Month: January 2009

It isn’t really Windows unless

I’ve download the beta release of Windows 7 and just installed it under a Hyper-V virtual machine and started to play with it. (I have to say again what a magic thing Hyper-V is).

So what’s the first thing you do when you install a new version of Windows? You check that all the critical applications are still there. So I checked and
 
yes, thank goodness Solitaire is still there in Windows 7. Phew. Even better it seems like there a few new games on offer as you can see from

 So, let me just test these ‘critical’ applications for a bit and let you know how I go with the ‘less’ important stuff in a coming post eh?

History lesson

I have always been a big fan of history. Not only do I find it interesting to help understand how we got where we are I believe that there are so many lessons to be learnt from history. Why? As simple as it sounds I firmly believe that history repeats itself over and over, with people making the same mistakes time and time again.

 

In that vain I came across the the following quote:

 

“Owners of capital will stimulate working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized and State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism.”
– Karl Marx, 1867

Seems everything old is new again eh? These words from Karl Marx couldn’t be truer than they are today, over 142 years later! (don’t know if we’ll go down the communism road again but you never know).

 

My point? Sometimes the best indication of the future comes from the past, because we seem unable to learn from the past so we are doomed to repeat the same mistakes. Think about your current situation, what can you learn from what you’ve seen before? What can you learn from others who may have seen it all before? The answers are there but most people choose to ignore them. Will you be one of them?

 

*** Update *** it would seem the quote from Marx is false. For details please the comments on this post for details. I appreciate the time taken to correct my history!

How much to give away?

Many years ago I never used to charge when customers called me up with issues that were relatively brief. Normally, I’d be out on site somewhere and actually documenting the time taken was too difficult. I realized over the years that I was missing out on a good deal of revenue and providing many people with a ‘free-ride’ that wasn’t being returned.

 

The situation improved once I started using SharePoint to track these calls. At the end of each month I’d look down a list and see how much in total each client had requested of me. This would allow me to provide them an appropriate invoice for the time and handle an queries about the charges should they arise.

 

Now there are still some things that we all give away for ‘free’ but the question is, should we? It is ok to give something away if eventually it is going to generate you some income I believe. Let’s say that you help someone on the phone, the hope is that they’ll keep coming back or at least tell someone else what a good job you did. I think the secret is that you need to track closely what you do indeed give away for free so you can determine whether it does in fact provide any return down the track. If it doesn’t then you should probably stop doing it.

 

The other issue with giving away free stuff (whether your time or knowledge) is if the receiver doesn’t know what they are getting for free, then any ‘value’ from your side is lost. In this economic climate I think that it is more important than ever to ensure that customers know exactly all the services you provide which they receive. It is important for them to understand that their ability to contact you directly or have their call returned in a very short period of time is why they pay the amount they do. You availability does have a price. If you don’t somehow communicate that benefit they are simply going to take it for granted and in that case you are giving away something for nothing!

 

Now more than ever it is important to examine ALL the products and services you provide, even if you don’t charge for them, because they all have value. The choice you make about what to charge and not charge for needs to be communicated so that everyone understands the value that is being provided.

 

So take some time and document all the benefits you provide customers, including the ‘free’ ones and then use it to communicate with clients and prospects alike. Some things that you give away for ‘free’ may actually bring you more business but won’t if you don’t let people know.

Delicious

Now I’m always amazed at how few people really use Web 2.0 applications apart from the obvious ones (i.e. Facebook). As such, I thought that I’d tell you about one of the most handy Web 2.0 applications I know of – Delicious.

 

Delicious is what’s known as a social bookmarking site. Now instead of saving my bookmarks to my browser I save them to Delicious. The first major benefit is that I can access these bookmarks from any Internet connection. Next, I can ‘tag’ each bookmark so that it can be easily sorted. Then I can subscribe to other users Delicious bookmarks so I can see what information they are bookmarking. For more about social bookmarking see this YouTube video:

 

Now if you interested, you’ll find my Delicious bookmarks at http://www.delicious.com/directorcia. You can choose to ‘join’ my network so when I bookmark stuff you’ll see it as well. The idea as more and more bookmark stuff they are able to find information that is relevant to them. It’s the whole idea behind Web 2.0.

 

You can add and edit you bookmarks via a webpage but you can also download Delicious plugins for FireFox and Internet Explorer, which makes bookmarking to Delicious as easy a bookmarking to your normal browser.

 

As I said, I find Delicious to be one of the most handy Web 2.0 applications I have come across and I use it everyday. If you don’t then I strongly suggest you take a look at what it may be able to do for you!

The ‘Distraction Virus’

Here’s yet another article about the negative effects of technology distractions on the workplace and society in general.

 

Some take aways:

“Training needs to include distraction coping mechanisms. Company training programs teach applications, and sometimes even productivity. But maybe it’s time to institute training programs that explicitly help people cope with online distractions.”

 

Couldn’t agree more. For example, most employees are simply ‘expected’ to know how to use emails. They are never trained or shown how to use it as a business tool. In most cases they don’t have time to learn how to use email programs like Outlook effectively so they simply use it in the most basic manner. This is hugely inefficient and takes a significant toll on the productivity of the business. With some simple training and guidance this can be easily overcome.

 

“Productivity means nothing if time gained is squandered”

 

You can save all the time in the world but if you spend that mindless surfing the web, YouTube, Facebook, blogs etc then it is a zero gain. The problem is that we have created technologies designed to distract and entice us away from our work and this trend is only going to increase.

 

“Think about the obesity problem. A century ago, America had the world’s healthiest population, tallest people and best food. Fast forward to today. The quality of food has declined as the quantity has increased. Now 60 percent of Americans are overweight, and a quarter clinically obese. And low-quality food is also making us shorter.”

 

This is very interesting analogy to what is happening on the Internet these days. The article talks about how the younger generation are being driven to distraction and likewise to under achievement. We are all feeding on a sugary diet of technology distraction that is causing us to waste our time mindlessly and fail to achieve our goals. Every day it is getting worse and the article laments the future, where like our diets, we have gorged ourselves beyond the point of no return.

 

Much like the growing obesity epidemic we now face a distraction epidemic that is ruining our productivity and our competitiveness. As the articles says:

 

“The individual, the company, the nation that is best at avoiding distractions in the future will have an enormous advantage in the competitive marketplace.”

I see the ‘distraction virus’ in so many businesses and most don’t even know they have it. For that reason I have created my Smarter productivity and Do less emails products. Also don’t forget my free The problems with emails document and Overcoming email frustrations books to help comprehend and combat distractions.

 

Clearly, we need to start changing the way we use technology or we are going to pay the price.

Mobility the key

Interesting that now the sales of laptop have surpassed desktops as this article says, isn’t it? And according to this article, 2009 is going to be the year of the smart phone. It seems everyone has taken to these Web 2.0 and social networking sites and want to be able to update them from anywhere. It also seems that it isn’t just the young’ns that are doing it, entire demographics are discovering the benefits of Web 2.0 technology.

 

To me it shows the trend that people want to be able to access their stuff where ever they are. They don’t want to be tied down to a desk, they want the freedom of being anywhere and still be able to access all their stuff through their mobile or wireless broadband connection. For me this is simply verification that at the back end cloud computing is becoming more and more important.

 

If you are a reseller then you really want to be taking close note of these trends and making sure that you are able to make revenue from them, because if you don’t then someone else will. Problem is as demand increases prices and margins get driven down so you need to consider your strategy carefully. Yet there is opportunity.

 

A good example of an innovative Web 2.0 application I recently found is Wesabe. It allows you to manage you accounts and bills but the innovative part of it is you can get advice from other on how to save money, where to buy the cheapest item, what specials are available. The whole idea is that by creating a “community” people can help each other not only achieve their financial goals but also save money. I think this concept is a very powerful part of Web 2.0 in that you are using the collective intelligence of the Internet community, which given the size of the Internet population is pretty powerful.

 

It is these trends that you can’t ignore. Even if you can’t understand why people are moving that way you have to accept that they are. If you want a piece of the action then you need to put aside your “technology prejudices” and look for the opportunities. As I have said before, if you are a technology reseller, decide whether you want to own a business or enjoy a hobby. If you want to own a business you have to move to where the demand is or you face being marginalized.

IT will suffer as well

Now I’m no economist but I must admit that I’m pretty sceptical when I hear people claim that the IT industry won’t suffer as much as other industries in this downturn. To further disprove that notion consider the following article from the Australian newspaper, which says in part:

 

THE IT industry suffered a major decline in job advertisements for 2008 recording a 37.17 per cent fall compared to 2007 figures.

 

The IT industry was the fifth worst affected market for job advertisements…

The tech industry has performed worse than the general economic situation because these jobs tend to be more caught up with global organisations that are taking financial hits in all global markets..

Like I said I’m no economist but times in tech are going to be tough, if not now then real soon. The first half of 2009 is going to see some major changes in the way businesses operate and will operate in the future. If you are an IT reseller then you need to be making adjustments to your business now. You need to be minimizing expenses, watching your cashflow and looking for alternate sources of income to name just a few.

 

If you fail to this your chances of running into problems is much greater and you’ll have less room to make adjustments then. Sure you love technology and prefer to ignore the “business-stuff” but guess what? If your business goes bust, then you’ll be on the unemployment lines and if you only have IT skills then I’m sorry to report (as the above says) there is over a 35% drop in IT jobs on offer. Good luck finding work.

 

So do something NOW to ensure your business survival. We all have to do things we don’t like in life but in the long run it may mean you can continue doing what you love.

I’m sick of patching

You know that you’ve go to do it. You know that it could cause problems with yours and your customers systems but all good tech people know that it is just a part of life. Sigh.

 

A recent post from Susan Bradley detailing recommendations of how resellers should approach patching just confirms to me why I want someone else to do this. There is just so much time and hassle involved it demonstrates to me that we have built our technology on shaky ground. I acknowledge that patching applies to all software simply because it is developed by fallible human beings but man, you’d think it would be getting better. Even if you aren’t a techie read the post and consider that someone should be doing this for all your systems at least every month. What a waste or time and money but without doubt it needs to be done. Sigh.

 

The most likely reason is that because technology is so pervasive these days it means it has to support people who have software from pre-Y2K to 2009. That’s a hell of a lot of software and when you start mixing and matching it on different PC’s, that an even greater number of variations you have to account for and patch.

 

I can see why customers believe that there is conspiracy going on here between developers and IT professionals. Not only do they have to pay for the software they also generally have to pay for someone to update it and debug and issues that arise. To a customer this is painful and seems to happen on a never ending basis.

 

Again, it confirms to me why cloud computing is so appealing from a customers point of view. Any updates are applied on someone else’s hardware and they don’t have to worry, it is all part of the monthly fee. Sure, many resellers make money out of offering update services but I reckon many customers don’t have this service and many probably don’t want to pay for it anyway. It is always tough to sell a service that simply maintains the status quo. To be more effective maybe you are better off simply selling a repair service and making money when the client finally appreciates they should have done something. I’ll guarantee you’ll have their full attention then!

 

Honestly, this is all getting far to hard. Honestly, you gotta wonder whether these IT systems are really making any return on investment given the constant maintenance that is involved. Honestly, I’m sick of testing patches on multiple systems before I apply them in production. Honestly, I’m sick of the downtime they cause. Honestly, I want it to be someone else’s problem because it is all just too much work and it is preventing me from doing my work!