“Collaborate, Get Connected, Go Mobile!”

Collaborate …

Save time and money by escaping the email treadmill and viscous circle of phone tag by sharing contacts, calendars and documents with your people.

Get Connected …

Save time and money by accessing your business information from any computer and being able to book meetings, sales calls and service calls without having to track people down.

Go Mobile! …

Save time and money by using smart phones – like the iPhone and Blackberry – that are connected to all of your information to do more than just email and phone conversations while you’re on the move.

Collaborate … Why & How …

Effective collaboration is all about sharing information. Most people think of collaboration as working on a project together, but there are simpler forms of collaboration that can save you immense amounts of time.

How many times have you had to call somebody else for a simple piece of information like another person’s contact details only to be caught in what seemed like an endless loop of phone tag?

Have you ever wanted to book a meeting, or a service call, but you had to track down the participants and confirm availability with each of them? Did that process involve the email treadmill, or the aforementioned never ending phone tag where it seemed to take an immense amount of effort to simply organize a meeting? How handy would it be to have the ability to add events to other people’s calendars and allow them to do the same to yours? Also, when you’re trying to find somebody wouldn’t it be convenient to be able to glance at their calendar and see where they are?

Have you ever had to wait for a co-worker to email a document to you, but it took hours, or even days to get a hold of them just to make the request? If you were lucky enough to find the document on your own did you later find out you were working off an older revision and now you need to merge two documents?

If you stop and think – how much time do you and your co-workers spend looking for other people’s contact information, trying to schedule sales calls and service appointments, locating co-workers and hunting through reams of documents looking for the right one? In most cases the answer is a lot – especially when you add it up for multiple people. Wouldn’t it be nice to save all that time by having immediate access to the information you seek on a routine basis?

There are many tools on the market that allow you to share contacts, calendars and documents while still providing control over who can see and/or alter specific pieces of information. My favorite tool that provides all of the above plus email and instant messaging is the outstanding Zimbra Collaboration Suite, which is the platform that I recommend to my clients.

Get Connected … Why & How …

Once you decide it’s a good idea to collaborate on the small, but repetitive and time consuming aspects of your business it then becomes imperative that you and your people are connected.

What exactly does that mean? Well, if your information is only accessible from a desktop computer in your office what do you do when you’re out of the office because you’re on the road, or working from home and somebody wants you to add your comments to a calendar entry, or update a document or client’s contact information? They have to wait for you to return, which means more wasted time. What if you’re at the office, but at somebody’s else’s desk? Same thing, they have to wait for you to get back to your desk if you’re using heavy desktop applications.

Being connected in this day and age means providing access over the network to any system through a Web interface, so regardless of where somebody is they can continue to collaborate and communicate. That includes working in remote offices, on somebody else’s computer, or from home on a personal system.

Do you check your Yahoo!, Hotmail, or Google mail from multiple systems? The concept I am describing is the same, but with greater access to shared contacts, calendars and documents.

Go Mobile … Why & How …

Do you have an iPhone, or a Blackberry? Having a smart phone doesn’t automatically mean you’re fully mobile. If you don’t store your information in a central location as described above and access it over the network then your smart phone isn’t living up to its full potential. You may be able to answer phone calls and email, view your own contacts and calendar and perhaps access a few documents you have saved on your phone, but you are disconnected from the rest of your team.

How many times have you told somebody you will get back to them when you get in front of your computer? Wouldn’t it be easier to answer their question, or help them on the spot instead of putting them off and consuming more of your time and theirs at some point in the future? Of course it would and that’s what being truly mobile is all about.

Going mobile means you still have access to the same information you work with at your desktop, or on your laptop in the palm of your hand at all times. Think of the potential to be in more than one spot at the same time. Once again how much time could this save you and your people? Significant amounts of time – that’s how much.

Since time is money the value of deploying a collaboration suite to save that precious time and provide more effective communication should be evident to anybody reading this article.

However, leveraging the full potential of collaboration systems requires planning, defining what data is going to be stored, what format it is going to be stored in, how it is going to be backed up, who has access to what information and providing training to everybody who is going to use the system. That’s where I come in. I have worked with every type of company from small businesses to educational institutions to large enterprises over the past decade planning and deploying their communication systems.

Contact me today for guidance on how you can start saving time and money in your organization by using my professional services to collaborate, get connected and go mobile!

Cheers,

I provide IT consulting for small, medium and large businesses across the United States and Canada. I’m located in Belleville Ontario, Cleveland Tennessee and Daytona Beach Florida.

Technology & Business Consulting

I primarily focus on integrating communication systems and using them to enhance your existing processes. This includes groupware collaboration, email, instant messaging and VOIP solutions that increase productivity and save you money.

I also provide technology consulting in the field of disaster recovery planning. Allow me to help ensure the continuity of your business in the event of a catastrophe.

Marketing Consulting

I assist technology companies in bringing their products and services to market. Take advantage of my decades of experience, technical knowledge and consumer awareness to develop messaging around your offerings that will resonate with prospective clients.

National Network Of IT Professionals

I have built a national network of technology professionals over many years. My associates can supplement your project if additional manpower, or specialized skills outside of my normal scope are required.

For more information browse my services page to learn more about how my IT consulting, business consulting and marketing consulting can help your business gain an edge on your competition.

Make a strategic move and contact me today to start saving time and money.

Cheers,

Allow me to ask some questions about common communication bottlenecks.

Have you ever tried to track a person down inside your company and spent what seemed like hours, or even days trapped in voicemail tag just to get a simple piece of information? Perhaps something like another person’s contact details, or to follow up on how a meeting, or job went? How about tracking where your employees, or coworkers are so you can work around their schedule? How about where your people were on a specific day months ago because you needed the information to resolve a customer issue?

Have you ever had to delay an important decision because you couldn’t get in touch with somebody in your organization by phone, or email once again looking for details?

Have you ever searched for information that you knew was somewhere in your email only to never find it? Did you have to email, or call somebody else to get that information resent to you?

Have you ever had a phone conversation with somebody and told them you will email them the information they need when you get back to your computer, or when you have a chance?

In each of the scenarios above the information that was being sought was trapped somewhere; perhaps your email, another person’s email, somebody else’s address book, or perhaps their work log – if they even keep one. Maybe it was recorded on somebody else’s computer, or just in their head. Regardless in each of these cases the information you sought was trapped in a silo somewhere. I use the term silo because it is an apt metaphor for storage mediums where information piles up, but isn’t easily accessible by others.

Imagine how much easier your life would be, how much more productive you and your employees, or coworkers would be if everybody had access to shared address books, shared calendars, shared notes and shared documents. Then imagine being able to access all of this shared data from any device connected to the network; your laptop, your desktop, your iPhone, or even somebody else’s computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

How much time could you save tracking down simple things like contact details?

How much time could you save by reading a shared calendar entry where all of the participants added their own notes? Or even a single calendar entry that described how a meeting one of your service, or sales people had with a client, or supplier? Could you provide them with additional insight and guidance after reading those details that you currently aren’t getting? Could you help them drive more business by adding your perspective?

How much time could you save by always knowing where your service and sales people are?

How many additional meetings, or service calls could you schedule with clients if you had a bird’s eye view of how your people’s time was scheduled?

How much time could you save by not having to email documents back and forth because they were stored in a central location accessible by virtually any network connected device?

I suppose some businesses aren’t aware of the multitude of software tools on the market to facilitate better group collaboration. However, I also see lots of organizations that have the tools, but don’t use them. You only get out of a collaboration system what you put into it. The more data you and your people record in a such a system the more you will get out of it. Getting the process started is the hardest part, but once you have consistent and immediate access to all of the simple information described above it’s hard to imagine functioning without it.

I would encourage you to look at how you store data and how you share it in your business. If you already have the tools in place use them! Define standard formats for recording certain data then let your people know they are expected to enter information in those formats for the benefit of everybody.

As you can probably gather I’m a big fan of the Zimbra Collaboration Suite. However, the software platform is less important than how you use it and doing so on a consistent basis.

Cheers,

The Zimbra Collaboration Suite (ZCS) is an fantastic open source solution for communicating and sharing information, but don’t just take my word for it. Check out the reviews on Google.

Cheers,

Think about the following in your organization …

How much time is wasted moving people to the physical location of paper records to utilize the information in them?

How much time is wasted having email conversations where the questions could have been easily answered by storing simple things like customer contact details, employee calendars and job schedules in a central location?

How much time is wasted trying to find  current revisions of documents, spreadsheets and presentations?

How much time is wasted playing “phone tag” trying to get answers to simple questions such as; where are my employees/co-workers today and what are they doing?

How much time is wasted for outside workers calling into the office seeking information from administrative personnel? Conversely how much time is wasted by administrative people calling field workers for information that could have been easily accessed through common records on the network?

In a nutshell silos reduce productivity and frustrate people who increasingly expect information to be readily available and complete. Silos are the major reason why most operations are not getting the full advantage of the network’s ability to interconnect business processes.

In future posts I’ll discuss how to break your information out of silos through the use of effective collaboration tools and business practices.

Cheers,

Storing information in central locations that are accessible by everybody on a team seems natural to many of us, but there are still a lot of medium and small sized businesses who cling to the dead tree format for a significant portion of their operations.

When I see people filling out reports then faxing them to another party only to be entered manually into a standalone system I wonder if the person who owns the business knows how much time could be saved by having the first person enter the data themselves over the network making it immediately available to whoever else needs it. Just think of the reduction in potential data entry mistakes as well.

Paper records aren’t just time consuming and prone to errors – they are an information silo – meaning the information is trapped in a format that isn’t easily shared, or accessed by others. That topic will be the subject of my next post.

Cheers,

The gist of his observation is that people who have significant knowledge in their industry can fall into a trap where they assume other people – namely their customers and potential customers – have the same level of understanding. He refers to this scenario as “the curse of knowledge” and points out how it can lead to major missteps and lost opportunities. He suggests spending more time with customers and listening to what they say to break free of this condition.

I found his article interesting because the situation he describes is especially pertinent to those of us who work in the technology industry. Years ago I realized that talking speeds and feeds with clients was a great way to kill a sale. Since that point in time I have made an effort to develop messages that are easy to understand. My premise has been if something is easy to understand it should be easy to communicate, which in turn should make it easier for people to buy into.

I also wholeheartedly agree with Scott’s suggestion to spend more time with customers. On more than one occasion I have been surprised at how a client interacted with some piece of technology in a completely unexpected manner. Gaining that type of insight has proved to be invaluable when developing strategies for myself and my clients that is applicable to end-users.

Being a good listener and observing other people are two habits that can help all of us avoid “the curse of knowledge”.

Cheers,

Cheers,