your company and advertise yourself. The number of roads that any person can travel are unlimited. Don't be afraid of learning the internet. Most everything you will want to use has been simplified more than you will believe. The internet is a very user friendly place for the most part, jump right on in and make yourself at home.

----There are all kinds of additional tools that I haven't mentioned just because talking about them all is quite a hefty task on its own. Look around and find the tools that work best for you.


Technorati Tags: blogging, web 2.0, networking

How to Make Blogs Work for You

Only 14% of small to medium sized businesses believe that blogs will be important over the next five years. Web 2.0 as a term is filled with mystery to many business owners and operators. It is one of those things that Google and college kids do, not something that they need for their business. Blogs, wikis, RSS and social networking are all well and good if you know what they are, but who has the time to learn when there are customers to go after? Sure it would be great to get new information about what's going on in the industry but there is no way to do that.

Let's step back a second. If you can use Microsoft Outlook you can do the blog thing. First let's go over what everything actually is:

Blogs are the basically just one person or company's view on a particular subject. The subject could be anything from sports to politics to personal improvement to small business advice to comedy. Any subject you can think about there are likely hundreds of blogs currently be written on it. Supply Chain? Real Estate Strategies? 18th Century Coins? Los Angeles Lakers? Yes on all counts. Tips on how to run your particular business better? That's why I'm trying to convince you this is worth your time.

I'm a fan of this topic because I regularly use blogs as a source for knowledge improvement. I learn new marketing methods, ways to make better charts and the latest tips and tricks from Google. It no longer surprises me how useful all of these sites are to my day to day activities. The best part is that they are entirely free! Even the time commitment is not overly significant. I probably spend about an hour reading the latest headlines and interesting articles from all the blogs I check. More than once I've emailed an author a more detailed question pertaining to an article and gotten a response back that was able to save me time on an actual project I was working on.

Most blogs are simultaneously published on an RSS feed. An RSS feed is basically a tool that can be picked up by blog readers. My personal favorite is Google Reader but there are also readers available free from bloglines, newsgator, technorati, windows live, pageflakes, newsburst, feedreader, myearthlink, myyahoo, netvibes, rojo, myaol, and newsisfree to name just a few. The best bet if you are new to this and want to give it a try is use the one from the website you are on most often. Typically that is going to be Google, Yahoo, AOL, or MSN. The reason I say this is that you won't have to change any of your current online habits to integrate blogs into your daily routine. You go to a site regularly anyway, now you just change what comes up when you go there.

Look at the right hand side of this page. One of the things you see is an orange logo that says "Subscribe in a reader." Once you've picked your reader you can find the RSS feed on all of your favorite sites and instead of visiting NYTimes.com or CNN.com, all of their headlines can be sent to your reader. I personally subscribe to Inc.com, forbes.com, time.com and entrepreneur.com. Instead of having to visit their sites now, all of their latest stories are sent to my personal space in the reader that I use. I'm able to get two or three times as much content that I did when I had to visit each of these pages individually. The other benefit is you can easily see the articles and pick the ones that are interesting to you much easier.

So why should you do this other than the time benefits, extra knowledge you'll gain and simplicity it will add to your life? The extra benefit is that you become part of the communities that make up the blogs you read. Even semi-popular blogs develop a regular following and provoke comments from readers. Long, involved discussions on any given topic is not unheard of. Participating in these discussions helps to establish you as an expert on a certain topic within that particular community which is better than just free advertising, it is additional reputation. If I go out looking for small business help that I'm looking to spend money on, where am I going to go first? I'm going to go to someone that I trust because I've been reading his opinions on the subject for the past 2 years first. Not some company that I have no knowledge of. And because it is all online, you don't have to read it everyday to keep up. If you skip two or three days it doesn't hurt anything at all.

To summarize the steps in making Blogs work for you:

1) Setup a reader at a site you frequent a lot (Google, Yahoo, MSN or AOL more than likely)
2) Subscribe to the sites you visit a lot that you know off the top of your head (CNN, NY Times, etc.)
3) Add new sites as you stumble upon them and expand your network
4) Participate in the comment discussions on your favorite sites
5) Keep your subscriptions up-to-date. Delete old ones, keep adding new ones.

You are now well on your way to helping yourself.


Technorati Tags: blog, rss, how to

HR Departments and Business Growth

Having a structure relevant to your company's culture is an important requirement to running a healthy business. Putting the correct people and departments in charge of appropriate tasks is a critical decision. Unfortunately, many HR departments have become the owners of job descriptions, workplace setup, technology rules, job interviews, on and on. Departments need to have the ability to perform their jobs to the best of their abilities without artificial constraints placed on them by a group that does not understand how they do business.

I was at a job fair last week recruiting for Supply Chain and Logistics job candidates. We had a nice simple table without the flashy give aways or expensive signs unlike the company across from us that had their own table covering, large sign, and about six different types of give aways. Students would walk up to their table, hand over their resume, and promptly be directed to a hiring website. No information about what they would be doing, what kind of jobs were available or how they would be helped to grow. The people manning that table turned out to be from HR. Contrast that with our table where we had a ten or more minute conversation with every student who walked up. We were evaluating each one not on their resume but on their personality, intelligence, and potential to fit into our company. Who do you think will be finding the best new employees? Which company do you think those students want to work for more?

When a group ends up controlling the tasks of another department, it is not always because they took over. Most likely it is because the department ran out of time to do it themselves. Recruiting students was considered a lower priority than the work currently on their desks. Decisions like this cost money in the long term, especially if you are a small business. Having the right people on staff increases productivity, decreases stress and decreases turnover (both voluntary and involuntary). Remember that an organizational structure isn't just the departments and people, it is also the roles and responsibilities for each of those departments and people.

HR departments play a critical role for businesses, there is no way to deny that. Their role in your business should be constantly evaluated to make sure they are promoting innovation and business growth and not hampering it.


Technorati Tags: org chart, hr, consulting, workplace

Generation Y is Putting Its Foot Down

Every other week there seems to be a new story about how Generation Y is disrupting the way that business has been done over the past few generations. They won't work 60 hours, they don't want to be stuck in a cubicle with their head down, they enjoy shiny new gadgets, and they have no loyalty to their new company. Somehow most of the articles that come out make this seem like a bad thing. They make it seem like Gen Y needs to make themselves fit into the square hole that is corporate culture.

Nevermind that Google and others like them having taken the Gen Y philosophy and turned it into a successful, profitable business model. Please ignore the fact that the companies making the most headlines have no loyalty to their employees. Definitely don't notice that the top companies in the world deploy the latest technology to their advantage. These Gen Y'ers need to get with the program and do things the way we've always done them!

Lets step back for a second and reevaluate the situation. Shouldn't companies be taking advantage of the capabilities of these new employees? Just because a job description says one thing, why isn't there flexibility to change it if an applicant has the ability to exceed the words on the paper? One of the biggest problems that keeps Generation Y from forcing evolution in the workplace is the HR department and its role in corporate procedures and policies. Another is the lack of communication that occurs in the workplace between the various generations. Currently there are three generations predominately in the workforce including the Baby Boomers, Generation X, and Generation Y.

Generation X had a profound influence on the workplace when they arrived. Suddenly offices were forced to loosen up the ties and refocus. There was not a drastic change in when or where work was done, but in how it was done. Now Generation Y is hitting the workforce with their desires for flexible hours, telecommuting, and thirst for technology. Not only that, but Generation Y believes they should advance right to the top of the companies? That's a debate for another day, but there is validity behind the rest of their changes. As if that wasn't enough, Gen Y is pushing for businesses to take notice of non-traditional issues such as the environment and social consciousness.

Each and every business in the world is going to have to stand up and take notice of this new workplace revolution. The question is whether they use it to their advantage or fight against it.


Technorati Tags: Gen Y, Workplace, Millenials