SMB IT | Curtis Franklin » January 2007

January 30, 2007 | Comments: (0)

New Radio Show: InfoWorld LIVE! Episode 2

TAGS: Podcast

It's episode 2 of InfoWorld LIVE! and wouldn't you know it, she falls smack dab on Vista day. So to celebrate this august occasion, we've got Microsoft's lead Vista product manager, Greg Sullivan as our first guest. Then we also have JC Utter of infrastructure maker ImageStream talking about CALEA (scary) and finally InfoWorld's own Martin Heller getting into his recent review of Cast Iron.

Remember, InfoWorld LIVE! is a new weekly radio show manned by me and our pals over at My Technology Lawyer. We're in pilot mode now, so it's only running for 6 weeks unless we find a sponsor (marketing people take note!). My co-host, as ever, is tech attorney Scott Draughon and we spend an hour talking to vendors, IT folks and technology business executives about technology developments, market situations and even legal prognostications in the SMB space.

The show is on every Tuesday at 4:00pm-5:00pm EST, so tune in by heading to the My Technology Lawyer site (link above) and clicking on the radio show icon on the bottom right. From there, you can stream the show live. Or you can wait a bit and I'll post a link to it here every week.

You can download this week's episode by clicking on this link:   Listen!

Posted by Oliver Rist on January 30, 2007 12:22 PM

January 26, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Online Branding Tutorials

TAGS: Don't Ignore Your Web Site

Every small business entrepreneur I've ever met has been surprised by the importance of marketing to a burgeoning SB. Nobody discounts it going in, of course, but the sheer weight of marketing is almost never fully apparent to first-time SMB owners and operators. Just one of those lessons most folks need to learn the hard way. I know I did.

Bottom line: You can't market enough. Period. For small businesses on limited budgets, you MUST include marketing dollars--and generously. Skimping here can kill you. I haven't figured out any general rules of monetary marketing wisdom myself as yet save this one: Figure out what you think you'll need to the penny (factor in Web site design/maintenance, PR, direct mail costs, events, travel, etc.)...and then just double it. That's right flat-out double it. You'll always be far closer to the real-life cost that way--and what's left over you can simply use to fund whatever great marketing idea you didn't have at budget time.

A small article on SB branding from AllBusiness

BusinessWeek's Sales & Marketing 101 mini-portal -- this is worth perusing.

Posted by Oliver Rist on January 26, 2007 09:55 AM

January 24, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Emerging Enterprise: CES and Search Engine Optimization

TAGS: Podcast

We're back with SMB commentary on CES 2007 and then a short discussion on search engine optimization gotchas.   Listen!

Posted by Oliver Rist on January 24, 2007 01:27 PM

January 23, 2007 | Comments: (0)

New Radio Show: InfoWorld LIVE!

TAGS: Podcast

Apparently my voice isn't as grating as it sounds to me. I've just managed to get a gig as co-host of a weekly one-hour radio show in conjunction with the folks at the My Technology Lawyer Radio Show. We're in pilot mode now, so it's only running for 6 weeks unless we find a sponsor (marketing people take note!).

My co-host, as ever, is tech attorney Scott Draughon and we spend an hour talking to vendors, IT folks and technology business executives about technology developments, market situations and even legal prognostications in the SMB space.

The show is on every Tuesday at 4:00pm-5:00pm EST, so tune in by heading to the My Technology Lawyer site (link above) and clicking on the radio show icon on the bottom right. From there, you can stream the show live. Or you can wait a bit and I'll post a link to it here every week.

This week, we've got InfoWorld senior contributing editors Paul Venezia and Brian Chee. Paul is going to try and talk about virtualization to mere mortals while Brian is going to discuss security considerations for SMBs in 2007. We've also got High Mobley, co-founder of q!Bang Solutions talking about search engine optimization. You can download this episode by clicking on this link:   Listen!

Posted by Oliver Rist on January 23, 2007 11:54 AM

January 17, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Online Education has Multiple Benefits for SMBs

TAGS: Worthwhile Web Sites

Online education was a buzzword several years ago, but don't let the lack of recent hype fool you: The concept has never stopped growing. There are well over 120 full-scale online universities teaching on the Web today and dozens of high-quality e-learning Web sites offering non-degree courses, as well.

Checking into these resources has a two-pronged benefit for SMB owners and operators: First, it can make you smarter; second, it can make your employees smarter. That last one is important because it can double as an important job benefit for small businesses that might otherwise not be able to afford traditional tuition aid for their employees.

I've yet to find an online university that will negotiate advantageous rates for a specific business, but that's not to say the deal is impossible. If anyone out there's done something like that, let me know.

Meantime, if you're thinking about striking such a deal or perhaps just standardizing on an online learning institution for your company, these are excellent resources:

* ClassesUSA. This is Web learning exchange portal listing not just online universities, but also specific degree programs and courses of study. Not quite as extensive as eLearners (below), but good for full-on degree program research.

* eLearners.com: A full-on Web education portal. Aggregates all kinds of online learning, from kindergarten right up through graduate programs. Also has a great directory of online universities and an article repository, too.

* Media First: This is a good place for SMBs to learn to deal with media relations. Not as a good as a PR agent, Media First still offers training in media relations for both PR pros as well as non-PR workers who'll still have media contact as part of their jobs.

* UK Business Training.co.uk. An awkward name still doesn't ruin this site's value for online business training resources in the UK.

Posted by Oliver Rist on January 17, 2007 11:16 AM

January 10, 2007 | Comments: (0)

From The CES Show Floor #1

TAGS: Oliver's Rants

Okay, not really from the show floor because getting WiFi there is about as easy as finding a Snapple in the Mojave and grabbing a press room PC means a gladiator duel. But it is from the Jesuit priest's house in Henderson--yes, we're staying there again because InfoWorld won't pay our travel here. (Send your indignant complaints about this to InfoWorld executive editors and higher, please.)

Meanwhile, here are some sweet things we saw with an SMB spin to them at this year's CES (and, yeah, there'll be more later).

First the Flybook. An Apple affiliate may have come out with the first Apple tablet at the MacWorld show, but the Flybook just blows that out of the water.

First, figure it's an ultra-portable format (that's my hand for size reference). Second, it's got enough muscle to run a full version of Vista. Third, it turns into a tablet. Fourth, it's got GPRS connectivity built-in, which not only means broadband Internet, but if you stick the right SIM card in there it's got phone features built-in. Very cool. Fifth, it includes Bluetooth GPS. Just flip it into tablet mode, activate the Bluetooth GPS, drop it on your passenger seat and you're getting directions. Very sweet. Plus, it's made by an Italian company, so it looks great--here's a better image than my homemade photo above.

Bad news is twofold: First, it's being sold in the US mainly through Barney's--yeah, that's the NYC or Beverly Hills department store where a button down shirt costs about a grand. Means we're not going to like the price once they finally tell me what it is. Second, battery life allegedly bites. Too many RF extras and too small a batter form factor. Then again you can opt for a laptop batter life extender, but that'll take away from the ultra-portable pleasure. Hey, life is full of compromises.

Next, I liked this deal from Packet8. It's another Internet-based VoIP plan. But it's cheap ($20/mo for most home/small biz users) and it includes this handy video phone box. We demoed this at the show, and it wasn't George Jetson-perfect, but it worked fine for me. You can even set up a three-way video conference out of the box. The devices will be sold direct or via Office Depot, so they're not hard to get. Small biz owners can get them in the $20/mo residential version, but slightly larger companies should opt for the $40/mo Packet8 Virtual Office service, which extends the whole thing via a hosted PBX function. Lets you use your existing phones but adds all the digital VoIP goodies.

Next comes the best looking Bluetooth earwig I've seen yet. Okay, it's not the geekiest thing, but this is the kind of thing you see at CES. It comes from Bluetooth hardware maker Aliph, and is disturbingly called the Jawbone. Aside from the Hills-Have-Eyes-style name, it looks cool enough to win a design award here at the show and it also includes an ambient noise damper. Much easier to hear, and I verified that at the booth. Plus, it looks good enough to be paired with the Flybook. It costs $120 and is availalbe only at Cingular stores for the time being, tho it should work with any Bluetooth-compatible phone.

For now, I'll stop with Buffalo Technology's newly minted TeraStation Pro II. This is a step up from last year's version 1.0, but is still the same 1TB-2TB NAS device designed specifically for SMBs. New features include a built-in UPS (very cool idea) that guarantees orderly shutdown in the event of trouble as well as a Disk Quota Management feature, which will let the local admin assign disk space to users rather than having the gobble it all up. The device still has 10/100/1000Base-T connectivity and can also still accept USB-based storage expansions. And, yeah, the price is still between $1000 and $1700 depending on how much disk space you're looking for.

There's way more here at the show, but it'll have to wait until later.

Posted by Oliver Rist on January 10, 2007 09:24 AM