Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Fargo businesses have changed a lot over the years. Recent
changes often center around what the internet has done to -- and
can do for -- businesses.
Your clients and customers now look first on the internet for
information. Even if they know where your place of business is,
they're more likely to check your hours and specials on their
Blackberries than drive by to have a look.
You can conduct your business mostly or entirely online now, if
you feel like it. Web 2.0 options let you keep the warmth of human
contact, while your customers appreciate being able to shop in
their pajamas.
You can order your goods and supplies, pay your vendors, and
invoice your customers online. You can email people in the next
office, get instant confirmation of facts you need, and arrange to
have dinner waiting for pickup on your way home from work.
Naturally, we turn to the internet for productivity
software and tools as well. We can hold meetings online, uploading
documents and sharing desktops with colleagues down the hall or
across the country. We can set up and share our calendars, our
to-do lists, our correspondence. We can sync our files and share
our playlists.
Here's the problem: there are dozens, if not hundreds, of cool
applications for our computers and our smart phones. Every day on
Twitter we see another list of the 50 Top Desktop Tools and
Widgets.
How can we keep these things from being a timedrain?
Here are some suggestions:
- Just as with physical-world gadgets, beware of
over-specialization. You may swear by your slow cooker or your
universal remote, but do you get lots of use out of the automatic
hot dog cooker or the electric paper towel snatcher? The best
online tools, like SugarCRM, one that we use ourselves, do a lot of
the things you need to do. That means you install once, configure
once, learn once, and then can go ahead and get the most out of
your investment.
- Just as with physical world gadgets, you have to admit to
yourself when you're playing. There's nothing wrong with play. A
little playtime in the office can refresh you so you can get on
with the rest of your work. But electronic gadgets can fool us. The
fact that we download it and put it on our desktops can disguise
the similarity between our latest toy and that wind-up walking
penguin by the pencil cup. If you really need clocks for all time
zones and stock updates every sixty seconds, great. If they're toys
for you, then limit the time you spend playing with them.
- Consider getting some help and advice. If you spend a lot of
time looking through those 50 Snazziest New Widgets every day, and
it's not your recreation, then you may find that bringing in an
expert to help you identify your needs and streamline your
solutions will be a good investment.
Go ahead, try out those new tools sometimes. Some of them are
great. Just keep it in perspective.