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“Social Notworking” –
The Art of using Facebook, Twitter,
and MySpace during work hours
 

Why are you reading this? When we decided to create a monthly newsletter for our customers and prospective customers, we asked ourselves what we could tell you that would be worth five or ten minutes of your time each month. Let’s face it, everyone is busy. You get dozens or hundreds of emails every month with information you don’t need about things you don’t want. So it is clear that one more email with the same junk isn’t worth your time.

What might be worth your time is a newsletter that introduces you to concepts, services, and products in the Information Technology world that are relevant to your business. They may help you be more efficient, provide better customer service, develop better products, or directly improve the bottom line, but they have to be relevant.

Explanations of current technologies and buzzwords might also be worthwhile. Do you think of “FaceBook” as something for the teenagers? Do you “Twitter”? Ever considered “blogging”? Does the phrase “Social Networking” have any meaning to you at all? Well, maybe these tools have no place whatsoever in your business, but then again, maybe they do. Wouldn’t it be nice for you to be able to make an informed decision about them?

Finally, we’ll be bringing you tips and techniques. There will be shortcuts to get the job done quicker, and updates that are available for products we support. If you can get the same work done with a little less effort, it makes the day go smoother!

We hope you’ll give us a read. If it’s worth your time, pass it on to your associates. If it’s not worth your time, we’d love to know what we can change to improve. We look forward to hearing from you!

Chuck Brown
CEO

When the going gets tough, the tough have a smart game plan. And with over 2 million jobs lost in 2008, the situation is definitely getting tough. Fortunately, the US has relieved our 26 million small businesses—those which gross $15 million or less in profits annually[1]–in more ways than one with its 2009 Recovery Plan.

The new plan not only gives small businesses tax breaks and credits, it also plans to give your customers more money by providing them jobs. In the meantime, though, one of the best ways you can take advantage of the plan is by carefully investing in the future with updated technology and energy efficient solutions.  Even for larger businesses that don’t directly benefit from the recovery plan, making these types of changes while business is slower can prepare you for when the economy picks up.

The government’s plan
This plan provides you with a myriad of opportunities to help your business. The new plan:

The total number of users on the social networking site Facebook has now soared above the 200 million mark. Just to put that into perspective: if Facebook were a country, it would be the fifth largest on Earth, after China, India, the U.S. and Indonesia. According to a recent report by ComScore, the number of European Facebook subscribers has grown by 314% over the past year to nearly 100 million users.

Due to the site’s popularity, many organizations (including HP) have recognized Facebook’s value in promoting their products and services. And everyone from British actor Stephen Fry to President Barack Obama has a Facebook page. Unfortunately, many of the aspects that make Facebook and other social networking sites so popular also make them a prime hunting ground for identity thieves, online scam artists and criminals. However, there are a few measures you can and should take to protect yourself.

Do you remember when owning a car used to be simple? 20 years ago we felt competent enough to do a lot more with our cars than just fill them up with gas. It wasn't even uncommon for the average guy to carry out some solid repairs without ever calling a mechanic. Today, it is rare to see anyone opening the hood at all. The complexity of automotive technology has grown so much that it is now easier and more cost effective to just let experts handle it and focus on enjoying the drive.

Business computing is heading in the same direction. The convergence of information and communications is leading to the demand for availability “any time, any place, any where”. At the same time the competitive nature of almost every modern market is being transformed by escalating demand and unrelenting margin pressure. Add to this the increasing complexity and variety of computing technologies, and the task of successfully managing the information infrastructure can prove to be almost overwhelming, particularly for the small business owner.

Read on

This isn't another lecture about minding your e-mail manners. This is a story about a new subset of e-mail etiquette. Call it wireless politeness. An increasing number of e-mail messages are being received on small, wireless devices with limited screen space — devices such as Windows Mobile-based Smartphones. Being polite is still important. But so are a number of other considerations, including brevity, diction and consideration for bandwidth.

Here are seven tips.