At the Inman Connect Conference in San Francisco Brian Boreo told the 1,500 strong crowd his top 10 cool new online tools to help any business.
Here they are …
Everywhere you turn people are talking about twitter and the tweets that are flying around the internet. It is clear that people are signing up to twitter in their thousands and some people believe it can be used as a business tool – just check out the new book by Joel Comm and Ken Burge called Twitter Power – How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time.
However the question still remains is twitter a nice social media fad or can it be used as a serious business tool?
The following artice was recently published by Alaine Fontaine on his blog. I found it an interesting article and thought i would share it with you.
A couple of days ago, after a tough day, I had a small discussion with one of my developers at work. I asked him to show me some document on his PC, and it took an awful long time for him to open it up because he mapped a network share on his private laptop he brought to work, and his laptop somehow stopped responding. My reaction was to say that this was an unacceptable loss of time and that I would think about no longer allowing people to bring their own gear to work.
Whilst I was driving home, I couldn’t get rid of the feeling that this was an emotional decision and that it felt wrong. Now that I took some time to think it over, I am sure that this is not what I will do in the future, but rather the opposite! I will encourage people to bring their own stuff to work, and even more than that…
In short, this concept is called BYOC – Bring Your Own Computer, and this is not something I invented. It is currently actively applied by several big companies, like Citrix, and Microsoft, in a way that I consider as very smart.
Now that i have moved on from the REA Group, i am setting up a new business. In the process of doing this, we have decided that we will try our hardest to use new technologies to make the business run. The first decision we took was to get right of the old telephone system and to use skype alone.
The theory is simple. The business the we are setting up is global in focus and therefore we will need to be contacting people around the world on a regular basis. Everyone has a PC so this is not a problem and all we do is give each of them a head set and away we go. We are using Skype Business software that works like a dream. We now have 20 people working off it and there are no problems.
I am not sure how many of you regularly listen to podcasts however i am an avid fan of them. When i go running, i plug the ipod nano in a listen to podcasts from around the world. I also take my iPod nano with me when i am travelling so i can keep up to date.
Now what are the sort of podcasts is listen to. Well they tend to be news, views and opinions from the US and the UK and generally relating to business as well as current affairs. it allows me to stay on top of what is really happening rather than spending time in front of the TV wading through rubbish. I am particularly interested in the more insightful analysis podcasts such as the Economist provide.
A while ago we made a decision to give as many people as reasonable a Blackberry. Now the cost conscious out there will argue that this is a waste of resources, however i think for what is a relatively small investment ($800 for the handset and ~$35 per month for the plan) it meant that the team members were able to become more productive and in their own time. What we also noticed was that people embraced the new technology and also the freedom it gave them. Often people could go home to attend to their kids but were able to stay in touch with what was happening in the office.
However there are some tricks of the trade.
I was recently asked a question on what i think about outsourcing (to India)? Well i thought would talk about outsourcing in general rather than just to India.
Firstly i think outsourcing is a great idea for certain jobs, not all of them. In particular i think outsourcing in the technology space makes alot of sense. However, what is required to make outsourcing work?
To me outsourcing is like any other relationship – it has to be built on mutual trust, understanding and respect. When selecting an outsourcing partner, no matter where they are in the world, they must have these characteristics, as well as the skills, to complete the task at hand.
At the REA Group, we used the team at EarlySail in India to do a chunk of the IT work. Now this relationship has been built up over a couple of years and was started based on a relationship between my CIO, Chris Vulovic, and a Director of EarlySail – Push Mohta.
We started the relationship by giving them relatively simple work in doing express changes and then slowly ramped it up from there as they became more and more familiar with the REA Group systems and processes. In addition, we had a team at the REA Group head office that did QA on the work from EarlySail.
The relationship has progressed now to the point where the EarlySail guys are helping with QA and are considered as part of the team. They have visited Australia and some of the team in Australia have visited them. Above all, we treat them as any other team member, including inviting them to the annual conferences.
I have so much confidence in the EarlySail team that i am commissioning them to build out the next generation of my latest site www.propertyportalwatch.com.
So any approach to outsourcing takes time and has to be built on trust, understanding and patience.
Well the business i run is spread across multiple countries and multiple time zones. We have offices in some locations and people working from the trunk of their car in others. How do i keep in touch with what is happening?
I have 7 essential tools – messenger, skype, outlook, VAIO (10.1 inch screen), wireless lans at home and work, an XDA II Mini (& Treo) and iPod.
In the beginning i tossed up between allowing microsoft messenger in the business and blocking its usage. In hindsight – that was a waste of thinking time.
Microsoft messenger is now the communication’s tool of choice for the business. Most employees are registered and everyone is actively encouraged to share their messenger id with others in the business.
I personally have around 70 contacts in my including employees, customers and suppliers. I find it a great way in which i can quickly connect with the right people no matter where they are in the world. It also allows us to see who is on line and who is not. The tool becomes even better when i am traveling as my hand held device (an O2 Pocket PC) has mobile messenger installed – so i can contact who i want, when i want.
Here is a classic case of where free technology is helping us reduce the costs to the business. If you dont use it, then give it a go.
As many of you know, i run a business the operates in the internet space. We do a number of things incuding publish a number of sites.
There are often great ideas that blossom on the internet including such well known names as google, amazon and ebay. However, over the years there have been the real duds – i am sure every one remembers pets.com and the sock puppet.
So it was with interest that i was reading an article in the Wall Street Journal about “The Best of the Worst” of the internet. Do you remember cyberrebate.com, flooz.com, ismell, cuecats, iLoo, Audrey or point cast?
And we all remember pointcast – the technology to automatically deliver news and headlines over the web to the user’s PC … well the company knocked back $450m from News Corp and was eventually sold for $7m.
For more information check out the full Wall Street Journal article and enjoy … http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB114424637699117715-OO16F7Ov3DMZcs1xpbu5ksPDTl0_20070503.html
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