Technology

Businesses are jumping on twitter right and left and that’s probably a good thing. But, businesses are also jumping on thinking that’s all you need to do. Create a twitter account, create a bunch of followers, and start tweeting out this week’s lunch special. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work that way. In fact, unless you’re a celebrity, you don’t create a twitter following, you earn it.

Even if you have lots of customers or readers don’t be surprised if you find it hard to port them to twitter just because you’ve decided to make the leap. I’m not suggesting any of this as reason not to utilize the potential of twitter, just keep your expectations and strategies in line and view twitter as a long term play that takes effort and commitment to maximize.

In my view there are three ways that people earn followings on twitter

1) A reputation for great content - People want to follow people who might share insights, resources and great content. It’s a bit hard to do this in 140 characters or less, so that great content and reputation needs to exist or be carefully nurtured in order to gain followers by virtue of your ideas. Building great content, and reputation for consistently creating great content is no easy feat and probably why so many people abandon twitter quickly. Now, Guy Kawasaki for example puts out good content, has a reputation for doing so, and garners lots of followers who value to the stories and ideas that he broadcasts. He built a following on that reputation and maintains it. Seth Godin doesn’t use twitter because he doesn’t want to, but he would have 10,000 followers the day he started using it and grow rapidly from there because he has a reputation for great content. Chris Brogan has a huge following because he creates great content on his blog, but he’s a relative newcomer and doesn’t have a string of best selling books, but he has the added catalyst of an incredible level of engagement with his followers - which, leads to the second way. If you’re not Seth Godin, Guy Kawasaki or Chris Brogan, then go to work on building your reputation for great content and the followers will come.

2) The bandwidth to give to get - The second way to earn followers on twitter is to give. Carrie Wilkerson, also known as the Barefoot Executive, seems to be on twitter all day long giving support, answering questions, pointing out other people’s content and saying hi to folks she’s met along the way. This level of engagement is incredible and allowed her to earn a large following on twitter. As I mentioned in the earlier point, Chris Brogan combines great content with tons of care and feeding of his followers. Giving advice, answering questions, pointing out great content, retweeting great content, promoting your followers’ events and content is how you gain a reputation as someone worth networking with and following. Again, bandwidth and commitment are keys. read more

If you’re in an airport, coffee shop, ice rink, or driving down the freeway, and your computer detects a wireless network called “Alltop,” I’m somewhere close to you. This is because I’m using the Sprint MiFi 2200 mobile hotspot card.

This device is about the size of six credit cards stacked on each other. It grabs Internet access using the Sprint 3G EVDO network and then creates a WiFi network for up to five people to use within thirty-three feet. (You can password protect your network in case you don’t want to be an ISP.) The device costs $99.99 after rebate and a two-year contract. The monthly charge is about $59.99 with a five gigabyte per month limit. It has a four-hour battery life (that is twice my Macbook’s battery life) with forty hours of standby.

Top Ten Use Cases

Skeptics will immediately wonder (and I was one of them) why would you need another way to connect to the Internet with there are so many WiFi networks around plus built-in EVDO and mobile broadband USB devices. I’ve been using one of Sprint MiFi cards for two weeks now, and I truly love it. I’ve listed several use cases below.

1. At the airport. Most airports have WiFI networks these days. Some, like SFO, have T-Mobile coverage. Others, like McCarran Airport (Las Vegas), have a free network. There are four reasons why a Sprint MiFi network is better:
   • Cheaper. If you’re not a monthly member of T-Mobile, Sprint MiFi is cheaper after five or six days of use in a month. If you have a monthly account, the Sprint MiFi is approximately the same cost but it’s not shareable or as easy to use.
   • Easier. Free or paid, WiFi networks are often a pain to use. Some require log in after creating a free account, for example. And you can’t share the WiFi access with your traveling companions.
   • Faster. Paid or free, you’ll be sharing the WiFI network with many others in the airport so it’s likely to be slower than a MiFi connection. If the Sprint EVDO network starts getting a lot of traffic, I suppose that this advantage will decrease, but until then it’s usually faster than the WiFi networks in airports. One notable exception: yesterday I got 20 megabits/second upload and download access at McCarran—what happens in Vegas doesn’t necessarily stay in Vegas.
   • More convenient. WiFi networks stop working once you get on a plane, so you have to make a choice: stop working and get on the plane right away or wait until the last minute and not have room for your carry-on baggage.

   With Sprint MiFi, you work in the waiting area, board the plane as soon as you can, and keep working right until the flight attendant threatens to call an air marshal because you haven’t shut your laptop. You probably won’t mind if the plane is even held at the gate for a while.
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Employees of larger businesses have a relatively easy life, in regards to their technology. They just call their help desk and a technician appears and resolves the problem. When upgrading their computer, ideally, the upgrade is done for them and all their data is moved from one computer to the other. When they come back from lunch the process is probably done.

Solo entrepreneurs and very small businesses are not so blessed. They have to do much of the heavy tech lifting themselves. This is often done to save a few bucks and not have to call a technology consultant. Other reasons include to save time or just the lack of knowing who to turn to for technical help.

I recently went through a notebook migration combined with the need to reinstall Windows XP and learned several things that may help you.

Keep organized files

Most people, I would assume, save their files under the My Documents folder. This alone makes moving files from one computer to the next relatively easy. I went through several hassles transferring files but in the end all the files were transferred. If the files were scattered all over my hard disk or across a variety of external hard disks, the process could have been much more difficult.

Hosted applications are the way to go

Increasingly, much of the applications I use are all hosted. Video (Blip.tv), Backup (Carbonite), Photo’s (Flickr), Email (hosted Exchange) and I could go on. There are some programs I still must have locally installed on my computer - like Microsoft Office 2007 and Symantec Anti Virus 2009.  The fewer applications you need to reinstall the easier it is to migrate from one computer to the next.

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Matthew E. May is the author of In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing and the ChangeThis manifesto called Creative Elegance. He spent nearly a decade as a close adviser to Toyota and works with creative teams and senior leaders at a number of top Fortune companies.

1. Question: How do you define elegance?

   Answer: Something is elegant if it is two things at once: unusually simple and surprisingly powerful. One without the other leaves you short of elegant. And sometimes the “unusual simplicity” isn’t about what’s there, it’s about what isn’t. At first glance, elegant things seem to be missing something.

2. Question: Why is elegance so important?

   Answer: Elegance cuts through the noise, captures our attention, and engages us. The point of elegance is to achieve the maximum impact with the minimum input. It’s a thoughtful, artful subtractive process focused on doing more and better with less. That’s especially important during this economic crisis when everyone is trying to move forward while consuming fewer resources.

3. Question: What is the essence of elegance?

   Answer: Elegant ideas—products, services, performances, strategies, whatever—all have some degree of these four elements: symmetry, seduction, subtraction, and sustainability. A great example is Sudoku. First, Sudoku is symmetrical, with its squares inside of squares and mirrored distribution of clues. Second, it is seductive—to the point of being irresistible and craze-worthy.Third, it’s subtractive in design. The Sudoku puzzle designer crafts a complete solution and then symmetrically subtracts filled-in squares to arrive at the starting grid which is predominantly empty. Finally, and as a result of these first three, the game is sustainable in terms of both the infinite number of games that can be constructed, as well as players’ interest in the game. And yet it’s so simple.

   Sudoku could not be easier to learn: you do not even need to know how to count, its one rule can be explained in a single sentence, and it takes but a minute to grasp plus it is universal in nature unlike crossword puzzles which are knowledge-based as well as language-specific. And yet, the underlying complexity behind the logic needed to solve a Sudoku puzzle can be incredibly challenging.

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If Steve Jobs used Twitter, he’d be saying, “There must be a better way.” During the day, I use Tweetdeck, Twhirl, and CoTweet on a regular basis to manage my Twitter accounts. I’ve also tried Tweetie, PeopleBrowsr, Seesmic Desktop, and Nambu. How can this be? I would like one ultimate Twitter client—in a nutshell, it should work like an email client because Twitter is a hardcore communication tool for me, not a “fun” social diversion. Specifically, here is my dream list:

General Design

1. No wasted vertical space. My biggest complaint about the current clients is the inefficient use of vertical space. I want to see as many tweets at once as possible because most of the time I’m on a 13 inch MacBook. Maybe all Twitter client designers should use only small laptops to understand the issue. (Twhirl does this well.)
2. No extra clicks or dialogs. Perhaps the people who design Twitter clients have too much time. What else can explain designs that require you to click on an icon to get to dialog to perform actions as common as replying to a tweet? (CoTweet does this well.)
3. Multiple-account support. I have two active accounts on Twitter: one for me and one for my company. Supporting at least two accounts is now necessary because many people have corporate and personal accounts. (CoTweet does this well.)
4. One “inbox.” Imagine if your email client required a separate window or panel for each email account. Wouldn’t you go crazy? My ideal Twitter client would have one inbox with one column that displayed the account name and another column that depicted whether the tweet is a @, Direct, or search result. (CoTweet does this well.) read more
   

As is often said, the heart and soul of our economy is small business.  The vast majority of new jobs created over the years have been generated by this sector.  And while many of the headlines focus on the exploits of the big guys, it’s the small business community who keeps us afloat.  According to research firm AMI Partners, small and mid-size businesses (SMBs) account for 90% of the world’s workforce, and more than half of its gross domestic product.

But as we all know small business is suffering mightily, as the economy has taken its toll on everyone and everything.  Eventually the economy will get back on track, with small business leading the way.  According to a study released by Microsoft last month (PDF), tech-savvy small businesses will be an important group acting as a catalyst for the overall economy.  And while cost-cutting in the face of economic downturn is essential to survival, many small businesses are turning to IT to lower costs.

According to the study of more than 600 Microsoft Small Business Specialists (MSBS), general economic conditions and declining revenues are actually driving interest in IT at the small business level.  And while 45% of those surveyed expect their SMB customers to spend less on IT in 2009, 30% expect spending to hold steady, with 25% expected actually increasing their IT spending.

Even as some companies decrease the amount they expect to spend on IT this year, their dependence on technology may actually be growing.  The study found 40% of SMBs expect the technology they do implement to reduce overall costs while increasing employee productivity and efficiency.  In fact the survey expects a 20% increase this year in spending on software as a service (SaaS) products. 

Also, technology that enables workers to work remotely will grow in importance as it will allow people to work from anywhere, decreasing costs on both the employer and employee.  And with technology being used more strategically, SMBs will be more efficient in terms of bringing on new employees at the appropriate time to handle tasks core to the growth of the business. read more

“Resistance is futile,” so said the Borg in the old sci-fi Star Trek movies. The Borg, as described in Wikipedia, “are a fictional pseudo-race of cybernetic organisms.” Their power to assimilate other races into their “hive” is legendary. It led to the popular, “Resistance is futile” pop culture phrase. Enter the New Borg hiding in Twitter, Facebook, blogs and more.

The New Borg

The New Borg carry handbags and wear perfume. They shop after dropping the kids off at soccer practice, or in front of their computer, after the kids are in bed. Their weapon is the click of a mouse, their power is exponential – each one of them is connected to hundreds of others, who are connected to hundreds of others, and on and on, to infinity. There is nothing cybernetic about them, but they control your whole world with their fingertips; your business success, your product development, even what kind of car you drive. They watch what you do, what you say, and how you treat their friends. And they gather in flocks to talk about you – day after day. Beware the New Borg!

They are women and men who blog, who Twitter, who use Facebook and who know their way around the Internet.

There is only one answer to winning the battle with the New Borg. Accept that resistance is futile. Open the door and be assimilated.

It’s not as hard or as scary as it sounds. A recent report by One Up Web, showed that in 2008, 94.1 million blog readers and 55 million users on Facebook were creating “earned content” (content not bought like traditional advertising) and attracting the major search engines in a big way. One Up Web noted that is it no longer enough to optimize your website – now you must optimize “your online presence.” Search has been assimilated by the New Borg!

It’s the New Borg and user-generated content that makes the ultimate decision on who you are. And Google listens!

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Last year, Willo O’Brien took a slight step back from her career as a web designer and illustrator to launch WilloToons, a unique line of clothing, jewelry and gifts inspired by the “intersection of geeks and guitars.” Ramping up a business sounds a little scary given the current economic climate, so I caught up with her today to see how her business was doing.

As with all of us, Willo is feeling the economy a bit, but she is optimistic. “I think what’s good about all of this is it’s made people think a lot more before they buy,” she says. “Although buyers may look to find a good deal, I think value in terms of quality is a rising factor now more than ever.” Willo is converting her entire baby line to 100% organic this year, a move that she feels is an important step. Since the economy has made the spending of each dollar more precious, every purchase is more carefully considered. Furthermore, not only are shoppers paying more attention to price and quality, communities are trying to encourage shoppers to buy local. As shown by a study done by AMIBA, a dollar spent at a locally-owned independent business results in a higher percentage of that dollar circulating within the local community. Thus, buying local more directly stimulates the very community in which you live.

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