http://www.create-it.com/etb.cfm RSS Syndication of Jordan Ayan's Executive Technology Briefing http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss 120 en-us Wed, 17 Aug 2005 10:55:14 CDT SubscriberMail RSS Generator - http://www.subscribermail.com EverNote

If you're looking for a convenient way to electronically store and quickly access typed and handwritten memos, web page excerpts, emails, phone messages, brainstorms, sketches, or documents in a central location, then you may want to take a look at EverNote, a new personal information management program from EverNote Corporation.

EverNote is ideal for jotting quick notes to yourself. But it's equally adept at capturing images, parts of web pages, or Microsoft Office documents. When used on a Tablet PC, EverNote supports hand-written notes, using its own proprietary handwriting recognition software.

What is most unique about EverNote is the intuitive way in which it displays your entries -- in a scrolling, chronological list that resembles an infinite roll of paper. A "timeband" next to the notes area enables you to quickly scroll through your notes chronologically, or you can use the program's powerful search feature to quickly find the nuggets of information you're looking for. EverNote resembles Microsoft's OneNote and MicroLogic's InfoSelect programs, but offers a more intuitive interface than either of its competitors.

A complimentary beta version of EverNote for Windows XP and Windows XP Tablet PC Edition is now available for download from the developer's website. A full version of the program will be launched in early 2005; pricing has not been announced yet. EverNote plans to include support for synchronizing data with Pocket PC and Windows Smartphone-based handheld devices, and a Mac OS X version is also reportedly under development. ]]> Wed, 12 Jan 2005 12:23:33 CDT COOL773D2F3C
In this issue of ETB, we'll provide you with some tips on how to hire a consultant, and we'll share with you a recent real-world example.

When should you hire a consultant?

Organizations typically hire an outside consultant to solve a particular problem, such as installing a new software program and training your staff, entering a new market, or optimizing business processes. A consulting engagement may be a limited engagement, with a very specific short-term goal, or it may be a broader, longer-term relationship, especially if your firm needs ongoing access to specialized knowledge or troubleshooting. Consultants are quite valuable if your company needs short-term analysis on a specific situation where in-house expertise doesn't exist. In cases like these, consultants can provide you with access to ideas, insights, and data that can help you make better informed decisions.

How should you hire a consultant?

Once you have established the need for an outside consultant, I recommend that you follow these steps:

- Compile a list of candidates who are well-known in the field of expertise you're seeking, and who have experience with the type of project you're planning. Make sure that the consultants you're considering also have experience in the same type and size of company as yours. For example, you wouldn't want to hire a consultant who has worked primarily with Fortune 1000 clients to provide advice and services to a small company. Potential candidates should be able to demonstrate their track record, and should provide you with a list of clients you can call for referrals. Directories of professional associations and online discussion areas are two places where you can find skilled consultants in your field.

- Write a request for proposal (RFP) that provides prospective consultants with a clear statement of the key issues your company faces, the scope or objectives of the project, the deliverables (what the results of the consulting engagement will look like), and a timetable for completion of the project. In addition, you should ask consultants to provide a breakdown of their fee structure, expense policy guidelines on how their proposals should be structured, and references you can contact in order to verify their track record.

- Interview potential candidates to not only verify that they understand what your project entails, but also to determine if they are a good match for your company's culture and values.

- Select a consultant to handle your project. Be sure to ask not only for a contract, but also a detailed work plan that includes a timeline and a schedule for project updates. Also clarify who from the consulting firm will actually be assigned to your project. If you need a particular person's specialized expertise, make sure that person's commitment to the project is spelled out in writing.

Too often, companies hire consultants without establishing clearly defined objectives and deliverables. Other common problems include lack of commitment from the organization's senior staff, cost overruns, and poor follow-up during the course of the project. But if you follow the simple steps presented above, you will greatly increase your odds of success when hiring consultants.

A SubscriberMail case history

Recently, our sister company, SubscriberMail, hired a consulting team from salesforce.com to help us make more productive use of their sales management application. In one week, they helped us totally transform our business processes and dramatically increase our staff's productivity.

The consulting team spent the first two days interviewing our staff, so they could understand our existing business processes at a very deep level. They then spent the rest of the week customizing the salesforce.com software to precisely fit our needs. Some of the outcomes of this short-term, focused consulting engagement included:

- The application was transformed from a glorified contact manager into an integral part of our sales management process

- Sales leads and customer support cases are now visible to everyone in the organization, giving our entire staff a complete view of our interactions with our customers and prospects.

- We now have reports that are tailored to our unique needs, and which give us keen insights into the status of our prospects, the effectiveness of our marketing strategies, and much more.

- We have a set of executive dashboards that monitor a variety of SubscriberMail's business processes in real time.

In short, their process was excellent, and produced immediate outcomes that have enabled us to take our team to new levels of effectiveness. ]]> Wed, 12 Jan 2005 11:00:14 CDT STRA5622B079
The ever-increasing volume of unsolicited commercial emails is placing a growing burden on your email servers, forcing them to manage two types of incoming messages:

- Unwanted commercial email messages that are addressed to your employees' legitimate email addresses, and

- Spam messages that are sent to common names, on the chance that they may correspond with a legitimate email address in your company (for example, jsmith@yourcompany.com). For the vast majority of these messages, your mail server automatically generates a non-deliverable receipt (NDR), which alerts the sender that it couldn't deliver the message. These NDRs can use up a lot memory and processing power on your mail server.

An affordable, easy-to-manage solution to these problems is to invest in an anti-spam "appliance" -- a relatively simple, enclosed box that sits between your network's firewall and your email server, and which filters incoming messages before they even reach your mail server. IronPort, Barracuda Networks, and MailFoundry are three leading suppliers of these email appliances. A major advantage of using an anti-spam appliance is flat-rate pricing: One server manages spam for your entire network, regardless of how many employees you have. This type of device is ideal for those companies that want to get more aggressive about battling spam, but may have limited IT expertise.

If spam is a problem in your organization, I urge you to look into the benefits of an anti-spam appliance. ]]> Thu, 06 Jan 2005 12:50:04 CDT ANTIFC55E960 Swiki.net, a try. This hosted community Web site service -- or "wiki" --makes it easy for a group of people to create Web pages, store and maintain files, discuss ideas and share other project-related resources in one place.

What makes the wiki format unique is that anyone with the proper access rights can add, edit or delete content from and to the Web site, simply by clicking an "edit" icon at the top of the page. No Web development expertise is required, which means anyone with a Web browser can participate in one of these collaborative Web sites. Users can even edit each other's content, which enables group members to build upon and improve each other's ideas and the knowledge stored in the wiki. While this may sound like a recipe for disaster, this group-editing paradigm actually works quite well when members of the group share a common interest. To prevent anyone from wreaking havoc with the Web site, Swiki.net enables you to "roll back" content to its previous version, and pages can be "locked" by the site administrator to prevent further changes. You can also restrict who has the rights to view and edit your wiki's content.

Applications of Swiki.net include brainstorming, tracking projects, writing and editing documentation and developing marketing plans. I'm excited about this cool tool because I think it has the potential to reduce the number of meetings, conference calls, and back-and-forth emails that projects usually involve. In their place, the wiki can act as a central repository for all project-related communications. ]]> Wed, 28 Jul 2004 11:53:33 CDT guid42236862347 Today, your customers expect your company's Web site to be available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If they try to visit your company's Web site and find that it's unavailable, they may take their business elsewhere. Whether your company operates its own Web server or outsources this capability, it's critical that you know ASAP if your site goes off-line for any reason.

Web-based monitoring services like Alerta are designed to check your Web site at pre-set intervals to determine if it is operational. If your site isn't available, Alertra automatically notifies you via email, pager, instant message, short message service (delivery to any SMS-capable cell phone) or recorded voice message to any phone number. Alertra's service is completely Web based and is easy to configure to monitor many types of "devices," including Web sites, email servers, FTP (file upload) services and more.

Pricing for Alertra varies, depending on the types of sites and Web services you want to monitor, and how frequently you want them monitored. For example, the cost to monitor one HTTP Web address every 60 minutes will cost you $2.99 per month; if you want to be notified by phone of any outages, you will be charged $0.29 per phone notification. A 30-day trial version is available. Alertra's Web monitoring service is well designed and easy to use, and is more affordable than other similar services that I have seen and used.
]]> Wed, 21 Jul 2004 07:33:49 CDT guid69121903614 http://www.apple.com/music/store/
The iPod is approximately the size of a deck of cards, weighs only a few ounces, and holds up to 30 GB of your favorite tunes (that's about 7,500 songs - or a month of non-stop music). The iPod comes with iTunes software, a very innovative music management tool for the Mac, which takes the process of creating personalized playlists to a whole new level. For example, you can attach ratings (1 to 5 stars) to each song, which helps you find your favorite tunes faster. iTunes also offers "play count," a feature that keeps track of how many times you have played a song, and when you played it last. You can then use these criteria, in addition to more typical ones like artist name and genre, to quickly locate songs that match your changing tastes and moods. In addition, the iTunes software works seamlessly with Apple's amazing new iTunes Music Store, where you can purchase and download songs for only 99 cents apiece. Transferring music to the iPod is lightning fast, thanks to a FireWire (IEEE 1394) connection.

I am an avid reader, and while on the road, I often listen to books on tape. The iPod allows me to hold multiple books at once and eliminates my need to break a book up into separate files, which I had to do with my last MP3 player. If you combine the iPod with the outstanding on-line audio book source -- audible.com -- you have an audio learning tool that can't be beat.

The iPod is not only for Mac owners. There is also a version that comes with Windows software. It manages music files in a similar way and is much easier to use than the software that comes with typical MP3 players.

The Apple iPod comes in three storage capacities: A 30 GB version is $499, a 15 GB version is $399 and a 10 GB version is $299. This is an awesome music player that is fun to use! ]]> Wed, 21 Jul 2004 07:33:49 CDT guid52518069459