We answer a lot of questions every week about online marketing. Those conversations usually start with something like: Why doesn’t my Web site show up in a Google search? Why do my competitors all rank above my Web site? Why don’t I get any leads from the Internet? The leads I get from the Internet are all spam e-mails so why should I waste time trying to get more?
These are not simple questions to answer and usually involve a combination of technical issues (design, coding), content and financial reality (limited marketing dollars). But you might be surprised at how much can be done with a relatively small budget, and some regular attention to updating your information.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Mostly Marketing
The Firefox Web browser is quickly becoming the only software you really need on your computer. And that will make lots of people happy because it will simplify their lives.
Firefox showing my current add-ons
The online replacements (think Google Apps or Zoho) for your basic desktop office software like word processing, spreadsheets, project management, accounting, and e-mail are getting good enough to replace their desktop cousins. They work in Firefox and any other Web browser, saving users the trouble of buying, installing, and constantly upgrading their programs. But where Firefox really outdoes the competition is the huge collection of "Add-ons." There are thousands of add-ons available at the Firefox Web site. These add-ons can replace almost all the other software people normally have installed on their computers.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Mostly Tech
We have been proponents of Google’s mail service almost since the day it was announced. Low cost (or free), huge storage space, secure IMAP, plus all the resources of Google to keep making it better. Over the past couple of years we’ve helped a number of companies move off of costly private mail systems, and everyone has been happy with the result.
But, no matter how big Google, Amazon, Yahoo, or anyone else gets, or how much money they have, their services will eventually go down. Volumes have been written in just the past week about Google’s Gmail outage. Read the official Google blog post, or yesterday’s Wall Street Journal story.
So this seems like a good time to encourage our readers to take time this weekend to pick up some new ideas to help make your e-mail more reliable, and use a nice free program to back up all of your Google mail.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Mostly Tech
Everywhere you look these days there are stories about social media in general, and Twitter in particular. Just a few examples are: Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Advertising Age (here, here, here, and many more).
Nobody knows where this is all heading and there isn’t any road map to help guide your particular business. But there are a few things that are already clear:
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Mostly Marketing
We’ve written about the dreaded employee performance review before. NPR’s Morning Edition today had a story about the annual performance review process. The transcript should be online to read soon, but you can listen to the piece online now: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=100746960
Posted in Business
We received a REDFLY Smartphone Terminal for testing today and started writing this review while unpacking so we wouldn’t forget anything important. This installment will only cover the basics and first impressions. We’ll post more comments after living with it for a week or so.
REDFLY Model C7
For anyone that doesn’t know, the REDFLY is basically a dumb terminal for your Windows Mobile phone – a screen and keyboard with no ability to run software on its own. The manufacturer’s Web site (http://celiocorp.com ) says “no OS, no CPU, and no storage” but I don’t believe that. There’s clearly some logic in this thing, and the documentation says that I might have to download firmware to match the drivers being installed on the phone. So there’s some OS and some processor, we’ll just have to figure out what it is on our own.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Mostly Tech
I was having lunch with a friend the other day when he started complaining about the upcoming employee review process at his company. He was already spending hours filling out the review forms for his direct reports, and this year was going to be more stressful than usual. Business is down, and expected to remain slow for quite a while, so he’s going to have to lay off several people that actually did a good job this past year. Needless to say, his own performance is suffering right now and his staff is probably spending too much time, at work and at home, stressing about this situation.
Only an HR person could love the annual performance review ritual. Everyone else hates it. Why should good work go unrewarded for up to a year? And why on earth would anyone put off a reprimand, remedial training suggestions, or regular mentoring until some artificial date in the future? If there’s a genuine, healthy dialog between boss and worker, as there should be, then issues are addressed as they come up and there’s nothing left to discuss at the "annual review." If problems are left festering the boss isn’t doing his or her job. Hard/good work that isn’t rewarded promptly with bonuses or salary adjustments just fosters resentment and causes higher employee turnover.
Anyway, yesterday’s Wall Street Journal has an article written by Dr. Samual Culbert, a consultant, author and professor of management at the UCLA Anderson School of Management in LA. He says "It destroys morale, kills teamwork and hurts the bottom line. And that’s just for starters. " The article is entitled "Get rid of the performance review! " and you should read it before subjecting your team to another round of reviews.
Posted in Business
Some of my most productive time, that is, when I can really think undisturbed by phones or other people, is when I’m riding my bicycle or driving alone. Unfortunately, those are also about the only times that I’m unable to capture my half-baked ideas on my business planning napkin, or compose that new blog entry on my computer. Some people read and send text messages while driving, but that isn’t very healthy.
A new company called Jott (http://www.jott.com ) has come up with an easy and clever solution for using the phone to create e-mail, text messages and calendar appointments. Or as they put it "Turn your words into action."
The Jott service recently came out of beta and the service works as advertised. In fact, it’s uncanny in its ability to accurately transcribe your messages. They say they use a combination of computerized text-to-speach, and human operators. My guess is that computers handle the easy stuff like dates and times, and that real people transcribe the actual messages.
Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Mostly Tech
