Tag Archives: Ramon Ray

About 2119 days ago Computer Security

What to Do Before Disaster Strikes

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In mid-July, New York City experienced yet another catastrophe. A steam pipe exploded in mid-town Manhattan, killing one person and injuring many others. Beyond the human loss of life and injury, there were hundreds of businesses immediately affected by the blast and about 100 – including many small and mid-size businesses — felt the impact for weeks. The steam pipe explosion was only one of numerous natural or manmade disasters that are likely to wreak havoc on businesses this year. Hurricanes, tornadoes, and even terrorist attacks may be launched with little warning. In the steam pipe explosion alone, economists estimate tens of millions of dollars of lost revenue. Con Edison, New York City’s main provider of power and heating, said that it would pay customers for damaged goods, equipment and fixtures, but not for lost business. What will these businesses do? What plans does your business have in place in the event of such a disaster? Having a business continuity plan to help ensure the survivability of your business is essential these days. And that plan must include a strong technology component, as so many businesses rely on data stored in computers and on online processes for ordering supplies and selling to customers. Depending on your type of business, your recovery options are going to be vastly different. For retailers, if you have no access to your retail store and rely on foot traffic, it is going to be difficult for you to make any money or have a viable solution for the loss of your income. For professional service firms, which don’t necessarily have customers physically come to a particular location, the concern is more often with preventing the loss of essential data and getting the business up and running again in order to service customers as quickly as possible — even if that means running the business from another location temporarily. A complete business continuity solution includes many non-technology factors: plans to replace executives, managers, and employees that might be lost in a disaster taking care of the families of affected employees and more insurance (of all forms and all types that you might need) But technology plays an increasingly important role in business continuity and needs to be a central part in any plan. Here are some guidelines for what your business needs to take into consideration to properly prepare for the unexpected. Back up your data. This is the number one item on your to-do list. Having your data backed up and stored off site ensures that if you have no access to your business and/or if it is destroyed in a disaster that you can still have the vital records you need (employee, customer, inventory, financial, contracts, etc) to run your business — even if all of your computers are destroyed. Customer contact. Being able to contact customers and keep them informed can help your business as it is going through difficulties during a disaster and when it recovers post-disaster. Maybe your physical business is closed, but you are able to sell more items online. Or you partner with a nearby retailer who compliments or even competes with your business. Capturing customer information at the point of sale is a way to ensure that customers (loyal or one time only) can be informed about your new arrangements. Telecommunications. Your telephone system is very important and, if you need to leave your office and have no way to access it, you can be in trouble. One solution is to utilize a managed telephone service provider which would provide voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony. For very small companies, a virtual PBX type phone system could be a good option as well. In the event of an emergency, using either a VoIP system or virtual phone system, you can access and/or re-configure your telephone system from a Web browser. Service agreements. Depending on how important it is for you to keep certain technologies up and running, in the event of a disaster, it’s important to analyze the agreements (such as leases or supplier contracts) you have in place. In a disaster, what are your obligations? What does it say in the contract as far as the other party’s obligations? If you need to move to a new location, can your current vendor service you? If not, how soon can you requisition the services of a new vendor? Disasters that result in business interruptions are going to occur. Your business goal should be to mitigate damages to your business when a disaster does strike. Ramon Ray is an author, speaker, technology writer and former small business technology consultant. He publishes Smallbiztechnology.com, a website that helps small and medium-sized businesses strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses.

About 2241 days ago Setting Up a Website

The Year of the Web Widget

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Widgets — you see them everywhere, those little branded badges or boxes on websites and blogs that display content from another site.  Web widgets have exploded in popularity in 2006 and 2007. It seems like they are reproducing faster than rabbits — and for good reason. Today more and more individuals and business owners publish their own websites and blogs.  Widgets give site owners and bloggers a quick and inexpensive — usually free — way to add interactivity and interesting content to a site.  And for those who publish widgets for other sites to use, those widgets are a low-cost branding and viral marketing technique.  Let’s take a look at widgets, including ways to enhance and promote your business online using widgets. Wikipedia defines Web widgets  as a piece of embedded code on a website, containing content that is not static (that is, it’s content that changes).You often see widgets in the side columns of blogs.  They have become so prevalent that a slang term has developed to describe the phenomenon: blog bling.  Of course, widgets also show up on traditional business websites.  One common usage on traditional websites is to display breaking news headlines. There are thousands of widgets available today.  Widgets are available to display content that ranges from pure fun (rotating photos of cute kittens for visitors to vote on) to the utilitarian (the local weather).  Popular widgets might display eBay listings, Amazon books, customizable polls and surveys, or the latest posts from your favorite blogs.  You can even find widgets consisting of MP3 players to allow visitors to hear music or business podcasts on your website, not to mention video players to entertain visitors with your favorite clips.  Some of the most popular widgets today help you network and develop contacts, displaying photos of people – people you know or might want to get to know.  For instance, MyBlogLog has a widget that is popular right now.  It displays the photo and screen name of registered MyBlogLog users when they visit your site, providing interactivity to help others explore and discover one another’s blogs and make contact. Flickr, the photo organizing site, also offers a widget with rotating images of your favorite photos.  I noticed that Ramon Ray, Technology evangelist at Smallbiztechnology.com  (and a columnist here at Inc Technology) has an interesting Flickr badge on his site showing well-known personages known in the small business market. I asked Ramon to explain the attraction of widgets to site owners, and he noted, “I’m not a programmer. I can do only the basics on my web site. What I like — no, love — about widgets is that they enable non-programmers to add enhanced functionality to their websites. Widgets let you do things on your website that you normally could not do. Web 1.0 is long gone. Your customers (most of them at least) expect your website to be alive and provide smart and useful interactivity. Widgets let you do this, and more.” In the 1990s, the traditional approach to websites was to keep visitors on your site and not link out to other content.  That approach has gone out the window in today’s world where user-generated content and “conversations” spanning several sites are common.  In fact, sites are even encouraging users to add widgets with content from third party sites.  For instance, at Work.com, you can now add widgets to your profile page. According to Shara Karasic, community manager, “Because Work.com is a hub for business experts to promote themselves by sharing their expertise, we’ve started encouraging these experts (many of whom have several blogs or online columns scattered around the Web) to enhance their Work.com profiles by reflecting their presence on the wider Web through adding widgets that display their headlines from what they’re publishing elsewhere. It’s a win-win situation: it allows other members to learn more about them, increases trust and context, and adds compelling and personalized content to our site. And their Work.com profile becomes the central place to find out about that expert.” Wondering where to get a widget for your site or blog?  Check out Widget Box, where you can choose from literally thousands of widgets organized by theme or topic.  There you can also create a widget of your own blog headlines, called a blidget.  With widgets, even if you are not a programmer, you can add interesting and interactive content to your site. Go get widgetized! Anita Campbell is a writer, speaker and radio talk show host who closely follows trends in the small business market at her site, Small Business Trends.

About 2362 days ago Computer Security

Renting Your Software Online

A few weeks ago, I did a technology experiment. I used a Web-hosted software application to collaborate on a document with two colleagues of mine. Now, I admit to being a total geek. As for my colleagues, let’s just say they are more uncomfortable with using new tools. But after I convinced them to give Google Docs a try, we were all able to quickly and easily edit the document, track changes, and work together to produce a better product. In the past, we would have had to e-mail the document back and forth and use track changes. It would have been time-consuming and, frankly, a pain. The success of the experiment only served to embolden me to consider new delivery systems for my other business software applications. As a business owner, you, too, should be investigating the benefits and drawbacks of new Web-hosted applications. I’m seriously considering moving to a hosted solution for e-mail, for example. The market for Web applications directed at the small business market is exploding. Over the past few weeks, Google has been aggressively launching online applications for business users. These services include document collaboration, corporate e-mail and website hosting, and more. Although Google has only recently launched business applications, other companies such as BlueTie, HyperOffice, and WebExOne (formerly Intranets.com), among others, have been in the market for a longer time. Google’s biggest competitor, Microsoft, also launched a full suite of online applications from beta Nov. 15, Office Live 2007. Baris Cetinok, director of project management and marketing for Office Live explained to me that there are three things MSOL helps small businesses do: Establish a Web presence (many smaller businesses still have none) Find more customers Manage the business (from anywhere) Add company branded e-mail accounts Allow you to chat online via text, voice or mobile phone with employees, customers or colleagues using your company domain name with Windows Live Messenger. What this means for your business Traditionally, you have purchased software and it was delivered via CD (or some other media) or downloaded via the Internet. The software was then installed on individual computers for everyone in the office to use. If you only have three computers, it’s not very difficult or time consuming to get the software loaded. But if your growing business has 30 computers, it takes a lot of time (and money if you are paying a consultant) to install the software on all those machines. Sometimes installing the software is only one part of the problem. When the software is installed it might conflict with previously installed software. The benefit of hosted applications is that the hosted application is online, therefore there is no installation on your part and you and your entire team can access the software and data anytime and from anywhere. Software that resides on your local computer (or server) means that you can’t easily access it when you are traveling, unless you setup a remote access solution (which means more time and money) to do so. If you have two sales representatives in Maine, three in Maryland, and a main office in Michigan, you have to ensure the computers in all three locations have the same software (that equals even more time and money — are you getting the picture?). When you buy traditional software you are encumbered by license agreements and their associated costs. Using a hosted application you pay a monthly fee per user which can be an ease on your cash flow. Traditional software vendors often update their software annually, or release patches throughout the year. Using a hosted application, the service provider continuously updates the software and each time you login you have the most recent version. One of the side benefits of a hosted application is that your data is always backed up. If you lose your notebook, your data is not lost as it resides on the servers of your service providers. Before switching to a hosted application, be it a collaboration tool, e-mail, database, or one of the hundreds of other solutions on the market, carefully consider the pros and cons. The risks include that if you don’t have Internet access for some reason, such as your Internet provider going down, what do you do? There is also the risk that something will happen to bring down the system of your hosted application provider. Again, this is something that is out of your control, but would have a potential impact on your business. Weigh your options and choose the solution that’s best for your business. For me, I have decided to look for a hosted e-mail solution that is both local and hosted, providing me with the convenience of a hosted application but the security of having the data also housed locally. Fortunately, there are dozens and dozens of great e-mail hosting services provided by such companies as Webmail.us, MI8, Blue Tie, and Microsoft’s Office Live. Ramon Ray is an author, speaker, technology writer and former small business technology consultant. He publishes Smallbiztechnology.com, a website that helps small and medium-sized businesses strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses.

About 2362 days ago PCs, Laptops, and Notebooks

An Entrepreneur’s Holiday Wish List

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One day I walked into Best Buy and members of the sales staff started throwing boxes of PDAs, digital cameras, iPods, cell phones and notebook computers at me. Each box was wrapped in a soft bubble that floated in the air. They had given me a huge net to catch all the gadgets and gizmos they were throwing at me. But then I woke up to the sound of my alarm clock blaring and realized I was only dreaming. Sigh. Sometimes I think about technology being a great gift for an entrepreneur, one that can help circumvent the hassles of running a business 24/7, starting out cash-poor, and often crisscrossing the country to meet clients, venture capitalists, and even to woo prospective employees. Certainly, this holiday season there are a number of hot items that may make a small businessperson’s dreams come true. Here are some of my picks for the entrepreneur’s holiday wish list. HP Photosmart A716 Compact Photo Printer Whoever said, “a picture is worth a thousand words” was a very wise person, but little did they know about HP’s new compact photo printer at the time. This little wonder helps you seal the deal with prospects or clarify problems with customers. Instead of looking at an e-mail or squinting at a screen, print a photograph of your new product, new hire or new design for your client — whenever you want. While your competitors are struggling with crude descriptions or waiting in line for photos to develop — you’ll be signing contracts in January 2007. Where to find it: HP.com Lenovo 3000 Series Notebook. Notebook computers are vital tools for mobile entrepreneurs. They need their offices to travel with them and often a reliable, feature rich, powerful but economical notebook is the perfect choice. I did an extensive search for a notebook and am perfectly happy with the Lenovo 3000 N100.  Costs range, of course, depending on the specific model you buy. If you are looking for a gift that has Bluetooth and WiFi, 4-in-1 card reader, plenty of USB ports and S-video, too, the Lenovo 3000 series is what you should consider. Where to find it: Lenovo.com 80 GB iPod — for business not pleasure Over the past several months, I’ve been using my Apple iPod and really like it to store my favorite music from today and yesteryear. Of course, Apple makes several versions of iPods and now is joined by Microsoft’s Zune and so many other brands in making portable “MP3” players. But guess what? iPod’s are not just for music but are perfect business tools to store data, educate yourself through podcasts and carry your own entertainment for when you travel on business. The 80 GB version can store up to 20,000 songs, 25,000 photos, or 100 hours of video — or any combination of each. Where to find it: iPod.com BlueTie hosted e-mail While just about everyone business has e-mail, I bet there’s at least one (if not more) business owners in your life whose business could use help in managing their e-mail. If they’re stuck using a free e-mail service, or find that their e-mail is always down, have them check out BlueTie. It’s a low-cost, hosted e-mail service that not only manages e-mail but does it quick and with powerful features. There’s even a free version. If you type in “dinner with Ramon, tomorrow,” it knows when tomorrow is, who Ramon is (if he’s in your address book) and that dinner is not at 3:00 p.m. but later. If you or someone you know lives or dies by e-mail, Bluetie just might be their life preserver. Where to find it: BlueTie.com Between my business card scanner, notebook computer, wireless broadband and all of my other gadgets, I’m ready for business this holiday season. But every entrepreneur — even me — can always use the next latest, greatest technology tool. Don’t have a GPS system? Maybe you’ll get one this holiday season. Ramon Ray is an author, speaker, technology writer and former small business technology consultant. He publishes Smallbiztechnology.com, a website that helps small and medium-sized businesses strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses.

About 2392 days ago E-Commerce

Blog — It’s a Good Four Letter Word

When I first started writing a blog about small business technology in April 2001, the term blogging wasn’t nearly ubiquitous as it is today. The few who knew about bloggers thought that they were all political partisans who used the Internet to smear the other side or, worse yet, someone droning on about the latest antics of their pet turtle. The idea that you could use a blog as a business tool to build a relationship with customers, market your products or services to them, or keep them informed about your industry was not as accepted as it is today. And, yet, fast-forward a few years and 5,885 blog posts later (that I have written), and that is precisely what some young companies are doing with blogs. I would guess that many of you still have not started your own blog. Maybe you don’t have the time, maybe you don’t see why you need to or maybe you just don’t know how to create one. I would like to encourage more of you to try business blogging. From my experience, blogging has helped me create a network of businesspeople, keep them informed about new developments and achieve business goals. Creating a blog is not hard. The hardest part is not the technology that powers the blog, it’s the thinking that goes into creating a blog. Like building a house — any decent contractor can build a house but only the best can build a great looking home. A successful blog is more than just a basic website, which you can build once and update a few times a year. For a blog to serve its purpose, it should be regularly updated with fresh content. The reasons for creating your blog will govern the content that’s on it. If your blog is created to let customers know about sales, your customers will expect regular sales notices. If it’s created to build a relationship, they will expect a more warm and personal style of writing from you. Either way, the blog is NOT about you. It is about your readers and what they can get from reading your blog. There are many free and/or low cost services you can use to build a blog. You’ll find all of the services relatively easy to use with simple step by step menu choices. These services include Google’s Blogger (which I use), Six Apart’s Movable Type. Six Apart’s Type Pad, Word Press, and blogging services from AOL, Microsoft,  and Yahoo. Many of these services are free. Type Pad starts at $5 per month. Here are a few things to keep in mind when starting your blog: Domain name It is important to consider a good name for your blog. One that’s easy to remember and type helps. Consider if you want to use the domain of your blog service provider (myblog.blogger.com) your own domain (myblog.com or mybusiness.com/myblog ). Hosted or not All of the blogging services above can host your blog for you. Some of them also provide you with the software (free and fee versions) to host the blog yourself. Hosting the blog yourself means you have to pay someone (if you can’t do it yourself) to setup the blog for you on your Web server (your own or that of your Internet service provider). Using a hosted blog, transfers the headache (and cost) of setup and maintenance of your blog away from you to your blog host. Some of the services, like blogger.com are simpler to use than others. While others offer more features, hence a bit more complexity. Link to other blogs Part of the spirit of blogging is to not only write content related to your own products or services but to liberally link to others in your writing. You also want to add a resource section (or favorite links) to your blog. Doing this does three things: encourages other bloggers to link to your blog and helps boost the search engine traffic from your blog. Grammar and spelling matter Just because your blog is a ‘blog’ does not mean you throw out the rules of good communication. Those include making sure your blog has correct grammar and spelling. It does not look professional and reduces the effectiveness of your communication if your blog is riddled with mistakes. See what others are doing One of the best ways to learn about blogging is to read other blogs. Tehnorati.com is a directory of blogs and you can see who else writes about your type of business. Don’t forget to check out business blogs at established publications, too, for polished writing and topics of general business interest. When I think of my own blogging experience, I’m always in awe of just how much my blogging alone has helped my own website grow. Ramon Ray is an author, speaker, technology writer and former small business technology consultant. He publishes Smallbiztechnology.com, a website that helps small and medium-sized businesses strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses.

About 2423 days ago Business Software

Chuck Your Software

I can still remember what it was like to install software in the 1980′s and early 1990′s, back when I was a student in high school and long before I started my own business. Floppy disks were the rage and many programs in fact fit on one or two disks. During the later 90′s through today, software has come installed on CDs and DVDs as they hold much more data than other media. But throughout this evolution of software nothing much has changed. As business people, we still have to install buggy software on slow computers and worry about the software we’re installing making another buggy program we rely on unstable. Installing software takes time as we click through message after message mostly displaying “next.” If you have more than one office or employees working out of the office, ensuring that they are using the latest software is not an easy task with traditionally installed software. Maybe you have a particular program that you want to roll out to all your employees and offices for better collaboration and communication. This task is NOT easy via a traditional server. A strong, reliable, and easy alternative involves using these applications as a hosted application or via the Internet. When an application is served over the Internet, all that employees need to do to access the application is open up their Web browser and point to the Web address of the application — no questions, no installation, no hassle, and no conflicts with other programs. This is why, with the urgency of popping popcorn in a hot microwave, more and more companies are serving software to small businesses via Web. The hosted application business is not new. Many of us have been taking advantage of the free e-mail services of Yahoo, Microsoft, and Google for years. Companies like NetSuite, Salesforce.com, and Intranets.com (now WebExOne) have been around, selling their applications as hosted applications paid for by the month instead of upfront like traditional software. However, what is new is that more “mainstream” applications or office suites such as spreadsheets, word processing, and databases are also being sold as hosted Web applications. Microsoft is the established leader in selling office suites for traditional installation on a PC. However, Google and other companies are aggressively challenging this dominance by offering their own office suites as hosted applications. Google and Intuit, which makes accounting software, announced in September that they are partnering to offer small business online advertising solutions (initially) within QuickBooks, software used mainly by small businesses. This is seen as a move towards migrating more small businesses towards hosted office applications. Another very hot market is e-mail hosting. E-mail hosting has been available to businesses for many years and several companies such as Blue Tie, MI8, and Singlefin have built up a loyal client base. However, with Google’s entry into the market, more companies have begun to consider using Web applications for one’s entire traditional software infrastructure. Sounds cool but what are the real benefits? Having software installed on your local computer or servers means that you (or a consultant or your IT person) have to maintain the software and the computer it’s on to ensure optimal performance. Software served via the Internet gives you the flexibility and freedom of not worrying about maintaining anything — because the company that now hosts the application maintains performance. If you want to save money and concentrate on your business while someone else concentrates on your technology, consider hosted applications. Of course, there are drawbacks. If you can’t access the Internet or the rare case that the company hosting your application goes down, you won’t be able access your information. And what about security? It’s true, information that is not hosted in-house is potentially less safe. So you’ll still need to follow some of the basic steps to protect your proprietary information: Make sure that your data is always backed up; and as you communicate via the Internet, take precautions to ensure that your connection is secure from hackers. As we move away from software installed on our business computers into the brave new world of Web applications, think of this move as the small business version of IT outsourcing. You get the IT expertise, but hopefully not the headaches. Ramon Ray is an author, speaker, technology writer and former small business technology consultant. He publishes Smallbiztechnology.com, a website that helps small and medium-sized businesses strategically use technology as a tool to grow their businesses.

About 2941 days ago Search Engine Optimization

A Better Way to Surf?

For several years now, computer users have had essentially one choice for navigating the Web: Internet Explorer. Despite persistent complaints about the software’s security flaws, Microsoft’s browser has enjoyed almost 100% market share. Enter Mozilla Firefox. Since its release last November, the open-source browser has been downloaded more than 25 million times and is well on its way to grabbing 10% of the market. Available through the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation, which provides open-source software coded by legions of volunteer programmers, the Firefox browser offers a host of innovations, including a built-in pop-up ad blocker, tabbed browsing so users can open more than one window at a time, and a search function that seeks out a word as you type it. The program runs on both PCs and Macs, and best of all, it is free. Simply download it at mozilla.org, and you’re ready to go. Casual Web surfers and hard-core techies alike have been quick to sing Firefox’s praises, and a number of universities, including Penn State, MIT, and Yale, have begun to deploy it. But should business owners make the switch? The main reason Firefox has taken off — besides widespread anti-Microsoft sentiment — is the belief that it offers a better defense against all those malicious programs out there in cyberland. Here’s why: Internet Explorer is tightly woven into the Microsoft Windows operating system. That makes it more convenient to use in conjunction with other Microsoft programs like Word and Outlook. On the other hand, spyware, malware, and viruses are rampant across the digital spectrum, and the most popular points of entry are Internet Explorer and Outlook. Should one of those programs become infected, it doesn’t take long for the virus to spread to your entire operating system. Secunia, a Danish security firm, for example, lists more than 20 unpatched vulnerabilities in IE 6.0. Firefox sits on top of, rather than inside, a computer’s operating system, which makes it less vulnerable. But it’s not iron-clad. Already the Mozilla Foundation has reported and patched nine vulnerabilities, including a JavaScript attack capable of stealing private data and another that could illicitly copy clipboard contents. Dean Mercado, an entrepreneur based in Holtsville, N.Y., recently installed Firefox on computers in his two businesses, the Fruitful Management Corp., a consulting firm, and Rio Enterprises, which markets pet-care products. Mercado had heard the buzz and figured he’d test-drive Firefox for consulting clients. His verdict: Firefox is indeed more secure than Internet Explorer. “Because the program is so new, Firefox is less of a target than Explorer,” says Mercado. “And since it’s open source, a lot of smart people are coming up with interesting extensions” — for example, a dictionary feature that defines a word when you click on it. There are drawbacks. While all websites work with Explorer, some do not work with Firefox. Instead, when a Firefox browser comes to visit, text and images are rendered as gobbledygook on the user’s screen. That’s likely to change as Firefox’s growing popularity encourages developers to recode their sites. Until then, it’s probably a good idea to keep two browsers ready. Firefox might be especially attractive if you run older versions of Windows, such as Windows 98 or 2000. That’s because Microsoft does not secure its older systems, instead preferring that consumers upgrade to its latest operating system, XP, which costs $99 and for which Microsoft recently released a security patch. But security isn’t everything. “I love the interface,” says Ramon Ray, owner of Smallbiztechnology.com, a consulting firm. “Firefox is easier and more efficient than IE. If your employees spend a lot of time on the Web, you should consider Firefox.”

About 3214 days ago E-Commerce

Web Site 1.0 to Web Site 2.0

Your company’s web site is built and has been around for several years now. Your customers can check out the standard, “about us” link. You even have a cute stock ticker on your home. Like many businesses, maybe your web site was built several years ago and has not changed that much. But your business has changed. The demands of your customers and challenges from your competition are two major changes. Many of your competitors are leveraging more and more technology. And most importantly your customers are coming to expect more of you. Leveraging your web site as a powerful and strategic corporate asset and ensuring it is a TOOL for your business is important. A revitalized web site can save you time and money and bring you greater efficiencies. It can make your customers more satisfied and enhance communication both inside and outside of your company. Your goals is to take your web site from a static, underused, unloved, uncared for, brochure-ware, plain vanilla, digital brochure, into a POWERFUL, dynamic, TOOL. Here’s how to do it: Pull together a team representing every aspect of your company and gather a list of concerns and problems. These concerns might be – lack of inter-departmental communication; customers on hold too long; missing orders, or other concerns and issues. Analyze talk the web sites of your competition and those in your business sector to see what how their web site works? For example, if you are a clothing retailer and sell clothes online, it might be very useful for you to know the success (or lack of success) of Land’s End’s virtual model that allows their customers to virtually see how clothes might look on themselves. Review your team’s findings and consider specific steps you can take to solve problems and/or make existing business processes better, using your web site. If customers are on hold too long, for example, are they asking the same questions? If so, could customers be directed to visit your web site for the information they need. Once you have internally gone over your options it would be wise to hire a programmer with a business processes mind set (not just a geek) to advise you of options, possibilities and pricing options. This person would ONLY be hired as an advisor at this stage. Even if you do have in-house online expertise, it would be useful to hire a third party expert to advise you of the technical feasibility and practicality of how to implement your proposed web site changes. Once you have a good outline of what upgrades you wish to make and how to make them, it’s time to implement. You could hire your advisor to do the upgrades but also look for other options to ensure you get the most competent implementer and competitive pricing. Don’t rush to make drastic changes all at once, do things a little bit at a time. As you look for ways to improve your web site here are some specific tools for you to consider: Intranet — An intranet is a web site, but used only internally for your company. Creating an intranet can enable powerful intra-company communication. Using an intranet to make all corporate documents more easily available to your staff can be a worthwhile time saver and boost for employee efficiency. Maybe there’s sales literature and marketing material that is periodically updated. Instead of hoping each person who needs it was included in the email blast why not post the most recent version to your intranet for example? Intranet.com makes a popular intranet solution or you could build your own. Blogs (or Web Log) — At its basic level a blog is simply a method of putting content online in an online journal or diary format. A blog is often referenced as a more personal endeavor but increasingly is being used for business use. You could use a web log to quickly and easily update a customer support page. A blog could be set up to narrate and showcase how your customers are using your products in their businesses or personal lives. Some blogging services are Blogger.com (which I use), Movabletype.org and Userland.com. Chat — Online chat can be a powerful tool, if implemented properly. When shopping on the web site of mobile retailer, iGo, I’ve used their chat tool to quickly ask a question and get an answer. I, the customer benefited, and iGo closed another sale. Often, I take advantage of Hewlett-Packard’s live online chat support tool to get accurate and fast help about printer problems. I don’t have to wait on hold. HP saves telephone costs and can hire less staff to serve more customers. Discussion Boards — While chat provides instant communication in a one-to-one method, a discussion board is ideal for creating more of a community of discussion and support. I’ve recently been doing digital video editing and have used the support discussion board of video capture device maker Pinnacle System for support. In these discussion boards one can often find answers to previously asked questions. If no answer is found then your new question can be posted to the discussion board and answered by other users or Pinnacle Systems staff. Be warned, discussion boards can be a two edged sword at times. While they are useful tools for customer support, they expose customer complaints as well. Personalization — If your customers frequently visit your web site, to check on the status of orders for example, it might be useful to “Amazon.com” it and have them be greeted by their own, most frequently used and/or needed sections. If a customer frequently goes to your news page, why not give them an option to have the “news” page become the first page that comes up, instead of the same page that everyone else sees. We’ve just touched the very surface of what you can do towards upgrading your web site. The key is to consider where you are now, where you want to be and how your web site be a vehicle to get you there. Your web site should not just a glorified brochure but just be an asset to grow your business. Ramon Ray, Technology Evangelist, is a technology analyst, author, speaker and the editor of Smallbiztechnology.com. Since 1986, Ramon has been using computers and was first “online” in 1995. He has written hundreds of technology articles and the book “Technology Solutions for Growing Businesses” (Amacom, Nov 2003).