Not Another Social Media is Awesome Article

Why don't you make it remarkable?  Why don't you make it meaningful?  Whether your vision is for marketing or for actually building relationships, those questions lead to characteristics that will help your social media efforts be more visible and appreciated.  Just a hunch here, but I bet those questions could help in the real world too.  I'm not an early adopter by computer geek standards, but I do qualify when compared to the general population.  However,  I was not an early adopter to social media - Facebook, Twitter, etc.  Nevertheless, we started dipping our toe into the social media pool last year.  Wow, just like many other environments in life, there is noise, spam, and junk mail that have taken on new faces.  I understand why.  Social media is a low cost way of advertising.  Now, I love innovation - especially disruptive innovation!  Can you guess my favorite innovative tool of late?  The Facebook Filtering tools!  I am very grateful for all the relationships I have in life (and in my virtual social media life).   However, I never put all my friends on one giant conference call, and expect them to all talk at the same time.  Think about that phone call in reverse.  I am speaking to all my friends from all areas of life at once.  What subject matter interests them all simultaneously?  I could not provide value to all of them for very long.    I am thankful for filtering tools in email, in spam, in the form of Caller ID, but I digress.   My brief and humble words for you today, have a plan for your social media efforts.  The plan should be to provide value to your potential followers, friends, and customers.  Remember, the filter exists, and your audience will tune you out if your message is too loud, too often, or meaningless.  Before you post, run your own mental filter first and decide if the post is meaningful.  Value is ESPECIALLY important if you choose to interconnect and redistribute your content and comments across several mediums.  Proceed with caution when using Feedburner, Twitterfeed, and other tools that redistribute your posts everywhere instantly.  Think about the users that are following you or that you want following you.  If they are devoted long time followers, most likely they subscribe to all your feeds.  If you choose to interconnect all feeds and post the same material across all platforms - they will stop listening.  Too loud or too often is not an initial problem on startup efforts, however it is a rule of thumb that you shouldn't forget as time passes by.    Social media is awesome, but only if you choose to make it awesome.   Once a follower filters you out for being too loud or boring, odds are you will never get them back.

Small Business Advice: Efficiency Tip of the Day

At every level of life and small business, the details can slow us down.  None of us have the time to dig into every aspect of our business to discover the advanced warning signals to prevent problems.  What if there was a quick litmus test that would send off early warning signals of business problems?  This recent article, by Dan and Chip Heath, tells the story of an unlikely character developing a litmus test for his business.  Your small business success story will one day be filled with the details that didn't slow you down.  Take time each day to figure out what the most important details are for your life and your business. 


Over the past year, I've enjoyed the Heath Brothers various columns and their best selling book.  If you would like to learn more about them, click here.  In a world full of massive amounts of information, they are standing out... which is the premise of their first book.

Help with IPv6 - What's the plan?

We all have to prepare for IPv6. I am going to try to make this article for the masses, but the fact is, we are talking about IP Addresses. This subject inherently is technical. Devices that are speaking IPv6 are still rare, therefore our talk today is not urgent. Nevertheless, I've had four IPv6 conversations in the last two weeks. (That's probably four more than last year) With this little bit of buzz, and in an effort to help you prepare, let's discuss a good plan going forward. For the non-technical reader, IPv6 is the next generation Internet Protocol address. Currently while browsing, we find each other on the Internet with Internet Protocol version 4 addresses. Version 4 IP Addresses are represented by 32 bits, while version 6 has 128 bits. The Internet will run out of IP Addresses for each of our devices one day, and therefore we need more address space. This conversion to 128 bit addresses is the solution. All equipment that requires Internet Access needs to speak in this new format. Here's the message we are sending our clients today:

The time has arrived to have the "what if we had to switch to IPv6?" meeting.

As a leader in your organization, it is time to raise awareness at all levels about this issue. Every purchase, every plan, every budget could be affected if a conversion was required.

Justify the cost of whether or not you require IPv6 compatibility today or can it wait?

In many cases, your technology purchases are inexpensive and replacing them for IPv6 will be inexpensive also. In other cases, buying for this compatibility doesn't cost much more. In that case, buy for the future, its nearly free! My word of caution relates to the expensive purchases for equipment that you will use for the next three to five years. For these purchases, ask questions:

Is it compatible today?

If not compatible today, is it a free and easy software upgrade later to be compatible?

If the upgrade isn't free and easy, how much is it going to cost? How does that cost compare to buying another vendor's equipment that is compatible today? Or buying new "again" when it is time to make the IPv6 conversion?

In summary, all you need to do today is be aware of this change. Be smart and remind yourself of this change as you make big technology plans and purchases.

If you have questions, email us, Georgia Business Net is here to help.

support@gabn.net

For some extended reading, Infoworld published a little news on this topic this week:
Source / Article: http://bit.ly/IPv6gabn

The Problem With Doing It the Old-Fashioned Way

“Working 9 to 5. What a way to make a livin.” If a filmmaker were to pay homage to the movie today, what would that look like? Does the Starbuck’s barista accidentally poison Mr. Hart’s coffee? Would Judy, Violet, and Doralee text each other with updates to their plan? Several problems can arise when we start to analyze and plan for technology in our business. The typical first problem is that we are emotionally tied to our current routine. You like it. It works. You don’t like change. “The Old-Fashioned Way” can easily turn into “that’s the way we’ve always done it.” Some independent thought and analysis may reveal a better way. Could the process work better? Could we be more efficient? Could new technology play a role in these improvements? Technology changes so fast that every leader needs to evaluate business processes routinely to unearth the next productivity enhancement. Where would you start? How would you start? I try to start by stopping. I try my best to stop and listen. Therefore I am going to take my own advice and stop for now. I welcome your comments and suggestions. Look for more on this topic soon as we discuss something we all want…making work-life easier.

Find Us on Facebook
Follow Us on Twitter