If you wanted to divide the planet Earth in half, you simply have to ask each person if they feel Social Media is useful or wasteful.  I hear many adults claim that this is just sheer nonsense, a waste of time, intrusive, silly, and much harsher descriptors than this. These are the people who certainly do not see the value of getting a personal profile: they don’t understand how someone can forego their privacy and announce the happenings in their personal lives. And business? Surely you can’t expect real business to be exchanged over funny stories and personal photos.

You’ll find me sitting in the other side of the planet.

I’m the social media fan who relishes the fact that I’ve become reacquainted with many folks I had known years before; I’ve become more familiar with new business associates and made friends out of clients. I, for one, love seeing family photos and learning more about people.

I also fully appreciate that business IS transacted as a result of social relationships. In the old days (and I’m guessing it’s still true), it was said more business was transacted on the golf course than in a board room. No one questioned that for decades, but suddenly people are closing their minds to the possibility that a new venue might be muscling in, simply because it’s virtual.

No, you won’t put up a profile and fan page and expect people to order your products directly. It’s against the rules, and quite frankly, very gauche. Instead, you will need to understand that social media is a way for your potential clients to understand your business because they can now glimpse into your world and understand you. It’s a way for you to share information with your client base and even more importantly, it’s a way for your clients to educate you on what they need.

If you don’t wish your clients to get to know you, then you are waving goodbye to potentially productive business relationships. Stop rolling down the shades and slamming the doors to business opportunities. Business is run by PEOPLE, and people thrive on relationships, and relationships abound in social media.

If you still don’t get it, then be prepared for business to simply pass you by…

Which side of the planet are you on? If you agree or disagree, tell me why by posting your comments here.

This is a principle we’ve been teaching in our Tech Coaching practice. We cover it more in depth in our “Reclaim Your Work Week Sanity” workshop, but it’s too powerful not to share with everyone.

As you suspected, SOAR is an acronym (what can I say, I come from a Corporate IT environment) I developed. It stands for

Self
Office Management
Appointments
Review

When deciding how to book your day, week, or month, use this rule to determine how to block off pockets of time in the proper priority.

Self first – if you don’t take care of yourself, your business will suffer.
Office Management – take the time to schedule activities to build your company’s infrastructure.
Appointments – with the time left open, block off sufficient time slots where you can take care of your customers.
Review, Revise, Recalculate, Reschedule – get back on track

Why not put customers first?

Imagine this. You need new tires, so you walk into an Auto Parts store. You look around, and the shelves are empty for all but 3 tires. When you walk up to the store owner to ask what happened to all the other tires, he sneezes, blows his nose, takes a bite out of a candy bar, and tells you he’s been too busy to order the appropriate supplies.

Your response:  Thank you. And you walk out, wondering why he came in if he’s just going to sneeze on customers and not have any products to offer.

If our Tire Guy had taken better care of his health AND his office management, he would have been healthy (or stayed home sick) and would have a store full of tires to offer for sale.

A bit dramatic, but you get the point: take care of the business owner first, and then the business,  so when the customer does come to call, his or her experience will be great, not disappointing.

The Review piece is our acknowledgment of how new things get thrown into our neat plans – so recognize that, and work with it. Just as your GPS recalculates a new route when you hit a detour, so should you be prepared to recalculate your day’s, week’s, or month’s plan in response to those work detours.

If you’d like to learn how to put this into practice using MS Outlook as the Mission Control of your business, contact me for details of the upcoming workshops.

Quick – without looking – estimate the number of messages in your inbox right now. 30? 300? If the answer is closer to 3000, did it really surprise you?

You’re lucky some men in black don’t show up on your doorstep to arrest you as an Inbox Abuser. Look, the truth is, you’re mis-using your Email Inbox, and you’re only hurting yourself. If you ask the average person why there’s so many messages in the inbox, you’ll get such answers as, “they’re to remind me of stuff I need to do”; and “there’s information in there I need to refer back to”.

Sound familiar? These statements indicate that the inbox is used as a catch-all, where it is supposed to do the work of a task list and a reference system.

If you are a business person and use Outlook as your company’s communications control center, congratulations, you’ve made the right software choice. However, you still need to learn how to use it properly. Outlook is not only an email center, it contains a whole functionality devoted to Tasks and tracking open items. It has the ability to create a complete reference system. Your appointments and events are tracked in the Calendar and your contact information have a sophisticated address book functionality. All this in one neat package, but still, people insist on cramming all their electronic belongings in one bucket.

Picture this – you go outside to your mailbox after your mail carrier has made the rounds. You open the little door, pull out the mail pieces, review them, take out a copy of items to answer immediately and push the rest back in. The next day you do it again, each day, taking out a small number of mail pieces and pushing the rest back in. It won’t be long before you’ll receive a slip in your mailbox, letting you know your pieces could not be delivered because your mailbox was full – please come to the post office and get it yourself.

Since you wouldn’t dream of doing this to the paper mail delivered to your house, why let your business suffer in this exact matter? Yes, an empty inbox is not only possible, that is the way businesses should operate – because items in your inbox are neglected items – is this how to run a productive business?

Outlook training does not mean, “how to send and receive email”. Outlook training is about how to process the flood of information coming in to your business every day. Contact us for help before you waste another year with a crammed inbox and the inability to find anything!

If you’re in the Morris County area, consider this workshop. If you’re outside the area, we’ll be holding remote workshops throughout the year.

Strip off What you Don’t Want.

You’ve been craving one, hinting about one, even whining to all who would hear… and now Santa has brought you what you coveted – a shiny new Netbook. You power it on —and stare at it. What to do now?  Here are some tips that’ll make that baby truly yours and keep you occupied for a bit.

Netbooks don’t come “empty” – there are plenty of goodies pre-installed. Peruse the selection and go to the Control Panel to remove the applications and trial versions you don’t want. Let’s make room for the cool stuff!

Create Your Power Plan.

Having it go to sleep or dim when you’d rather it stay awake and bright is annoying – so at the Control Panel, modify an existing power plan or create your own. You can choose what happens when you close the lid or walk away for a few minutes or hours. Decide whether you prefer performance or battery life.

Download Free Goodies.

Surf With Style.  Internet Explorer is not the best or most exciting browser by far, so take the opportunity to download 1 or 2 others: I recommend Mozilla Firefox and Google Chrome. Chrome is quickly becoming my favorite, as it is instinctual and conducive to surfing. Their search bar and address bar is the same spot, so now you don’t need to type in the URL exactly – the power of Google goes to work as you type, letting you arrive at your destination faster.

Email with Ease.  There’s no email program there, so either go to Gmail, or download a free program such as Mozilla Thunderbird or Windows Live Mail. Avoid downloading really large programs that take up a monstrous amount of computer resources such as the AOL desktop software.

Stalk Yourself.  Install LogMeIn Free, which, when downloaded onto your main computer as well, will give you the convenience of peeking at one computer from the other.

Chat and Smile.  Most Netbooks come with a webcam, which makes live conversations much more fun. Download a free chat app such as Google Talk, Skype, or AIM. When the other party also has a webcam, it makes picking up the telephone a thing of the past.

Move Into a New Office. Some Netbooks come with a trial version of MS Office 2007, but instead of falling into that 30 day tease, why not be daring and go in another direction? Download and install Open Office, which is an entirely free suite of programs that do the same job as the Microsoft products. Or, peek into the future by grabbing yourself a copy of the Beta version of MS Office 2010! Cool stuff there, and the trial period is longer than average.

Need help with this and more? We can coach you on-site or remotely – what’s a headache for others is fun stuff for us!

How many times have you been away from your desk when an important thought has struck you, or you suddenly remembered a task that needs to be accounted for?  Most likely, you’ll say something like this to yourself, “oh man, I can’t forget to jot down this task once I get to my desk”. Or – you’ll pull out a slip of paper or napkin and write it down – only to lose it or forget all about it by the time you’re at your desk again.

We’ve all heard the phrases “being productive” and “getting things done”. The Time Management gurus love to pontificate about how to balance your to-do list with your available time. Without going into the theories behind that sore subject, one tool that has made an immense difference in my ability to get anywhere near what I can call productive is Hosted Exchange.

The fact that I can utilize my smartphone (BlackBerry) to enter appointments, tasks and answer emails, and within a few short minutes, the data appears on my desktop without any manual intervention is almost magical. Most of us are walking around with “I have to’s” whirling around our heads like a maniacal carousel. Hosted Exchange allows me to dump those thoughts in my Blackberry tasks or Outlook tasks, and know that both those receptacles will be in sync by themselves in just a few moments.

Let Your BlackBerry Talk to Your Computer Behind Your Back

Let’s think about this – as if you didn’t have enough items on your to-do list – now you have to add – ‘remember to sync your phone with your computer’ as a recurring task at least 3 times a day. Who needs something extra to do when you’re trying to increase your productivity rate???

So – Hosted Exchange to the rescue. Now my emails are synchronized in multiple computers plus my smartphone with no additional “have to remember to”s. They’re just there. Well worth the very reasonable monthly charge for that peace of mind.

Hosted Exchange is one of those tools that you’re not sure that you really need – then once you have it you have no idea how you possibly could have managed without it.

If you already have experienced the frustration of looking at an out of date calendar, or over-booking yourself, or losing track of an important task or feel out of touch with your teammates, Hosted Exchange is well worth considering and learning more about.

What are your thoughts on this?

Of all the technological advances of the last 20 years, there is one that shines above all others. Even more wonderful than the invention of the microwave or EZ-Pass, is the thoroughly efficient joy of online shopping.

There’s nothing easier and more comfortable than wearing your soft fuzzy flannels and sipping coffee while choosing your items with a few clicks of a mouse.

Now let’s consider the alternative – driving around and around a crowded mall parking lot, looking for a spot. Finding one – approximately 1/2 a mile away from the entrance.

Getting into the mall, by virtue of squeezing through the throngs of people who also don’t want to be there as much as you do.  And waiting on a checkout line for 20 minutes just to pay for an item? Fuggetaboutit!

Now my way to shop for holiday gifts is to go straight to Amazon. With a list in front of me (or not), I maneuver my way around tons of options, descriptions, pictures, and reviews, never leaving my chair, not having to put down the coffee cup.

Some relatives have shared their Amazon wish list with me, so that even makes it easier. When it’s time to check out, I can send some parcels to other addresses, the rest to my home. That’s it, I’m done. I can relax, knowing most items will be here within the week.

Santa never had it so easy!

If you’re already a “follower’, “fan” or “connection” in several social media sites, chances are you’re considering the glimmering temptation of copying your status updates from one site to another. Many of the sites offer you the temptation to save time by just updating their site, and through the magic of the web, your update shows up in another site as well. It’s a great strategy for THEM – “no need for you to go elsewhere, we’ll get the job done for you”.

Hurray! a way to save time! Increase efficiency! Why, if you can get this done, no telling what’s next – finally filing away the paper tower on your desk? Cleaning out the garage?

But let’s stop and think of this “ability” to slap your tweets face down in a copier and having the duplicates appear on facebook and linkedin…

You want to consider what a follower of yours will see.  There are a couple of individuals I know and like who do tie in everything together, so I see 3 FaceBook statuses, all saying the same thing, listed in a row, because she connected 2 other tools to FaceBook and then posted the same status in FaceBook. So why would you want someone looking at 3 identical posts in a row?

This is great for people who just want to create one  update from one source, and have it spread out to the other sites, but again, if I’m following you on 2 or 3 sites, I’ll see that your status is the same everywhere.

So – human perception being what it is, it comes across negatively, as someone who just can’t be bothered beyond the most minimal effort manageable and splattering one marketing message everywhere.  Our human emotions give it one grim verdict: lazy.

I did fall for that strategy myself at first; you gotta admit, it is tempting! But after just a few days, I thought better of it and disconnected everything.

Honestly, a FaceBook or LinkedIn status takes – what – 5 minutes of your life? People complain about it as though it were a thesis paper. If you use 5 tools, update one tool per day, first thing in the morning or last thing at night, and that’s it. Much more pleasant in my eyes than paying $600 to $2000 for a newspaper ad that winds up in the bottom of someone’s hamster cage, right?

Did Microsoft finally get it right? That seems to be the word on the IT Street.  It appears they have learned their lesson from the negative feedback on Vista, the sales on the XP-loaded netbooks, and the lost sales to Apple.

I admit, I was skeptical, and I have only tried it out on a friend’s computer over the weekend, but I liked what I saw.  Being a skeptic means I was not about to run out and buy it right away. My plan is always to wait several months and let others find the bugs.

However, this time, I’m actually allowing myself to get excited at the prospect of a “makeover” for my Vista machine.

I love the concept of the Jump Lists on the Start Menu, the customizable notification area in the task bar, and the ability to control the paranoia level on the User Account Control. I appreciate the gadgets’ being set free from the sidebar, and the new evolution of the Quick Launch bar. And I’ll admit, I LOVE the slideshow on the desktop. It’s cosmetic, but every little thing comes together to improve the client experience.

So, that being said, for those of you who were hanging on to elderly XP machines on life support, it’s finally time to get out there and shop for its replacement. If you would like a few suggestions, take a look at our Buying Suggestions Page on our website.

Even my cranky partner, who is all-Mac, has bought W7 and likes using it. That’s saying a lot!  I’ll check back in a few weeks and see if I still approve of this OS.

What’s your experience been? Have you installed W7 on your present machine? Purchased on a new computer with it loaded? How do you like it in comparison to XP or Vista? Please post your comments!

One of the most overlooked features in Windows is the User Accounts in the Control Panel. The typical family scenario is to buy a computer and have all the family members use it in turn, with only one log in account set up.  However, not only can separate user accounts for each user provide several advantages, it could save your hide some day.

The advantages include allowing each user to have their own Documents folder (pictures, also); email inbox; customized desktop and icons; and improved security.  If a household contains children (including college age!) the safest approach is to make mom’s and dad’s accounts Administrator status, and password protect them; the children’s accounts should be set up as users. This means, among other things, that they have no right to download material from the internet onto the hard drive without an administrator’s permission.

Beyond regular users of the computer, it’s always good practice to have a limited Guest account for those visitors who need to check their email while at your home. Never give a Guest Administrator rights!

For those of us whose home is also our principle place of business, and whose machine is, by necessity, shared by the family, having password protected user accounts is crucial to the safety of our customer data. No well meaning family member or visitor will accidentally write over my info if my User Account is tucked away and protected.

In addition, the User Account feature can also save the day when one of the files or drivers in a user account becomes corrupted. Just recently, my computer crashed and restarted 6 times in a row – I couldn’t get Windows to stick. Finally, in Safe Mode, I backed up all my data onto an external hard drive, created a brand new user account, gave it Administrator privileges, and rebooted into that Account. Perfect. No sign of trouble.

A couple of hours of copying the old data back into the new user account, re-tweaking some default settings, and I’m back in business. If I live with this new User Account for several days without issues, I’ll simply delete the old one. Problem managed.

Now wouldn’t it be great if this ability to change your computer persona translated into real life? You gained a few pounds over the holidays or got talked into getting a tattoo…. No problem, just create a new You…

There are so many software applications out there, that it’s tough to decide what tool to use for what project; the choices are so overwhelming, that we tend to go with the path of least resistance and use the same programs we’ve been used to using. I encounter business owners billing their clients from a Word document, or keeping track of people they meet in an Excel spreadsheet. Let’s face it – you could eat your dinner by sitting on the floor and propping your dinner plate up on a chair – but wouldn’t it be easier to use the chair for sitting and the table for holding the plate?

As technology coaches, we enjoy poking into new software tools to analyze its usefulness and give it our thumbs up or thumbs down. Sometimes a software program is even worth a second look.

Case in point: when someone told me about Microsoft One Note, I bought it and tried it out. It seemed odd, unfamiliar, and …well…ok. I couldn’t really get my hands around the real need for it. I abandoned it for months until a conversation with a fellow business owner brought this to light: our heads are always filled with all the ideas and tasks and projects and obligations that need to be met to run the business on a day to day basis – is there something out there that can help us organize these thoughts and tidbits of information so we don’t lose our minds (completely)?

That plea prompted me to go back into MS One Note. This time, with a clear mission in mind, I went about filling in one “notebook”, then another, and yet a third. Finally, a place to gather up my many thoughts, account information, project goals, plans, website clippings, etc, in a structured, easy to look up location. I couldn’t believe that there was a software that could capture all kinds of “loose information” like a bucket of loose change, and have it all neatly available in pages and sections and notebooks.

If you’re not a Microsoft fan, all is not lost. There are web based applications you can download from the internet for free or for a small monthly fee that are designed to accomplish the same goals as One Note.  Check out evernote.com for a good non-MS alternative, especially if you’re a Mac user. They give you the ability to either run it off the internet or download it onto your hard drive.  Either way, it’s an attractively designed user interface to help you collect scattered info.

Bottom line, there’s a software application for just about every issue you need to solve, every idea you want to pursue, or every goal you want to meet. You either need patience to search for the right one, or the guidance of a Technology Coach doing working alongside you.

Is there an issue or a goal you don’t seem to find the right software for? Let me know and we’ll solve it together.