Business networking

Social networks are all the rage today for people meeting people, but what is available for us businesses?
LinkedIn is a business people network with benefits for you personally as well as business-wise.
Take a look at this short, funny video on how these social networks work and how they can be beneficial. www.commoncraft.com/video-social-networking

Screen recording make quick work of training others

We answer dozens of questions each day from users. Most of these questions come in the form of "how do I do this?" and take just a few minutes to explain over the phone. However, that is a few minutes each and every time the question is asked. That's a waste after the first time and expensive for the customer.

There is a convenient, inexpensive way to answer these questions even better: screen recording.

TechSmith's Camtasia and DebugMode's Wink are two products that allow you to record what you are doing on your computer screen and record your narrative as you are doing it. The result is a short movie file or Flash movie which can be emailed, burned to CD or stored on your website which contains a visual and audible guide for the user.

They see a short clip that shows them exactly what to do on the screen and provides your voice guidance as to how to do it. You can include tips, pitfalls to watch out for and even suggestions as part of the voice recording.

We use Camtasia to record short training clips. We send these to our support desk callers when they ask a question and then we post them on our website so the next user who needs the same answer can find it on their own without needing to call us. That makes our "interactive support" available 24x7x365 for almost no cost.

An example of our use of Camtasia is here: Registering for the DeepRun BNI website

Camtasia, a commercial product, is available for MS Windows. Wink is freeware and is available for use on MS Windows as well as Linux x86.

TechSmith's Camtasia
DebugMode's Wink

IM makes people more efficient

AOL fostered a new craze when their AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) made it easy for everyone to send a quick message to a friend or colleague. These impromptu sessions are very much like a phone call or a quick walk to someone else's cube, but without the physical aspects.

In literally seconds, you can start a conversation or ask a question of someone else. If they are available and have a moment, they can quickly respond. If not, your message will stay on their screen, like a voice mail or Post-It note, until they come back. At that point they can pick up the conversation easily and answer your question.

I know this sounds terribly simple, but the real power of these tiny, short, ad hoc conversations is how efficient they can be and how much productivity you can get without much interruption. Instead of stopping typing and looking away from the screen, picking up the phone and dialing someone's number, saying "hello" and asking a question, you just get right to asking the question.

That is very efficient on the sender's side, but even more efficient on the responder's side. They can be working on something else or taking a different phone call, get your quick message in a tiny window, and respond as they have time with little effort or distraction.

Here at our office, the staff and programmers shoot tiny questions and comments back and forth hundreds of times a day. For the Generation Y staff, they feel comfortable managing multiple conversations over IM, email and phone simultaneously. Those of us managing the staff have to remember that the younger generations can most definitely handle this level of multi-tasking and, to a great degree, expect it.

As far as which IM client is best, I've found the free packages like GAIM and Pidgin give you all the capabilities you need without all the advertising baggage that AIM, MSN and Yahoo bring along. Both GAIM and Pidgin are Open Source projects available from SourceForge, can connect to multiple services (AOL, Microsoft, Jabber, Yahoo, IRC, etc.) and support multiple user accounts from one client. Free, easy, popular, and flexible; a great combination.

You may be concerned about how much personal time might be wasted by opening IM to everyone in the office. You can certainly restrict who can reach which servers and thereby limit the conversations to just your office staff, but I've found that a little time spent gossiping with friends or coordinating with spouses for family logistics is a tiny price to pay when you unlock the hidden productivity you get from everyone using IM. If you still have to be secure or limit the reach of IM, you can use firewalls and chat servers to restrict their use without diluting the benefits too much.

Free software that delivers solid productivity gains and fosters rapid communication. What could be better?

Pidgin, the Open Source instant messenger client for AOL, MSN, Yahoo, Jabber, etc.
AIM, AOL's instant messenger client
Windows Live Messenger, MSN's instant messaging client

Capturing ideas from the whiteboard

Whiteboards are a tool, a springboard for communicating ideas quickly and effectively. Taking a discussion around a table to the whiteboard often eliminates confusion, expresses ideas more clearly and overcomes the barriers of terminology by using images and relationships to convey one's meaning.
I once took a lower-paying job when that company had whiteboards in every office over a better job for a larger firm. The company with the whiteboards were actively using them, even in the presidents office, and that told me the company was interested in communicating more effectively and using ideas and innovation to foster success. That was the best job choice I've ever made.
Once an idea is communicated, though, recording the contents of the whiteboard for further dissemination and documentation if often fraught with trouble. Electronic whiteboards cost too much and rarely work as easily as they need to in order to be useful.
If recording the contents of a whiteboards is too difficult, the usefulness of the whiteboard is limited dramatically.
I've worked in many companies where some technology solution had been integrated into the whiteboard and I've never seen it work without significant effort. Even the Pentagon itself where money is no issue could not find a solution that works simply and easily enough to use every day.
But there is a solution.
Digital cameras have gotten so cheap and so good that you can take a high resolution image of a whiteboard in seconds and transfer it to your computer without special hardware, software or effort. Unfortunately, the resulting image is often yellowed from bad office lighting and the board is typically skewed due to holding the camera at a angle to capture the entire whiteboard.
Unless you are really good in PhotoShop, transforming this poorly-lit digital image of the whiteboard can be just as time-consuming as manually copying the whiteboard in the first place.
Well, there is an effective, efficient answer out there.
PolyVision makes a software product called "Whiteboard Photo Note Capturing Software" that is specifically designed to take these off-kilter, dark, yellow images, clean them up, straighten them out, and make them perfect for printing, inclusion in documents or simply storing on the network.
This product was called Pixid in the past, but PolyVision's relabeled product is identical. While $261 may seems expensive, you'll find that the ability to capture ideas and diagrams is well worth the investment. you can now leverage whiteboards to foster innovation and communication and then record those ideas instantly for broader use.
Whiteboards + Pixid = easy idea sharing
http://www.polyvision.com/products/wbp.asp

Putting I.T. to work

Businesses use computers and technology everyday, but few really take advantage of Information Technology (I.T.) for serious competitive advantage or substantial productivity increases. If you feel you're missing the real value of computers or that your competitors are doing more than you are, read on. This column is for you.
I've been helping businesses discover the real potential of technology, software, and systems for over twenty years. Product development, consulting and teaching have given me many opportunities to see how all sizes of businesses and individuals harness the power of computers as well as how they combine various bits and pieces into a new tools to accomplish some really amazing feats.
Tune in often to hear how you can better understand what is available in I.T. and how to bend it to higher productivity and success.