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Essential Steps to Starting a Business Podcast

Michelle V. Rafter — 2008-04-25T12:44:39-05:00

Maybe a running buddy talked it up. Or a competitor started one and you don’t want to be left behind. Whatever the reason, you’ve decided your business need a podcast. And although you know what they are, you’re not sure how to start.

Not to worry. Podcasts have become such popular marketing tools for sole proprietors and small businesses, a small army of professional producers is out there waiting to help. According to the experts, here are 10 essential steps a company needs to get started:

Do some homework. The best way to learn about podcasting is to listen to podcasts, says Peter Brusso, an Anaheim, Calif., podcasting producer and technology marketing consultant. Visit directories such as Podcaster or SwitchPod and look for podcasts with a similar style or subject to you want to create, Brusso says.

Decide on a topic. Podcasts could focus on a company’s products or services, an industry or on management or professional issues. Whatever the topic, make sure it’s related to a company’s business in some way, says Sallie Goetsch, proprietor of The Podcast Asylum, a northern California podcast producer and consultant.

Gather your tools. Producing a podcast requires:

A microphone, digital audio recorder or USB headset to record podcast episodes
Computer with sound card and high-speed Internet connection
Audio recording and editing software, either licensed software or free open-source programs such as Audacity

Build a backlog. Before going live, build up a catalog of a dozen or more episodes. Coming up with ideas is easy, Brusso says. They can spring from talking to customers, going to conventions, reading trade magazines, or following current events.

Be natural. When it’s time to record a podcast, organize talking points, but don’t use a script. “People don’t like being sold. The more from the heart the better,” Brusso says.

Be consistent. Length, professional quality, and subject matter of a company’s podcast are important but not as much as on-air consistency. Whether it’s once a day, once a week or once a month, pick a schedule and stick to it. Podcasts are like radio or TV shows: audiences expect a schedule. Disappoint them and they might not come around again, Brusso says.

Not a D-I-Y type? Hire a pro. Professional producers can handle the technical aspects of starting or creating a podcast. Goetsch and partners Priscilla Rice and Michele Molitor, for example, offer a small-business podcast starter package for $1,100 that covers scripting and recording three to four podcasts plus lots of extras, including finding a hosting service, setting up a podcast blog and submitting broadcasts to podcast directories. Brusso, who works with lawyers and other sole proprietors, charges $1,000 for an hour-long podcast with similar extras. But it doesn’t have to be expensive. According to Goetsch, a small businessperson could do everything themselves with an existing computer, $20 headset, free software for audio editing and creating a podcast, and host it on their existing website.

Find your podcast a home. Companies can physically host a podcast anywhere, including with the service they use for their website. What really matters is getting the word out that it’s there. For maximum exposure, list podcasts on directories such as PodcastAlley.com, Podcast411, Podanza or TalkShoe.

Forget about making money, at least not directly. Some podcasts collect revenue from advertising that podcast directories put on their sites. But that shouldn’t be why a company does it. Podcasts should be part of a company’s overall marketing strategy, Brusso says. “To get yourself known, you have to blog, optimize your Website for search engines and podcast,” he says. “If you do all three the results are phenomenal.”

Keep up with trends. Use the following resources to find out more:

PodcastFAQ
Everything With Podcasting -- A website companion to the book How to do Everything with Podcasting (McGraw Hill-Osborne Media, 2007).
Podcasting consultant Sallie Goetsch’s humorous take on how not to podcast, from her Podcast Asylum Website.

Video Streaming: Business in Living Color

Bill Pfleging — 2008-03-05T02:44:21-05:00

Sierra Snowboards is a small ski supply store with about 30 employees. Located in Sacramento, Calif., it also does business on the Internet through its website, sierrasnowboards.com. The company began a live streaming webcam in the store in mid-2007 as an experiment, and started using it to do a weekly online giveaway drawing among the online members currently viewing the stream. It quickly turned out to be a real boon to the company's Internet business.

“We started online video streaming from the store eight or nine months ago,” says Sierra Snowboards store manager Jared Snelson, “and our online membership -- and sales -- have been rising ever since.”

Businesses have been using video streaming internally for years, for Web conferencing, in-house training, and face-to-face strategy meetings. But there generally haven't been good enough reasons to justify the cost of expensive hosting solutions for streaming video to multiple viewers. Live video streams, sometimes called IPTV or IP-based video, have not been considered part of the usual business plan.

Making video streaming accessible

The technology has also, in the past, been quite complex, requiring highly trained (therefore highly paid) tech workers to implement. It generally took deep pockets to offer a live video stream, so it's not been available to small and medium sized companies.

Just in the last couple years, however, very affordable video stream hosts have sprung up, bringing these formerly high-ticket tools to even very small companies and changing the rules.

"The quality of IPTV and streaming broadcast continues to increase while the cost continues to drop,” says Sandeep Agrawal, group marketing manager for IPTV at Sun Microsystems.

At last year's Tribeca Film Festival in lower Manhattan, Sun Microsystems launched its new IP-based video delivery server platform, the Sun Streaming System, capable of handling up to 160,000 simultaneous, unique video streams with a price of less than $50 per stream for a complete video headend. Sun also walks the talk, by using video streaming to bring round table discussions, seminars, and educational sessions to the general public.

“It is now possible for small and medium-sized businesses that already administer some form of virtual communities or social networks,” says Agrawal, “to also include streaming video to enhance the users experience, both with personalized content and targeted advertising.”

There are many companies now offering video stream hosting for a low monthly fee. But if even the lower priced video stream solutions are more than you can handle, real results can be achieved even using one of the free streaming video services, like UStream.tv or Mogulus.com. Using a simple webcam on UStream, Sierra Snowboards discovered that live video streaming brings more value to its business.

Engage customers with video

“The live cam on UStream gives our online shoppers a real chance to engage with the store and personalize their experience,” says Snelson. “They get to see that we aren't just a website, but a full service store, giving them more confidence to shop with us.”

The stream seems to be a great success. Instead of weekly, the drawings for a new snowboard or other merchandise now happen five days a week, and if the number of registered members signed onto the video stream goes over 500, then Sierra Snowboards adds an extra prize to the mix. This encourages members to get their friends and family to sign on, join up, and become regular viewers. And it has paid off – recently, the company gave away a new snowboard and added in the bindings when the viewers topped 500. Snelson says this happens quite often now.

There are likely many ways of building your business via live streaming, even if it's just a variation of advertising. The idea of using live streaming video to engage with customers may indeed be an idea whose time has come. Advances in computing technology have brought the price of broadcasting on the Internet way down, and the increasing ubiquity of broadband is creating a public hungry to use it. And no geeks required.

How to Choose In-House Blogging Software

Michelle V. Rafter — 2008-01-30T11:27:04-05:00

The biggest step in creating an in-house blog is deciding how you’ll use it. But once you’re over that hurdle, you’ve still got to wade through all the available options to find a technology platform that’s right for your business. Should you license software and run it in house, or sign up for a hosted service? Is open-source software the way to go or would proprietary tools be a safer choice?

What to consider

The right answer will depend on an individual company’s needs and desires, according to social-media industry experts. When evaluating blogging software, small and mid-sized businesses need to consider their budget, in-house technical skills, how much use a blog will get and how large it could grow, says Paul Gillin a new media consultant and author of The New Influencers. In addition, Gillin and other industry experts suggest that companies consider:

Location -- The biggest decision a company has to make is whether to host a blog in-house or use a Web-based service. There’s nothing inherently better about running blog software in-house, it’s more a question of corporate policy, the type of information that’ll appear on the blog, and whether a company has employees who can maintain the hardware and software, according to Anil Dash, vice president of evangelism for Six Apart, maker of Moveable Typeand TypePad blogging software. “It really has to do with your desire for control,” he says.
Portability -- The day may come when a company wants or needs to switch vendors, so make sure you create can be easily exported to a new platform, says Lee Huang, head of the New York City chapter of the Internet Strategy Forum and former digital strategy director at Nielsen Business Media.
Customization -- If you opt for a hosted service, find out how much you can customize it to suit your special needs and if additional plug-in functions are available.
Vendor expertise -- The biggest vendors of blogging software aren’t necessarily the ones with the most experience, according to the experts. Evaluate vendors by looking at their track record, customer base, support from developers, and the type of training and support that’s available directly or through developers and other users.
Simplicity -- “Any kind of technology gets left behind if people find it too hard to use,” says Dash, of Six Apart.

SIDEBAR: Blogging Software Vendors

Blog technology comes in as many flavors as ice cream. Some of the better known technology providers are:

WordPress -- This free, open-source blogging software from WordPress.org can be hosted on any computer server running PHP version 4.2 or later or MySQL version 4.0 or later. WordPress.com is a website that hosts free blogs written in WordPress.
Blogger -- The latest version of the free, Web-based blog service fromGoogle supports multiple authors, allowing for group blogs.
Movable Type and TypePad -- Movable Type is Six Apart’s blog publishing platform. Prices for the MT Enterprise Solution start at $295 for a five-user license. In December 2007, SixApart introduced the beta version of a free, open-source version of Movable Type called MTOS 4.1. TypePad is Six Apart’s free, Web-based blog service that’s based on Movable Type’s publishing platform.
Joomla -- Version 1.5 of this free, open-source content management system (CMS) debuted in January and includes blog software along with forums and chat software and many other features.
b2evolution -- This free, open source CMS supports multiple blogs, news feeds and other social-media features, and runs on Web servers with PHP and MySQL.
Roller -- Version 4.0 of this Java-based, open-source blog software from Apache Software Foundation debuted in December 2007 and includes upgrades such as custom blog themes.
Blogtronix -- This enterprise-level integrated social media platform can be used to create text, audio and video blogs, plus wikis, RSS, and networked communities on Microsoft’s .Net 2.0 platform. Blogtronix offers a free 25-user Express version with limited functions and paid support, and a 30-day free trial of its complete enterprise platform.
SuiteTwo -- Another social-media platform bundle that includes technology for blogs, wikis and other applications from Intel, SpikeSource, Simplefeed, Moveable Type, and others. Prices for software only or a hosted version start at $990, and for a hardware/software suite at $2,495 for a 10-user license.

E-mail Alternatives: Time to Ditch Outlook?

Mary O. Foley — 2007-12-21T15:07:54-05:00

Perhaps you’ve had this experience: you’re on the red-eye from L.A. to New York. You realize you need to access your e-mail. But you can’t: you’re offline. It will be hours until you land, and you’re stuck.

For some companies, this scenario is one of several good reasons to seek out a better mousetrap than Microsoft Outlook and Exchange.

Products such as Google’s open source-based Google Gears API, Zimbra's Suite and Desktop, and IBM’s Lotus Notes & Domino offerings allow users to work offline in a similar environment to their online product. While Microsoft does have offline offerings, they do not have the same functionality as their online product, users say.

A seamless transition

“What we can offer is a more seamless transition between online and offline,” notes John Kobb, vice president of marketing for San Mateo, Calif.-based Zimbra, which was recently purchased by Yahoo! “You can take it on a plane with you. The administrators are saving the same information on the same server -- you can go and access the same information from a different computer,” he notes, whether that computer is an Apple or PC.

For small and mid-sized businesses, hosted solutions such as Zimbra’s have considerable appeal, because “you don’t have to deal with storage and backup,” notes Erica Driver, principal analyst for enterprise messaging and collaboration with Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester Research.

Other reasons to look beyond Outlook and Exchange, says Driver, include:

wanting a system based more on open-source standards,
preferring to cobble together a “best of breed” email/backup/archiving system to what MS offers,
wanting a system not based on Microsoft due to lack of MS skills among workers
wanting a system that allows workers to move from computer to computer, including Apples to PCs, seamlessly

Zimbra’s Kobb also notes the inherent cost savings in using a hosted system that is a “one-stop shop” for messaging, archiving, and anti-spam/anti-virus protection, as opposed to budgeting each of these separately, either through several hosted solutions or in-house hardware. “The total cost savings could be significant, “he says, noting that Zimbra’s hosted solution runs about $4/month per user.

Web 2.0 ready

Another consideration is that offerings like Zimbra’s cut their teeth on Web 2.0-based technologies, so it’s easier to link them to blogs, wikis, and other collaborative tools than the older Outlook. “This is a real plus for products like Zimbra and Google,” says Driver. “They have been quicker to adopt 2.0 into their products.” Likewise, IBM’s Lotus Notes is well-known for its collaborative abilities, but is largely an enterprise-class product with a higher price tag.

The bottom line: MS Outlook and Exchange is not the only game in town. Keep an eye on these alternatives-- they may be a way to save your business time and money.

SIDEBAR: Email Alternatives to Watch

Zimbra offers hosted solutions featuring email, anti-spam/anti-virus, archiving, and collaborative tools.

IBM Lotus Notes & Domino offers a range of desktop options, including calendaring, email and collaborative tools. IBM also offers a range of archiving, security, and other solutions.

Google Gears API offers open-sourced based browser extension; easy to customize with additional functionality.

Not Easy Being Green: Software Can Help

Peter Suciu — 2007-12-17T09:32:01-05:00

Rows of desks -- all with colorful screensavers -- running on oversized monitors. This is a common site in many offices today that greets those showing up for work on Monday morning, as the machines -- monitors and all -- were left on over the weekend. Blame it on the IT mantra of the early to mid-1990s that said that shutting down a PC would cause extra wear and tear, and that machines are generally energy-efficient enough that computers can be kept running all the time. The truth is that PCs and monitors account for 40 percent of IT-related emissions, and account for 13 percent of all power consumed in an office environment.

Just turning off the monitor can be a good first step, and this is where programs such as WatchOverEnergy can be a benefit. This freeware program from AKS-Labs runs in the background, and helps users manage stand-by mode and track energy savings. WatchOverEnergy can even shut off the monitor when the PC is inactive for periods of time, such as if a worker forgets to turn it off before heading for lunch or a meeting. It also ensures that other programs that are running, such as e-mail, aren't shut down, or a Word document won’t be lost.

“This is not a problem, as the software turns off the computer monitor, not the computer,” says Bob Elliot of AKS-Labs. And while the savings are small per machine, those savings can add up. “If we talk about one computer, you will not be able to save hundreds of dollars. But if you're running a company network, you will be able to save much more.”

Power saving programs

Green IT software is also a growing sector with numerous companies providing programs that allow users to track, manage and even save some energy. And while the savings aren’t likely going to be huge, they could be noticeable. “Anything you do to be more green will also save you money,” says Richard Hodges, principal of GreenIT in Sonoma, Calif. “In California, there is a leading edge program, where PG&E will rebate you the cost of the power management software. So it costs you nothing.”

One of the programs in the energy management space is Verdiem’s SURVEYOR, which includes options for a system to turn on/wake on-demand to tackle scheduled tasks, including software and security updates. This can come in handy for businesses that might need to send e-mail overnight, update Web pages, or run other tasks at times when employees are at home asleep.

“The machine can start up at 1 a.m. to download updates and shut down at 2 a.m., with a full reboot,” explains Bruce Twito, chief technology officer and vice president of product development for Verdiem. “The machine can also be put into standby while programs such as virus scan can run, and then can be a shut down afterward.”

Most of these energy saving programs are also not system hogs. After all, it wouldn’t offer much good if the program ate up valuable hard drive space or required businesses to upgrade machines to get the application to run. “The application uses fewer resources than e-mail, Excel, or Word,” says Twito. The agent runs on the machine, but most of the time takes very little system resources. “It is there to enforce the policies but it is hardly noticeable.”

Green to the core

It might seem obvious, but one area where businesses can get the most out of their software is through software updates. And while video drivers, security patches and other updates of applications are common; the core of the system isn’t typically addressed.

“This is the way that AMD and Intel can help you with the frequency throttling through the chipsets,” says Matthew Wilkins principal analyst, compute platforms research for iSuppli Corporation. He says that people seldom update the BIOS. “Sometimes there are several later versions. But think of all the things on the motherboard, and we tend to neglect it," Wilkins says. "We update all the various other drivers. But the BIOS helps with optimization of the operating system.”

Wilkins adds that this is important to consider, especially given that the CPU architecture is no longer just built around high clock speeds. “It is not about the clock speed race that it once was.”

For this reason businesses may even hang on to PCs longer. This certainly means a savings, as even budget-priced machines can still be close to $1,000 today.

But, more importantly, says Hodges is to look at ways to do more with the machines you have. “One PC by itself doesn’t use a lot of electricity, but all the systems together do add up.” Small to medium businesses should also find ways to do more with fewer applications, and that every time a program is added the costs increase. “Reducing the number of applications will simplify the computing costs and the amount of equipment needed and the energy used,” Hodges says.

Of course, that savings can be as free and as easy as pushing a button. “If you are a small business you could also just tell people to turn off the machines," Hodges says. "Turning computers off on weekends and evenings will save you money.”

Pump Up Your PowerPoint Presentations

Renee Oricchio — 2007-07-30T13:56:20-05:00

Twenty years ago, the ritual of the corporate presentation underwent a revolution: PowerPoint.

Since 1987, this Microsoft program has been lampooned by everyone from Dilbert to The New Yorker. It’s been decried as evil by Yale professor Edward Tufte, in his famous screed, “PowerPoint is Evil,” published in Wired. It’s even been banned in some corners of corporate America, as Scott McNealy, then CEO of Sun Microsystems, did back in 1997.

Despite its Rodney Dangerfield-like reputation that it gets no respect, PowerPoint at the same time has become all but synonymous with the word "presentation." Love it or hate it, nowadays very few people would even consider getting up in front of a room without it. Even Al Gore doesn’t leave the house without his .ppt docs.

“If you went back to 1987 you’d find it’s essentially the same program with that slide sorter view. Each version since has just added extra stuff on top. After 20 years of PowerPoint, people are ready for a change,” says Cliff Atkinson, author of “Beyond Bullet Points,” published by Microsoft Press.

Countless executives who groan at the mere mention of PowerPoint would agree: it’s time to pump things up.

Primarily, there are two ways to do it. Take a more creative approach in designing your PowerPoint presentations. That, and investigate some of the newer technologies and applications that integrate with PowerPoint to create a richer, more multimedia experience with your audience.

Bullet points and boilerplate templates are so-o-o 1997

As his book title would suggest, Atkinson is not a fan of the overused and abused bullet point format and he’s an expert definitely worth listening to on the subject. Atkinson produced the courtroom PowerPoint presentation for the attorneys of the winning plaintiffs in the famous $253 million Vioxx judgment against Merck. Fortune magazine at the time credited his PowerPoint as instrumental in winning the case describing it as “frighteningly powerful.”

Here are some of the ways Atkinson suggests in taking a different approach. (He’ll have to forgive our format here).

Simplify, simplify, simplify. Too much information on the screen is perhaps the biggest mistake made in PowerPoint. Atkinson recommends having only one thought written like a newspaper headline or in a short sentence per slide.
Set the mood and tone. Does your presentation come with a sense of urgency or excitement about a new strategy or product, problem-solving, pioneering a new direction or the tone of a very formal briefing? Pick a color palette that will help set that tone. Make sure you don’t stray from the palette with a color that doesn’t match. Make key slides stand out with a specific color from the palette. Don’t use that color with the other slides.
Weave content into a narrative. Storytelling is a format that hooks in everyone. Like a good story, develop your presentation with a setting, a conflict, the characters involved, and what’s at stake. Think of the details in terms of “Acts” letting them unfold in a way that builds up to the solution that comes at the end.
Storyboard on paper first. That’s right: low tech, before high tech. Atkinson contends it’s often easier to conceptualize on paper, rather than on a computer screen. Put pencil to paper first, and then use that as a guide in designing your slides.
Make it human. “A presentation should be a conversation. Incorporate interactivity. The media should be transparent and not distract from you,” says Atkinson. One other tip: when you’re saying your most key thought, cut the PowerPoint to black. It will jar every set of eyes in the room away from the screen and force them to focus on you.

Gear up

While PowerPoint hasn’t changed much over the years, new technologies that integrate with it have. Here are a few that can help make your presentations more engaging:

Audience response systems. A number of vendors, such as Turning Point, sell or rent equipment that enables you to give all the audience members a keypad. You can poll the audience in real time with their answers aggregating into bar graphs, pie charts, etc. right into your PowerPoint.

Try a game show format. This is especially effective in training presentations. And again, there are numerous vendors to choose from who offer a combination of software and audience response gear to turn your presentation into a high energy quiz show format with the audience. Learning Ware is one such company offering a software package called GameShow Pro 4. Additionally, they offer ring-in pads for participating audience members to hit just like contestants on Jeopardy.

Slicker production value. Presentation Pro offers a number of PowerPoint-compatible solutions to make your presentations more eye-catching, including studio quality graphics and 3D transitions, software to incorporate video and sound and even a program to capture mouse movements to replay for demo purposes.

Mashups: The Small Business Applications

Renee Oricchio — 2007-07-17T13:50:41-05:00

While the business world races to catch up with Web 2.0 applications like wikis, RSS feeds, and widgets, the “next thing” is already here and starting to catch on fast: mashups.

“It’s the next natural step of the Web,” says Jason Bloomberg, a senior analyst from Zapthink, an IT advisory firm based in Baltimore, Md.

Mashups are a hybrid genre of Web applications that borrow from two or more other Web applications or data sources and then literally mash them up into one unique application. For example, a company called Infopia has developed a mashup that eBay sellers can use combining the data from their online stores with the tools of Salesforce.com, such as customer relationship management (CRM), inventory management, and online performance analytics.

Anyone can do it

The beauty of the mashup is how easy it is to build them. It’s basically a three-step process:

Choose the data sources or applications you want to mashup. This can be any combination of an internal database with a widely used application programming interface (API) from a source like Amazon.com, Google Maps, Flickr, 411Sync, or eBay. There are countless other APIs available to mix and match. Other ways to access data include Web feeds, like RSS, and screen scraping. Screen scraping involves using a simple program that “scrapes” data from the display output on a website.
Take a feed from each source and aggregate it into one mashup. This may sound like the most intimidating step. It’s not. “Actually, finding the tools to build the mashup is easy. It’s more difficult finding the data,” says Bob Braver, president and CEO of StrikeIron, a data service company based in Durham, N.C. Some of the most popular mashup tools and servers include Yahoo Pipes, Microsoft Pop Fly, and Kapow Technologies. Google has a mashup editor in beta, as well. All are easy to use for the non-techie.
Host it. You’ll need a domain host or Web server technology that supports server-side scripting technologies like PHP or Ruby on Rails. Many mashup authors are using a company called Dreamhost. It’s cheap, well reviewed by customers and is easy to use.

Mashups may be good for business

Like social networking sites and other Web 2.0 trends, it’s consumers that tend to be the early adopters with the business community coming along eventually. The same seems to be true with mashups.

Some of the most publicized mashups include Weather Bonk, a mashup site that combines Yahoo! Traffic with Google Maps and various weather feeds that come up with one page featuring live traffic cams and a weather map customized by location. Another popular site is 1001 Secret Fishing Holes, a mashup of Google Maps with a variety of database feeds from sources like the National Park Service, campgrounds and wild life refuges.

However, it is the business realm where mashups will likely have their greatest impact. It’s already starting to happen. Jason Bloomberg from Zapthink sees the following trends in business mashups:

Data visualization. So far, this means leveraging geographical information with other data feeds. Google Maps, by far, is the most popular API used in mashups. Imagine, for example, combining Google Maps with a realtor’s feed of multiple listings in her market, combined with school district borders and educational rankings.
Credit card processing. A popular mashup with online retailers is mashing up external credit card processing from the banks with internal e-commerce orders.
Call center applications. Customer representatives taking calls and following up on orders by phone typically are staring at more than one screen: one of the website and the online order, the other displaying the CRM screen. Bloomberg says he’s seeing more online retailers mashing up the two (the e-commerce component with the CRM) into one view, one screen.

Turbo charge your Web analytics

Another area business mashups are showing promise is in Web analytics for e-commerce sites. Mashups can be used to combine Web traffic data from your site with, for example, the marketing data feed from Dunn & Bradstreet, a leading provider of marketing, credit, and purchasing information. "By mashing up the two, you can look for trends like who visited your site, but didn’t buy anything. You can also use mashups between Web analytics and mapping APIs to geographically plot your Web visitors,” says Braver.

Mashups and the IT department

Hybrid Web applications tailor made by the user? That sounds like the makings of a migraine for the IT department. Issues to be considered include security and integration with other applications on the company network, just for starters. However, most IT managers have already learned from the proliferation and easy access of Web 2.0 tools that they’re fighting a losing battle retaining control of what online tools employees use.

Braver offers the following advice to antsy IT directors: “Think of it as experimental. If the mashup proves beneficial to the business, then IT has a prototype to take and perfect.”

Mission Control: The Software Dashboard

Renee Oricchio — 2007-02-21T15:12:21-05:00

A car dashboard is a panel of quick visual cues representing critical information in real-time for an operator who is actively engaged elsewhere. At a glance, a driver knows their cruising speed, whether it’s time to gas up, if the transmission is straining, not to mention warnings of dislodged doors, low oil or unbuckled seats.

A software dashboard is basically the same thing.

Only instead of providing real-time data on the fly for a driver focused on the road, dashboard software works best for harried business owner who needs to keep at least one eye fixed on the ebb and flow of inventory, the financial executive constantly monitoring the health of an organization or the sales person keeping a running account of client orders, pricing changes and product availability.

Michael Duke, a managing partner with The Crito Group, a healthcare consulting firm based in Clemmons, N.C., swears by his dashboard. “The real power of the dashboard is it allows me to have insight into performance that I never had before," Duke says. "I’m able to spot negative trends before they become detrimental to my company.”

Duke describes life before and after his start-up company implemented dashboard technology. “We would put a bunch of data in a database, spend a bunch of time compiling it and then present monthly reports. Now, we actually have all that information day to day at our fingertips," he says. "How critical is it to our business? If we don’t improve our client’s financials, we don’t get paid. This is the tool that enables us to do that.”

Dashboards: a technology whose time has come

Dashboards have actually been around for many years. In the past, however, it’s been more of a recurring fad than a potential core technology for businesses. “What we’ve been seeing with the resurgence of dashboards over the past 12 to 18 months is the second coming of dashboards – for the fourth time,” says Hung LeHong, vice president of research at Gartner, the Stamford, Conn. research firm.

LeHong, however, sees dashboards as more than a fad this time around and points out the following reasons why it just may be coming soon to a desktop or mobile device near you:

Web-based. Dashboards are increasingly offered as a Web-based application and that translates to easier access for more employees. It’s not just a slick tool for the boss wanting a bird’s eye view of the company. Dashboards are now more readily available at the field level.
Better data crunching. “This generation of dashboards does a better job of making granular data more easily accessible. That means the data that pertains to a specific person is more easily parceled out,” says LeHong.
Real-time operational data. This latest generation of software tends to be more adept at aggregating multiple streams of data from multiple sources in real-time, creating more functionality at the operational level. “No matter where the data is, we can access it and pull it into the dashboard,” says Mark Christensen, vice president of marketing for Corda, a Lindon, Utah software company that develops dashboards for small and mid-size businesses.
Improved visual displays. This time around, LeHong praises designers for visual layouts that are easier to take in at a glance, more intuitive and more user friendly.

And while the technology itself appears to be maturing, even more critical to its growing popularity is demand. “The reason that dashboards are catching on is because people are overwhelmed with information and they need tools like dashboards to tame that information,” says Stephen Few, author of Information Dashboard Design: The Effective Visual Communication of Data (O'Reilly Media).

Yellow is for caution

While Few acknowledges that the technology is getting better -- and more popular, he also warns business owners to not be blinded by the "bling" when exploring dashboard technology.

“Resist the gimmicks and educate yourself before you look at the products," Few says. "The problem is most dashboards are still primarily designed by engineers and driven by sales. What’s lost is a design orientation that best displays and organizes the data, offers immediate visual context and can highlight the most important information.”

Sticker shock

There are many companies offering dashboard solutions, in addition to Corda, including iDashboard, Celequest and Netsuite, to name a few. The price of admission is still pretty steep for the small and mid-size business, however, since these are customized products. For example, Corda’s entry level package for two to five users is about $14,000 -- a figure that may mean putting the brakes on dashboards for some businesses.

Outlook Vs. the Others: Business Email Clients

Todd Wasserman — 2007-02-13T12:55:26-05:00

With presence on about 450 million desktops, Microsoft Outlook is by far the most widely used email application in the world, but it's not popular with everyone.

Some small business owners feel they don't have the skills to administer support for Outlook. IT managers at mid-size businesses may fear it will be more susceptible to viruses and worms than other programs. Still others "just don't like Microsoft," says Erica Driver, principal analyst with Forrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass.

Price comparison

Price may also be an issue for some, though Microsoft's email offering appears to be competitive with most of its competitors.

An average cost for Outlook is hard to pin down. The Standard Edition of Exchange Server 2007 (Outlook is Microsoft's desktop application; Exchange runs on servers) retails for $699. Customers also have to buy client access licenses, which are $67 per user. Customers can also pay $25 per user to get additional features and software assurance. But those who buy five or more licenses at a time get a 25 percent discount and there are more bulk discounts beyond that. To confuse things further, most of the time Outlook is bundled in Office, Microsoft's desktop product suite, as well. Office Basic starts at $129 per user.

Driver says she's done the math and that running Microsoft's email programs using Microsoft back-end software amounts to $100 per user, while Novell GroupWise is $130 per user and Sun Java Enterprise System costs $140 per employee per year. IBM's Lotus Domino Messaging Express is $99, she says.

Email penetration and security

While no one tracks email penetration among small businesses, the picture on the consumer side is one of complete domination by Microsoft. At retail, Microsoft has 99.98 percent of the email software market, according to the NPD Group, a Port Washington, N.Y. market research firm.

For businesses, Microsoft's lead isn't quite as commanding. Driver says no one has a majority of the market, which is split on the server side between Microsoft IBM, Sun and Novell.

Leilani Quiles, IT director for Tew Cardenas, a 130-person law firm in Miami, is a fan of GroupWise. When Quiles started at her job seven years ago, the firm was already using the program. "Every so often the subject comes up to explore Exchange or Outlook," Quiles says. But the consensus is that employees like the calendaring function too much. Quiles also thinks GroupWise is more secure.

That contention comes from a similar argument to Apple's when its operating system is compared to Microsoft's: Because GroupWise and other email programs command a smaller share of the market, they represent a less juicy target for makers of viruses.

He says, she says

Not surprisingly, Microsoft considers such claims bunk. Jessica Arnold, product manager for Outlook, points out that the latest version of Outlook, Outlook 2007, has stepped up calendar functions (users can even publish their calendars on Office Online to let others collaborate on scheduling) and anti-phishing features. She adds that Microsoft is well aware of virus threats and makes use of beta testing to make Outlook more bulletproof.

"Obviously, there will always be people who want to create viruses targeted at different programs," Arnold says. "I wouldn¹t say Microsoft is alone in that."

So why go with one of the competitors? Phil Karren, product manager for GroupWise, says Novell's system is easier to use, cheaper and more secure than Exchange. "What we see is I have some customers with 700 users and there's one IT guy managing it all," he says. Karren says another benefit is that GroupWise "tends to be a lot more frugal with the hardware." That means that it works better with older systems than Exchange.

Getting Closer: Collaboration Software

Renee Oricchio — 2007-01-29T18:06:19-05:00

Douglas Shimp has five employees he rarely sees, but works closely with everyday. His consulting firm, 3 Back, based in Milwaukee, Wis., offers training and coaching to help software development teams increase their agility and productivity.

Shimp and his colleagues would have a very hard time doing what they do without a set of collaborative software tools that allow his fanned-out team to work seamlessly with each other as if they were all in the same office together. "We rely, for example, on our wiki tool heavily," Shimp says. "It allows us to collaborate with each other on the road when we're working with clients, whether it's sharing documents or sharing a development problem."

A wiki is a special kind of website that allows multiple users to add or revise content collectively. Wikis are just one example of so-called collaborative software. Other popular applications include instant messaging, file sharing, Web conferencing, blogs and team spaces.

Social networks

These technologies, and numerous others, are being combined in ways to turn offices into social networks of co-workers, clients, vendors and contractors pocketed individually literally anywhere in the world.

And if the sales figures on the collaborative software market are any indication, it's transforming the workplace as we know it. According to Gartner, of Stamford, Conn., the combined markets of collaborative software, instant messaging and Web conferencing for business worldwide was more than $1.3 billion last year and is expected to grow another 17 to 20 percent this year.

Some of the more popular offerings on the market include:

Microsoft SharePoint and Groove 2007 : Prices for both of these collaboration software packages start at $299. These products may especially appeal to small and mid-size business owners "since most of these companies have a Microsoft infrastructure already in place," points out Michael Speyer, a senior analyst from Forrester Research, of Cambridge, Mass.

Ezenia: Collaboration software prices start at just under a thousand dollars, server packages between $5,000 and $10,000. Features include audio chat in real time and a virtual whiteboard

Tomoye: The company doesn't publish its prices, since their products are often bundled with consulting services. However, it's "communities of practice" approach is worth a read on the corporate website.

WebEx's WebOffice: A modest pricing tier available for small and mid-size businesses will make this more palatable for the bottom line. Starting prices begin at $60 a month for up to five seats. Features include the ability to customize shared databases, online calendaring, Web meetings, online group polls and a task manager tool.

Plan for online polls and audio chat

Shared white boards, online polls, live chat with audio? For the business owner with a sweet tooth for tech candy, there can be irresistible pull to commit to collaboration tools without thinking through whether it's a worth while investment. Tom Eid, a vice president of research at Gartner, sees it all the time. "Usually people jump to the technology first," Eid says. "Companies need to have a plan in place first that everyone on the team agrees to."

Eid advises managers to consider the following questions in advance:

Purpose -- Who makes up this new community and what is their common purpose?
Determining roles --Who is sponsoring the community? What department? Who will be the moderator and the participants?
Tools -- What tools does the team need? What tools are bundled into the software that they don't need and might present a time drain if abused? What kind of training is involved?
Access -- Who needs permission to see what?
Lifecycle --What's the start and end date of each project or initiative? How will the team decide when it's time to mothball content to avoid a data pileup?

So what kinds of businesses benefit the most from these technologies? "Basically any business with a design or content element is a likely fit for collaboration software" Eid says. "Anyone who has something to share: lawyers, graphic designers, sales staff, even government contractors."