Small Business Blog from Microsoft

Pay-per-click (PPC) for SMBs #6: How to Set up a new Microsoft Advertising adCenter account

Microsoft Small Business — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 09:02:00 GMT

There has never been a better time to start running your search campaigns in adCenter because you can:

Easily import your Google and Yahoo! campaigns to Bing using the Microsoft adCenter platform
Efficiently promote your business to UK and international markets
Control the costs: you only pay when someone clicks on your ad
Easily set up, monitor and make changes to your search campaign with adCenter
Target geographically and demographically using business intelligence tools

Setting up an account on adCenter is quick and easy, and a great way to generate highly targeted traffic to your site. Bing now has 5.6% of search query share* and growing day by day! Follow these simple steps, then upload your campaigns and enjoy the rewards. *ComScore for April 2011

Firstly, if you are a large direct client or an agency with a monthly budget over £1000, get in touch with our sales team. If you are a small to medium business with a modest budget to spend on adCenter, then click here to begin the sign up process.

Please complete the form that appears and if you have any problems; just click on Live Chat button on the right hand side of the page and someone will be on hand to assist you.

We will also need your company information:

At this moment you also need to have your credit card payment details to hand. Then click “finish” and you are good to go! The setup is completely free and you will not be charged a penny until someone clicks on your ad.

When this process is complete you are ready to create your account. Here are some top tips on how to make it coherent, easy to manage and optimisable.

Let’s take a look at our imaginary car dealership, Shah’s Cars.

1. First of all, we’d split it’s website into its main areas. For example, ‘Used Cars’ and ‘New Cars’. These would be our ‘account’ names on adCenter.

2. Then we’d split these areas further. For example, within ‘Used Cars’, we might have ‘Honda,’ ‘BMW’ or ‘Nissan’. These will be our ‘campaign’ names.

3. We would then look at models, colours and other features to create the ad groups.

4. Finally, we’d place the relevant keywords and ads. The more granular your structure, the more targeted your ad copy can be and the better the campaign Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and Return On Investment (ROI)will be.

Why wait, start advertising on adCenter today!

Thanks for reading.

Kate

PPC for SMBs #1: Paid and organic search

PPC for SMBs #2: An introduction to Bing

PPC for SMBs #3: An introduction to Microsoft adCenter

PPC for SMBs # 4: An introduction to Microsoft adCenter Desktop

PPC for SMBs #5: The Microsoft Advertising Intelligence Tool

Upgrade your IT on a budget with cloud computing

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 11:03:00 GMT

Small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) face something of a quandary where IT is concerned. Fully aware of the benefits of technology, in terms of driving revenue and managing costs, business leaders are eager to use IT to improve their operations. But they are also conscious of competing cost pressures, and aware of the need to spread limited funds across a range of functions. IT can add significant value to organisations, but the technology solutions SMBs need rarely come for free.

Traditionally, few SMBs - particularly micro businesses - have been able to afford the high-end, market-leading IT solutions used by larger companies. And as such, they have found it difficult to compete in many business sectors. But thanks to the advent of cloud computing, companies no longer need a state-of-the-art on-premise IT infrastructure to carry out information technology functions. With hosted services at their fingertips, advanced IT solutions have become more accessible to the UK's smallest companies.

Paying for IT on a subscription basis

Rather than having to spend many thousands on hardware, software, constructing a network and building up server capacity, companies can now simply 'rent' IT services through an outsourcer. The advent of software, infrastructure and platform-as-a-service means companies can utilise top-end solutions without taking ownership. Providing they have a fast and reliable broadband connection, SMBs can simply access IT services online over the internet. This eliminates the major capital expenditure associated with developing an in-house IT function.

As a consequence, IT has become more affordable for small businesses. They are able to sign up for the technology services they require, and use them on demand as and when there is a need. There is no need to invest large sums buying servers and software outright, meaning there is far less risk involved for SMBs. This helps from a financial management perspective, as the company is under less pressure to derive a strong return on investment. They do not have to venture into the red in order to get started with IT.

The inherent flexibility of cloud computing is another major benefit for the UK's smallest companies. While they may be required to commit to a certain amount of expenditure each month, depending on the terms of their cloud subscription contract, SMBs can generally scale their usage up or down according to demand. So during certain periods, the company may wish to pay for additional IT services, but then reduce their usage at a later date.

Crucially for the SMB, they are not committed to pay out large sums over an extended period of time. If the company experiences a cashflow crisis, one way of reducing expenditure may be simply to stop using particular IT services. If servers and software have been purchased outright, the company does not have this option. It is immediately left with a deficit - due to investment in physical IT assets - which can only be reduced by deriving operational value from IT.

So will more SMBS embrace the cloud in 2012?

UK small business leaders are aware of the various benefits of cloud computing for their organisations. They realise that hosted services increase their access to advanced IT, while giving employees greater flexibility and reducing operational and maintenance costs. SMB leaders are also conscious of the improvements made to cloud security in recent years, and as a consequence, more willing to overhaul their IT. As companies with limited in-house IT operations, they are the firms which stand to gain the most from cloud computing. The service delivery model can instantly transform their fortunes, allowing them to tap into the world of ecommerce and online business. The cloud can help them compete effectively with much bigger rivals with far greater budgets.

According to research conducted by Cisco recently, SMB leaders are making it their purpose to investigate cloud computing and assess its benefits for themselves. Of those company bosses surveyed by the networking firm, 44 per cent said they had a full understanding of the cloud, its operations and potential benefits. When asked the same question in 2009, just 20 per cent of SMB leaders were confident in their appreciation of the cloud. This alone suggests progress is being made within the small business community.

Some 45 per cent of those SMBs surveyed by Cisco said they are already using at least one cloud service to their advantage. And respondents indicated a desire and intention to spend more in this area over the coming months and years. During 2012, half of UK small companies plan to spend at least a third of their IT budgets on cloud and managed services in 2012, Cisco claimed.

Conclusion

According to Cisco's Jeff Beckham, cloud investments help SMBs reduce risk when investing in new technology. And this is a crucial point. As small businesses are not required to commit large amounts of their budget to cloud services - but still gain access to advanced solutions - there is relatively little that can go wrong. He suggested that lures such as minimal investment in IT, easier installations, access to more robust applications, greater agility to respond to changes in the marketplace and the ability to try software before they buy will encourage more SMBs to adopt cloud computing this year.

"You are able to adopt a new technology without a large up-front investment, making it all the more appealing," Mr Beckham added. And this is why up to three-quarters of UK firms are now using hosted services in some form or other. The IT landscape has changed, quickly and decidedly. But not only this, innovation has been to small businesses' advantage. They can now match the IT capabilities of far bigger rivals, enabling them to compete more effectively and broaden their horizons.

Going Global Trade Conference, 2 March, Cambridge

Microsoft Small Business — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:12:00 GMT

On 2 March 2012, Robert Sturdy MEP, Vice-Chairman of the European Parliament’s International Trade Committee, will be hosting a trade conference aimed at bringing together British SMEs and national and European experts, advisers and officials, to provide essential information to British companies on how to take their business to the world.

The conference will be split into three panel sessions followed by a questions and answer session. Additional panelists, speakers and attendees include Mark Prisk MP, Minister of State for Business and Enterprise, Dr. Syed Kamall, MEP for London, Sean McGuire, Brussels Director of the CBI, John Walker, National Chairman Federation of Small Businesses , Ray Symons, EU Affairs British Retail Consotium, Liz Basing, UKTI, Signe Ratso, Trade Strategy and Analysis European Commission and Patrick Crawford, Chief Executive of the UK Export Credits Guarantee Department (ECGD).

Learn more and register – free - today

Safer Internet Day 7 February

Microsoft Small Business — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:33:24 GMT

Microsoft research, released today (6 February 2012), highlights that 78% of respondents have basic online security protection, but are less knowledgeable about how to defend against cybercrime threats that rely on deception such as phishing, identity theft and fraudulent links.

The findings are based on the Microsoft Computing Safety Index (MCSI) which gathered responses from more than 11,000 people in 27 countries to examine their adoption of proven online tools and behaviours. Respondents were awarded points for proactive security practices to arrive at an overall MCSI score out of 100.

The average MCSI score across all 27 countries was 44, and hints at a shift in potential exposure from software-based threats towards more socially engineered threats. The survey shows that while many consumers are using firewalls, anti-virus software and strong passwords, further education is needed on the actions and tools that can help protect against socially engineered threats that deceive victims to steal from them. Over half (56 per cent) of respondents do not educate themselves about preventing identity theft and 73 per cent do not educate themselves about the latest steps to protect their online reputation.

The MCSI survey demonstrates that consumers are taking measures to ensure a safer computing experience and to combat the technical threats they most often experience, such as unknown emails, popups, spyware and viruses, with 85 per cent installing anti-virus protection to deal with malware and spyware.

However, as cybercriminals adopt increasingly sophisticated and devious tactics, the research indicates that many consumers are potentially vulnerable to social engineering attacks and are not taking the precautions to guard against cybercriminals that use deception to steal money and personal information. For example, only half of people change their social networking privacy settings to limit what information they share and just 29 per cent say they use phishing and web browser filters.

Microsoft’s commitment to keeping families safe online

A total of 600 Microsoft employees across 20 European countries are volunteering to support Safer Internet Day to assist in addressing this changing landscape and in recognition that families, and children in particular, need access to the latest information and training on to protect themselves online. They aim to train around 98,345 children, teachers and parents about how to effectively help protect children online, underlining Microsoft’s commitment to fostering digital citizenship and improving lives through technology. “We are absolutely delighted to take part in Safer Internet Day and our employee volunteering activities underlines Microsoft’s commitment to creating awareness on how children and families can safely enjoy their internet experience. The research highlights the immediate need to guide people of all ages across Europe on responsible internet use, and Safer Internet Day is a great way of bringing this issue to the forefront of people's minds,” says Sylvie Laffarge, Citizenship & Public Affairs Director Europe, Microsoft.

There are a range of tools designed to mitigate online risks, including Windows 7 Parental Controls, Windows Live Family Safety 2011, and Zune and Windows Media Center family safety settings, allowing parents to restrict online content based on a child’s age. Windows Internet Explorer 9 Parental Controls allow parents to view specific and detailed information about their child’s online activity. Xbox Parental Controls help parents restrict their child’s ability to play inappropriate content, such as from games or DVDs.

Key Findings

Over half (57 per cent) said they run software updates and/or turn on automatic updates.
Over a third (39 per cent) of respondents do not educate themselves on protecting their online reputation or preventing and correcting identify theft.
61 per cent have created passwords using upper and lower case letters, numbers and symbols.
Over half (51 per cent) said they have conducted transactions on reputable sites only.
When asked how to protect their security online, half said they have turned and left on their firewall.
Only 18 per cent have installed anti-virus or spyware software on their mobile phones.

Age group findings

Index score across age groups
14-24	25-29	30-44	45-59	60+
47.08	47.27	45.04	40.97	39.70

The Index finds that younger age groups are familiar to social threats. Over two thirds (69 per cent) of 14-24 year olds changed their social networking privacy settings to limit what information they share, which is double the amount (34 per cent) of the 45-59 age group.
Younger people are also more likely to use search engines to monitor and manage their personal information online, with 40 per cent of 25-29 year olds actioning this, compared to 22 per cent of the 45-59 age category
62 per cent of 14-24 year olds create screen names and/or gamer tags that are not their real name. They are also scored highest (68 per cent) in creating passwords using upper and lower case letters, numbers and/or symbols.
25-29 year olds are more likely (32 per cent) than other age groups to educate themselves about the latest steps to take to protect their online reputation with 71 per cent changing their social networking privacy settings to limit what information they share.
30-44 year olds scored highest in installing anti-virus/spyware/malware software on their PC and/or laptop with 87 per cent claiming to have done so. 61 per cent of 30-44 year olds also said they run software updates and/or turn on automatic updates.

Gender findings

Index score based on gender
Male	Female
45.02	42.52

Males ranked higher in the overall Index with an average score of 45.02 compared to females at 42.52. The results showed that males are more likely to run software updates, leave firewalls on and use phishing and web browser filters than females.

Parent and non-parent findings

Index score based on parental status
Parents	Non-parents
41.65	46.17

Non-parents ranked higher across the majority of online safety areas compared to parents.
The higher score for non-parents is in part a result of the types of activities younger people engage in online. For example, 41 per cent of non-parents edited information about themselves which may affect their online reputation, compared to only 23 per cent of parents, while over half (52 per cent) of non-parents created pseudo names and/or gamer tags compared to 31 per cent of parents.

Interpreting the MCSI

0-19. Get Back to Basics – A score in this range indicates users may not be taking advantage of the most basic—and oftentimes free—protections available.

20-79. Take It Up a Notch – Scores in this broad range suggest users have the basics covered, but opportunities exist to learn about new and emerging threats, particularly in the social realm.

80-100. Stay the Course – A score in this range shows users are well-aware of the various threats—both existing and emerging—as well as the steps necessary to help guard against them.

Download the Office 365 Integration Module for SBS Essentials

Microsoft Small Business — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 10:11:57 GMT

The Office 365 Integration Module (OIM) for Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials is now available for download. This feature add-in simplifies the management of Office 365 by integrating the administration experience into the server Dashboard, the command-and-control center for Windows SBS 2011 Essentials.

When you integrate Office 365 with SBS Essentials through the OIM you can:

Subscribe to Office 365 or configure the server to use an existing subscription
Perform the following Office 365 account management tasks from the dashboard:

Create Office 365 accounts
Assign new or existing Office 365 accounts to network user accounts
Activate or deactivate Office 365 accounts
Link your professional Internet domain to Office 365
View usage status and other information about your Office 365 subscription
Access your Office 365 management portal from the Office 365 page of the server dashboard.

Note: You can install and configure the Office 365 Integration Module at any time after installing Windows SBS 2011 Essentials.

Learn more about Windows Small Business Server 2011 Essentials and Standard editions.

Pay-per-click (PPC) for SMBs #5: The Microsoft Advertising Intelligence Tool

Microsoft Small Business — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 08:46:00 GMT

You’re just about to start your first search campaign for Shah’s Cars, advertising your new car insurance product, but you have no idea what the average CPC is, what the seasonality looks like, what your typical audience is and you want to go live as soon as possible. Where do you start?

The Microsoft Advertising Intelligence tool is here to help (download here). The tool can help with:

bid proposals
demographic and location targeting
keyword/negative keyword expansions
daily or monthly traffic patterns

So first things first, you need to build a keyword list.

Step 1 – Building your keyword list

To do this, type ‘car insurance’ into an Excel spreadsheet and, with your location set to United Kingdom, run the three keyword suggestion tools: 'campaign association', 'queries that contain your keyword' and 'related search'. The 'campaign association' and 'queries that contain your keyword' tools give you a great list of popular generic terms and also give you some keywords that might like to have in your negative list. For example, you could use ‘classic car insurance’ as a negative keyword if Shah’s Cars insurance policies don’t cover classic cars.

You can also run the 'related search' tool on the term ‘car insurance’. This will provide you with a list of keywords that people are known to search for relating to your original term. 'Related search' will provide you with a great list of popular car Insurance providers, which you can then use to build a competitive landscape.

For more information see - Microsoft Advertising Intelligence - Keyword and Negative Keyword Expansion

Step 2 – Seasonality Insight

After running the 3 expansion tools, you can compile the generated keywords and remove any that you deem irrelevant to later become negatives. With this, you can then run all of the terms through the daily and monthly traffic tools. The monthly traffic tool provides you with the seasonal peaks for the terms, showing that car insurance searches peak in March and April.

The daily traffic tool provides information on daily trends, in this case showing that queries increase at the beginning of the week and then fall off at the weekend.

For more information see - Microsoft Advertising Intelligence - Using the Traffic and Demographic Tools for Market Trends

Step 3 – Budget Proposal and CPC data

With these same keywords you can run the keyword monetisation tool, providing you with CPCs data for each of your terms for position 1-10. Using the seasonal trend data from the monthly traffic tool, you can make rough estimates on what the terms could cost each month.

For more information see - Microsoft Advertising Intelligence - Using the Pricing Tool for Bid Proposals and Budget Management

Step 4 – Audience Insight

With a keyword list built and costings researched, you can then move onto learning more about your audience. If you run competitor keywords through the monthly traffic tool you can see who your most popular competitor is. You can then run the demographic and location tools on the car insurance terms to get a better idea of what demographic looks for these products and where they are most popular in the UK. In this example, you can learn that car insurance has an even gender split, but is most popular in the 25-49 year old age group, and searched most often in London.

Within an hour, you can have a generic keyword list to work from, find out that car insurance is most popular between 25-49 year olds, that you should upweight the budget in the popular months and ensure your daily budgets are high enough to cope with the increased searches at the start of the week. So in four easy steps, you have all the information you need to start your search campaign.

Thanks for reading,

Katrina Morris

Previous posts in the series:

PPC for SMBs #1: Paid and organic search

PPC for SMBs #2: An introduction to Bing

PPC for SMBs #3: An introduction to Microsoft adCenter

PPC for SMBs # 4: An introduction to Microsoft adCenter Desktop

Go Global in 2012

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 10:48:13 GMT

Research in the first month of the New Year points to record levels of new businesses being created and high optimism amongst small business owners. Will this confidence convert into international trade and expansion? We hope so! Enterprise Nation founder, Emma Jones (@emmaljones), offers four steps to going global in 2012 and announces a series of events with DHL and Regus that will help you along the way.

This will be a good year to grow sales and Go Global. A sizeable opportunity is opening up with growth in markets beyond the Eurozone where more people are going online and wanting to buy British made products and services. Here’s how to make the most of it:

Know your product/service – this sounds like a basic starting point but what I mean by this is focus on your niche. Clearly define the look/feel and cost of your product so you know exactly how to position it in new markets and where to promote it.
Look beyond the Eurozone – in late 2011 the HSBC Trade Forecast predicted world trade to grow by 73% in the next 15 years, with forecasts showing Egypt, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, China and Brazil being the international powerhouses that will drive growth. These countries are not natural trading partners for the UK and for reasons of culture and distance the European Union remains the largest recipient of exports from the UK. Political figures have recognised the need for British companies to look further afield with the Prime Minister urging businesses to seek out opportunities ‘in huge modern cities from Bogota to Istanbul where people are hungry for the skills and services Britain is best at.” Research and visit emerging markets to assess the potential for your business.
Make the most of powerful platforms – upload products and services to international trading platforms and/or source the talent you need to serve new markets. Elance.com is a good place to promote yourself as a business service provider or identify experts and professionals and Alibaba.com is the platform of choice to source from and sell to Asia.
Seek help – there has never been so much support available to help you Go Global. Seek advice from peers who have been through the experience of international trade, from government agency, UKTI, and from industry experts and service providers.

Enterprise Nation is on hand to help and has partnered with DHL and Regus to deliver a series of events throughout 2012 to help you Go Global. Speakers at the free events are well qualified and include Christian Arno of Lingo24.com who will show how to localise your website to increase sales, Gabriela Castro-Fontoura who will offer a guide to doing business in Latin America and Tony Wheeler will share the story of how he co-founded Lonely Planet and built it into the UK’s largest independent travel guide publisher before selling a majority stake to the BBC.

The Go Global series will offer the guidance and support you need to make the most of what is a growing opportunity to take your business to the world.

Please click here to register for the Go Global events http://goglobalworkshops.eventbrite.co.uk/

Pay-per-Click (PPC) for SMB #4: An intro to Microsoft adCenter Desktop

Microsoft Small Business — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 17:15:00 GMT

After a break over the Christmas period we're continuing our series of guest posts from Microsoft Advertising on how to get started with pay-per-click advertising.

In our previous adCenter post, an introduction to Microsoft Advertising adCenter, I gave you the basics of adCenter and how you can use it to manage your campaigns, track performance and generate new keywords. This week I’m going to show you how to do all this and more within the adCenter Desktop, an application that can be installed on your computer and used offline.

adCenter Desktop is great for managing campaigns in bulk, meaning you can make edits to multiple items at once. It also has some very useful time-saving features.

Getting started

Download the tool from http://advertising.microsoft.com/uk/small-business/support-center/adcenter-downloads/adcenter-desktop and log in using your adCenter details (you can register at http://adcenter.microsoft.com/ if you haven’t already done so).

Navigation

adCenter Desktop is divided up in to 5 main areas; the ribbon at the top of the screen is where you’ll access the tools you’ll use most regularly, whereas the left menu is where you can select which account to work on or a particular campaign or ad group. The main area shows the campaigns, ad groups and keywords within the account which can be edited at the bottom of the screen. Finally, the dashboard on the right allows you to track campaign performance and view current trends within the account.

Adding and selecting accounts

The browser menu on the left can be used to add and remove accounts. Start by selecting the account you want to start working on.

When selecting an account for the first time, you will be prompted to download it. When you make any edits to an item, such as a campaign or keyword, it will appear in bold: a bold item indicates that changes have not been made live. You must then click ‘Sync Changes’ on the ribbon to apply the changes to your account.

Dashboard view – New feature

Dashboard is a great new feature that allows you to track campaign performance from your desktop tool, allowing you to view metrics such as clicks and impressions over a range of dates. To begin, simply click the dashboard bar on the right of the screen.

You can also view trends in account performance such as ‘Greatest change in clicks ’ over a selected date period. This is a useful way to see which ads and keywords are performing the best and which may need some attention.

Viewing and editing campaigns, ad groups and keywords

The adCenter Desktop allows you to switch between campaigns, ad groups, text ads and keywords using the navigation buttons at the top of the screen. You can also search for a particular item using the search feature.

By expanding the view in the account browser on the left, you can view a particular campaign or ad group. After selecting an item you can edit it, for example to change the campaign name or monthly budget. Multiple items can be edited at once - try using Ctrl+A to select all items or holding down Ctrl and clicking on multiple items to select them all.

You may find the ‘Find and Replace’ functionality from the ribbon useful when making changes to multiple items.

Error view

Occasionally, you may receive notification that you have errors within your account.

Clicking on the ‘View errors’ button allows you to view any items with errors, such as a keyword that has received an editorial disapproval.

These items need to be corrected before they can be synced.

Imports, exports and multiple changes If you have an existing PPC account on another search engine, you may consider importing it into Microsoft adCenter

You can do this easily using the ‘Import’ functionality from the ribbon. This allows you to import existing campaigns quickly and easily, avoiding the need to re-create them from scratch. If you wish to back-up your adCenter account, it’s a good idea to save an export on a regular basis. Therefore, if you accidentally make any changes that you later want to revert you can simply import your saved backup file.

Another way of importing or editing multiple items at once is using the multiple changes function if you find it easier to edit items within Microsoft Excel, simply select campaigns, ad groups or keywords and click ‘Copy to Excel’. You can then make the necessary changes within Excel and re-import them easily using the multiple changes wizard. Shortcuts: adding match types, altering bid types Highlight any keyword. If you would like to bid on this keyword across all match types, right click, select ‘Bid on match Type’, select ‘All’

To alter bid amounts by a particular percentage or amount navigate to the keywords tab, select the keywords whose bids you wish to change, right-click and select ‘Change Bids’

Negatives and targeting by location, time, day and demographic profile

Using adCenter, you can target users by geographic location, time and date or demographic profile. Using the incremental bid feature you can, for example, bid higher for male users over female users if your product particularly appeals to men. You can view these options by first selecting a campaign, and then ‘Targeting’ from the editing window at the bottom of your screen.

Clicking the Exclusions button also allows you to add negative keywords to a particular campaign.

Summary

Microsoft adCenter Desktop is a powerful tool allowing you to create and edit multiple items at once. There are also some really nice shortcuts such as adding all match types or increasing bid types by a particular percentage. adCenter Desktop also works well with Microsoft Excel allowing you to make changes within Excel and re-import them in to the tool. The new dashboard feature also makes it easy to get a snapshot of the performance of your account so you can see what’s performing well and what may need some work. Have a go with the tool and let us know how you get on. If you have any questions or feedback please post a comment!

The two angles of irresistibility

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 17:32:54 GMT

Guest post from Maria Ross, founder and chief strategist of Red Slice a branding and marketing consultancy and blog based in the US. She is the author of Branding Basics for Small Business: How to Create an Irresistible Brand on Any Budget available on Amazon.co.uk. Her next book, Rebooting My Brain will be available in February 2012.

“How on Earth did they think of that? Genius!”

Ever say this about a new hotshot company or product you’ve hear about? Some businesses just seem to have a knack for being in the right place at the right time with the right product or service.

“Hitting a nerve” and becoming the next big thing is something about which all entrepreneurs dream. But building that buzz-worthy brand is about so much more than luck.

With my clients, I look at buzz-worthy brand strategies from two important angles:

What do you authentically deliver?
What space can you claim?

Be clear on what you can authentically deliver

If you just want to be a trend-chaser and go for the fast-cash, I’m not talking to you. Many clients want to be the next big thing – but they have to back up their claims with proof. You can’t just “slap a coat of brand paint” over your business cosmetically and expect it to last. People will see right through that.

There are markets for everything. So what can you promise that you can really and truly deliver? Don’t try to be hip, cool and edgy if your product or service is better suited for conservative budget-watchers. Know your product or service well and exactly who it is for and tell your story to those people. That’s how you can really hit a nerve – especially if you’re authentically providing real value and meeting a real need.

Apple hits a nerve because Apple continues to deliver on its promises. Their processes, R&D, and design aesthetic all lead into a product that the market adores. Have they always hit the mark? Not, they haven’t. But they always go back to who they are in their soul and what their brand represents. And they continue talking to the people who want to hear that message, not to those who don’t.

What value do you provide? What problems do you solve? Who is your best customer? What can you realistically deliver? Once you know these answers, you’re much closer to crafting a story that people will care about and one that will really hit a nerve with a specific niche.

Understand the lay of the land – and carve out your story

Once you know who you are and where you play, now you can start to “zag” when others “zig.” With my clients, we do a high-level audit of four or five competitors: What do they say, to whom are they talking, what do they emphasise, how do they look? After seeing some clear trends, we plot the businesses out on a scale. For example, with one client I used “traditional technology player” at one end and “cutting-edge new media expert” on the other.

All the competitors seemed to fall on one side or the other, but no one owned the space in the middle. Literally, we saw a glaring “white space” that our client could authentically fill – and that was where we focused their brand story. The result is that their revamped brand story “hit a nerve” with their target audience because no one else was telling that story.

You’ll never hit a nerve with a “Me Too” strategy. You have to understand the competitive landscape and find a way to differentiate. I’m always surprised by how many business owners do not map out their competitors’ brands with an analytic eye. Instead of looking at everything your competitors are doing and copying it, look at what they are not doing and saying and find a way to stake your claim.

Developing a break-out brand isn’t easy. But you will be able to hit a nerve with your brand story no matter how crowded your industry if you approach it from these very two important angles: What can you really deliver and what space can you really own?

In the cloud or in the house? It’s your choice

Microsoft Small Business — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 10:50:00 GMT

2011 was the year that most small businesses discovered ‘The Cloud’.

Because there’s still a fair amount of fuzziness (technical term) around what ‘The Cloud’ is, here’s a brief explanation. In essence, working in the cloud means using the Internet to access tools we use for day-to-day business tasks.

You might think that’s old hat – after all, people have had Hotmail email accounts for years.

But in business terms, the benefits go much further and are spelled out with some clarity:

1) As with Hotmail, you can access your stuff from anywhere

2) And from the cloud, you can use these services on different platforms: your PC, laptops and tablets, or apps on your phone

3) You don’t need to install new software: applications are accessed through a browser

4) Data storage is getting cheaper by the day. Store your stuff cheaply, or even free

5) Someone else worries about security, backups and all that other technical stuff.

Indeed, the word ‘cloud’ came to symbolise this online data management precisely because you didn’t need to know (or bother with) any of the swirling mist of stuff which happens there. Rather like my microwave oven, I know that clever things are going on to make it work, but I don’t need to get my hands dirty. Computing and data storage have become an off-the-shelf commodities - and with low prices and minimum techie knowledge required, small businesses are the main beneficiaries.

So, where’s the catch?

There is no doubt that the cloud is redefining the way businesses use computers. At some stage soon, then, we will all throw off our shackles and walk into the blindingly white future of cloud, with smiles on our faces and perhaps an ethereal choir ringing in our ears. I’ve seen ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind’. Right?

Well, sort of.

There are companies which see the cloud with this sort of unalloyed joy, and there’s no doubt that most services will be cloud based in the future. But not all. At Microsoft, we’re committed to cloud technologies, but we’re also committed to choice.

There are occasionally reasons why companies may choose not to use cloud services:

Some niche software applications simply aren’t built for the cloud, and may never be
Some companies feel safer with key types of information locked away physically – even though there’s a cast-iron guarantee of data security, they don’t want the infinitesimal risk of information going astray
Sometimes, when old records are still on paper, for example, you might as well have newer electronic data in the same room.

I’m sure you can think of more reasons – it all comes down to personal preference and the circumstances of your business.

Furthermore, operationally, the transition to cloud computing needs to be a smooth process. Here’s a good parallel example. At some stage in your business or personal life, you might have changed email addresses or used a new piece of email software. I bet it was a miserable experience. You were worried that you might lose old emails, or things might not work out properly and you’d lose important messages.

Smart businesses want to avoid these hassles by ensuring that any transition to the cloud is not a case of switching off one service and switching on another, but rather a case of having the best of both worlds at all times.

Best of breed, best of both

We think that convenience and simplicity are what matters for a business, and rather than using technology in whatever way is right for your IT provider, you should be able to use it in whatever way is right for you and your business.

For example, if you have Office installed on your PC, check out Office Web Apps – which allows you to view and edit your documents with perfect fidelity through a browser or on your phone. Web Apps don’t replace Office 2010, they are a cloud-based augmentation of some Office programs, providing a different access and usage option.

Then there’s SkyDrive, the simple and free online storage space, which allows you to keep and share documents at will. It’s endlessly useful – but it doesn’t need to completely replace any local storage on your network.

Or for the most complete introduction to cloud services, try Office 365 which includes Office Web Apps along with enterprise-grade email (Exchange Online), video-conferencing, screen-sharing and Instant Messaging (Lync Online) and complete and secure collaboration (SharePoint Online). All for as little as £4.00 per month – that’s a large cappuccino. Yet all of these services integrate perfectly with the local, PC-based versions of Microsoft products which you may already have in your office. Quite simply, if you check out Exchange Online for email, it will give you seamless access to your email from anywhere and on any device, but it won’t gobble up your old emails or make you change the way you work.

The cloud is already making life for small businesses easier, more productive, and financially both economical and predictable. It is allowing managers to spend less time on technology and more time on cash-generative work. And it is empowering smaller companies to compete with much larger competitors. But cloud doesn’t mean all or nothing – it means you choose whatever works for your business.

And if you want to try it first and see how it works, why not sign up for a free 30-day trial of Office 365? It's quick and easy, and you'll be surprised at what you can do - like build your website for example.

See how Bing can help grow your small business

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:24:00 GMT

Microsoft Advertising has just launched a new Facebook campaign in the UK and France to help more businesses like yours reach new customers with the help of our fictional UK small business customers Stan & Dan.

What does Stan know about online advertising that Dan doesn’t? You can watch their video on Microsoft adCenter's Facebook page to find out how advertising with Microsoft adCenter on Bing worked for them and hear stories from real-life small businesses that found success with search advertising. Of course we’d love to hear from you as well. What has worked for you and what tips can you share with new advertisers?

Advertisers who are new to adCenter can claim £30 in free advertising for their first Bing campaign (subject to Ts&Cs).

Productivity? Learn to type!

Microsoft Small Business — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:38:00 GMT

Today's post is courtesy of Ewan Dalton, who heads up the technology group within Microsoft UK’s partner business, and who also publishes a “Tip o’ the Week” to several thousand people, covering many aspects of productivity and technology. Previous tips are also published onto http://blogs.technet.com/ewan”

Some factoids to amuse your family and bemuse your friends...

TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
The Quick Brown Fox Jumps Over the Lazy Dog is a pangram, in other words a phrase that contains every letter of the alphabet (in English, at least). It’s often used by typists to try out a new keyboard, and has been used for a long time by typesetters to show off their fonts. It’s not the most efficient (there is a bit of repetition), but it is one of the most sensible in meaning. Well, sort-of.
- o Quick wafting zephyrs vex bold Jim might be shorter, but it sounds like it came from a random word generator, or is the source of some fiendish anagram.
- o It might sound geeky, but “Just My Type” is a fascinating book all about fonts, if you have any spare book tokens or Amazon vouchers after Christmas. No, really. It’s Quite Interesting.
· The average person's left hand does 56% of the typing.
· Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand and lollipop with your right.

It’s been a long-held dream of many computer scientists, that people should be able to interact with their machines without using a keyboard. Remember Star Trek’s Scotty and the Macintosh?

Bill Gates championed Microsoft Research to spend years and years looking into handwriting, speech and gesture recognition – some of which was very ahead of its time (the Tablet PC predating the iPad by 8 years, for example – though history shows being first isn’t always best). Microsoft’s Surface platform developed and delivered multi-touch interfaces before the iPhone made the idea mainstream.

Only now has the technology become cheap, fast and advanced enough to make reliable speech recognition available, but it’s mostly being done on devices like phones (or Kinect sesnros), with cloud services providing the recognition & intelligence. See a comparison of Microsoft’s TellMe (in Windows Phone) with Apple’s Siri (iOS 5) – here. A less favourable comparison, here.

Oh, well.

Even with all the advances in touch and handwriting or speech, we still predominantly enter information into our PCs using the keyboard. And many of us might be embarassed to still be at the “hunt & peck” method of typing, at best a finger or two of each hand meandering over the keyboard to pick out the right key, whilst looking at the keyboard.

Touch typing revolves around the raised ridges on the “F” and “J” keys, which form the root of the “home keys” – the idea being that you can use 3 or 4 fingers of each hand to type whilst being able to watch the screen and not the keyboard. A decent (nonprofessional) typist should be able to manage 40-50 words per minute (wpm), while the very best touch typists could be 120 wpm or better. Your average web surfer is probably 20-30wpm.

To find out your own WPM and error rate, check here. [Ed's note - I just tried it and I think I was too fast for it!]
The www.powertyping.com site has a number of practice exercises too.

There are a good number of ways to improve your typing – from seeking out the venerable Mavis Beacon software to teach the user, to online (free!) “Online Keyboarding” lessons.

So, if you have any free time over the festive period, why not make one of your New Year’s resolutions to sharpen up your typing skills? You never know, it could help you get a better work/life balance by being a few percent more effective at doing something we all do, every day!

[Ed's note: learning to touch type was seriously one of the best invesments I ever made .... though people have complained that apparently I type too loudly! ]

SMBs unite behind the cloud

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:21:00 GMT

Klaus Holse, Microsoft Area Vice President of Western Europe, talks about the positive outcomes of a recent Europe-wide SMB business survey.

Europe may be in the grip of an economic crisis, but the region remains, in many ways, fertile ground for young or small companies. Despite the prevailing pessimism dominating headlines, we’ve actually seen a host of positive initiatives aimed at start-ups recently, from the European Commission’s proposed new regulation that’s designed to make it easier for venture capitalists to lend money to start-up businesses, to a new scheme aimed at helping small and medium sized businesses (SMBs) get loans for R&D.

Things aren’t all bad. The results of a new study we’ve commissioned among 2,100 European SMB owners actually suggest –encouraging signs of optimism.

Firstly, there’s little sense of helplessness in the face of the economic storm. A majority (61 per cent) of SMB owners across Europe feel their business can make a positive difference to the region’s economic woes. In another demonstration of rolling-up-the-sleeves, two thirds (64 per cent) say it is “businesses like mine that will be most responsible for providing the jobs and innovation to bring back the good times.” Given the fact that the vast majority of businesses in Europe are SMBs – around 99 per cent according to industry data – this is clearly A Good Thing.

Secondly, there is a strong sense that SMB owners are feeling more confident than pessimistic about their chances of success in 2012. Nearly six times as many respondents expect to be more successful (28 per cent) as less (5 per cent), and this positive outlook extends to anticipated job creation: 24 per cent of SMB owners say they expect to hire new staff compared to just seven per cent who think they will need to make redundancies.

There are variations between countries, of course. Although 28 per cent overall said they expect to be more successful in the next eighteen months, the figure was 40 per cent in Sweden, 39 per cent in the UK and 38 per cent in Russia. By contrast, Greece (25 per cent), Italy (23 per cent) and Spain (15 per cent), for example, are notably behind.

In some instances this is understandable; Greece, Italy and Spain are arguably more under pressure economically than some other European countries so it is natural that respondents there would not be as positive as elsewhere. Nonetheless, in every country in which the research was performed, a greater percentage of SMB owners expect to be more successful in the next year than less.

That SMBs can make – and, importantly, believe they will make – a positive difference is something we agree with passionately. At Microsoft, we’ve long espoused the ability of small businesses, when armed with the best tools, technology and business support, to drive growth. Now we’d extend that argument to say that, although it won’t be easy, tech-savvy SMBs can help Europe grow its way out of the crisis.

The SMBs we talked to agree. Two thirds (65 per cent) of respondents said that computing technology will help their business get through the current economic crisis. In fact, 55 per cent went as far as to say the use of computer technology will be the deciding factor in whether their business thrives or just survives. Cloud computing in particular was called out as a key driver, with more than half (52 per cent) agreeing that it will become “more important for businesses like mine”, perhaps because of a rising awareness of the tangible benefits: almost half (49 per cent) of SMBs in our survey that are using cloud services report that their business is more flexible, 45 per cent say it is saving money, 39 per cent say it is more productive, while a quarter say it has made them more innovative.

A big heavy underline is drawn beneath these benefits by the Centre of Economics and Business Research, which last year released a report saying cloud computing will add $1 trillion in productivity to the world’s top economies over the next five years.

But – and there is a but – we know that cloud comes with its caveats. We know that data privacy and security remain concerns for SMBs: 44 per cent of respondents have concerns that cloud services are unproven and risky and 30 per cent agree that “data is not secure in the cloud.” In addition, 71 per cent say they want to know where their data is located.

To some degree, I think that represents a deficit between perception and reality: I can assure any small business or start-up they will get greater levels of compliance and security by putting their trust in Microsoft’s world-leading data centre in Dublin rather than a server in the corner of their office. But when it comes to addressing that deficit, showing, not telling, is the key.

That’s why today we’ve taken an exciting step – making our flagship cloud service for SMBs, Office 365, compliant with both the U.S. Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the EU’s Model Clauses. This makes Office 365 the first productivity service in the industry to comply with EU and US standards of data protection and privacy.

Office 365 is a great example of next-generation IT that helps small businesses compete and scale like never before, with powerful collaboration tools and minimal IT investment. Not only does it offer start-ups and established small businesses increased agility, lower cost IT infrastructure, and collaboration benefits, it’s also really easy to use. Programs like BizSpark, too, also exemplify ways that young entrepreneurs with great ideas can rise quickly – from concept to commercialization.

Kobojo, our 2010 BizSpark winner, just completed the first round of its fund-raising campaign, which has already raised a total of $7.5 million (€5.3 million). British BizSpark One company Huddle, launched in 2007 from co-founder Alastair Mitchell’s bedroom and is now used by more than 90,000 organisations worldwide, thanks in no small part to cloud-based solutions meaning they could launch and grow quickly with little initial capital expenditure costs to worry about.

Yes, times are glum, and I’d be crazy to deny that. But where there are signs of optimism, let’s seize on them. Green shoots need watering to grow. The cloud has the potential to breathe life back into the European economy by helping the SMBs that are its backbone to succeed.

I will simply say that we look forward to the opportunity to help many of the region’s small and medium sized businesses to make the most of that potential.

Feel like your small business is in the dark ages?

Microsoft Small Business — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 08:57:22 GMT

Guest post from Francesca Geens, who runs Digital Dragonfly, offering practical IT and tech assistance for tiny businesses (typically 1-5 PCs) across the UK. Working with both Mac and PC clients, Digital Dragonfly specialises in business email, cloud solutions, mobile working and general best-practice, giving business owners peace of mind when it comes to their IT setup.

Do you feel like your small business is in the dark ages?

That’s exactly how a recent client felt when she approached Digital Dragonfly for an IT audit. "The difference to our systems is amazing", says Kemi who runs a Lettings Agency in Central London. So what did the IT audit reveal and how did we bring this Small Business into line with current IT best-practice?

This two-person company was using 3 PCs on Windows Vista and XP Professional: the computers were slow to boot up, did not have any backup systems in place, were not able to share calendars and suffering with high volumes of spam.

What did Digital Dragonfly do?

Reinstalled their machines and upgraded them to Windows7 Enterprise
Installed Windows Intune for virus/malware protection and so we could remote monitor software updates infuture
Upgraded their email to Office365 allowing emails, calendar and contacts to sync with Smartphones and a tablet; a shared office calendar; the ability to set Out of Office for the first time; excellent spam filtering and a much more reliable email uptime.
Set up backup systems with a new removable hard-drive as well as a cloud solution.

The customer really liked the fact that she could pay monthly for the Office365 and Intune subscriptions. Also Intune allowed for the upgrade to Windows7 without additional costs which brought the whole upfront spend and overall cost down.

The work took one day to do with no email downtime and the business owners now have peace of mind that they can access their data from anywhere, that their files are backed up and computers protected from viruses and malware.

So if you are small business in the dark ages with your IT hopefully this will show you that it doesn’t need to cost the earth to get yourselves in line with current best-practice.

5 steps to starting a business in 2012

Microsoft Small Business — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 11:23:51 GMT

HAPPY NEW YEAR EVERYONE!

Kicking things for 2012 we have a guest blog from Emma Jones of Enterprise Nation and StartUp Britain.

A record 480,000 new businesses were created over the past year (source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/8975769/Resurgent-self-employment-soars-to-75-year-high.html) but let’s see if the UK can beat this record in 2012. If you’ve been thinking about becoming your own boss, now is the time to take a step closer to that ambition as this will be a top year for starting and growing a business. Here are five steps you can take today.

1. Come up with an idea

You may already have your business idea; in which case you can move straight to step 2! If you’re still considering, ask yourself 3 questions:

What is your passion/hobby/skill and can this be turned into a way of making a living?
Have you spotted a gap in the market? If so, fill it!
Have you seen someone do something that you think you can improve upon?

The answers will provide you with the basis of a business idea. Aim to come up with an idea that focuses on a niche; ie creating a particular product or service for a well-defined audience such as payroll services for childcare professionals or a virtual PA for businesses in the food sector. That way, you’ll keep marketing costs low and customer loyalty high.

2. Write a business plan

This is not onerous to do and a business plan will act as your route map; guiding you towards business objectives. It’s easy to remember what to include as it spells I’M OFF:

I – what’s your Idea

M – who is the Market you will serve; include information on where your customers are/their key influences/buying habits etc

O – what Operations will you need to create your service or product; if you’re starting as a graphic designer, this may be just a laptop and some business cards, for a fashion designer, possibly a sewing machine and space

F – is for Financials; make a projection of sales you expect to make in the first 12 months, calculate costs (stock/equipment/marketing etc) and calculate the profit you expect to make. In the Financials section, you can also work out if you need funds to get started in business; that’s unlikely as most businesses can now be started on a shoestring of a budget. If you do need money, turn to friends and family/the bank/ Fund101 (http://www.enterprisenation.com/fund101/)

F – the final F is for Friends. Find yourself a mentor and/or technical experts to whom you can turn for help. At the outset, this may be someone in your family. It’s important to have a sound support network and that’s covered in the final point below.

3. Make a sale

With an idea and business plan in place, it’s time to make a sale. Do so from your own site or blog (if you have one) by plugging in an e-commerce tool or make the most of powerful sales platforms that attract customers on your behalf so you focus on production and promotion. Whether you’re selling handmade cushions or legal services, sites such as Alibaba.com, Elance.com, eBay.com, Etsy.com and Folksy.com can help you make sales. Consider attending markets and shows, having goods displayed in local shops and individual approaches to friends and family who could become customers .. and tell their friends and family to do the same!

4. Promote yourself

With a successful sale, you’ll want to tell the world about it! Make the most of free social media tools and set yourself up on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. Write a press release announcing your company and customers and make friends with journalists from the local and/or trade press as well as influential bloggers and small business sites such as ours who will be interested in profiling your story. Start to build yourself as the expert in your field and soon the media will be coming to you!

5. Surround yourself with support

One of the reasons this is such a promising year to start a business is because there’s never been so much support on offer to help you succeed. Microsoft's Small Business website has lots of useful resources of course. The StartUp Britain campaign (www.startupbritain.org) shines a spotlight on useful events/resources/Awards, sites such as Enterprise Nation (www.enterprisenation.com), BusinessZone.co.uk, StartUp Donut www.startupdonut.co.uk and Business Matters www.bmmagazine.co.uk offer content and friendly forums, and events such as StartUp Saturday http://www.enterprisenation.com/events/startup-saturday-2012/ provide you with all the practical advice you need to get started and introductions to others treading the same path.

Make the most of this year; take that idea, talent, hobby or skill and start a business. You know you want to!

Emma Jones is founder of Enterprise Nation www.enterprisenation.com and co-founder of StartUp Britain www.startupbritain.org

Case study: Software developer uses cloud to launch media monitoring tool for FT.com

Microsoft Small Business — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 13:01:00 GMT

In partnership with the Financial Times, software developer and Microsoft Partner, Newgrove, wanted to use Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) to build a cloud application for advertising customers of FT.com to analyse digital media spend. Using Windows Azure, Newgrove built an application, which analyses data from millions of pages of advertisements. FT.com is using the solution - rebranded Deep View - to provide better-quality analytics, justifying premium-priced advertisement rates.

“Deep View running on Windows Azure gives us the ability to understand campaign performance as it progresses. As a result, optimisation of the advertiser’s spend becomes easier and more accurate.” Jon Slade, Global Digital and Strategic Advertising Sales Director, Financial Times.

Read the full story here.

Case study: six-man telecoms agency improves responsiveness and customer service

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 10:09:00 GMT

Amphigean required a system that could support its employees in communicating more effectively, helping them provide a better service to customers. Excalibur Communications, a Microsoft Partner, assisted the firm in moving to Microsoft Office 365, delivering the latest Microsoft communications technology over the Internet. With Office 365, employees can hold virtual meetings, saving time and travel expenses, and they can coordinate their diaries and process documents wherever they are in the world.

Specialist telecommunications consultancy Amphigean has a core team of employees that work in different locations throughout the UK and overseas. The firm used a variety of cloud-based services for hosting, document sharing, and email, but these were not integrated and were purchased from a number of different suppliers. Peter Greaves, Director, Amphigean, says: “We wanted to keep costs low to maximise the value for our customers, and still use the latest enterprise applications in an integrated way to improve our responsiveness.”

The company’s existing POP3 email had some major drawbacks. For example, it didn’t synchronise well if the team tried to use their smartphones and Microsoft Outlook on their laptops. “Employees would regularly lose emails when they switched to their smartphones,” explains Greaves.

The system didn’t provide shared diaries for the team to coordinate meetings and keep track of what everyone was doing. Nor did employees have any method to cost-effectively meet to work on projects together. Team meetings could cost £1,000 just for travel, accommodation, and subsistence - in addition to time lost in travelling.

But Amphigean couldn’t justify buying on-site servers for email and file storage, and this concept didn’t fit with its ethos of using cloud-based services. With four of the team living in Kendal, one in Wales, and Greaves near Chichester - and with a large team of associate consultants based throughout the world - the firm needed a solution that supported multiple, geographically dispersed offices.

Excalibur Communications used its expertise to help Amphigean go live with Office 365 over the course of a weekend, moving existing email archives and redirecting incoming messages from the POP3 account to the new email service. Amphigean chose the version of Office 365 that includes licences for Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus. This full Office suite of applications was easily downloaded and installed on each user’s laptop. Amphigean is now reaping the benefits of:

A professional email service that works well across different smartphones, enabling everyone to stay in touch and respond to customer requirements.
Shared calendars so everyone knows what’s going on and who is free to assist.
Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus licences, which provides the latest desktop productivity tools and an upgrade path to future versions.
Shared files, enabling collaborate online working.
Online conferencing, which enables user to chat via IM or voice and video links.
One bill, one point of contact for all its telecoms and IT needs.

For more on Office 365, and to get a free 30-day trial, visit the product page on the Small Business website.

End of Support for Microsoft Windows XP SP3 and Office 2003

Microsoft Small Business — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 10:04:00 GMT

Windows XP Service Pack 3 (SP3) and Office 2003 will be reaching end of support in April 2014. We want to help you avoid the risk of running an unsupported version of Windows and Office, and to assist with your IT planning for 2012. Please click here to understand the potential risks involved with the upcoming end of support of these products and to learn about the options available to mitigate these risks

Meerkats and Avatars: showcasing SME tech startups

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 12:44:00 GMT

On show at St John’s Innovation Centre in Cambridge earlier this month were 17 exciting new technologies, including:

A device for measuring how people walk, which is useful for athletes in training but also for older people who have difficulty walking – the idea being to prevent potential falls.
3D automatic reconstruction of tunnels to prioritise repair work.
A dependency tracing software tool, which uses colourful graphics to illustrate how programs interact on your computer – particularly useful for solving installation issues. Microchip giant ARM is already a customer.
A desktop migration tool, that works via a smartphone and enables you to move from one computer to another, resuming work on one computer with your files and apps exactly as you left them on the other.

Reading through these showcases provides a fascinating insight into understanding how technology is shaping and changing lives.

You can read more on the BBC and also on the Cambridge network here.

NB: I don't know why the show is called Meerkats and Avatars, but it is, and it caught my eye!

Microsoft Dynamics CRM special offer price expires 31 Dec

Microsoft Small Business — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 10:32:00 GMT

Don't lose out if you're thinking about subscribing to Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The special introductory offer price of £22.75 per user, per month expires at midnight on 31 December, at which point the price reverts to £29.50 per user per month.

If you subscribe before the 31 December deadline, the whole of your 12-month subscription will be at the special offer price of £22.75 per user per month. In addition, if you add any further users to that same contract after 31 Dec, those additional users will also receive the same introductory rate.

Take a look at our product page for more info, and to get a free trial.

Mumpreneurs balancing childcare with business

Microsoft Small Business — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 09:02:00 GMT

The advent of high-speed broadband, cloud computing and e-commerce has made it easier than ever for people to start a small business. Using the Internet, entrepreneurs can bring their goods and services to a potentially huge market, with very little initial outlay. And for people with responsibilities outside of the workplace – mums in particular – this has opened up new avenues into self-employment.

Home working has become a viable option for a variety of professional people, including those who have started up their own enterprise. Since goods can be sold online and mailed direct to the customer, having a high street presence is now less important for small businesses. As a result, stay-at-home mothers are able to juggle their childcare responsibilities with running a company.

Technology has helped create new opportunities for female businesspeople, who want to progress with their career while playing an active role in their children's upbringing. So it should come as no surprise that the number of mothers running small businesses – or 'mumpreneurs' – is continuing to increase. Women in business want the best of both worlds, and they are working hard to achieve their full ambitions without the need for sacrifice.

Why are women starting up busineses?

Female business leader Yolanda Vega recently said there has been "a massive shift" of women leaving the corporate world to start up their own business in recent years. Writing for the Business Spectator, she revealed that women are starting up firms at almost double the rate compared to men.

"Technology and education has facilitated this trend and it will continue," Ms Vega explained. "Today, the new generation of women graduating from our universities – 60 per cent of graduates in total – are financially savvy and the first generation to consider owning a business as a career option."

In 2011, it is a well-established norm for female professionals to continue working after having children. Some may decide – out of personal choice - to give up their careers and stay at home, but there is no longer any expectation on their part to do so. Indeed, many are eager to return to work following maternity leave, despite their obvious love for their newborn.

But in some circumstances, women may feel as if they want more flexibility once they have given birth, and depending on their career choices, this may not always be achievable in employment. For some, starting a business and becoming a mumpreneur represents a way to take complete charge – to be their own boss and decide where and when they want to work.

Other women may feel as if they are not adequately rewarded for their professional achievements. Despite the introduction of equality legislation more than 40 years ago, a gender pay gap still remains in the UK. Emphasising the point, the Male Champions of Change movement recently claimed it will take another 179 years for women to become the exact equals of men in business. Mumpreneurs have no such worries – they can decide how much to pay themselves, and indeed any male or female employees they hire in the future.

Mumpreneurs - or just women in business?

There is an ongoing debate about the wisdom of being referred to as a mumpreneur – some people believe the term has positive connotations, others negative. According to Dr Polly McGee, who runs the MumpreneurIDEAS program, mumpreneur is an "affirming term" for a defined group of mothers who find "interesting and innovative ways to harmonies their many hats, while at the same time creating income for their families".

Writing for StartupSmart.com, she said such individuals choose motherhood as an opportunity to create a work lifestyle that allows family to be at the centre of their business and vice versa, and this should be applauded. In many cases, motherhood itself is the inspiration for creating a product or service in a traditionally entrepreneurial way, Dr McGee noted.

However, business coach Rebecca Jones warned that the label can sometimes give the wrong impression – that being a mum comes first, before being an entrepreneur. In reality, both aspects are extremely important to women in business. Ms Jones expressed fears that mumpreneur conjures up visions of a business owner balancing a baby on their knee as they work – and this doesn't accurately reflect the setup in reality. In order to make this working lifestyle a success, women need to be ultra-focused, organised and disciplined – and able to switch seamlessly between their dual roles.

Ms Jones' concerns stem from the fact that female entrepreneurs may be doing them disservice by branding themselves in this way – rather than simply as a business owner outright. She claimed that people who juggle parenthood with running a business are "amazing", and deserve all the success that comes their way. But for most business owners, the label does not necessarily matter. It is the reputation of the business, and quality of the goods and services on offer that is the real determinant of success. Being a mumpreneur may simply be part of the journey from home start-up to global corporation.

Conclusion

Balancing the competing demands of childcare and entrepreneurialism is undoubtedly a difficult challenge, but potentially highly rewarding if women are able to strike the right balance. Becoming a mother means, to a large extent, giving up your independence and taking on enormous responsibility, but becoming self-employed can help obtain a different type of freedom.

In order to make their enterprise a success, women need to work hard, plan thoroughly, set realistic goals and accept help when it is on hand. This may be assistance with the business, or it could be a few hours' babysitting. With drive, determination and courage – and a healthy dosage of self-belief – many women are realising their ambitions all at once. They are utilising their talents to the full, establishing successful businesses, while laying the foundations for a happy family life.

New Office 365 videos show the benefits of cloud for SMBs

Microsoft Small Business — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 13:28:30 GMT

We’ve just published six great new Office 365 videos that clearly demonstrate the benefits of cloud computing for small businesses.

Microsoft Office 365 for small businesses offers a simple set of web-enabled tools for small businesses, independent consultants, and professionals looking for business-class productivity services. Combining the tools people know and use today, Office 365 provides virtually anywhere access to email, important documents, contacts, and calendars on nearly any device. Microsoft Office 365 is be available from £4 per user per month for up to 25 users and from £6.50 per user per month for 25+ users*.

You can subscribe to different plans, depending on your business requirements, and on whether you want Office 2010 Professional functionality as part of your subscription. See more on free trials.

You can pick and choose between the videos, which include:

Working together in the cloud:
Flexible, scalable and affordable
IT that actually makes life easier
Making us more productive
Putting my mind at rest
A better experience for our customers

Take a look at our Office 365 product page for more information and to get a free 30-day trial.

How to avoid phone phishing and email scams

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:44:58 GMT

We've had 3 mails to the small business centre over the last couple of days, all from customers who have received phone calls purporting to be from Microsoft tech support, saying they had identified a problem with the recipient's computer. These scams have been operating for some years now.

THESE CALLS ARE SCAMS. DO NOT RESPOND. Microsoft does not telephone individual customers in this way.

Below are examples of what these fraudulent callers are saying.

"The calls state that Microsoft users in my area are experiencing problems with their Windows programme and request that you open your computer and then follow the callers instructions requiring accessing the hard-drive. "

"I would like to advise you that I have had 2 phone calls in the last week from an Indian voice saying it was Microsoft Windows Senior Technician, Alex Wilson & Alan Justice regarding error messages from my PC."

"I have recently had cold calls here in Spain claiming to be from your tech dept. They claimed to be checking if I had viruses ect. and they could help clear them.As I have Norton 360 protection + your setup and no reports I terminated the call. I was just interested if this was fraudulent or genuine.

Please make sure you read the advice given here on how to avoid phishing phone calls and emails. There's also a list of FAQs you may find useful.

The Techno 12 Days of Christmas

Microsoft Small Business — Wed, 14 Dec 2011 10:44:00 GMT

Twelve stylish and up-to-the-minute presents for the whole family; even the bah-humbug business guru. Equally, if you’re too busy making a buck to traipse through the shops, you can mop up some ideas for bargains right here.

1. Office 2010 Home & Business

Perfect for: Mum

Take a look here: The Microsoft Store

Estimated Retail Price: £239.99

If Mum’s the entrepreneur, then Office Home & Business will make perfect sense. It includes the highly functional and connected 2011 versions of Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint and OneNote – everything she’ll need to make a perfect business impression. With plenty of free templates, she’ll soon be drafting letters, invoices, quotes and presentations in minutes.

2. Nokia Lumia 710 and 800

Perfect for: The Young Professional

Take a look here: WindowsPhone

Price: Contract dependent

With the NOKIA Lumia 800 every detail floats to life on the surface of the curved 3.7" ClearBlack display, bringing striking clarity, indoors and out. And with a seamless, deep-dyed body and cutting-edge 8 MP camera with Carl Zeiss optics, you’ve got a revolutionary smartphone in the palm of your hand.

3. Dell Venue Pro

Perfect for: The Independent Thinker

From: Dell

Price: £25-£35 per month on contract, or £350 SIM-free

Of course you didn’t expect Dell to make a mobile, and if you want to follow the herd somewhere else, that’s fine. But the Venue Pro is getting rave reviews, and is shaping up to be the only phone to offer a Blackberry-style physical keyboard but lso the same full-size screen as the Omnia 7. Early users say it’s rugged, beautiful to use, and brilliant for both business and gaming.

4. Educational Software at Educational Prices

Perfect for: The Student

From: Software for Students and other Microsoft Learning Partners

Price: Dependent on software, but expect 50-80% off for educational use.

Because we all know that students live exclusively on baked beans and are kind enough keep our streets free of bollards by walking around with them on their heads, software manufacturers like Microsoft are proud to do a little to ease the financial urden with some great software offers for educational use. As well as Office, you’ll find Visio and even Microsoft Expression, the easy way to create elegant and search-engine-friendly websites; all at prices even students can’t scoff at. Genuine Microsoft software is available to primary, secondary, third level students, teachers, parents and guardians in the United Kingdom. Check websites for eligibility.

5. Saints Row: The Third

Perfect for: Teens

From: Your local games retailer

Price: Around £35

Available for Xbox and PC as well as other platforms, this is the latest in the hugely successful guns’n’gangs Saints Row franchise. If you don’t understand video games, particularly hyper-realistic and violent ones like this, let us help you with the following advice: Mum won’t like this one bit.

6. Disneyland Adventures

Perfect for: Kids

From: Your local games retailer

Price: Around £35

Saints Row isn’t for the younger faces in your family; but Disneyland Adventures is. It’s designed around the fabulous controller-free Kinect device for the Xbox, taking kids on a virtual and game-filled tour of Disneyland; featuring encounters with all their favourite Disney characters along the way. It’s a very clever mix of gentle gaming and an exact replica of the real Disneyland. Adults will be bored in minutes, but for the sixes and sevens, this is great entertainment, without the need for parental supervision, and Mickey and his friends as the icing on the cake.

7. Microsoft Lifecam webcam

Perfect for: Grandparents

From: Microsoft Store

Price: From £29.99

Nobody sees Nan or Grandpa as often as they should. But just because they can’t watch BBC2 on the microwave oven, don’t think they’re techno-numpties. Nan loves you, and for that reason she has got to grips with computers. She’s a silver surfer. So pay her the favour back, and get her a top-notch webcam so that you can see each other in video chats, wherever you both are in the world. Family harmony will be restored.

8. A living-room friendly PC

Perfect for: Dad

From: Microsoft Store

Price: £500-£1500 and everything in between

Christmas is a great time to buy a new PC, and these days computers aren’t just for the boys. The Vaio C Series, for example, puts Sony quality in your hand for under £600 in a range of cool colours, with a lightweight design and ideal for HD films, TV, games and photos. Or try the HP Touchsmart 520 at £849: with a touchscreen and elegant design, it doesn’t even look much like a computer. Store all your films on it, run a massive range of apps, and chat around the world on video with a built-in HD webcam.

9. Office 365

Perfect for: The pressured entrepreneur

From: Office 365

Price: From £4 per user per month

Office 365 is Microsoft’s most economical offering for small businesses, and represents an extraordinary amount of powerful software and services for less than a couple of cappuccinos a month. The included tools can genuinely transform a small business (top-grade email, live collaboration, document editing, websites etc). They might also transform a small business owner, with work-anywhere facilities which mean the office can at last close each evening. If you aren’t expecting to see your partner much over Christmas, this might be the answer.

10. Xbox 360 with Kinect

Perfect for: Anyone under 20

From: Microsoft Store

Price: £150-£300

So, as someone over 30, you rightly have little understanding of the world of gaming. Because you have a mortgage instead. Here’s what you need to know to look the part in your local games emporium. Xbox 360 is a console – and a good one at that. You buy the console and then it will run hundreds of separately purchased games. Consoles often use controllers (which ome with the console); these can be connected, or completely wireless. But Xbox now offers a third option: no controller at all! It’s called Kinect, and frees players from holding anything at all. Brilliant. Also available are extra storage drives (around £80) and expect to hear your kids talk about Xbox live, the online hub where the entire game experience (and much else) can be shared.

11. Asus Eee Slate EP121

Perfect for: people on the move

From: Amazon among other retailers

Price: Around £900

Tablet PCs seem to have got an unfair reputation for being insubstantial. A small form factor (that’s the size and structure of a PC) doesn’t mean it has to be underpowered or feeble. For a year or so, Asus has put Windows 7 into its top Tablets, so they’ll be as fully functional as a laptop. The EP121 is a behemoth (with a screen over 30% bigger than the Apple iPad), inbuilt Wacom digitiser pen (perfect for use with OneNote) and USB connectivity. As Tablets go, it’s a giant, but a pretty one.

12. Apps for Windows Phone

Perfect for: stocking fillers for everyone

From: The Windows Phone Marketplace

Price: Plenty under £3, and many freebies too.

What could make a better stocking filler than phone apps and games? Windows 7 Phone owners also get games (famous ones like Assassin’s Creed, Tetris or the ubiquitous Angry Birds) which are enabled for Xbox Live – which means games can be played and shared across the globe.

And if none of the above appeal, there's always a pair of socks available somewhere...

Hidden Gems #6: Pivot Tables

Microsoft Small Business — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 09:55:00 GMT

This month’s Hidden Gem is a timesaver, a powerful business analysis tool, and a persuasive sales technique. It is included in every edition of Microsoft Office, so you probably already have it. It encourages clarity, simplicity and makes understanding information simple for everyone.

And yet few small businesses know about it. So, what on earth is going on?!

We are on the trail of Pivot Tables, and it would seem that the biggest problem is that they are usually badly explained. I shall therefore take it upon myself to light my pipe, sit back in an easy chair, and see if I can do any better!

Case Notes...

The Target: Pivot Tables, a function which allows useful analysis of large amounts of information.

Whereabouts: Included in Excel, available in all versions of Microsoft Office (2003, 2007 and 2010), or available standalone from the Microsoft Store.

Modus Operandi: Start with large amounts of information, and extract from it key facts, trends and analyses without needing to know any programming or formulas.

Appearance:

Case History...

To understand Pivot Tables, we need to use a typical example. Here are the (admittedly fairly meagre) takings from a business in one day. In each row, we have a client’s name, whether they are a personal customer or a business, the source of the business (a visit to the shop, the web or a mail order), and the amount spent. It’s just the sort of spreadsheet that a small business is likely to have.

In row 14, it would be fairly easy to tot up the profits for the day - you would use the formula =SUM(D2:D13).

But even though we have only a few rows and even fewer columns, it would take a good deal of thinking to work out anything much more useful. Did you notice that Shah Services is the only client who had two orders? Could you work out what’s more profitable; selling on the web or keeping the shop open?

These are the sorts of questions which Pivot Tables are designed to answer. They do so without you having to write long formulas; and, better still, your original data remains untouched. This allows you to execute complex analyses without making your data unintelligible, or having multiple copies of the same data in different spreadsheets.

Let’s examine Pivot Tables in action.
Select the Insert tab, and then Pivot Table. The Pivot Table dialog box will appear. In most cases, you will want to use the existing spreadsheet (rather than an external data source; you also have the option to put results in the same workbook or a new one.

In the new worksheet which then appears, on the right hand side of the screen you will also see the crucial control forPivot Tables; the Pivot Table Field List. In this box, we can select and drag all the fields (‘fields’ is the techie name for Column Headers) into different roles in our analysis.

Let’s start with an easy one. By dragging ‘Client’ into the Row Labels box, and ‘Sum of Spend’ into the Values box, we see what each client has spent. It’s a list very similar to the one we started with, but Shah Services appears only once – the two orders have been combined.

Let’s perform exactly the same operation, but with Type as the Row Label.

This shows us, with absolute clarity, that business clients are much more profitable than personal visitors!

Now let’s put ‘Clients’ back in the Row Labels box and keep ‘Sum of Spend’ in the Values list, as we did earlier. But now, we’ll add the ‘From’ field to the Column Labels box. Excel gives us the ‘Who spent what’ analysis we saw before, but now with column splits to show the different contributions to sales made by each sales mechanism We can see who spent what; but also that the web is this business’ most profitable sales tool – perhaps those passing visitors to the shop aren’t worth the rent and shopfront!

For easy reporting, you can have as many row labels as you want. Here’s an example where we have put both the ‘Type’ and ‘From’ fields in the Row Labels box. This allows us to compare spends across all 6 possible permutations of sales source and customer type.

You will also by now have noticed the filter box. If we return to our classic example of ‘Client’ in the Row Labels box and ‘Sum of Spend’ in the Value box, we’ll try adding ‘From’ to the Report Filter box. This adds a neat filter to the displayed spreadsheet, allowing us to view a client/spend spreadsheet filtered by whichever sales source we choose – or indeed multiple sales sources; as you can select more than one filter value.

Here is the same table – now much shorter, because we have filtered it to show Shop Visits only:

Amongst other things, this shows us that trade in the shop tends to be low-budget personal visitors – a useful thing to know! But by now, you’ll have figured that this can be made even clearer – by adding the “Type” field to the Column Labels box.

Yup- in the above example, we’ve used all four fields of our original table to extract clear, actionable business information easily and effectively; whilst never disturbing the original data. Pivot Tables quite simply deserve to be your Number One analysis tool.

Under the magnifying glass...

There is one more essential function in Pivot Tables which is well worth knowing before you explore. In the above examples, we have exclusively focused on totals. Indeed, in many business cases, it’s totals which matter!

But suppose we want to spot longer term trends? Here’s the spend according to sales method on the X axis, and customer type on the Y axis.

If I click the down-arrow on ‘Sum of Spend’ in the Values box, and then select ‘Value Field Settings’ and then ‘Average’, I can display averages instead of totals (there are plenty more options – maxima, for example – on offer, too).

The target exposed

Find out more:

Get Excel now!

Video demo of Pivot Tables

Dummies Video: Charting Pivot Tables