The Choice Economy
- Image via Wikipedia
The Internet has been described by a great many thinkers, pundits and journalists as functioning on an economy of links. I’m not hear to argue against that but I do have a stream of thoughts that needs really to be considered beyond the physicality and networking of the link economy.
The thought I want to raise is who operates best in an economy where choice is king? Most of us for most of our lives making choices, but always these choices are based on limits that are presented clearly to us. We can pick a car, because we are buying from a limited set of available cars. We buy TVs in the same way and we choose what is on TV from a limited (but ever increasing), set of channels. This is all changing. The onwards march of the web throws more and more choices at us and us the Internet moves into our living rooms and telephones we will soon never be away from choice. The choice of what is offered to us will become bewildering.
The people who will make the most of this will be the ones who are best equipped to process information, learn useful facts, plan and make choices. This is not everyone. Some people will embrace a situation of ever expanding choice and some will look for ways that are safe comforting and that make these decisions for them.
This is going to have a big impact on everyone.
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It will shape the development of mainstream and all other media.
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It will affect how we all communicate with each other.
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It will change national and International culture.
I’m not going to doom monger any negative thoughts on this. That’s not my objective. You do however have to prepare yourself for the possibility that has options expand the ability to make assumptions will decrease. If you are trying to reach an audience or a community you will need to understand and respect how they cope with choice and where those choices lead them.
Is it possible that in a choice economy where we all pick and choose what we want that old fashioned ideals like respect and etiquette will become more important than they have been for some time now?
The Cloud for Business – at the IT Donut
Back at the start of September I recommended the IT Donut to you. An IT blog with a difference, it is not orientated to the technical person. It aimed at the business user. That’s an important distinguishing point – so much technology writing assumes you understand tech. This one just assumes that you have a business need, and lets face it; love or hate tech. Everyone has a business need for it.
This time I’m giving it a plug as I’ve just written a short article on business uses of the cloud and to me it seems very natural that I mention it here.
Eliminating Email
- Image via Wikipedia
Here is the question: should I email that?
Email is an easy to use tool, but is it the best tool for the job?
Well for sending a message to anyone in any organization it probably is. However the question I want you to ask is it the best tool for
- Working collaboratively on documents
- Sending files
- Documenting a project
- Managing a team
- Working in real time with some one
You see email overload is a massive problem that caused communication problems, technical faults and stress. Given these problems isn’t it worth reconsidering conventional wisdom and simply think about how we do things? After all if it is possible to make things easier even though it means making a few changes isn’t that a good thing? All that I am suggesting is that you take time to reflect about how work and consider alternative options.
To get things started here’s my original list – this time with a few suggestions to help you get started thinking about how to get more control over your email.
Working collaboratively on documents
Why not try a server based document creation system that enables collaborative editing. Good solutions include
- Microsoft Office 2010
- Google Docs
- Zoho
Sending Files
- Try just sharing files either using a server you control or by utilising a sharing service such as Dropbox
Documenting a Project
- Wikipedia has become the by word for looking up information online. The software it uses to document encyclopaedia articles is a powerful tool for documenting anything. So instead of emailing bits of email back and fore – set up a wiki and build a powerful repository for your project.
Managing a team
To manage a team means fair and simple documentation of tasks. To achieve this try
- CRM software such as Sugar CRM or Salesforce
- Task and diary sharing is MS Office or one of its web based alternative
- Task management software such as Toodledo.
Working in real time
If your emails are turning into a conversation then have a conversation. Try using instant messaging software. This is built for the job of conversing in audio, video or text chat, can record written conversations and exchange files all on the fly. It’s a very fast and simple method of communicating.
- The king of the hill for instant messaging has to be Skype.
So next time you are about to hit the send button stop and think – is this the best approach? Should I email this or should I find a better way of working?
Keystrokes – Training Services – New Client Site
Get a Good Password
If you use the Internet you use a password, but how do you get a good password that will be difficult or in preference practically impossible to crack?
What you need is something that will tell you how quickly someone could crack your password, and perhaps an easy way to build a good password.
If you want to know how secure your password is; then there is a web site for that. It is called: http://howsecureismypassword.net/ . This simple website takes a look at your password and gives you a rough estimate how long it would take to work out what your password is using a PC. There’s quite a bit of voodoo and magic used here so the numbers shouldn’t be taken as absolutely accuratge. That said it is a fun way of working out just how hard it would be to figure out what your password is.
This leaves the other side of the equation, how to get a good password. There are plenty of simple stragtegies to creating an easy to remember password, but if you want some help take a look at: http://pimpmypassword.co.uk/ This simple silverlight application will either modify (or pimp) an existing password to make it harder for someone to guess. I just put the password ‘jeremiah’ through http://howsecureismypassword.net/ and that would take 5 hours to break. One of its instantly pimped varients gennerated by http://pimpmypassword.co.uk/ is ‘j4R4miAH’ and running this through howsecure gives a crack time of 252 days – a significant improvement. Pimp my Password also boasts a good password generator.
So to get a good password – check it is strong and that it will take a long time to crack (http://howsecureismypassword.net/), and if you are not sure what the password should be then get some help (http://pimpmypassword.co.uk/)
Introducing the IT Donut
The IT Donut
The IT Donut is a web site dedicate to talking to you in sensible business terms about the technology that is out there to help you run your business. The site has hunted down a number technology experts to come up with the information and just to make sure they know what they are talking about, it runs their work through talented editors who make sure the information is accurate and understandable.
In short its a technology web site aimed at people who have no interest in technology, but who are looking for good ideas to help out their business.
I’ve been reading the IT Donut and have to say that it is all good, useful information.
I also had better declare an interest here – I have been writing pieces for the IT Donut and so am perhaps a bit biased.
That said I still think it is going to be an excellent resource for people who need to know about IT, in clear and practical terms.
Internet Explorer 9 – Rumours of Startling New Look
The official non technical look at new version of Microsoft’s Internet Explorer web browser is due out in September. Over the last couple of days screenshots have emerged that suggest it will come with a completely new look. One that will firmly bring it up to date, and by the looks of things make the experience of viewing and using a web site at the forefront of the Internet Explorer experience. This is good as lets face it – earlier versions were a bit cluttered and messy in the looks department.
If you interested in a glimpse of what may be the future for many web users here are some articles on the subject.
Toodledo – A First Class To Do List
Image by koalazymonkey via Flickr
- You can access it from any computer, anytime and anywhere.
- You can integrate it with other services – such as calendar control or email
- You can share task information easily with colleagues, friends or families.
There is of course nothing wrong with pen and paper – its simple and it works, but do you want to miss out the extras that can be offered by using an online service?
I’m a bit of a fan of organisation software, I try out a good many just to see what I can learn from them and as a result I have a favourite to do list. In fact its something I only learned about recently but it has impressed me, and that means I need to share that information with you. The system that has been impressing is called Toodledo.
Now for the why it is first class – and that I can sum it in a short list:
- It mails you your to do list. Great if you are on the move and don’t have a PC to log onto to. An email enabled phone can give you your To Do List.
- It Prints a paper to do list. I use a notebooks a lot and some times having a printed list can help
- It share tasks – you can send task information to other people
- It has an excellent sorting system – lets you see what is going on
- Its clear and easy to follow and make adjustments. A to do list needs to be adjustable so you can see what is going.
For me its a clear, simple approach that lets me build my own time management system.
Actually the system is important and needs to be touched on. Any time management tool on web or otherwise needs to be worked. For that you need a system. If you are going to use a to do list you need to work out a consistent and disciplined way of working with it. If you don’t do this, it cannot help you much.
Celtic Fuel Oils – A new client web site
The Celtic Fuel Oil Website
I’d like to take a moment to announce a new web site for, who specialise in arranging the delivery of heating oil, red diesel and road diesel. As a new company they wanted a web presence to be created quickly but in such a way that it could be expanded to fulfil future roles. We opted for a content managed approach that gives them an operating web site now that can also meet their future needs.
We’d like to take this opportunity to wish Celtic Fuel Oils all the best in the future.
Introducing Cloud Services – Zenbe
Image by hansdorsch via Flickr
Alpha Technical Solutions – Web Design and Cloud Services is now live and open for business. Over the coming weeks and months it will expand to tell you more about the web, the cloud and how we can help you make the most of it. I’ll also be regularly posting articles that introduce various cloud services to you, just so that you can get an idea of what is out there to help you or your company work more efficiently.
I’m going to start of with Zenbe.com. A company that specialises in products that help you manage and share information. Their 3 main products are a lists based task management system, shareflow – a structured notation and commenting system and blacktop a system to help you manage Foursquare. For me the most interesting is Shareflow. Simply put Shareflow allows you to comments, files , emails, event and mapping information into a ‘flow’ that can be shared by several people. It is a convenient system for tracking information relating to a project, and because it is cloud based – you can pick it up anywhere. The pick it up anywhere bit is really handy if you get an idea about a project when for example you are at home – you can just log in, add the idea into the flow and log out. It takes moment and your thought is recorded where it needs to be. Remember you must always write down ideas when you get them – use them or lose them was never truer when talking about ideas!
Zenbe is a good example of a class of small, simple web applications that can add the power that used to require servers, a team of engineers and a decent sized network to your business. I remember running group management software on an IBM mainframe many years ago. Zenbe is easier, faster and can go anywhere.
The cloud can give a business of any size serious computing power.
That is why we are going to talking cloud services.
