Posts Tagged ‘Technology’
Two Key Factors To Your Social Media Success
Technology is growing at an exponential rate; we truly have no way of keeping up via traditional means when it comes to tracking. Organizations struggle to stay focused, struggle to maintain, and struggle to provide systems and services that meet their business objectives. The shift in how business gets done is making it more and more difficult to maintain profit margins and business lifestyles that most are accustom to.
Today’s I.T. Strategic Planning is shedding its skin and taking on a new look and meaning. Ramping up I.T. staff is no longer the norm; reducing I.T. Teams and virtualization is; it allows organizations to be more financially responsible. CIO’s have a tougher time justifying their existence, the role is becoming more and more extinct, and is easily handled without the large investment in overhead. As much as it pains me to say that, I have to accept the new landscape of how Information Technology is implemented and managed. There’s still a need for CIO’s in large organizations but new companies are building streamlined teams, technology allows for startups to have fewer management roles. This new model allows for higher profits and less management of people.
Customer service is making a huge shift in what it means, Customer Service or Support is NOT fixing or adding a new feature, it is about Communication and Solving problems. This gap is hurting far too many businesses, they need to pay attention and listen to what their customers are saying about them, what they want from them.
Small businesses are literally taking a fetal position when it comes to understanding the change taking place, that the Internet is empowering the individual rather than the large organization. The power of the person has been lifted to a level no one saw coming, all because of the Internet. The Internet is the game changer; the Internet was and is clearly misunderstood by the smaller Mom & Pop businesses. The Internet solved the problem of digital distribution, this is an Access Based Economy where we click to get. The transition for small business can be easy to most difficult, undertsanding technology or how technology will help them is the key.
If there ever was a need in your local marketplace it’s helping those small business understand that they won’t be able to continue as they have and enjoy the life they hoped to build when they opened the doors. More importantly, those business owners need to learn about humility, be willing to say they don’t understand and do indeed need help with the Internet. Most small business owners had an Entrepreneurial Seizure, they thought because they knew how to do the work they knew how to run a business. I recommend reading Michael Gerber’s book, The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It
Today a couple of things scream for attention in my humble opinion:
1. Listening – Listen to what is being said about your brand and or business.
2. Filtering Content is more important than creating it.
Listening & Filtering Content are two key factors to your Social Media success, small & big businesses at large still haven’t grasped these two concepts with any kind of clarity.
We are in an Extreme Reputation Economy, popularity is becoming a Social Capital, and it will be as valuable as real money in the coming months if it hasn’t happened already. How you present yourself, your product, and your business will generate a reputation, take the time to craft your reputation.
What do you think?
I.T. Strategic Planning – ANALYSIS: S.W.O.T.
S.W.O.T.
This section may answer some question but will also bring out more, consider it an opportunity to think tank with your team. The S.W.O.T (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats) gives a quick reference to things that may or may not be real, but are possibilities. The accumulation of all these steps builds a road map, an understanding, and makes it possible to explain or describe where you are going in a short concise way, and makes it obvious what you are planning to do in the coming month’s and or years.
Keep in mind there is no wrong or right answer here, you are merely compiling and observing your organizations current status. This is just one step on the journey, one step in building a business case, and one more step in assessing what services and changes are needed to support your organizations business requirements. The basics rarely change, only the technology does, and of course there is always a list of nice to haves, documenting everything helps you filter what’s important and what is not.
Again, this list will be different…it should be as technology and business needs change. Here is an example:
Strengths
1. Minimal Core Infrastructure (name your application here)
2. New, enthusiastic team
3. Knowledge
4. Relationships
5. History
Weaknesses
1. 85% of staff are new to the organization
2. Unable to meet the expectations (Can’t move fast enough to please everyone)
3. Network instability
4. Lack of integration of core applications
Opportunities
1. Social Media Networks
2. Open Source
3. Standardization
4. Partnering
5. Virtualization
Threats
1. Inability to compete for qualified skilled people
2. Security – hacking, spam etc.
3. Inadequate budget
4. Little control over vendor products or direction
5. Little control over technologies
This is just an example of what your S.W.O.T. might look like, pull your team together and ask all the tough questions, make an exhaustive list and then pick the top 5 from each of the 4 areas in your SWOT.
This is the prime definition taken from the Wikipedia site on SWOT Analysis:
SWOT Analysis is a strategic planning method used to evaluate the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats involved in a project or in a business venture. It involves specifying the objective of the business venture or project and identifying the internal and external factors that are favorable and unfavorable to achieving that objective. The technique is credited to Albert Humphrey, who led a convention at Stanford University in the 1960s and 1970s using data from Fortune 500 companies.
Until next time
How I Monetize My Blog Part 1
Lately I have been getting asked (what feels like a million times), the question of how I make money with my blog. Or, can you (I) monetize my blog? Ironically, I attended a local Blogger’s Event this week and two questions were the focus, do you have a blog and do you monetize it? I’ll cover what I do on this Blog.
First a disclaimer….This post is NOT a get rich, a how to make a million in 30 days and it’s not the only way to make money with a blog. I am not claiming or promising you a thing! I am merely going to answer these questions by sharing with you how I generate revenue on this blog.
I’ve been blogging for a few years now, not many years, just a few. I started blogging on the topic of nanotechnology, I even wrote a short eBook on the topic. I also write about I.T. Strategic Planning, some personal thoughts and now I focus primarily on Social Media because that is what most of the readers here want from me. Then every now then, it comes in spurts, I get asked how I make money with my blog. OK, I get asked a lot 🙂 Keep in mind, I didn’t start blogging for the purposes of monetizing, I had a website long before I had a Blog, it’s easier to manage and it gives me a place to share my knowledge and help people.
I’ll bet the answer to this question is like finding the holy grail, I decided to do a little research and this is what I found out. I did a Google search for the phrase “Make Money With Blogs”, I noticed that there are 202,000,000 references to that phrase. Next I did a search for “How Bloggers Make Money From Blogging”, that showed a result of 136,000,000 references. Then I tried “How To Monetize My Blog” which brought a result of 522,000 references. I even setup a couple Google Alerts and monitored what was being posted for a few days, it’s a mess out there when it comes to this topic. As you can see this is a hot topic and considering the economic times we are in, I’m not surprised people are trying to find ways to make money. I actually hate the fact that we need money to survive but that’s another story.
Let’s move to what I do here on owengreaves.com, if you look around you’ll find I do very little, on the sidebar you will see a couple books I promote, they are affiliate links to Amazon.com. If you go to Amazon you can learn how to do the same thing, they cover the how to very well. I wrote a short eBook that I sell and that’s about it. The real dollars come from consulting on this topic, Social Media and I.T Strategic Planning. The truth be told, I just love to help people figure things out here on the Internet.
There are many ways to generate cash through your blog but you have to decide what your passion is and do people want what you have to sell. There is a process to follow, you don’t find a product first…you find a problem to solve before you start investing in a product.
Recently I Tweeted on Twitter a link to an article by Chris Brogan called, Make Some Money, and people thought I was spamming when I was merely promoting what Chris wrote. Money is a sensitive topic and anything that sniff’s of SPAM is an even touchier topic. Gary Vaynerchuck believes anyone can monetize whatever their passion might be, someone is going to buy what you’re doing, eventually. The trick is finding enough people to buy what you’re selling.
That’s it for now…stay tuned for more : )
Coming Soon – Bionic Contact Lens
I’ve been writing about The New Technology the past couple years, here is a new item for you learn about and it’s in the area of Bio Nanotechnology. Microsoft and The University of Washington have been working on electronic opticals now for the past 5 years, Microsoft is funding the project and the progress is astounding. I wrote in my eBook that we will become wireless devices, and this is just one of the many ways it will happen. The future of I.T. or technology as we know it is advancing so fast it is impossible to keep up with all that is being developed.
This work has not been tested on humans yet but that’s the next step, the current prototype does not light up or display information but is proof that it is possible to create a biologically safe electronic lens that does not obstruct a person’s view.
Engineers have tested the finished lenses on rabbits for up to 20 minutes and the animals showed no problems. I have included here for you a video clip to give you an idea of what’s in the works for your future.
I.T. Decisions – Who Makes Them In Your Organization?
How are I.T. Decisions made in your business or organization? Who makes those decisions? One of the challenges with non-technical upper management decision makers getting involved is, it’s usually about them wanting a particular toy or functionality. I.T. decisions are based on one or a select group of people because they are the bosses and get what they want or it’s in the name of getting something done. I have found that making technology decisions in that fashion usually cripples your ability to shift gears down the road, you end up implementing the wrong solution and you spend two to three times the dollars fixing the problem later. What you do today matters, do all you can to prevent it and do the painful work of finding a more rational solution if you can. Oh ya, whenever possible avoid database conversions as it will add to the scope of the project(s).
On your journey to make things easier for you, collect and database all business processes in your organization and weight them for measurement, then consult all subject matter experts in the organization to ensure by-in before you go off finding a solution. Remember, it’s not who wants it or what kind of technology that’s the issue, what’s paramount is knowing what your organization needs. Which means you have a good understanding of the company you work for and it’s systems.
Another thing to consider, what is the perceived value your business or organization has on Information Technology and the Systems it uses to organize data. If your new prospect or management team doesn’t understand the value of technology, you now have an educational task on your hands.
Another challenge business owners have is discerning who they should trust, there are so many EXPERTS out there confusing and complicating the problem. There are key questions that can be asked to qualify the said consultant to assist you and your organization with technology strategies but that’s another article.
The point is, organizations handcuff themselves by allowing only non-technology people to make long term technology decisions. That’s not all bad but it’s not wise to have 100% of all I.T. decisions made by them in isolation. In most cases they will invest in something and then hand it off to the I.T. department with a note attached, ” Make this work with our systems”. They know what they want the system to do and or what they want to have happen. They don’t understand how existing systems work and what they will or won’t work with, at the core, non-technology people are unable to see and know where technology is going, what may solve problems in 3-5 years…don’t worry most of us don’t, but, technology people know how and where to find out. They understand the order in which you should proceed, they understand what you have and what you should look for in solutions.
If you have questions feel free to contact me at: owen@owengreaves.com