Category Archives: Consultancy

business, Consultancy, E-Commerce, service

Understanding Spam – How it Works and who it Benefits

For the longest time I could not understand spam. I failed to see the benefits of a promised breast enlargements or a new Gold watch that is not offered on Amazon. To put it frankly I considered it a total waste of everybody’s time. Why did some yo-yo sit there comprising emails that make no sense with links that would never be clicked upon or is that the case?

For the average educated person one can assume there is no interest in spam. The Spam market is for the poorly educated who most probably have little or no education. It is this type of user who is the most susceptible to this type of marketing. (third world countries) Unfortunately the spammer cannot differentiate from the email address the country of origin. (maybe we should start using country domains on our emails)

Spam exists because it does achieve it objects. 17 percent of the emails sent out will be clicked upon on and presumable a slightly smaller percentage will buy the products offered.

Of course due to the low cost of this form of marketing it is very attractive marketing for certain products. I was going to write companies here but I know any western company caught associating with this would face legal proceedings.

There is millions of pound spent on anti spam software, hundreds of thousand man hours on security. Is it effective? Well yes intill we have the next round where it starts again each side trying to better the other in spam wars.

So how do we defeat Spam? Educate People so that they know better would be my choice. It might solve one or two other problems too.

For Further reading on this topic check out Bruce Schneier excellent article http://www.schneier.com/essay-143.html

Consultancy, work

How Green is Your Distribution?

Name and Shame

One way to increase profits is to make your processes leaner. In my working life I have seen some enormous changes. From goods being manufactured local to them being centralised down to one distribution hub more often than not in Hong Kong. Being Green is not just about helping the environment it is about making more money. While it seems like now that all companies are claiming green credentials. It is funny how today I came across a blatant mistake that one could put down to large corporations lack of procedure and innovoation. I am presently consulting for an Isle of Man IT company that ordered 1000 pieces memory from HP for a hard ware upgrade in preparation for a Windows Vista roll out. The memory when it arrived came on a crate. All individual packed. I am sure that HP claim to be a smart company. How can they pack each piece of memory into separate boxes. Generating higher transport cost, more packaging and more unpacking cost. Just to demonstrate this mistake 200 pieces of memory was ordered from Kingston and arrived on the same day. They were able to deliver it one small box. Saving everybody time and cost.

PS. I did actually double check if there was an option in ordering of the memory for it be delivered in one box. There was not. What are you doing?

Consultancy, E-Commerce, Websites, work

An Easy Personal Backup Plan

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How Is Everybodies Backup Procedure?

Having just brought my second USB storage device. I have decided that it is about time that I update my own personal backup procedure. In the past I have always had great annoyance with backups on to DVD/CD media as you have to spend quite a lot of time setting it up each time and than checking it. Ultimately more time than the backup is really worth.

Project justification:

Ok we know that the question is not will you have a hardware failure but when will you have a hardware failure. If destiny has anything to do it. It will be right when you not made a backup and you need an email address to get in touch with somebody.

What ever it is a backup plan is modern business necessity and probably home computing too.

Hardware needed:

2 portable storage devices or other media. (dvd/server)

Software:

Any software that can provide an incremental backup recognise different medias, and be scheduled. I have chosen Backup4all but there are lots of others just do a search for: incremental backup software.

Files:

It is important in backing up files to insure that you are backing up the right files. One backup strategy is just to make a backup of everything on your computer including the OS. The problem with that in my view is that operating system over time slowly starts to get corrupt. Hence why we do so many clean fresh installs to insure optimum performance of the operating system. I used to make a backup off Windows XP just after I had installed it. This has served me well of over the years enabling me to restore my laptop at a moments notice and be up and running literally in 40 mins. With the advent of Vista one big change has happen in relation to backups: it got big. A basic install now takes up 6 +GB. So I have opted just to backup the first clean install and afterwards the files that I use. Microsoft provides the tools to transfer all the important bits of data and settings from one pc to another if you are looking at installing on several different machines, like a laptop for example.

Frequency:

How often should you back up? This is a tricky one, ultimately every time a file is created or changed. I am sure in reality this does not happen. You can set up a backup so that it will only backup recent file changes. Effectively creating a small job that only does what is necessary. For my home PC I have choose to do a backup once a week. As I am only editing documents and than emailing them I feel this is a risk I am comfortable with. I think that really is the answer to the question. What are you comfortable having backed up after analysing your own situation.

An important point to remember here is that if your hard disk fails in operation is very likely that the data is still on the disk. So if you take the disk to a professional data recovery service. They will be able to recovery data for a price depending on the amount of data. The down side to this is that it will take time. If it contains mission critical data you may well have a problem.

Method:

I have chosen to use two usb storage devices for my backups I will use each one alternate weeks with one device going off site in case of fire. My main reason for using storage devices is that data management is much easier. In the past I have used CD/DVD but the amount time spent cataloguing and organising the date has proven not to be time effective. Fundamentally with usb storage devices the data is accessible up to date and online at time that you require it.

Result

If I was to have a major hardware failure and a hurricane destroyed my house the most date I would lose would be the last 2 weeks of work. Now having reached this point a couple of parting thoughts. Folder share allows you to mirror files on two machines over a network and it is free. If one is concerned about the integrity ands security of their data a good online service such as Idrive will provide a great service in data backup all for a couple of dollars a month and much less of a hastle.

I hope this give you a few ideas for your own backup plan.

Consultancy

Why Do Small Companies Avoid Strategy?

Companies without a strategic plan have one foot in the grave, whether they know it or not. Yet, very few small and mid-size companies (SMBs) emphasize strategic planning. Why are so many of these companies strategically challenged, strategically averse? 1. Fear of the past. Company leaders may have had nightmarish experiences with strategic planning. Maybe they remember consultants that were brought in and nearly ruined the firm. Maybe they spent weeks in meetings without accomplishing a single thing. Maybe they launched grandiose programs only to have them fizzle out within months. Understandably, they don’t want to repeat a disaster.1. Fear of the past. Company leaders may have had nightmarish experiences with strategic planning. Maybe they remember consultants that were brought in and nearly ruined the firm. Maybe they spent weeks in meetings without accomplishing a single thing. Maybe they launched grandiose programs only to have them fizzle out within months. Understandably, they don’t want to repeat a disaster.

2. Fear of the present. Many SMBs are understaffed and overtaxed. Leadership is simply too busy putting out fires and managing day-to-day activities to focus on long-term thinking. Deep down, they fear that if they divert time to planning, the business will fall apart in the meantime.

3. Fear of the Ivory Tower. SMBs have a practical outlook. Most of the employees are close to the customer, close to the action. This is healthy, but it can make leaders distrustful of theories, systems, generalizations and formulas. Leaders may feel that decisions cannot be trusted unless they are tied directly to personal customer contact. This type of leadership is locked in permanent reactive mode.

4. Fear of the facilitation. Effective strategic planning meetings require great skill to facilitate. Leaders may fear that their meetings, no matter how well intended, will end up as bitch sessions or hours of aimless wandering.

5. Fear of commitment. The problem with strategic planning is that it leads to decisive action. And yes, that can be a problem if leadership likes to hedge its bets, keep lots of balls in the air and keep all options open. It has been my experience that only a handful of companies belong to the “Ready, Aim, Fire!” school. Many more belong to the “Ready, Fire, Aim!” school. But for the vast majority, the mantra is “Ready, Aim, Aim, Aim, Aim…”

6. Fear of the future. Part of why SMBs fear commitment is because the cost of failure is high. Managers of Fortune 500 companies play with house money. For entrepreneurs, one’s livelihood is at stake. A winning strategic plan might help the family build a dream house, but a losing plan might result in no house at all.

All of these fears are legitimate to one extent or another. But it’s important to keep in mind that just about every successful company has a strategic mindset. Next time–how companies can overcome the difficulties and become strategic.

Visit Author Brad Shorr at http://in-sidemarketing.blogspot.com/

business, Consultancy

Winning The Argument, Saving Time, and Getting the Job Done

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A fundamental key to getting the work/job done is insuring that you carry your colleagues/customers support and if your work in the public sectors then the general public too.

What is winning the argument?

If you are responsible for implementing any sort of change with in an organisation than you are going to have to convince different parties of your intentions and that the project is going to benefit them so that you can gain there support and help in implementing the project.

It is necessary with all projects to go through a consultative process and allow the people that will be effected by the change to contribute to the process. More than lightly you will face some resistance to your ideas. Your job is to demonstrate how your ideas will be effective and calm the user fears. If you are confident about project one can prepare for this by listing potential problems/fears users may have. By setting this out on paper you will be saving your self time in the future and will prepare the path for a smother transaction.

When I talk about winning the argument. I am talking about rational working through of concerns and demonstrating the effects of the concerns people may have. Some people may say that different opinions mean that both parties are right. While this may be the case with some moral issues. Implement projects has nothing to do that with that. If the goals are clearly defined. For example: The goal of this project is to implement a new security systems for five thousand employees in unobtrusive way. One would have to make decisions that insured these goals are met. While there may appear to be much scope in the process when it is refined down it is quite distinct and clear.

The end result of this, is that time is saved, you win the argument and the job gets done.

E-Commerce, Management, money, Traffic

How Much more does your Youngest Employee Know about the Internet than You ?

What does it mean having a presence on the internet, can you buy a office and move your staff in. Well the answer to the question is yes. For internetholics it has been well known that you can buy virtual love to real estate on line. This can take several forms, Second life for example allows you to interact with an array of potential customers, build a virtual office, hire staff. You might well be thinking now this is great, this is just what I need, low overheads, no sloppy staff, work from wherever I choose. But there is a problem. While there are virtual millionaires on second life. Their virtual business supports a real life business and vice-a-versa.

So what does this mean, well there will be any number of businesses out there who have dipped there toe in the internet water to see what is on offer. If you really want to make that website pay for itself along with your internet connection and computers there are a number of things you will have to do.

First it is about getting as many links as possible pointing to your website. This is done by interacting and commenting in communities. Web 2.0 now offers users the chance to do traditional business but with new technology. The problem with this is that is not very well understood in general by people over 35. So the boss of your local taxi company, accountant etc does not really know what a blog is, or a virtual business etc. Now if they do not know, how can anyone expect it to be taken seriously in the company ranks. Of course you will have your office junior who will have a virtual girlfriend, do virtual sports, already spend a large percentage of his money on the internet and related hardware etc. While the rest of the your staff will struggle with an email attachment that the virus scanner has disallowed because it was told that it is possible for a photo to have a virus in it. Yes it is possible but in the whole of my 12 year IT career I have never come across it. Given that almost 50+ percent of photos on the internet are JPEGS. It is a threat but a low threat and one that we can live with. One cannot really compare it to the risk of not getting your work done for the client and the time it would involve to check every photo.

So a balanced sensible approached is needed for work and business security so it can work at an optimum. No longer can staff say “Oh I do not understand” when a web page fails to load and the message on the screen reads your internet connection is on available at this time due to maintenance work. Involving your company on the internet is fundamentally about involving your employees. We do seminars about web 2.0 but it has to come from the top down. I suggest that smaller companies get the youngest employees to tell them what they know about the internet. This will serve two purposes one you see just what the internet can do, and two you will have a starting point to building an online presence for your company.

development, Traffic, Websites, work connexions

A Great New Competition

There is a great  new competition over at Wcx where bloggers can win a hundred dollars and a month of free advertising. All they have to do is to post there best blog on www.workconnexions.com to enter. Work connexions focuses on business development and has become a resource community center of information to grow your business. With high page rank and quality information just posting on the website will increase your Internet presence. Success!