Reprinted from Mashable

The article “Why Women Still Can’t Have It All” published by Anne-Marie Slaughter in The Atlantic has created quite a stir, and for many women it hit home – and hit hard. The article brought out into the open what women have been questioning for decades: can women balance the demands of a challenging career with the needs of their family? This discussion has been ongoing since women in larger numbers began to climb the corporate ladder, but seems to be heating up with the change that technology – in particular the explosion in Cloud computing – has brought to the workplace.

But I have to wonder, have the workplace changes brought on by the Cloud helped women deal with this work-life balance, or have they hurt? Is the Cloud a friend or foe?

The opportunities for women in the workplace did not come easily. It was not unusual for the woman in the room to be asked to pour the coffee – even if she was the CEO, dean, or head surgeon. This was an era pre-fax machine and pre-FedEx, when “tweet” was the  actual sound made by a bird. Fast forward four decades, and the changes – both in opportunity and in technology – are nothing short of amazing. Companies such as InfoStreet offer Cloud-based innovation that are rapidly changing the way businesses operate. The advances are moving forward exponentially, and hopefully this trajectory will be accompanied by the ability to balance home and work.

But to effect change, this discussion has to go beyond the corner office. The recent economic downturn has seen a record number of employee lay-offs, leaving the remaining workers with increased responsibilities. And with all the workforce advances, women still earn $0.77 of every dollar compared to male counterparts. Starting a business can be a complex and difficult process for anyone, but it may be even harder for women: despite owning 30 percent of businesses, women receive only 5 percent of equity capital each year.

Add to this the fact that about one in five full-time employees (mostly women) act as caregivers to their aging parents while simultaneously taking care of their own children; a group that is commonly referred to as the Sandwich Generation.  Whether in the corner office or the assembly line, many employees are facing extraordinary demands.

There are companies that have created a workplace that acknowledges these challenges, and they are changing the office environment. As a result, they are actually realizing a growth in profits. Standard & Poor’s found that the companies that emphasized quality of work-life for employees had a higher sales growth and a higher return on asset growth than their counterparts over a five-year period. Also, companies recognized as the “best places to work” (by Fortune, Great Places to Work, Working Mother, and other raters) have better financial results than comparable companies in the broad market indexes such as the S&P 100 and S&P 500. Additionally, work-life support enhances shareholder return in Fortune 500 companies. A study of firms announcing work-life enhancements found share price jumped 36 percent on the day of the announcement and 39 percent over the next three days.

The catalyst for this change is the freedom that the Cloud brings to the office. Cloud providers such as InfoStreet are creating innovative Cloud-based platforms that provide mobility, increased productivity, and greater collaboration. Employees are no longer tethered to a desk and are productive from where they really work: at the airport; from a client’s office; in collaboration with colleagues, partners, and clients from all corners of the world; or from their pediatrician’s waiting room. As Slaughter’s article pointed out, “State-of-the-art (Cloud-based) videoconferencing facilities can dramatically reduce the need for long business trips. These technologies are making inroads, and allowing easier integration of work and family life.” According to the Women’s Business Center, 61 percent of female business owners use technology to “integrate the responsibilities of work and home”; 44 percent use technology to allow employees “to work off-site or to have flexible work schedules.] Siamak Farah, CEO of InfoStreet, frequently states, “Only 10% of our employees are human, for the rest we employ technology.”

So is the Cloud a friend or foe?  Have the mobility and 24/7 access set unrealistic and all-too-demanding expectations that an employee is never ‘off’? It seems that work doesn’t end when one leaves the office, and employees and clients are expected to pick up the phone on the first ring. Watch a mother at a soccer game or a ballet recital busy texting or sending emails, responding to ‘urgent’ demands. (It does seem that every communication is suddenly urgent.) The Cloud, for all its advantages, adds the stress of always being ‘on’ – and it is hard to turn it off.

Yet for all these negatives, the Cloud is a tool that allows women the flexibility necessary to balance family and work. In her commencement address to Vassar, Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, challenged women not to shy away from achieving their goals. To illustrate, Ms. Sandberg noted in a subsequent interview that she leaves the office at 5:30 to have dinner with her young children and works from home after they are put to bed.

The Cloud won’t solve the demands of a demanding boss, challenging travel and work schedules, or the inequalities that women still face. But, if Ms. Sandberg can balance the extreme demands of her job with the needs of her family, in large part because of the freedom the Cloud affords her, Thankfully, this is a benefit or perk we can all share.

Think for a moment the steps you take to protect your home valuables?

Do you put them in:

• Your desk drawer under lock and key?
•  A lock box hidden behind your towels in a closet?
• The bank vault?

Somehow I suspect you take similar steps to protect your company’s most valuable asset information. Do you:

• Keep everything on your computer, password protected?
• Keep it all on a server, stored in a closet, and maintained by a tech-friendly employee or a P/T IT person?
• Store it in the cloud, maintained by companies that store billions of bits of data and/or have been providing Cloud services for over 16 years.*

Entrepreneurs are by nature used to being in control: we start businesses because we believe/know that we can do ‘it’ better. Turning over control of our company’s data to a 3rd party challenges our basic nature. But, entrepreneurs are visionaries; we start businesses because we have a vision of the future and we embrace any logical technological advances that will help us realize that vision. Entrepreneurs understand the need to take advantage of the cloud, but want their concerns addressed.

So, is my data really safe?

As Jesse Lipson pointed out in a recent Forbes article: “Most cloud computing companies are like experienced airline pilots. They are well trained, have backup systems and contingency plans in case they encounter an issue, and they have a full staff of professionals regularly checking and maintaining their service. Cloud software companies, knowing the implications of a crash on their business’ bottom line, invest significant resources into insuring that such a disaster never occurs.

Cloud computing companies can invest far more resources in data backup and security than your business can.” Compare this, for a moment, to the levels of protection that your part-time IT person provides.

But aren’t data breaches a real threat? Of course, but you might be surprised where the real threats come from. The Privacy Rights Clearinghouse posted a Chronology of Data Breaches that sorts data breaches for Business, Government, Financial Institutions, Education, Healthcare, and Not For Profits and discovered that:

• In 2010-2011 there were 1037 security breaches that were made public included in a total of 42,266,902 records.
• 20M records from 449 breaches came from
• Physical loss: Lost, discarded, or stolen non-electronic records, such as paper documents
• Portable device: Lost, discarded or stolen laptop, PDA, smartphone, portable memory device, CD, hard drive, data tape, etc
• Stationary device: Lost, discarded, or stolen stationary electronic device such as a computer or server not designed for mobility.
• 15M records from 203 breaches came from hacking, spyware, and by an outside party
• 6M records from 190 breaches came from unintended and unknown causes.

Entrepreneurs understand the need to analyze risk/reward in all areas of operations. The Cloud has associated risk, but it is proving to be far more secure than tried and true methods. More importantly, the rewards in terms of cost savings, mobility, and increased productivity will produce tangible gains.

Learn more about Cloud Security.

*InfoStreet, a Cloud app provider,  has been providing cloud based apps to businesses of all sizes since 1994. Our system offers 99.99% uptime, daily back ups, and disaster recovery, all of which gives your business the security it needs. Contact us to see how InfoStreet can help your company, whether you have 100 employees or one.

I was on a flight last week and met an old business acquaintance on the plane. We were talking about some of the new business productivity apps he was trying out and about the Cloud in general. He mentioned that for every app he signed up for, he eliminated another one. When asked he explained that it was getting too hard to manage; multiple app icons all over his desktop with a separate signup for each one which leads him to, at last count, 13 tabs open in Firefox. And once, he sheepishly admitted, he clicked on the popup that asked him if he wanted to clean up the unused icons on his desktop. There are still some icons he can’t find and can’t remember.
So it led me to wonder: with all the apps we use, has the Cloud become too difficult to manage?
Just doing a Google search for business productivity apps brings overwhelming results. There are articles that list the Top 10 most important apps you must have and even more that you must try. I don’t know of a working person that doesn’t use a Cloud-based calendar, task management app, and file sharing app, or rely on their Cloud-based email. And really, who can work today without accessing their company’s CRM, IM and video conferencing tools, accounting and billing apps, and employee contact tools.
And these are just the basics. Each industry relies on specialized apps that have become essential. Attorneys rely on Cloud-based research tools such as LexisNexis and Westlaw, retailers depend on inventory apps such as CashierLive, and educators find Blackboard critical for classroom management.
Now that the workplace has adopted the Cloud, how on earth will we manage it?
Given the exponential growth of Cloud apps, the problem of finding or managing them is fast becoming the next great headache, as my colleague pointed out in great pain. We used to store all our files neatly into one drawer, tabbed and organized as we liked; it is time to do the same for our Cloud apps: one Cloud-based desktop where you house all the apps you and your company use, all accessible with one log-on. One Cloud-based desktop that allows management full access and password control, yet still allows individual employees the freedom inherent in the Cloud. One password to unlock all approved apps at one time.
This is the future of the Cloud. Companies, such as InfoStreet, have developed a Cloud Desktop (SkyDesktop) that allows users to manage all of their apps all from one location. One Cloud, one log-in, one monthly bill, and one support team for all of your Cloud apps.
Stay tuned for the launch of SkyDesktop, coming soon to your web-enabled device!

The opening ceremonies of the London Olympics took us on a trip in time, from the agricultural past, through the industrial revolution to the present technological world. A century compressed into an hour with a cast of thousands that was quintessentially British. Yet the technological changes in the last decade have been mind-boggling and the speed of innovation seems to be accelerating. Just look at the last 8 years: Gmail launched in 2004, Facebook opened to the public in 2005, Twitter launched in 2006, and the iPhone changed our lives in 2007.

As is true of all these ‘revolutions, the move to the cloud has changed the way we conduct our business, expanding our work environment from the confines of the office cubicle to anywhere there has an internet connection. We sync and share our calendars, files, and contact lists from our computers, tablets, or smart-phones, and video conference with colleagues and clients anywhere in the world (Tip: Try Tango for your smart-phone. It’s a free app that allows you to video chat) and, with apps like Square, we can pay for goods by having our enabled phone within proximity of a store’s Point of Sale System.

Just look at Microsoft and Intuit – the guardians of downloadable software – move to the cloud to understand the tectonic shift that is happening. Microsoft’s cloud-based office suite, 365 Live, competes with their ubiquitous Office Software, the linchpin of the company’s revenues, a huge risk in any economic environment. Intuit moved its Quicken software to the cloud in time to see the cloud-based version’s sales explode. Companies such as GoldMine and Act, the giants in CRM software ceased to exist when Salesforce moved CRM to the cloud.

There may be resistance for some, but companies will have to choose to follow the lead of Microsoft or find their companies fade into irrelevance like GoldMine.

“The world hates change yet it is the only thing that has brought progress”. -Charles Kettering

The Cloud is known to reduce hardware and software costs, improve employee mobility, and productivity and puts the IT headaches into the hands of the cloud providers…where they belong.

Yet, one of the most exasperating expenses any employer deals with is the time-consuming, repetitive tasks that eat a lot of employee time. One company’s research with more than 2,000 users suggests that the average employee spends about 10% – 25% of his time in repetitive computer related tasks, whether it be transferring data, checking messages, formatting documents, starting applications, or any number of other routine tasks. In some job disciplines, an employee even spends about 70% of his time doing repetitive tasks.

Cloud-based apps, such as Street Smart’s Calendar  and Task Management apps excel at scheduling and systemizing tasks.  With cloud-based HR Software such as penHR ,the human resources department can spend less time doing routine, repetitive tasks by automating these routine processes in a fast, efficient system. HR software keeps track of once time-consuming tasks delegated to human resource employees, such as organizing the payroll, work time, online recruiting, application systems and training modules to get new employees up to speed and track their overall progress.

Law firms, paper intensive by nature, have dramatically benefited from moving to the cloud. A document gets uploaded once to a cloud repository and never needs to be touched again. It is searchable, can be shared, edited, and accessed as necessary without ever being touched again. Federal Courts have adopted electronic filing (filing of documents and actions electronically in the Cloud) and many State Courts are beginning to follow which allows a law firm to prepare and file documents without touching a printed document. An attorney commented that the copy machine, once the hub of all activity, is fast becoming irrelevant.

I cannot think of a single industry, from retail to manufacturing, service industries to professionals, that wouldn’t benefit from moving repetitive, time-consuming tasks from their employees to the Cloud.

A virtual employee that saves time, reduces costs, and doesn’t care what brand of coffee you serve.

Interesting facts about how the cloud will benefit your business that I found while looking up other things.

1. Rent: “In Washington, the first thing people tell you is what their job is. In Los Angeles you learn their star sign. In Houston you’re told how rich they are. And in New York they tell you what their rent is.” – Simon Hoggart, English journalist and broadcaster.

As any company doing business in a metropolitan city will tell you, office space rent is often a major expense. Although the numbers will vary widely, consider that a company based out of New York has an in-house data center that occupies 1000 square feet. This assumption is reasonable for a small data center serving 100 employees, including servers, cooling units, etc.

This company ends up spending $115,000 on rent for the data center alone. By embracing cloud computing, this money can be saved. Even if cost of subscribing to a cloud-based service is factored in, the savings will still be considerable. For larger companies, they add up to substantial amounts; for smaller ones, every dollar saved is treasured.

2. Computers and Laptops: using the Cloud could bring your hardware costs to…..$0. The trend today is BOYD (bring your own device). Employees are using their own devices in the workplace, some are even purchasing their own apps to use at work. The cloud eliminates your servers and the fact that cloud apps work on any browser, PC and MACs, upgrading older computers simply becomes unnecessary.

3. Phones: Web-based phone services have been a savior for many start-ups who need to conserve capital but compete with larger companies. Web-based phone systems such as Ring Central  and Five 9 provide 800 numbers, multiple extensions, and even personal voice messages for a minimal monthly fee. And, as these systems are cloud-based, all this is accessible on your smartphone.

4. New-found Employee Hours: If time is money, then every hour your team wastes on IT headaches increases already stretched overhead and take them away from productive work.  According to a recent Samsung study that examines how workers are actually using IT in the workplace, employees spend an average of 7 hours a week fixing IT headaches. Take that number, multiply it by your hourly cost per employee, then multiply that figure by the number of employees….and you have a staggering figure.

5. Happiness: There isn’t a quantitative figure that an employer can put on employee happiness but there is a definite correlation between employee happiness and profitability. Allowing your employees to deal with the daily familial demands and giving them the flexibility to stay in touch with the office or work from home late into the night actually improves your bottom line. Companies recognized as the “best places to work” (by Fortune, Great Places to Work, Working Mother, and other raters) have better financial results than their counterparts in the broad market indexes such as the S&P 100 and S&P 500.

Using cloud-based apps allows your employee to see their daughter score the winning goal, reduce IT costs, save on rent and square footage, replacing your expensive phone system with a monthly fee produces a better work place, improves the bottom line and reduces IT headaches.

To paraphrase the iconic MasterCard commercial, using the Cloud is priceless.

Of all the headaches that entrepreneurs face when starting or growing a business, building a website is all too often a 3 Tylenol one. The complaints are familiar: business owners have a hard time describing what they want the final product to convey and the inability of designers to read their minds; requesting content, modifying product info, or uploading new photos can take multiple phone calls; business owners feel frustrated by the endless charges for what seems to them to be a couple minutes work, while the designers feel equally irritated that their time/work is under-appreciated.

But is a website as a DYI project? That should send shivers down the spine of any business owner who already is wearing too many hats in the course of his/her day; well it doesn’t have to. Sometimes a smart, simple, well built, and manically supported DYI provider is a wise solution that allows any business owner control over their message, their brand, and their budget without having to write any code, understand HTML, or a sit through a tutorial.

If you can click and point you can build, maintain, and make changes when and how you want to your website.

And you own it.

Page Blender is that simple, smart solution to website building headaches. However, Page Blender isn’t really a                    website builder; it is a fully (Cloud-based) hosting solution that gives you the tools to implement a solid web strategy: Want to build a professional site in less time that it takes to order and claim your Starbucks Venti Mocha Frappacino? Want to sell products with PayPal and EBay?  Need a powerful blog that will help you engage your customers? Want to upload photos of your products, events, or happy customers in seconds?

Page Blender has over 175 themes that allow you to build the site that best reflects your company and your products/services. And the back end is as impressive as the front end. Monitor traffic, visitors, and referrals without having to add any apps- it’s a self-contained system. Page Blender has partnered with InfoStreet, a Cloud provider since 1994, to provide a secure and safe environment with guaranteed 99% up-time.

Technology can be overwhelming and sometimes we all feel that we are in a maze of ever-changing advances. This Small Business Blog tries to help the small business owner navigate through what sometimes looks like a Cloud-based fog. It is nice to present a company that provides a simple, logical, smart, and solid solution to a real issue. Your company’s website is often the first impression a potential client has of you, or it is the place a customer comes to ‘check you out’.

You only have one chance to make a good impression. Make it count but keep it simple.