IncSlingers

March 19, 2013 By Simon Salt

Restructuring Your Business in the Cloud

Today’s guest post is from Zoe Maldonado. Zoe is a freelance writer and blogger for TechBreach who enjoys writing about all things mobile and electronic and spending time with her very active twin boys.

5 Must Try Web Applications for Your Small Business

Many businesses are finding the value in switching to cloud technology for many of their business tasks. If you’re considering moving some of your business functions into the cloud, there are a number of different applications that you could utilize successfully.

While there are many available options when it comes to online tools for business, I prefer the tools discussed below because of my familiarity and experience with them. However, you will need to decide which tools resonate with your organization and business structure.

What Does “The Cloud” Mean

Cloud computing is Internet based computing platform, where resources, software and information are shared with computers and other devices on-demand over a private or public network like the internet. This shift from traditional software models has steadily been gaining momentum over the last 10 years. With Cloud computing, many headaches are eliminated because the management of hardware and software becomes the responsibility of an experienced third-party vendor. Since the infrastructure is shared, it works much like a utility in that upgrades are automatic and scaling is easy as pie so you only pay for the resources you use.

QuickBooks Online

QuickBooks business accounting software is one of the best cloud applications for accounting and billing purposes. Every business has to keep track of their accounting, and QuickBooks is pretty much the undisputed leader in that category. This particular application is held entirely in the cloud, which allows you to access your information from any internet enabled computer, smartphone, or tablet from anywhere.

Google Apps

Google Apps is another nice set of cloud tools for business. They make it easier for your employees to be productive. With Google Apps you can collaborate on projects and communicate easily with one another. For example, if someone is working on a document and they need to share it with someone else, that other person can access it instantly online and make any necessary changes to it. This is a lot easier than having to attach files to emails and send them back and forth.

Zoho CRM

Zoho CRM is one of the premier customer relationship management platforms out there. It has a lot of features that make it easy to keep track of interactions with customers. It has a Web form that allows you to capture leads from your website and integrate them into your CRM database. Then when you make contact with a customer, you can keep track of your notes, emails, and calls so that it’s easy to determine what part of the sales cycle they are in.

Google Analytics

If you have a business website, it’s always important to keep track of it as well as you can. This requires you to view the web traffic that your site generates on a regular basis. With Google Analytics, you can do exactly that. Google Analytics gives you an easy-to-use format to work with. You can run all kinds of reports and even create your own reports to look at the information that you want to keep track of. You can see who is coming to your site, how long they’re staying there, and what pages they’re visiting along the way. It really helps you see how well you’re doing with your website and capturing sales or contact information.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a cloud-based service that lets you securely share documents across your network from anywhere you have an internet connection. Business documents such as financials, client files, notes, documents, spreadsheets, ideas, meeting notes, and more can be accessed, edited, and shared with your clients, team members, contractors and anyone involved on a project. Just drag and drop any file into Dropbox with a few clicks! You’ll never be left without an important document or spreadsheet again.

Got an idea or blog post you would like to share with my readers? Drop me an email and let’s talk.

image used under CC by Joanna Lee Osborn

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Filed Under: Business, Guest Post, Management, Marketing, Mobile Tagged With: Cloud, Cloud Computing, Cloud for Small Business, Dropbox, Google Analytics, Quickbooks, Zoho

March 12, 2013 By Simon Salt

SXSW From The Sidelines

This is the first year I haven’t attended SXSW in seven years. I’ve attended badged, unbadged as a speaker and as an attendee. This year I was in both the fortunate and unfortunate position of being swamped with work. I was very tempted when a big brand offered me a free ticket and transportation to and from the event but at the end of the day I had to do what was right for my clients, my business and myself. So I stayed home.

That all said it has been interesting to watch SXSW via social media and news outlets and to get a sense of how those on the edge or the outside of the tech/social marketing industry view it. This post is in part inspired by an article I read on CNET and posted about on Facebook. As I mentioned in my Facebook post I was surprised by the tone of the article. The writer seemed to be taken aback that SXSW has become increasingly a brand showcase. Obviously they haven’t been attending SXSW very long.

I, along with many others have berated SXSW organizers in the past for letting the conference become too big and too dominated by brands. This year I have changed my position. What I believe SXSW has become is a Brand version of CES. It isn’t limited to tech brands – Pepsi are a major presence, CNN have grown their presence each year, even Oreo’s all had a major presence this year. So why fight this direction. Rather I’d like to see SXSW actually embrace it. Every industry has it’s showcase. The automotive industry has events like the International Motor shows that take place in LA, Detroit, Dallas, Geneva, London and countless other cities. CES is the consumer electronics industry’s show case. Why not marketing?

SXSW could easily be repositioned as that, an opportunity for the smartest of the smart digital marketers to show off what they have done and what they are planning to do in the coming months. Along side this the other changes I would make would be to scrap the sessions. Yes I know that is sacrilege, after all what is SXSW without content – well actually SXSW without content is pretty much what I have already described, a digital marketing show case. So why do we need the content? A lot of the content is repetitive, derivative and some just ridiculous.

Rather I’d like to see a series of education sessions around the city paid and produced by Brands. This allows for a much needed and greater level of transparency than we currently get in sessions. When you attend a session, unless the speakers are completely honest, you have no idea who paid for them to be there, who they are promoting (either overtly or covertly) and what their angle is. If you were to attend a session or group of sessions clearly sponsored and produced by a Brand then you know, going into it, that the speakers have some form of association with the brand – and that, by the way, is totally ok. As a professional speaker I get paid to speak at events which means someone somewhere paid my speaker fee, travel and accommodation. Usually that is an event sponsor, which means at the very least I am going to give them a thank you from the podium.

In the format I am proposing the audience already knows the connection so there is no wondering. You can pull the curtain aside and simply enjoy the content. What is more, there would be a direct measure for brands in terms of ROI at SXSW. Instead of simply counting the number of people who stopped by the booth and took some of the swag, butts on seats and the ability to follow up with those people is much more rewarding.

So what do you think? Is this a model of SXSW you would attend?

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