Posted by: Andy on April 30th, 2005
Category: General eBusiness
Viewed: 1,094 times
Is there any businesses out there that don’t take advantage of some sort of technology? I don’t think so. Yesterday, Anita Campbell of Small Business Trends posted about an article she read in the New York Times on exactly this topic.
From the New York Times: Forget Web sites and molecular imaging. The biggest fields of opportunity for aspiring entrepreneurs are the same mundane ventures that have been kicking around for decades. Think landscaping companies, child-care providers, janitorial services and nail and hair salons. In a generally buoyant market for low-technology businesses, those are four of the biggest winners by far.
Anita’s clarification: Actually I am not in the least surprised by this report. We write about many of these “low tech” businesses here at Small Business Trends all the time. Why? Because they reflect the real world. However, I do want to clarify a misperception the article leaves: just because these small businesses are in low tech industries doesn’t mean they don’t use technology. No, even very small, one-person businesses today have an array of technology.
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Posted by: Andy on April 29th, 2005
Category: Blogging
Viewed: 1,078 times
This week on itbusiness.ca, Stephen Downes points out a couple ways the average business can take advantage of RSS (Rich Site Summary).
As a growing number of RSS feeds become available, they are becoming a useful tool for businesses looking to keep people informed. Maybe you run a building supply business — why not incorporate a construction industry news feed into your website? Or if you’re an auto parts supplier? Not only would an auto industry news feed be handy, but if most of your business is with a single client, say General Motors, plugging in to the GM news feed could be extremely useful.
Conversely, for those with the resources, an outgoing RSS feed can keep large customers and suppliers up to date on your own company news, pricing changes, inventory list updates and other oft-changing information.
Keep in mind there is more to RSS than just blogging!
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Posted by: Andy on April 28th, 2005
Category: Research
Viewed: 1,125 times
Is email bad for your mental health? A new UK study has some surprising conclusions about the ramifications of living in the information age. A survey of 1,100 Britons found that far from empowering workers, modern communications — phone calls, emails and text messages — distracted them and actually caused them to suffer a greater loss of IQ than if they were smoking marijuana.
Researchers say office staff are the most common sufferers of ‘infomania’ — losing concentration at work as their minds are in a permanent state of readiness to reply to texts and emails. Some even interrupt the flow of meetings to answer calls. In addition, the study found that the constant interruptions caused by the messages reduce productivity and leave people feeling tired and lethargic. This is a very real and widespread phenomenon. We have found that this obsession with looking at messages, if unchecked, will damage a worker’s performance by reducing their mental sharpness.
Keep in mind this survey is based on phone calls, emails and text messages - there was no mention of your daily habit of consuming weblogs, so keep this site bookmarked.
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Posted by: Andy on April 25th, 2005
Category: Free Tools
Viewed: 1,543 times
Okay, they’re REALLY simplistic and the designs are kind of reminicent of the web circa 1999 (see ‘burning’ and ‘alien glow’), but if you’ve got no money, no computer graphic skills and you’re really in a pinch, try this free website logo and button generator. Just type in your text and off you go.
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Posted by: Andy on April 24th, 2005
Category: General eBusiness
Viewed: 669 times
If you are using a blog to publish your thoughts and/or further your business aims, have you thought about how your posts can become conversations in the blogosphere?
When a blogger publishes a post and other bloggers link to it, the post becomes part of a conversation. The initial post is the “seed” of the conversation. What happens next is fascinating. Posts linking to the seed are themselves linked to, and so on. From the seed post grows a conversation graph. The nodes of the graph are posts and the arcs of the graph are permalink citations from post to post.
For a business owner with a product or idea to sell, this type of ‘viral marketing’ — when positive and rampant– is invaluable. When negative and rampant, can be a disaster (as seen in the kryptonite bike lock snafu).
Check out how your posts become conversations with this conversation tracker at BlogPulse.
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