Climb your way to the top! If you can view the internet and your technology as your friends, you just may find there is a way to work ‘on’ your business without losing time ‘in’ your business. We all want to climb to the top, and there are many ways to do this - some ways of course are harder than others, so let’s look for the smart ways. In thinking about how technology can assist you to work ‘on’ your business I’ve been doing a little digging lately and come up with some sites that give statistical information that could be used.

Government statistical pages:

Australian government Business site

Australian Government

Planning for business

Non Government sites of interest:

Flying Solo gives tips on small business

Australian Business Review

Small business support network

there is so much you need to be aware of, on top of, and in touch with when you are an entrepreneur that it can seem overwhelming sometimes.

I will be examining how technology and some good sound business processes can help make this job easier.

Firstly get familiar with the links above so that we can follow through from them over the next few weeks.

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How much time do you get to spend working ‘on’ your business as opposed to ‘in’ your business?

Business is not something that automatically ‘happens’, it is something that you make happen on a daily basis.

One key to success is finding a niche market and catering to that market very specifically. If you are thinking about starting a new business or want to expand your business into new growth areas you need to put time into the background work. It is rare for anyone to come up with a great idea one day and be in business making money the next day.

Some business owners shy away from activities such as market research faster than a mouse runs from the first hint of a cat. But can we afford to run like this?

Technology has made it easier to conduct many aspects of working ‘on’ your business. Mind you, there is almost an overload of information out there and you do need certain skills to dredge the rivers of information available so a planned approach is going to bring the best results. Of the more than 600,000 businesses in Australia, less than 4000 are large business.

Thanks to the internet smaller businesses are no longer necessarily limited to a small geographical area. Whilst this could give a larger customer base, it also gives a larger competitor base and more planning skills needed to survive.

Nearly 25% of business in Australia are not making a profit. Hang on, not making a profit – how do they stay in business? The short answer is that many of them don’t. Some work their way through to profitability after a few hard years but the fact is that businesses come and go. Planning for business success can be streamlined using technology but even this process takes some planning. Over the next couple of weeks I will look at this process and how technology can be usefully employed.

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OK so I’ve started to get some thinking going now on smart business insofar as thinking about technology in use and the level of usage your staff skills allow you to make of what you have.

	Think about it this way - I could have a huge range of power tools here at my home, but the truth is that I don’t know much about using powertools. I would be unsure which tool I should use for many types of jobs, and would probably take longer to use them than anyone familiar with them.
Suddenly a ‘good idea’ of a DIY job at home could cost me a huge amount of time and money to have someone else come in and fix it.
	As it happens, what I do for jobs like this at home is - I get a builder in, he gives me lots of advice and I pay him to do what I either can’t or don’t want to do (and there are plenty of things I just plain don’t want to do when it comes to renovations) and I then do the bits I can do and am happy to do. For example I am happy to paint, and particularly love doing all the fiddly trims.

Now in a business, the smart approach is to get advice - how could your business run more efficiently? There are several views that need to be taken at this stage - people and their skills, technology available and cost factors.

Usually any solution will involve a mixture of approaches - up-skilling staff, possibly a change in technology and some cost. But the best solution of course means that you should get returns that out-weigh the costs that you may have to put in.

Isn’t that the basis of smart business?

I am going to venture out and say at this point that the most common finding I make when working within small - medium businesses is that the technology is sufficient (hardware and software) but the policies and procedures mixed with the staff technology skills are where the main lack is.

How about I put up this little quiz, and you do it yourself and ask your staff to do it also.

You can then download the answers to score yourselves. Your score could help you decide whether or not it is time to do some work ‘on’ your business instead of just ‘in’ your business.

QUIZ

1. What is the difference between “Save” and “Save As”?
2. What is a “Style” in word processing?
3. What is a “Mail Merge” in word processing?
4. What software would be most suitable for the following tasks?
   1. Create a newsletter
   2. Prepare a budget
   3. Create a client contact listing
   4. Create a slide show for a board meeting
   5. Manage files and folders
   6. Create a report using graphs
5. What is a template?
6. What is a Style Policy?
7. What is the difference between:
   1. Cut
   2. Copy
   3. Paint Formatting
8. Where can I get help to use technology better in my business?

Check your answers here and leave a comment - I would love to know how you went!

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For several weeks I have been talking about specific technologies in business.
This week, I’m thinking about how information is managed within business and how familiar and comfortable staff are with information systems and technology in general.

Businesses do an audit each year of stock and assets during end of financial year processes. Many businesses routinely do performance reviews, time and motion studies to look at efficiency of practice.

I spend a fair amount of time in a variety of businesses as part of my work. I find that the main issues revolves around reducing stress and increasing efficiency.  Stress is a major factor in loss of efficiency let alone its adverse effects on health which in turn impacts on the business, profits and the individual.

The most common issues I’ve identified are that technology is used as a replacement for a paper-based system, rather than as a centralised information management system and staff are not given sufficient training in the use of technology

Both issues are intimately linked and the main causes I’ve identified is that managers don’t have the time nor the training to choose the best technology and systems for their business, and staff are not fully trained to use them.

When I get a group of office administration staff into a classroom for ‘advanced’ training we nearly always end up going over basic ground level concepts before we start the advanced concepts.  I’ve lost count how many people have got through a couple of hours of training and said to me – I wish I had done intermediate training before coming to this because I didn’t know that there was so much I didn’t know!

Just this week I was doing some MS Word training with staff who have been using word processors for many years.  The exclamations of how they could now do things within literally a couple of minutes, that took them literally a couple of hours is music to my ears.  I am never happier than when I see that a true impact on time factors in the workplace is achieved.  Technology really should make business processes easier.
This weeks blog will allow you to do a small technology-efficiency test. Bitts4learning.com/blog

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Strangely enough RSS stands for various sets of words, (depending on whose interpretation you use and seemingly depending on what version - how old it is) and yet still stands for the same technology. Go figure!

Some of the names “RSS” are abbreviations for:

* Really Simple Syndication (RSS 2.0)
* RDF Site Summary (RSS 1.0 and RSS 0.90)
* Rich Site Summary (RSS 0.91).

RSS content can be read using software called an “RSS reader”, “feed reader” or an “aggregator”, which can be web-based (no software to install) or desktop-based (software needs to be downloaded and installed).

In the background where you don’t see it, a standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. We don’t really care what the technology is in the background but it is good to be told a little bit so that you can look intelligent when technology comes up in casual social conversation.

You can subscribe to a feed by entering the feed’s link into the reader (a bit like creating a bookmark) or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process.

Although RSS formats have evolved since March 1999 the RSS icon first gained widespread use in 2005–2006

So, if you want to go and start trying out an RSS feeder the first choice you have to make is do you want to install a program onto your computer or use a web-based one?

To help you in making this decision I’ve thrown in some links here to some readers that you can have a look at.

Web-based readers:

Yahoo News via RSS Yahoo provide this reader – if you already have a yahoo account then this may be a really simple way to add a reader to your collection of web tools.

Bloglines is another web-based feeder that you may wish to check out.

Google Reader - take a tour of how it works. Google offers web users a huge range of tools that I will be looking at during the coming months.

Desktop based readers:

Remember to check what is available for your computer platform. (windows, MAC, Linux etc)

FeedReader (Windows) – a free reader as well as more advance tools that you can purchase.

NewsGator (Windows and iPhone applications) integrates with Outlook as well as Mac and mobile solutions. This site gives you a whole suite of tools and options.

You tube video on RSS This is a great visual way of seeing what RSS is about.
Examples of some sites with RSS

Once you have chosen your RSS reader, please subscribe to this blog to test it out! I mean to say what could be a better test for you than the place that brought you to the whole RSS concept in the beginning?

Happy information gathering!

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We all know that we have this thing called the world wide web that is supposed to give us access to all this information.
We also all know that finding the information we want, and returning to good sources can be a constant source of confusion and frustration.
We can all identify with the person who discovers that hours have slipped away whilst using the web, without finding the information they started out looking for, even if they did find lots of information and even had an enjoyable time. If this information relates to your business this time could have cost you money. You realise that you may still have to spend a similar amount of time searching again, hoping not to get too sidetracked.

So why can’t the information I want come to me?

Now that is one great idea, but how could this happen?

Really Simple Syndication (RSS) allows the distribution of a collection of information such as news headlines, podcasts and even blogs that change frequently from many sources. You can view these using a simple reader from one single place.

Now that sounds like one great solution to me.

This technology is great because it:
• keeps you informed by retrieving the latest content from sites of interest to you
• saves time - no need to visit each site
• your privacy is protected – no need to join each site’s email newsletter

There is a range of free, basic feed readers are out there that you can install on your computer or sign up for a Web-based service. (no installing stuff needed) Some newer Web browsers and email programs, even have feed readers built in.
When you look at your feed reader, you will see headlines and short summaries, a bit like looking at search results in Google. You can then click on any item you wish to read in full.

This weeks blog will guide you through finding an RSS feeder and subscribing to RSS feeds.

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To expand on the Northern Star column this week let’s look more closely at what a Blog actually is and how people are using them to expand, enhance and add value to their business.

Some of you have heard about Blogs but never have tried it while others have launched into life changing careers using blogs

Several blog search engines are used to search blog contents, such as Bloglines, BlogScope, and Technorati. Technorati, which is among the most popular blog search engines, provides current information on both popular searches and tags used to categorize blog postings. Research community is working on going beyond simple keyword search, by inventing new ways to navigate through huge amounts of information present in the blogosphere, as demonstrated by projects like BlogScope.

Most of you are familiar with Google as a search engine. I wonder when you search for information in Google whether you ever use any extra features or just type some words into the search box and cross your fingers?

When you go to Google, you will notice in the picture below that there are some extra links at the top left area of the page that allow you to search more specifically.

The last of those links is More and there is a little arrow pointing downwards.
If you click on that arrow you are able to search specifically in Blogs.

There are different types of Blogs are typically categorised into the following: Personal - an on-going diary or commentary by an individual, is the traditional, most common Blog.
Business either used internally to enhance the communication and culture in a corporation or externally for marketing, branding or public relations purposes.

Also Blogs can often be categorised by Genre, which focus on a particular subject, such as politics, travel, house, fashion, education, classical music, questioning and quizzing Blogs and legal. Just a word of caution here whatever you post onto a blog has the potential to viewed by millions of people all over the world and could have legal repercussions, so keep it honest and truthful and you shouldn’t have any concerns.

You may search and even subscribe to RSS Blog feeds to assist your information gathering and market research activities in your business.

But would your business benefit from a Blog?

The first consideration is how would you build into your business plan the time that would be needed to keep the Blog updated?
If you already do a lot of market research or spend time making information in your business area available to your customers then a Blog may simply become a more efficient way of storing and distributing information you are already working with.
If not, then the Blog will become additional hours you will spend within your business (or an employee will spend). You also need to consider that if you allow your readers to respond with comments then you need to allocate time to read and reply to these comments.

If we were to presume that your Blog is successful, then this could translate into a significant amount of time each week. However, if your Blog is successful then that would also be translating to expansion of your business and increased profits, and therefore becomes a solid investment.

Give yourself a break to work on your business instead of just in your business and think about what a Blog actually is and how they are operating within your own area of business already.
You may already be aware that the best way to succeed well in business is to find a niche. Will a Blog be a niche, can you expand to a niche incorporating a Blog or will it just become another chunk of text floating around out there in cyberspace or in the blogosphere?

So let’s take an example.
If my business area was Financial Advice, I would go to Technorati and do a search.
You may like to follow this along as a little tutorial, maybe first doing the search I am doing and then again searching on something within your actual field of business.
Into the search box I typed Australian Shares Investment.
Remember that you will not receive the same search results as I have, as new Blogs are being every minute and added to the possible search results.
When I did this search, on the first page of results I retrieved the pictured results.
I was offered a range of video clips and text Blogs.

As a Financial Adviser I would then need to spend time checking that information in these Blogs is accurate of course.
Keeping a track of my research will be incredibly beneficial. You could consider setting up a spreadsheet with headings such as:

These are suggested headings only, but would give you a way to track some information about each Blog and you could devise your own rating system to assist you in sorting this information later.
Now I can return to search again on other keywords that are relevant to my business and begin to estimate what the general quality of information being Blogged is, what level of audience participation is happening in the Blogs.
What you are doing here is market research – what is being Blogged out there on topics relevant to your industry? Is it just a load of hot air, or is it informative. Is it likely that you could contribute with your own Blog, and is your audience participation likely to turn into generation of income?

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Enough from me, if you have whetted your appetite now, here are some links to follow to satisfy that appetite for a first sitting.
BEWARE – Blogging is known to be addictive, so enter the world of Blogging at your own risk, and be prepared for the ride!

Technorati is one of the major Blog search engines. Here you can read about what Technorati and Blogs are.

Wikipedia is a popular online encyclopaedia using wiki technology. We will discuss wikis in further columns in the Northern Star, but for now you can read a little more about blogs here.

WordPress have a comprehensive article about not just Blogs but all the features that a Blog includes and how they can be used to your benefit and to your readers benefit.

Blogger Forum – beware you could easily lose hours perusing this site. It is a forum – a web discussion board – specifically dedicated to discussing Blogging.

Daily Blog Tips contains links to the top 25 sites on the web that discuss Blogging.

How Bloggers make money – this is an interesting article on a wide range of ways Bloggers can make money (and isn’t that why we would consider Blogging, fame is enjoyable, fortune is spendable!)

Sydney Morning Herald Sports Blog - this newspaper actually has an online sports blog

Worlds Best Blogs - Sydney Morning Herald have published a listing of the ‘best blogs’

The Australian has a blog section

Blogpond - top 100 Australian Blog sites listing

Media Blogs - The Daily Telegraph has a blog section

I hope that you don’t burn yourself out on information overload, but are able to come back here and leave a comment about your research!

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Blogging is a term that is widely used but is it understood?  What is it and can it help my business?

A blog (short for web log) is a website, with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or material such as graphics or video. Entries are usually displayed with the latest entry on the top. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content – to blog.

What makes a blog different from other web pages is the ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format.  They have become enormously popular in both the personal and the business world.
A major blog search engine Technorati is tracking more than 112 million blogs!

Blogging is essentially a way of publishing material to the web without having to know anything about web page design. Some institutions see blogging as a means of pushing messages directly to the public.
Blogs are categorised into Personal commentaries by individuals, and Business blogs for internal communication or external marketing and public relations.

For an example of how a blog has been incorporated into a local business, you could visit my blog that is linked to these columns. You will find an expansion of this column there.  You can examine a blog for yourself, leave a comment and I will reply. Last week several readers left valuable comments at the blog.
This weeks blog will include links to resources that will further assist you to investigate other blogs and tips on how to check what blogs are on the web within your own business area.
An important aspect of blogs is the RSS feed facility. Oh dear more jargon, I had better explain RSS next week!

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Well wouldn’t you know things always go this way.

After writing about backing up in the past week I had an interesting experience last week.

One morning, in a rush of course, I wanted to print something and the printer was not plugged into the electricity.
So I grabbed the lead, plugged it in and sparks went flying everywhere.
There was moment of sheer terror, but no, my computer (also plugged into the same power board) was fine.

Fortunately I have a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) and that saved all my equipment as it still managed to blow a house fuse.

It sure reminded me of the importance of back up - a disaster can happen that quickly!

Wouldn’t I have been embarrassed if I had caused a major data loss by not having a backup if it had blown out my computer!

I’m so pleased to be able to report that all is well in BITTS, no damage, no data loss and back ups in place.

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Backup is a secondary copy of computer files that stored outside of your working computer system.
This backup can be in many different forms, CD DVD, External Hard Drives, or websites depending on the amount and type of data in your business.
Data is all information saved in files on your computer system. This could be photos, emails, financial files and even your business plans.
One of the first lessons you learn about backing up your data is when you have a hard drive crash… or worst still your laptop or pc stolen.

Often businesses panic and start a back up procedure that is doomed to fail. Simple things like too many copies of files with no real meaning to the naming, to many different versions of the same version or too many people trying to backup the same information. A structured plan that suits your business is of up most importance… if not today but sometime in the future afterall your leaving your business in the hands of computer…
The second lesson is when you have started a backing up routine and the your hard drive crashes. At this stage your feeling really pleased that you have a backup only to find that the backup is corrupted or incomplete.
A couple of rules regarding backups:
1. Have a backup
2. Verify the backup is valid and complete. This may involve a planned recovery test.
3. Backup your data in several different mediums (DVD or External Hard drive) and in different locations. No sense having all your data backed up and in the same location if the building burns down.
4. Choose the method that suits your business. It may well be a simple as a DVD Burn every close of business through to Online remote continuous backup supported by “duplicated sites”.
5. File management throughout your business should be a high priority and constantly monitored. Centralised file management makes complete business data backup easier and generally more robust in the event requiring a full recovery to restore your information.
A lot of large scale commercial websites now offer online backup for a fee, but this still leaves the question if that site goes bankrupt or just vanishes so does your data. This thinking goes back to point 3 above have your data in different formats and locations… just think of the worst case scenario and then plan from there!
The following scenarios illustrate the need for backup in businesses.
* In 1997, during a fire at the headquarters of Credit Lyonnais, a major bank in Paris, system administrators ran into the burning building to rescue backup tapes because they didn’t have offsite copies. Crucial bank archives and computer data were lost.
* Privacy Rights Clearinghouse has documented 16 instances of stolen or lost backup tapes (among major organizations) in 2005 & 2006. Affected organizations included Bank of America, Ameritrade, Citigroup, and Time Warner.
* On 3 January 2008, an email server crashed at TeliaSonera, a major Nordic telecom company and internet service provider. It was subsequently discovered that the last serviceable backup set was from 15 December 2007. Three hundred thousand customer email accounts were affected.
These examples are from Wikipedia and you view the full entry on backups there.
BITTS provide information management consultancy services to businesses and can assist to formulate a robust backup plan.

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