In Sydney or San Francisco, You're Connected

It used to be that people would ask each other, "How are you?" These days, the question is just as likely to be "Where are you?" For both business and pleasure, people today are highly mobile. But they are also highly busy, so being out of touch is not an option whether the trip is all the way to Geneva or just down the road to a grocery store.

Technology has not only kept up, it frequently leaps ahead of our mobile society's wants and needs. The development of laptop computers was a response to the need for portability. Built-in WiFi was a response to the need for those laptops to connect to the Internet. Now, building 3G ("third generation") modems into laptops means that users can access high-speed data services outside the range of their ISP by relying on the 3G wide area cellular telephone networks. With increased bandwidth and transfer rates, 3G allows for high-speed data exchange to handle Web-based applications, audio, and video files.

All that transmitting and receiving of data can add a feature that no one wants – security issues. Technology has an answer for that, too, of course: the Virtual Private Network (VPN). Imagine that you are sitting at your desk in an office, connected to the company's network through a little blue cable plugged in to your laptop. Imagine then that you pick up your laptop and take it home…with the cable still attached, still connecting you to the company's secure network. That's your VPN. Instead of a cable, though, you connect through the Internet to the company's private network just as if you were still at your desk. Except that you are sitting at home or on the beach or in a café.

The benefits to you are obvious – you can work anywhere and collaborate with colleagues just as if you were in the same building. For the company, there are many benefits:

• Global networking opportunities are increased.
• Travel costs are cut or eliminated for remote users
• Travel time and commuting stress are reduced
• Productivity improves along with employee satisfaction
• Overall operating costs are reduced
• VPNs are secure so confidential data can be shared safely

A few years ago, a small hand-held device became the badge of importance that marked executives and in-the-know technophiles. Now, less than 10 years since its debut, hundreds of millions of people seem to have a BlackBerry as a permanent attachment. It's no wonder, either. The BlackBerry includes a major improvement over the PDAs that went before. Instead of having to manually sync a PDA to your computer, the BlackBerry syncs itself continually over the Internet and cell phone network. So besides your phone calls, a BlackBerry brings email, calendar updates, and documents to the hand-held device.

Mobile computing options are expanding every year. Whether you prefer a hand-held BlackBerry type of phone/PDA, or a lightweight laptop with a G3 modem and a VPN, we can help you communicate and do business anywhere you go in today's connected world. So…where are you?

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don't sweat - Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

Work Side by Side, Continents Apart

Collaboration is one of the hot topics in business today, and Microsoft is getting in on that Groove. Three years ago, Microsoft acquired Groove Networks, a software company based in Massachusetts specializing in productivity software that allows multiple users to work collaboratively on computer files simultaneously. Now Microsoft is bringing the brilliance of Groove into Messenger and other MS offerings.

Imagine MSN Messenger on steroids and you have Office Groove. With this tool, you can chat online with a colleague or several team members about a project you are all working on. In the same workspace you can share files, exchange information, and collaborate dynamically no matter where in the world any of you are.

This is a compelling model for a small business as it is relatively inexpensive to set up. There is no need for elaborate networks as all Groove workspaces, tools, and information are stored right on your computer. This means that you and your team can work productively anywhere you’ve got your laptop. And since collaboration is only useful if everyone is on the same page, automatic synchronisation keeps you and your team members up to date.

Office Groove has five core elements: (from MS Groove FAQs http://tinyurl.com/2rjwpm)

• Workspaces. Containers created by information workers to share information and work together on team projects.
• Tools. Applications added to workspaces by team members for the purposes of sharing and working together on information, both structured (for example, forms) and unstructured (for example, files).
• Presence and Communications. Built-in presence awareness, chat and messaging.
• Alerts. Text and audible notifications that inform workers of key events and work activity.
• Launchbar. A single starting point for users to monitor all Office Groove 2007 elements including workspaces, contacts, presence, and alerts, and to execute basic functions such as creating new workspaces and communicating with or inviting users.

Kick it up a notch by combining Groove with other technologies such as Sharepoint, and you have an environment where:
A team of people (either intra- or extra-corporation) can easily share file and other pertinent subject information.

• Participants can easily see if other team members are available online
• People can work side by side (virtually) on document/spreadsheet/presentation creation.
• You can coordinate teamwork with shared calendars, alerts and notifications.
• Teams create, capture, and share community knowledge
• You can broadcast information with blogs and Really Simple Syndication (RSS)
• And more!

Collaboration without boundaries is here, today. How much can your business improve with Groove?

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don't sweat - Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

Use the Other CRM to Create Future Success

What is the single biggest cost for most businesses? Correct – people. Salaries, taxes, and benefits are a major expense, so managing the hiring and retention of good employees is critical to an organisation's success. In the information age, when knowledge has become the product of value, managing your company's talent resources is as critical as managing cash flow or making investment decisions.

The other CRM – Candidate Relationship Management – is an outgrowth of traditional Human Resource (HR) activities. In the past HR departments have concentrated on making policy, hiring and troubleshooting staffing issues, and managing the risks of being an employer. That's no longer enough. The best managed organisations are reaching out ahead of need to create a system that identifies candidates and builds an optimal workforce for the business. And it's working. Companies that invest in talent management are showing higher performance than their competitors, because it is the people who are the creators of value.

CRM systems are designed to help improve recruiting, development, and retention of employees who have the skills and aptitudes to meet a company's needs, both now and in the future. If your company always seems to be scrambling to find good people to hire, consider adding a CRM system to help expand the pool of qualified, pre-screened candidates before you need them.

There's a good article that includes techniques for building your talent management process here: http://tinyurl.com/2kl72n. CRM tools don't have to be elaborate and expensive to be effective, and there are options for small firms with salaried as well as hourly employees. The key is not size or complexity, but how well you are able to build a knowledge base of good candidates. If you have employees, you owe it to your organization to build a business-enhancing CRM system.

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don't sweat - Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

Dashboards are Not Just for Cars

Remember the first time you slid behind the steering wheel of a car, gripped the wheel, and saw the instruments on the dashboard? It was exciting to feel that you could be in control of that powerful machine. All the dials and gauges spread out before you told you how fast you were going and how well the car was functioning. You had all the information you needed to go wherever you liked, whenever you wanted.

I can’t promise that thrill each time you look at your business dashboard, but you will find it gives you the same sort of up-to-the-minute readout on how well you are doing on your business journey.

A business dashboard presents visual displays of data pulled from different business systems, and tells you at a glance how things are going. A dashboard can provide real-time intelligence that includes your key performance indicators (KPIs), and can generate ad hoc reports to support decision-making. The display might include red-yellow-green lights, graphics such as bar charts and gauges, summaries, and drill-downs, all to provide consolidated information.

A well-designed dashboard is customizable and usually role-driven, so that the dashboard displayed on the company president’s screen will be different from that of the CFO or the middle manager. The good news is that the source data for a dashboard is probably already sitting in your system right now. With a bit of planning and design work, the information living down in your digital records can be given visible form and made to work for you in new ways.

Employees benefit from having the information they need to do their job right at their fingertips, and dashboards generally allow for customization to the individual’s likes and interests. For the CFO, accounts receivable aging status can be displayed in a bar chart, but the same data could appear as a pie chart for the CEO. The Sales Manager can see the comparison of monthly goals to actual performance, and then drill down to each salesperson’s individual performance. And for the Project Manager who has customized his desktop with widgets for weather and surf conditions, it’s a simple matter to add KPI information to tell him which tasks are on, ahead, or behind schedule and which are running over budget.

In your car you have spread before you all the vital information to get from where you are to where you are going. Fuel remaining, speed, distance traveled, engine function, warning lights, perhaps even compass direction as well as time and distance to destination. On your computer screen, the digital dashboard does the same for your business.

Gentlemen, start your engines!

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don't sweat - Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.

Wouldn't it be nice to know you know what you know?

If your head is spinning from that title, here's another way of saying the same thing. Your business has accumulated a vast amount of data that can be of value to you now and as your business grows. But if all that data is not in a form that you can easily retrieve and analyse, it is of little use. You may actually be sitting on a treasure trove of information that could improve your customer service and your profit, but how to get hold of the treasure?

Knowledge Management can bring order to this chaos and help you find the nuggets buried in your data stores. Many small businesses simply do not realise that they have been building an unstructured collection of valuable data. Applying knowledge management tools can organize and mine this storehouse, and also make it possible for the information to be shared across the organization.

Too often, customer billing information is in one file, purchasing history is in another and client contact information in another. Project information including the skills needed, who worked on what, how long they took, and how much it cost compared to the revenue, all that is somewhere else. Imagine how valuable it would be to look down into your data stores and discover connections and relationships you might not have noticed before. What could that mean to building and enhancing customer relationships? To your company's strategic planning? What might you change if you discovered patterns of buying that you had not seen before?

In many ways, knowledge management is a living thing. As humans, we are constantly renewing ourselves. We recognise changing conditions, draw on our memories of what has served us well in the past to deal with change, visualise alternative outcomes, and make decisions about how we will proceed. We carry our database on our shoulders and make connections and see relationships that change continually as we gather new data from our experiences. That's very much like what a knowledge management system can do for a business.

In today's increasingly high-speed, competitive environment, businesses cannot afford to waste resources or miss opportunities. I've found that a frequent benefit of knowledge management is an increase in internal collaboration and sharing of best practices. As a company, you already know more than you think you know. And now you know that knowing is not enough; you have to be able to share knowledge and eliminate duplication.

Know what I mean?

At Chill we take the heat out of IT. No matter what pressure you are under, we will always keep our heads and make sure you get back up and running as soon as possible. So don't sweat - Chill IT. Click here for more information on our consulting services.