I run a small business. Every greenback counts. Small enterprise proprietors like me say that we most effectively invest in technology when we’re surely positive it’ll boom our profitability. That’s a lie. We throw money down the bathroom on nugatory tech all the time.
But these 12 months are going to be one-of-a-kind! Sure, there is plenty of excellent technology out there. But there is plenty of technology that doesn’t make feel for a small enterprise proprietor like me to shop for in 2011. And this yr I’m going to take a stand. I’m not buying the subsequent technology.
Search Engine Optimization. Robert De Niro, Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Streisand, and Ben Stiller in a single movie? My God, how can this NOT be a masterpiece? If I’ve found out anything from “Little Fockers,” it’s if something sounds too precise to be real, it most probably is. Same for search engine optimization. Over the beyond six years, I’ve likely spent $20K on so-called search engine marketing “professionals” who promised to raise my web page to web page considered one of Google or Yahoo. And some of them succeeded…For about five seconds. There isn’t any rapid and smooth manner to conquer the Google ranking machine. Anyone who tells you this is mendacity. Search engine technology does not work. Search engine optimization offerings, however, does. But this isn’t reasonably-priced. The men I understand who have succeeded with search engine marketing understand that it’s a service and feature that made it a lynchpin of their advertising efforts. That approach they have got spent huge time cash (like tensor masses of hundreds of greenbacks) to make it paintings. I don’t have that sort of cash. I’ll make certain my website is “optimized” with the proper key phrases, meta-tags, and other nonsense. But it’s all I’m going to do that 12 months.
Virtualization. I get it. Instead of walking a server farm, this era, made by using VMware and Microsoft agencies, shall we-we create “virtual machines” on just one server. You can do away with all that other hardware and even save on strength. My organization runs on just low degree servers sitting in my basement. The most electricity used in my residence comes from my children’s Xbox, which seems like it’s strolling Halo 24 hours an afternoon. If something, I’m thinking about throwing out my servers (at the side of multiple my kids) and moving the entirety to a cloud-primarily based carrier. Virtualization software is incomprehensible to a corporation my length or any agency with less than 4 or five servers. So I’m now not using that era in 2011 either.
Office 2010. Microsoft is like my mother…”God forbid you must call me now and then take a look to make certain I have not died in the midnight. Is that so much to invite from my son?” I feel equal guilt approximately upgrading my Office gadget. I did not even need to improve to Office 2007 within the first vicinity. And now I’m feeling shameful that I’m not running Office 2010 too? We moved to Office 2007 this past 12 months for the equal motive. I invited my mom over for dinner last week…Due to the fact we felt responsible. And although it’s hushed, we are genuinely no longer seeing any more advantages from it than Office 2003. Or Office 1997, for that matter. If something, we may appear more difficult at Microsoft’s online version of Office this yr or maybe take any other stab at Google Docs. Or we might also stop fiddling around with unique methods to jot down a stupid letter and as a substitute recognition on something extra effective in 2011 – like bringing in the extra commercial enterprise.
Smartphone Apps. Oh, appearance…I just found that a twitter person with the ultimate call of “Marks” is at the identical McDonalds as me! Hooray…I changed my TV channel using my smartphone! And how impressive, that new app I downloaded for $2.99 told me that there’s a Starbucks within the airport I’m going to. Today’s cell phone apps are a laugh and enjoy. Some of them even assist us to be extra personally productive. But for the maximum element, those applications are toys. I have not discovered a single downloadable “app” that could trade the way my commercial enterprise is run or be a good tool to enforce throughout my employer. That’s because smartphone apps, just like the phones they run on, are nonetheless in their infancy. I haven’t any doubt that inside the next few years, some interesting technologies will emerge with a purpose to assist my whole enterprise run more profitably. But except I need to rent some youngsters inside Ukraine to develop customized software, I do not expect to force any smart cellphone technologies in 2011.
Netbooks or iPads. Can all of us agree that a netbook is just a cheaper, underperforming tool it’s too small to without a doubt use successfully in a business and most effective exists to lure in human beings too reasonably-priced to spend the more couple of hundred dollars on a respectable computer? And are we able to also agree that, while the iPad is cool and I wouldn’t want to be stuck strolling around La Mission or SoHo without one, it is sincerely not that smooth to use for enterprise purposes like typing files, doing records entry and running maximum commercial enterprise applications? These devices are toys. Get them to your children. Get one due to the fact you still want to be a child. But don’t buy these things for your personnel. There are too many affordable laptops available, strolling Windows 7 (which utilizes the manner that works excellent and rapid). Your personnel can do non-cool, un-hip such things as invoices, estimates, proposals, and spreadsheet evaluation.
Anything That Synchronizes. Over the years, I’ve tried syncing my programs to smartphones, laptops, and every different. The high-quality synchronization apps paintings approximately ninety-five % of the time. Thank God software program companies don’t build airplanes. I was not synching whatever in 2011. Unless I can access the information over the net, it is just going to must wait.
Business Intelligence Software. This is only a code phrase for reporting software. There are masses of commercial enterprise “intelligence” software program packages and consultants to assist us “run our agencies.” These packages are overpriced, and so are the specialists who work with them. I’ve only were given ten human beings in my company, which (fortunate for me) method I don’t should be that clever. Instead of purchasing a commercial enterprise intelligence software program in 2011, I’m going to learn how to use the reporting capabilities of my present software program better or buy an inexpensive reporting device like Crystal Reports or even Microsoft Access and rent a person less pricey to draw the data out that I need.