Guess what: if you use SkyDrive, for example, you’re in the cloud already. What’s less common is for small businesses to use some of the more sophisticated opportunities cloud computing offers, particularly for deploying and managing Web platforms.

We recently chatted with Eric Diamond, founder of Tribeca Cloud, to get his take on the cloud and its role in small business.

1. Can you explain “the cloud?”

One analogy I like is that the cloud is like renting a luxury apartment (at a great rate), rather than building your own customized, expensive home from scratch.

When you’re using the cloud, you’re “renting” top-quality computing services – programs and data storage – via the Internet, rather than buying and maintaining them yourself.  You give up some control, but in exchange you can get tremendous flexibility, scalability and value.

Nowadays, when it comes to the cloud in business settings, people generally refer to three main subsets:

Software as a Service (SaaS) enables you to use a software application without having to install or host it yourself. Web-based email is an everyday example: you can send and receive emails using Microsoft Outlook without installing any software on your own computer.

Platform as a Service (PaaS) is an outgrowth of SaaS. PaaS provides all the tools and services you need to build and run applications on the Web. The hardware, software and servers are set up and maintained for you. You only pay for what you use, so you can direct more resources towards developing your application.

Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) provides and maintains the underlying infrastructure – including virtual servers, storage and networking hardware – for building and running your applications. You’re responsible for installing and setting up the operating systems, software, databases, etc. Website hosting is a basic use case. With IaaS you essentially rent these resources on a pay-as-you-go basis. IaaS can replace dedicated hardware servers under your own roof.

2. Why does the cloud matter for small businesses?

Most small businesses already take advantage of the cloud and don’t necessarily realize it. They may use SkyDrive for file sharing or subscribe to Microsoft 365 to use Web-based versions of Office tools like Outlook or Excel.

Small businesses benefit from cloud services in two significant ways:

For one, the cloud alleviates the need for in-house IT staff, advanced technical know-how or deep pockets to create and deploy sophisticated Web-based applications or services. It’s a way to “outsource” those functions so a business saves considerable time and money.

Second, the cloud is scalable. Maybe you’re launching an ecommerce site, and you don’t know how big it will become. Using cloud services enables you to easily scale your project up or down as you go, in real time.  You can test the waters of your business idea without a huge upfront investment.

3. What types of small businesses do you think can benefit most from the cloud?

Any growing business can benefit, but the cloud can be really instrumental to a Web startup that doesn’t have its own software developers. Such business owners may have a great idea but don’t really know how to deploy it. They can tap into cloud services and get their idea out there at a relatively low cost. They may not know what the next day will bring – their business could explode or stay smaller – and a pay-as-you-go model just means more cost effectiveness and scalability.

4. What specific cloud products might a small business want to investigate?

It completely depends on your needs as a business. Many small businesses’ first exposure to the cloud are through SaaS services, like when they migrate away from internally-hosted email to cloud-based email. PaaS and IaaS services haven’t traditionally been oriented towards small businesses, but that’s changing. Think about what you services you need, and then you can explore if the cloud can help you.

5. Will the cloud become more prominent?

We’re at a point that is similar to the beginning of dotcom era. Everything is moving to the cloud. Within the next three years, the majority of business/productivity tools will be cloud-based and affordable for small businesses. That means smaller businesses can compete more easily with their larger counterparts – it will level the playing field.

Eric Diamond is founder of Tribeca Cloud, a service created to help businesses get their websites, intranets and business platforms off the ground and in the cloud quickly and easily.

A content discovery and recommendation platform focused on identifying and promoting positive and diverse portrayals of women in popular television, FEM Inc. spans both the tech and entertainment industries. CEO Rachel Payne works out of Los Angeles where she can build ties with the entertainment industry, but the company’s vice president of technology is in northern California, closer to high concentrations of tech talent. The vice president of research and development works from another location in southern California. To stay connected, the three founders hold scheduled Skype meetings every morning and afternoon.

Skype calls bring them to the same table in a way that phone conversations never do, Payne says, while fostering strong connections by enabling everyone to see each other and pick up on physical cues – something her team finds helpful when discussing new ideas.

“It is really hard not to be present when you’re sharing a screen,” says Payne. “When you can see each other, you can really gauge how engaged they are.”

Perhaps most important, Payne says that Skype lets her very small and very busy team work while they meet. Their twice-daily Skype calls last anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour and a half, during which time they may share files and mark up documents, make decisions and start to execute on them in real time, then set the agenda for the next meeting before they sign off.

Payne says Skype brings focus and efficiency. She offers these tips for more effective collaboration over Skype:

1. Schedule meetings in advance and set an agenda. This helps communicate that a formal meeting is being conducted and discourages using the screen as a diversion from actual work.
2. Become familiar with the tools and use them all. It’s easy to think of a Skype connection as a conference call with visual effects, but because Skype allows for real-time document sharing, it really is a completely different way of connecting, Payne says. Businesses will have more success keeping employees engaged during these calls if they use the different tools Skype offers, such as file sharing and instant messaging.
3. Let different people take the lead at different times. “For some companies, the person who is remote is always on the receiving end,” explains Payne, who has found that Skype levels that paying field by bringing everyone to the same virtual table. It shouldn’t matter how far away they are physically, they should not only be seen, but encouraged to speak up.
4. Allow the voice-only option on occasion. While regular Skype users like Payne say that concerns about attending to your physical appearance before connecting via video become less pronounced over time, she also believes that businesses should respect the fact that there are days when some remote workers would rather not be seen. Although FEM Inc. uses video effectively, they don’t require everyone to turn on video for every meeting. “Think of it as a virtual bad hair day,” Payne says.

Do you have any tips to make Skype collaboration even more effective? Tell us in the comments, or tweet to us at @Skype4biz.

Who hasn’t been stuck in a long “reply all” email chain that clogs up your inbox and seems to go back-and-forth endlessly? Group chats make it easy to seamlessly keep a conversation going with multiple people at the same time, and allow you to refer back to the conversation for days, weeks, months or even a year ago.

Greg Bell, whose company develops software for collaboration, uses group chats extensively. He uses scores of Skype chats for topics like product testing, specific work tips, partner communications and password protected customer support.

Business owner Jen LaFlam uses group chats to discuss clients’ needs, and pulls in different experts to the chats when appropriate.

Thinking a group chat might help your business stay on top of things? Here are a few tips to get you started:

• To create a group chat on a PC, select a contact you want in the group, and then the “+” symbol to add the other people. You can also click on “Create a Group” at the top of your Skype client, and drag and drop the contacts you want to include into the box. On a Mac, you’ll select File > New Conversation from the menu bar, and then click “+” to add people.

• Give the group a name (like “Marketing Team” or “Product Launch”) that identifies its purpose. To assign a name on a PC, click on the “i” on the top of the chat box. On a Mac, open the group’s conversation window and double-click the names of the participants, and from there you can enter a name. You can skip this step, but I recommend naming your group chats to help stay organized.

• Add the group to your Contact List by clicking the “Save Group in Contacts” icon at the top of the chat box. This makes it easy to access the group at any time. You’ll find it under its name, along with all your individual contacts. You can also add the group to a list.  For example, if you add the group to your Favorite list, it’ll appear on the top of your contact list (or on top of the sidebar, on a Mac), so it’s easy to find.

• The group creator can add or remove participants at any time (and people can remove themselves as well). To remove someone, just right-click the person’s name in the group and select “Remove from Group.” To remove yourself, just right click on the name of the chat and choose “leave this conversation.”

Check out the video below for a walk-through of getting started.

Once you’ve created your group and everyone’s begun interacting, take a look at how some of Skype’s more advanced features can help you collaborate even better:

• Search the chat for a keyword or phrase. On a PC, select Conversation > Find at the top of the group’s chat box. On a Mac, select Edit > Find. Your group may want to use hashtags with keywords to make it easy to find important comments later (for example, #To-Do, or #Resolved).

• Assign roles to the group’s members to control their participation. For example, you can designate someone as a “Listener” if they can only read comments but not post, or specify someone as “Master” so they have the same authority as you. You can learn about the six roles available here.

• Adjust the commands. If you are the creator or Master of the group chat you can use commands to not only assign roles, but to secure the chat with a password and do other administrative tasks. You can set a command so you’ll be notified when a certain word is added to the chat. You can also set chat guidelines, ban individuals from joining, or add special text to appear next to your name in the chat (such as “working from home” or “in the London office”). To see what commands are available, type “/help” into the chat. You can also find definitions of all commands.

How are you using group chats in your business?

Perhaps you have some employees who call the UK most often, but others who need to contact clients in Japan. Or, you may have certain employees who need Skype Premium for group video calling capabilities, and others who don’t. Skype Manager makes it easy to set each employee up with exactly the features and subscriptions they need to do their jobs well.

Now, using Skype Manager just got even easier for global entrepreneurs: we’ve significantly increased our country and plan coverage by allowing administrators to allocate Skype subscriptions from over 170 countries, including recent additions Brazil, Russia and Mexico. Today, all Skype subscriptions are available on Skype Manager.

For people who want to regularly communicate and collaborate with colleagues, customers and business partners across the world, Skype subscriptions allow you to do so at a fixed price. You can choose the best subscription for your business needs and communicate directly from the familiar Skype app from any device, whether it’s a desktop computer, phone or tablet. People using Skype Manager can now have more than one subscription as well.

For more on how to benefit from Skype Manager in your business, you can find helpful posts here and here. For a quick tutorial, this video can get you started as well.

How will the expanded Skype Manager help your business? Tell us in the comments.

Miami-based Parliament Tutors provides a useful perspective on how today’s technologies can help. We first read about Parliament in a Reuters story.

When the storm hit six months ago on October 29, 2012, high school students across America were deep in preparations for an SAT exam scheduled for November 3. Many in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut (and the rest of the country) had enlisted Parliament Tutors to help. Founded in 2009 by New York University graduate David Greenberg, Parliament provides private at-home tutoring for standardized collegiate tests. A couple hundred students use the company’s services at any time – some as far away as Saudi Arabia – and Greenberg taps into a network of about 700 tutors.

“Students had already purchased tutoring sessions, and the SAT was less than a week away,” David explains. “When the storm hit, many of our tutors in the affected regions couldn’t travel to meet their students at their homes. That’s when we introduced both the students and their tutors to the idea of Skype video.”

Fortunately, Parliament was already quite familiar with Skype. About ten percent of its students take part in tutoring sessions with Skype video and whiteboard software called Scriblink, and the company relies on Skype video calls to recruit and train its educators around the world.

However, some students and parents who were accustomed to at-home tutoring initially were reluctant to try something new.

“That quickly changed when they saw the quality,” David says. “Skype video and Scriblink together provided great alternative to in-person meetings. We were able to continue our tutoring sessions with minimal cancellations, despite the adverse circumstances in New York and the surrounding states.”

Having Skype already integrated into the company’s operations meant David could mitigate the potentially disastrous effects of Sandy. It’s a good reminder to have a back-up plan in case an emergency strikes.

Did you find creative ways to carry on in the wake of Superstorm Sandy? Share your story in the comments.

We all met up at the beautiful Artwork Network gallery in Denver, and kicked it off with great food and drinks – and cupcakes!

In a highlight of the evening, Mike Michalowicz, speaker, entrepreneur, TV personality, columnist and author extraordinaire, shared his views from his latest book, The Pumpkin Plan.  He talked about the correlation between how what it takes to grow a colossal pumpkin is similar to what it takes to grow a colossal business (hint: focusing on quality over quantity, pruning anything that doesn’t deliver results – if you want more you’ll have to read his book – or come to a future meetup!) His high-energy delivery of time-tested small business wisdom brought a lot of laughs, and nods of agreement, from the audience.

Two Denver business owners joined Mike for a user panel that expanded on his insights, as they shared how they’ve built their businesses from startups, what role technology played, and how they’re using Skype to work smarter.

For example, Jen LaFlam, owner of JTL Media, partner of Syntuity and business development specialist for Fruition in Denver, appreciates the face-to-face connection Skype allows. During Skype calls, Jen creates a separate IM chat with clients so she can prompt them (and vice versa) to make sure they’re covering all the right topics.

Amy McIlwain, author, speaker and founder of Financial Social Media, travels extensively and counts on her Skype number, also called an online number, to give clients a local area code to reach her, whether she’s in America or Argentina. She’s also helping her financial services clients get set up to offer video calling to customers who want to discuss financial decisions with their children while in the advisor’s office.

As for Mike, he believes globalization is one of the biggest opportunities for small business owners, and he sees Skype as an enabler of that.

“Do I want a cleaning company to expand into Russia? No,” he says. “But they can use tools like Skype to teach people in Russia how to open their own cleaning business.”

A short Skype demo also helped audience members better understand how Skype can be used for business, and generated some great questions about features like call forwarding, conference calling, multi-platform use, Skype numbers, and more.

Many people approached us with ideas for how they’d like to be using Skype in their businesses, such as:

• Using Skype for a multi-country conference call
• Asking a speaker to call in to a seminar via Skype
• Getting set up with instant chat, via Skype, on their websites

We can’t wait to hear about them when they happen! Are you interested in learning more about using Skype for your business? Ask a question in our LinkedIn group, follow our company page on LinkedIn, like us on Facebook, and/or follow us on Twitter at @skype4biz. Hoping for a Skype for Business meetup in your city? Tell us in the comments.

Special thanks to Y.Lo Epicure catering and D Bar Desserts for making the evening a delicious success!

Picture this: you return from a vacation break only to find many unread chat sessions. Or perhaps you have been chatting on Skype on your PC for a few days, and then leave your office and open Skype on a smartphone or tablet while mobile — since Skype Everywhere allows the use of an account on a wide range of devices and platforms. Or maybe you just haven’t opened Skype for a few days on one of your PCs or smartphones.

When you do login you find several “unread” chat messages, usually indicated by seeing a number beside a Contact’s name in the Recent sidebar or a colored Contact name on the iPhone’s Recent screen. It can become tedious trying to “read” each contact’s chat messages individually within a session, especially if one of these chat sessions is a group chat with many messages.

One minor, but very useful, feature that has come to all the recent updates to Skype for Windows/Mac/iOS/Android has been the addition of a way to “Mark All Messages As Read.” But how you accomplish it differs significantly for each platform.

Here’s a summary:

Skype for Windows Desktop Right Click on the Recent tab	Skype for Android Touch the small menu icon in the upper right corner.
Skype for iPad In the Chat screen, select Edit, scroll to bottom of Recent list	Skype for iPhone In the Chat Recent screen, select Edit, click on the check mark in the upper right.

Skype for Mac

In the larger picture of using Skype this may seem trivial, but it’s one of those tips that can save a lot of time and frustration, especially if you have not logged into Skype on a certain device for a few days or you are following active group chats.

How many devices do you use Skype on?

Want the complete story on Experiencing Skype to the Max? Check out Jim Courtney’s eBook, Experience Skype to the Max, for the complete picture of the Skype ecosystem, including not only software but also hardware that will give you the best audio and video quality.

But can Skype still keep you connected even when you’re logged off?

Yes, thanks to voice messaging and call forwarding. Using one or both of these features ensures that the voice calls that come into your Skype account never go unanswered, even if you’re not online.

Here’s a quick overview to get you started:

Voice messaging is completely free for anyone who has a Skype account. It will record messages from in-bound callers if you don’t pick up or you’re offline. You can listen to the recorded messages next time you log on.

First things first: you’ll need to activate voice messaging to have it work on your account. For PC activation instructions, click here. Click here for Mac instructions.

Once voice messaging is activated, you can record your outbound message and adjust settings.  On a PC, go to Tools > Options > Calls > Voice messages and follow the instructions there on recording.  Be sure to check the box next to Receive unanswered calls as a voice message when you’re done.

On a Mac go to Skype > Preferences and then click Calls and then Enable Voice Messaging. Once done, make sure you select Send to voice messages next to Incoming Calls.

After you record your message, you’ll see settings you can alter to meet your needs. You’ll choose if voicemail picks up if a call goes unanswered for a certain amount of time, if you reject a call, if you’re already on a call, or in all of those cases.

Note that your privacy settings will determine who can leave you a voicemail. If your privacy is configured so only your contacts can call you, and the same will apply to your voicemail.

If you like, Skype can alert you by email or SMS when you have a new voicemail message. You can pay a little to have SpinVox translate voice messages into text message.  You’ll also be notified to new messages in your Skype client, and you’ll be prompted there to listen to the message.

Call forwarding allows you to transfer your incoming calls automatically to a standard phone number or to another Skype account.

To set up call forwarding on a PC, go to Tools > Options > Calls > Call Forwarding. On a Mac, go to Skype > Preferences the click Calls. In the Incoming Calls section, select Forward calls, and then click Set up Forwarding.

You’ll need either a subscription or Skype credit to forward calls to a phone number. If you set up call forwarding to a phone number and also activate voicemail, your calls will be forwarded first, and voicemail will kick in only if the forwarded call goes unanswered.

It’s free to forward calls to another Skype account, but that account needs to be one of your contacts.

You can choose how long a call goes unanswered before it’s forwarded.  If you’re offline, all your calls will be forwarded if you’ve set up call forwarding.

Voicemail and call forwarding work both for calls you receive on your Skype Online Number and those you receive as Skype-to-Skype calls. When you’re offline, your Skype status will indicate to your contacts if you have voicemail or call forwarding in place, so they know they can still reach you on Skype.

Have you benefitted from voicemail or call forwarding? Tell us about it.

When it comes to public speaking today, more and more people are finding that you don’t have to be there, to be there.

Professionals are opting to deliver that conference keynote in Cannes or the presentation in Perth via video rather than in person. Many of you tell us about using Skype video calling this way, both to save time and money, and to provide access to audiences you might not reach otherwise. Meeting in Moscow? Tokyo? Mumbai? While in the past you may have had to turn those opportunities down, presenting there today is as easy as logging in to Skype.

We recently chatted with public-speaking expert Matt Abrahams, a lecturer at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business.

1. What are the biggest benefits and challenges of giving a talk or presentation over video versus in person?

The biggest benefit is that you can reach a broad audience cost-effectively and in a timely manner.  It’s also easy to record your video presentation for use later.

The challenges often relate to technology itself. I make the analogy with ordering from an online retailer. If the box arrives banged up, you blame the retailer even if the delivery service caused the damage. Tech is the same way. The audience holds the presenter responsible.  Video presentations require extra practice and preparation.

And people have different anxiety when it comes to presenting on video. Not seeing an audience live reduces pressure for some. Others feel more nervous because they can’t gauge the audience reaction as easily.

Your first consideration in any presentation is your audience. What do they need, and what’s the best way for me to provide them with that? How can I ensure my audience benefits from what I am offering?

2. How do you prepare differently for a video presentation vs. one delivered in person?

First, think about the “theater” of video. People will see your face clearly, so be conscious of nonverbal facial cues. Practice talking directly to the camera so you make “eye contact.” Position the camera slightly above you looking down and at a distance comparable to a face-to-face conversation: 18 inches to three feet away. Put your notes at eye level, and practice looking at them only at transition moments in your presentation.

If possible, assemble a team to assist you. Have a tech coordinator by your side to deal with any issues.  Assign a point person who’s with your audience. He or she is your eyes and ears on the ground.

Finally, practice, practice, practice! Dry runs are critical – do them with your whole team.

3. What do I need to know to make sure a video presentation is a success?

It’s much harder to keep an audience engaged on video. People are less focused. Try to break things up every five to 10 minutes. Ask a question, let someone else talk. Poll your audience about a point you made. Include plenty of variety. Alternate data with stories and anecdotes. Vary your volume.

Make sure you take a “pulse check.” Ask your designated audience point person how everyone is on their end and make adjustments based on the reaction you’re getting.

I also suggest dressing for a video presentation as if you were there in person (attire that’s 1.5 degrees “above” your audience is a good rule of thumb). And if possible, remain standing. Research says it helps you focus.

4. What should a presenter via video ask of the audience?

Set expectations before the presentation: let your audience know what you’re covering and what their role will be. Orchestrate an interactive experience.

Before the presentation, perhaps send out three questions to your audience. Solicit answers as you speak. Ask someone to share a relevant experience.

Ask “show of hands” questions. It’s one way to know if an audience is engaged or not when you can’t see faces easily. If the response is lackluster, make adjustments.

Here’s what not to do: don’t tell your audience you’re nervous. Don’t say what you’re doing is hard and demand they pay attention.

5. Are there any types of talks you should never give via video?

Common sense should be your guide. If the subject matter is deeply personal or emotional for the audience, video may not be right. Ask yourself: If I was part of this presentation’s audience, would I be ok receiving it on video? Rely on your own judgment.

Do you have a few tips of your own, or a great Skype presentation experience? Please share!

Matt Abrahams is an educator and coach who teaches Strategic Communication for Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and Presentation Skills for Stanford’s Continuing Studies Program and De Anza College. Matt is also co-founder of Bold Echo Communication Solutions and recently published Speaking Up Without Freaking Out. To learn more, visit NoFreakingSpeaking.com.