Using Technology to Your Advantage

It seems as though new technologies emerge and evolve every five minutes in today’s technology era. While these new tools can flood some people’s imaginations with brilliant ideas, for the vast majority of us they cause complete and total confusion. Trying to understand what these tools do and how they can be helpful can leave the most sophisticated of us scratching our heads.

To try and understand which tools would be helpful for your business, keep abreast of the hottest technology trends for small businesses by visiting http://www.smallbusinesscomputing.com/. This site keeps track of what is hot in social media, network storage, data security, phone systems and so much more. It is a robust site with very great information for business owners who are interested in learning about technology.

It is important in our ever changing world to keep current with the latest and greatest technology trends. One of the most talked about new technologies that I’ve been hearing a buzz about recently is Skype. Skype is a free, downloadable software that people use to conduct video calls with other Skype users.

According to a member of The Alternative Board – Central Maryland, Douglas Angell from Imagination Center, he states in the May 2010 issue of Tips From The Top that, “Skype allows you to provide a real-time demonstration to clients, explaining products as you show them visually. Clients may ask questions while you show them specific features or benefits they may find useful.” Douglas Angell also suggests using Skype for technical support if a client is having difficulty with a product. He says, “You can see how they are using it and whether they are using it incorrectly or if the equipment is defective”.

The Portable Pocket Projector is a new technology that has been written about on the ‘News and Trends’ tab of the smallbusinesscomputing.com website. This product is a small, handheld device that projects a much larger image onto a wall or presentation screen. The Portable Pocket Projector is expected to be a hot seller over the next couple of years and is expected to be embedded into mobile devices in the near future. I can already see how useful a tool such as this could be to a business. Imagine sending one with your sales manager to a small sales presentation, or using the device on a tradeshow floor for booth attendees. The ease of transportation with this technology is a true game changer.

No matter what the latest and greatest trend may be, find one that works for your company that is easy to use and understand. Technology is there to make our lives easier, so why not utilize it?

Advice For Keeping Company Meetings On-Time and On-Track

Have you ever sat through a meeting that went completely off topic resulting in a follow-up meeting to what the original one was supposed to achieve? Or have you left a meeting feeling like you wasted your time and wondered what, if anything, was accomplished? I know I have and I also know how frustrating and time consuming it can be.

A member of The Alternative Board, Ron Mondor from Zantek Information Technology, recently had some advice published in The Alternative Board’s Tips From The Top® Newsletter suggesting that you should properly structure your meetings by:

• Having an agenda


• Setting an objective


• Appointing a note taker and time keeper


• Listing your action items in an action plan


• Assigning a meeting owner who will prepare an agenda and be responsible for communicating to the meeting attendees


• Hooking up a laptop to a projector so that everyone can see the action plan and it can be updated during the meeting

By structuring your meetings this way, you will leave knowing what tasks are assigned to you and what other team members are responsible for. Ron also suggests that the meeting owner should email the action plan out to all attendees at the conclusion of the meeting or post the document where everyone can access it.

Another member of The Alternative Board, Nora Holzwart from NEP, said in the March 2010 issue of Tips From The Top® that her company has adapted a policy to help speakers who get off topic return to the issue at hand. Nora says, “Any member of the team can state a pre-selected word that would seldom be used in a business setting – such as ‘windmill’ or ‘ramble’. The speaker will not mistake it for a polite interruption and will understand that it is a constructive hint to get back on track”.

Nora also stated that not only does her company create an agenda for each meeting, but also schedules time for each topic that will be discussed. “If we approach the assigned time for the topic she will interrupt and ask another team member, What do you think? or state, We are nearing our allocated time limit, what action do you want us to take?,” offers Nora. As a result, NES has improved the focus of their meetings and reduced the amount of time spent in meetings.

To prevent the typical response to a meeting invitation of, “Ugh, another meeting”, think about implementing some of these ideas that will help make your meetings run smoother and accomplish the meeting objective. I think you’ll find that if a meeting results in actionable items that leave team members feeling that the meeting was a good use of their time, then the overall company moral might also be lifted.

Handling Applicant Overload

The economy is still struggling, right? So when you posted your job opening you probably expected to get plenty of qualified respondents. Were you surprised with how many respondents you actually received? We recently received a tip from one of our members, Mary Ann Holloway from Comprehensive Business Consulting & Training, about a simple way to weed out the applicants who are poor with communication, persistence or interest.

Mary Ann suggests, “When you encounter a resume worthy of your response, send an email to the potential new hire with a situational question for them to answer. A large percentage of people will not respond.” Not only will this suggestion help you reduce the number of applicants, but it will also give you an idea of the person’s writing and communication style.

Depending on the type of position you are hiring for, you could also ask the applicant for a sample of their work. For example, if you are hiring a graphic designer, ask them to create a print ad for a fictitious special event. Only those who are truly motivated will do the work. It also has the added benefit of letting you see the applicants true capabilities before you waste any time conducting interviews.

Something else you should be aware of when hiring during a down economy is that you are going to find some very qualified - sometimes overqualified – applicants who have been out of work for so long that they will take any position just to have some kind of income. The danger with hiring these applicants is that they may get bored easily and will leave as soon as the economy picks up again or will become a negative force within the organization.

To determine whether you are hiring someone who is taking your position out of desperation or because they truly want the position, invest in behavioral assessment tests. These tests not only give you an idea of how the applicant views him/her self, but also how they view the outside world, what their energy level is, how good at multi-tasking they are, whether they are introverted or extroverted and so much more.

You’ll also want to understand what type of personality will best fit the position. If you have someone who has been successful in that role for at least one year, have them take the assessments and use their results to compare against. Try to match up the results as closely as possible to find someone who will excel in that position.

If the behavioral assessments are used in conjunction with asking the applicant to answer a situational question and asking them to give a sample of their work, you will reduce your applicant pool to only those who are truly qualified and interested in your position. As a result, the interview process should become more simply and less time intensive.