I have recently subscribed to Ross Dawson’s blog ‘Trends in the Living Networks‘ and I have become a big fan of his commentary on Social Networks & Media, and the how this sort of technology not only affects business, but also how technology can be used to provide innovation to obtain an audience and create value.
If you run a small business or are just looking to develop an online presence so that you can build brand and product awareness, I really recommend checking out his post here, where he discusses the sorts of technologies you should be looking to to undertake this.
As a user of a number of these apps, I see real value at looking at these online services. Out of the Mashable recommended technologies, I currently use the Google Apps for Domains platform (my opendcx.com mail is hosted here), Linkedin, Facebook & Youtube frequently.
Out of the suggestions that Ross adds, I also use Evernote, to synchronise my thoughts and ideas between my PC in my contract role, my iPhone and Macs at home. This is a simple and brilliant application that is based on Cloud based application storage, with a client front end. I can capture photos, written text, and snap websites and links. It even has an Microsoft Outlook plugin which allows me send an email to Evernote for archive or for editing.
As I am branching out and developing the ‘killer business plan’ to work for myself, the technologies on the top of my to use list are:-
- Salesforce – SaaS provider of CRM software
- Basecamp – Online Project Management tool
Both these products have API partners where you can link these online services and start to create real innovation by linking data and providing workflow between the applications. Examples of this are Run My Process that runs on the Google AppEngine. I think that this is a really exciting time to find services that are different to the standard offerings from all the vendors that small businesses currently use. Tradition only lasts five minutes in IT and I think that will translate into business software in the not to distant future.
