While consulting I’m often asked about the applications and tools I use.  Here’s a list of the tools I use:

Get Dropbox (online file storage):  www.getdropbox.com

Twitter: www.twitter.com

Google Apps: www.google.com/a

Short URLs: http://bit.ly/

News:  www.digg.com / www.fark.com

Teleconferencing: www.skype.com / Google Chat / www.tokbox.com

Blogging: www.wordpress.com / www.squarespace.com

Universal Instant Messenger: www.digsby.com

Credential Management: http://keepass.info/

Intranet: http://www.backpackit.com/ Google Sites

What do you use?

- Aric Bandy

As I comb the Internet I occasionally stumble across great articles / blogs that clearly articulates a point.  This blog clearly captures how to approach Social Networking  http://bit.ly/EadTJ

- Aric Bandy

Here’s the highlights:

From Positively Paula 4/30 blog ( http://bit.ly/EadTJ ):

There are some key learnings about social media that every corporate social media marketer should know:

• Every brand can be and should be “social” – Conversations about your brand and products are happening everywhere. You need to be part of the conversation and if H&R Block can make taxes social, your product can be social too.

• Just get started – It doesn’t take a big budget to get started in social media marketing. In fact, much of social media marketing is human capital. Start by listening. Set up Google alerts to look for conversations about your brand or product. Use TweetDeck and set up a brand search to monitor what is going on about your brand or product in the Twitterverse. Then participate in the conversation, just remember to be authentic, honest and transparent and you will be fine. If you take the first steps to engage in the conversation you will learn more about how your brand or product fits into the social media space and it will help guide any future programs.

• Integrated marketing vs. social media – There is a difference between an integrated marketing campaign that includes viral components or online/offline coordination and a social media program. A marketing campaign has a short life; it is singular in desired action and is usually focused on demand generation. A social media program is a commitment to engage and communicate with consumers where the consumer wants to communicate. If you are going to start a marketing campaign with social elements versus a social media program, you must start with the end in mind. The worse thing a marketer could do is build a group of fans, friends or followers without a clear exit strategy after the campaign is completed.

• Find your brand’s own path – What works for one brand in social media does not mean it is right for another. For example, the path of engagement with a movie franchise is very different than engaging consumers about taxes. Remaining true to your brand promise is the best way to approach social media. Utilize your brand promise as a guiding principle across all your social media efforts. Reflect it in the content that you create, the tone that you use, and the programs that you develop.

• Media $ versus human capital – I mentioned human capital earlier. Companies can spend a lot of money trying to launch a social media program. For the most part, I would really classify those efforts as an integrated marketing campaign. Your approach and funding of an integrated marketing campaign needs to be in line with the size and scope of your overall marketing budget. Social media programs can be a lot more cost efficient from a media budget standpoint, but, you still need human capital to run them. In many cases you may be trading media $ for the human capital needed to run a program. For example if you are taking the first step of listening and engaging in the conversation, there is no media buy necessary. However, you do need to have some person dedicated to scanning and responding. Ideally, that person is an employee of the company. Why this should be an employee leads to the next tip.

• Agencies play a great role, but the voice needs to be the company’s -There have been many company backlashes by having your agency respond in the social media space. Remember that the consumer wants to connect with you, not your agency. Your agencies can monitor and identify opportunities, but it is the company that needs to respond – authenticity is key.

• Your agency needs to walk the walk – I hate paying an agency to learn on my dime. When we started three years ago, social media was so new and changing so rapidly that we were all learning together. Today there are many different agencies that are building expertise in social media including public relations firms, interactive agencies and newly formed agencies focusing on social media. As you select an agency partner make sure that they don’t just talk the talk but also walk the walk. Are they active in social media? Does the agency blog or twitter? Judge the agency not solely on their pitch, but also on their actions.

• Get legal involved early – Your legal department can be an ally or a roadblock. What you need to understand is that in the area of social media there is not a lot of legal precedence to draw on. This makes your legal department nervous because it is more difficult to know the best way to protect the company. Involve your legal department early and help them understand your goals so you can build a partnership and not hit as many roadblocks. Ask your legal department to help you solve for the risks versus just state that you cannot proceed with a program. There are always solutions to mitigate risk. You and your legal department can find solutions together.

• Have a crisis management plan – The recent Dominoes episode clearly identifies the need of a crisis management plan. In a world of 24×7 communications, the brands that can respond quickly to a crisis will be the brands that weather the storm. A good crisis management plan must begin with active monitoring. Judgment will need to be exercised to distinguish a customer service issue from a true crisis management situation. Once a crisis has been detected, the brand will need to respond in a matter of hours not days. Early action will help nip a crisis in the bud before it explodes into something larger. No action or ignoring it will only exacerbate the issue. A brand that is already active in social media will also carry more credibility and rally more supporters to come to the brand’s defense.

• Selling the C-Suite or ROI – One of the most popular questions that I get asked is how to build support at the C-level. Having a clearly defined objective is critically important to gain support of any initiative. However, everyone is always focused on the ROI or return on the investment. I have defined ROI a little differently in this new and emerging space as Risk Of Ignoring. There is an absolute change occurring in how we communicate and seek information as a society. The millennial generation is the first digital native generation with very different expectations of companies and marketing. In the not so distant future the millennials will be a larger purchasing demographic than the boomers. Not understanding this segment will be detrimental for future marketers. Watch Shift Happens and share it with your senior leadership team. It is a great example of how we are living in exponential times.

I recently had an opportunity to present at the Rotary Club of Minneapolis.  I presented an overview on two topics that continually arise in my IT Steering Committees and consulting engagements: Cloud Computing and Social Networking.  These are two trends that are drastically changing the way business is done today.

Click here to view the presentation: SaaS | SocialNetworking: An Overview

In a recent change, Microsoft has decided to drop their performance management solution and opted to incorporate aspects into Sharepoint.  Most SMB’s will benefit with the additional tools but those organizations that have adopted a Microsoft-based solution will be left trying to find a bolt-on replacement.   

http://www.intelligententerprise.com/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=HXEIRC0W05WDIQSNDLRSKH0CJUNN2JVN?articleID=212902660

This is the day many of us have been waiting for – Google mail (Gmail and Google Apps) can now be accessed offline.  Many of the organizations that we’ve helped implement Google Apps have retained Outlook for a subset of their users simply because they need to access email offline.  Those users need not wither any longer under the bloated, resource-intensive restraints of Outlook.  In an era where we’ve heard a lot about choice, we finally have a true choice.  

- Aric Bandy

From Google’s Blog:

We’re making offline Gmail available to everyone who uses Gmail in US or UK English over the next couple of days, so if you don’t see it under the Labs tab yet, it should be there soon. Once you see it, just follow these steps to get started:

1. Click Settings and click the Labs tab.
2. Select Enable next to Offline Gmail.
3. Click Save Changes.
4. After your browser reloads, you’ll see a new “Offline^0.1” link in the upper righthand corner of your account, next to your username. Click this link to start the offline set up process and download Gears if you don’t already have it.

Forrester recently released a detailed TCO analysis on cloud-based email, Exchange (premise/hosted) and Google Apps.  The numbers align with every analysis I’ve completed after a Google Apps implementation.  It’s alwasy good to know that others see the world in the same light.  

- Aric Bandy

Article: Cloud-based Email Cheapest Option of Most Companies.  Richard MacManus.

A new report from Forrester presents a cost analysis of cloud-based email systems in enterprises, such as Google Apps or Yahoo!’s Zimbra. In the report, Forrester argues that cloud-based email services are cheaper than running email on-premise for all companies with less than 15,000 employees. What’s more, Google Apps is significantly cheaper than both on-premise solutions and other cloud-based email services – even for very large enterprises. This could spell trouble for Microsoft, as we explain below.

Paul M. Ingevaldson is the retired CIO of Ace Hardware with 40 years in IT.  He recently wrote an article in Computerworld detailing the qualities of a healthy  IT department.    

As sad as it is some businesses / executives in the SMB  space still view IT as operational overhead.  In today’s economic reality, IT has to rise to a strategic level.  I’d argue that businesses that do not follow most if not all of these top 10 qualities won’t make it out of this recession!  

10 Qualities of a Great IT Shop:

. The CIO reports to the CEO or, at least, the chief operating officer. This is vital to the success of the IT department. It gives the CIO clout and ensures IT’s independence.

2. There is an IT steering committee composed of C-level executives from the business units. The executives make their decisions based on some set of priorities and criteria such as ROI. The committee is necessary to ensure that allocation decisions are made in the interests of the entire company, not of an individual department.

3. The IT shop uses up-to-date software and hardware. It should also have reasonable policies for PC software upgrades and other regular system updates. In addition, the company should be spending an appropriate percentage of corporate revenue on IT. This indicates the company’s level of commitment to IT.

4. There is a high-visibility system security team. Since security is one of the most vulnerable areas of IT, it must be well managed.

5. There is an ongoing disaster recovery process involving users, and a documented recovery plan that is tested regularly. Commitment to security and disaster recovery indicates the importance of IT to senior management.

6. There is an ongoing commitment to training to keep IT staffers up to date. This should include attendance at technology conventions as well as training seminars and industry events. If there is a lack of training and a parallel use of consultants, you know that the focus is not on in-house staff.

7. There is rigid adherence to somesystem development life cycle (SDLC) that is understood by IT and the user community alike. (Knowing how IT works helps users interact with IT more effectively.) Any of several SDLC plans may be used, depending on the type of project, but the process of selecting the approach should be documented. This gives you some insight into the professionalism of the IT organization.

8. There are established technical and managerial career paths that enable workers to remain technical and achieve higher pay and status within the organization. This is the only way to retain top technical people who have no interest in managing others.

9. IT produces, at minimum, a monthly status report that shows progress on all major IT projects. This document should be widely distributed throughout the company. Its existence shows the level of interest of IT within the organization.

10. IT sits at the long-range planning table and participates. If this is lacking, it is a sure sign that IT is looked at as an implementer and not an enabler.

Taking It to the Cloud
I found your article “A Place in the Cloud” (InTech, September) interesting, yet in some ways it smacked of fear marketing. Slowly taking low-priority business tasks to the cloud is similar to each and every new business idea — start with a pilot and expand slowly. In the case of SaaS (software as a service), however, after it is determined that requirements can be met and scalability is not an issue, what is the difference between going with SaaS versus on-premise?

We’re a $100 million retailer with more than 300 employees and over 100 locations. Once we answered the requirements and scalability questions, we made the switch from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, saving more than $225,000; we implemented NetSuite for our ERP needs; and we moved from an on-premise payroll/HRIS system to ADP’s on-demand offerings. Other SaaS applications we adopted include WorkOasis, Adaptive Planning, DocuSign, Concur, eFax, Halogen, Monster, WebEx, and Zoomerang. Have there been comments from the employees? You bet: “Why didn’t we make these moves sooner!”

For most of these SaaS applications there is no need to integrate the data; the efficient and cost-effective niche that each provides is enough. Where integration is necessary, a simple interface is provided by each vendor that allows a nontechnical person — dare I say even a financial person — to do the integration.

A colleague of mine once commented to me, “The solution makes too much sense, so we won’t do it!” It seems that this observation is spot-on concerning the market perception of moving away from the on-premise world to SaaS.
Thomas E. Kelly
CFO/CIO
2nd Wind Exercise Equipment
election-results-cfo

Shane Co. is one of the nations largest jewelry retailers with 23 stores across 14 states. On Jan 13th, they filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy primary due to the US Recession and an SAP project that ballooned from $10MM to $36MM.

It’s always tragic to hear about companies shackled to a specific technology or project regardless of whether its the right fit. I can hear the SAP PM now, “Well Tom, we’ve already gone this far. There’s no turning back now.” Too bad Tom Shane didn’t go with NetSuite. 2nd Wind is significantly larger (# of locations) and was able to implement NetSuite in roughly 120days for a few hundred thousand. Here’s the full article: shane-co1

- Aric Bandy

We threw an Agosto Team Appreciation Party in Dec:

1. To celebrate our new digs at: 901 N 3rd St. Suite 115 Minneapolis, MN 55401.
2. To give thanks to our team.
3. To give thanks to our team’s families and share an evening with them.
4. To celebrate a successful 2008.
5. To have a fun, food, and drink. oh.. and to play Rockband!

Thanks for all your hard work and dedication.

Check it out: