How can IT/ Technology innovate and help a company win business?

http://www.linkedin.com/groupAnswers?viewQuestionAndAnswers=&gid=1831025&discussionID=3601341

Alison's Contribution:

Here are a couple of ideas (which have nothing to do with innovating the future, but rather to do with being there when your client is ready to buy):

1. Who knows whom: a) Integrate your CRM with Social Networking Site(s) contacts. Add others you'll want to track into the mix and monitor when they first appear on a Social Networking site (they will certainly be grateful to know someone who can show them the ropes).

2. Set up a huge Google Alert type system to track every instance of clients being mentioned in the news - and filter it to your CRM so everyone stays up today. May also want to alert industry news from around the world.

3. Set up tracking systems which detail all customer contact from everyone in the company and leverage it to get your key messages to potential customers and to keep your finger on their buying pulse.

4. Twitter responsibly for Blog updates which set out our market leadership position.

5. Use technology to set up an annual "10 touch plan" - their key company dates, a share event date, anniversaries, etc.

6. Have your developers come up with a "give away" series of "no need to support" games/utilities which your clients get to use as a benefit of working with you... I'm thinking something like Google Gadgets.

7. Use the CRM to track referrals from your clients - eg ask for them as the November "10 touch" event and follow up over the holiday/New Year season. Write the thank you to the referee in early December.

Although Jefferson had the technology to copy his handwriting, there is no substitute for the personal touch in winning new and ongoing business.

So, my recommendation boils down to using technology to keep track of the data and organise it so you have More Time for the Personal Touch. This way, you'll have the best info at your finger tips every time you pick up the phone or go to meet your clients.

Can anyone recommend a good transcription service? And/or is there a piece of software available that can take an audio file and create a written docu

Alison's Contribution:

I've been looking for decent voice recognition software for some time... Currently my experiments with the Vista speech recog software have made some bizarre novelettes - but alas too much work to sort out what they were meant to say to make it a viable input mechanism.

So, in looking for some software on line, I ran across Research Lab who have a product which does exactly what you have described you want - and it's not too expensive.

No doubt you'll have to spend a bit of time checking the transcription, but you'd have to do that anyway, wouldn't you?

Hope it helps.

Alison
Links:
http://www.research-lab.com/

What percent of your calls with skype do you use video?

Alison's Contribution:

I don't use video with Skype - no need. Do you GotoMeeting and other online conferencing facilities - for me, it's more important to be looking at the same information than seeing rather blurring shots of the eyes.

Hope this helps.

Alison
posted 1 day ago

Is there a CRM software that allows for social networking aspects (or vice versa)?

Alison's Contribution:

I heard that SalesForce.com had the capability of including LinkedIn connections - I have yet to see it in action, so you may want to check it out directly. I found searching on the site helps.

All the best,

Alison
Links:
http://www.salesforce.com/
posted 2 days ago

How has twitter, facebook, linkedin, myspace or other forms of social media impacted you? Professionally and/or personally?

Alison's Contribution:

I "twitch" a lot more - meaning that I check up on the new updates I get more frequently during the day.

It's a good way to take a mental break from my work which can involve intense concentration. And yes, I do tend to investigate interesting links -or send a personal message back.... so they benefit is two fold = I benefit from the edification and secondly, my "network" is the stronger for it.

When I'm between "gigs" I would say that the interaction is definitely worthwhile as it provides and additional link to the world around me. When I am on contract, it can be a bit daunting to read everyone's updates in one fell swoop, however, it's worthwhile.

I'm a big fan of LinkedIn (with an RSS feed for network updates), I'm learning to tweet responsibly and I have accounts at Facebook and Xing. I've yet to figure out how to use MySpace... so if you learn any tidbits, I'm all ears.

All the best,

Alison
posted 3 days ago

Can LinkedIn be updated directly from my twitter?

Alison's Contribution:

The short answer is "Not Yet"....

Alison
posted 5 days ago

Is Twitter just Fashion or does it bring something to our social relations?

Alison's Contribution:

Interesting question. At this point, I'm not limiting the realm of possibilities as to how I view Twitter. Here are what I have seen so far:

1. The ability to find and follow interesting people enables me to expand my thinking.
2. The ability to rebroadcast these thoughts I trust is helping me become a more interesting person to those that follow me.

In turn, I trust that they too take the same steps as me above.

Does that mean I "Twich" every time I get an update.. well no... my method is to go through the "Tweets" I've received periodically through the day. Like you, I suspect I needed to find a balance between getting things done and looking for inspiration.

Does it enable me to "know" someone better? To an extent, yes.

Does it enable anyone who follows me to know me better? To the extent of what I share on Twitter, yes.

ebooks - Kindle 2

Alison's Contribution:

I don't use the Kindle. Way back when my son was in Year 1, I bought 2 IPAQs on the strength of the promise that all school children would be issued one on which to do their homework. Bought the attachable keyboard too. Wanted to make sure my son is technically proficient - first PC at 2. The IPAQs bit the dust a few years ago - TOO Clunky - to big to fit my hand... Caused envy on the tube when I read a book.... LOL

Now I have a N800 - great screen; have put in a 8GB flash card - wireless connection to internet is perfect for on the go mapping and browsing. Would love to find a way to get solar power going with it as I am sometimes away from an outlet. There is a newer model with a push out keyboard which would make input even better. The handwriting on my is a bit hit and miss at present. Have yet to find an ebook reader with a library so I can "star trek" about with my neat, light gadget.

The market for Amazon's book store has taken a new twist - see my question about the iPhone reader application maker they bought last week.

So think a screen about the size of an iPhone if you want to compose and intelligible book to sell on it.

All the best,

Alison
posted 3 days ago

Which free calendar program should I "commit to" for the long term, so that it does not get defunct with time (details below)?

Alison's Contribution:

I have a similar need. I haven't found the answer yet.

My prime directive is to have it connect my contact information with my diary and task list... note this is a stand alone one - eg I'm not looking to have anyone else look at my calendar (at this point)

I trying to make sense of my requirements, mine include (in no particular order).

1. Ability to update (and to be updated by) contacts and external parties
2. Ability to click through to my master sets of data for the contact
3. Ability to schedule recurring events - daily, weekly, monthly, annually - including noting details for anniversary.
4. Ability to show daily, weekly, monthly schedules - with tasks
5. Uncompleted tasks need to fall forward... so they can be remembered
6. Alarms - a day ahead, an hour before I have to leave to make the appointment, 5 minutes so I can focus would be a BOON! Even better if it could send me a text in case I don't have it open at the time.

Off the top of my head, I can't think of any other MustDos for me.

In the meantime, I'm soldiering on with using a small 1 day per page diary - it doubles as a notebook, writing diary and log of interesting things I find along the way.

Hope this helps,

Alison
posted 7 days ago

How do you effectively leverage social media to drive traffic to an online executive-volunteer job bank, in the absence of a clear way to reach this t

Alison's Contribution:

My quickest thought is to place links on the places that the unemployed would look online...

Getting your vacancy feed to a jobs aggregator like www.indeed.com would be one way of gaining more exposure.

Placing articles in the media would also help. Short snappy to the point (and click the link). Pester your local / national newspapers to publish a "good new" article featuring you and others.

Band together with similar job sites and post a page with all the links to the respective websites... pester the tv networks to promote this site as public interest broadcasting. If nothing else, get it on the news.

Face Book group for the above

Twitter, follow a lot of people, put a link to follow you near the top of your site.. Tweet often and ask everyone that follows you to retweet.

That's about all I've got in the 5 minutes I've thought about it. No doubt I can come up with more...

I hope you'll have lots of other suggestions which you'll need to pull together in an action plan.. I can help ask the right questions for that.

Hope this helps,

Alison
posted 7 days ago

Can I use Twitter to publicize my work from home business?

Alison's Contribution:

I think you have two different objectives... (1) publicising your "make more money" opportunity - presumably to get sign ups and (2) training/coaching/encouraging/communicating with your downline...

Let's take the easy one first - so your Downline:

I think you have set a clear objective.. which is to get your downline to follow you on Twitter so that you can help them in better ways.

This is achievable. Simply get all of them to follow you. Send them the link by email... Then Tweet:

- Broadcast to the group at large.
- RT good suggestions (retweet)
- use responses to feedback individually

Beware, it can become addictive. You may need to bar those who shouldn't be listening in....

Now the hard one - How to build a downline....

As suggested your best bet is to connect to as many people as possible, and then get them to RT(retweet) your postings to everyone they know...

How do you accomplish building a following? Simple - by being interesting...

How do you get them to sign up underneath you? One by One

In other words you need to turn an accidental attraction into a business commitment. Twitter is just one tiny bit of the puzzle.

Good luck with your voyage. Please let me know what you have found works for you.

All the best,

Alison
posted 8 days ago

Who is the most interesting person you follow using a social networking tool?

Alison's Contribution:

x
I'm a twitter newbie. I'm the kind of person who's lucky. If found a whole bunch of people to follow.

I've got a couple of different criteria for why I follow a particular tweeter..
http://twitter.com/tonyrobbins/ is one I'd recommend to anyone.

http://www.exectweets.com/ is a compendium of different contributors - I use it to find other people who seem to "resonate" with me.

I use Tweetdeck to stream both Twitter and Facebook - http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/

Hope this helps.

Alison
Links:
http://twitter.com/tonyrobbins/
http://www.exectweets.com/
http://www.tweetdeck.com/beta/
posted 8 days ago
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Is Twitter a good business tool?

Alison's Contribution:

I think Twitter has the potential to be a great business tool. I've been a member less than a week and I've already found some great resources. I'm inspired to think of new ways to use it - "What if we _____, what would that give us?" is the question I'm using.

A different question you might like to ask soon is

How might Twitter be used to create Competitive Advantage?

I'm sure someone will come up with some very bright ideas on that one and hopefully some ways you never even expected.

All the best,

Alison
posted 8 days ago

What is a more efficient way to use LinkedIn via mobile?

Alison's Contribution:

I prefer my N800... it would be even better with voice transcription or a keyboard (handwriting is too slow), but it's a lot smaller than a netbook. No doubt the next generation of hand helds will be even better than my gadget.

Only tip I can share is if you need to use a stylus for input, make sure it either has a protective film or a non scratch surface.

All the best,

Alison
posted 9 days ago

What are the leading technologies to restrict surfing at work?

Alison's Contribution:

Here's one of the other technologies to look at - I don't know much about it, but I'm connected to the CEO, I'l be happy to connect the two of you.

"Spector 360 records your employees’ web sites visited, emails sent and received, chats and instant messages, keystrokes typed, files transferred, documents printed and applications run."

Hope this helps.

Alison
Links:
http://www.glonetex.com/spector.aspx
Alison K Murray also suggests this expert on this topic:
Carleton Bedell

What comes to your mind when I say email?

Alison's Contribution:

I think:

"not one line but a purpose; not a tome but a screen; not a text nor an im, but a note; not deleted - rather cherished"

All the best,

Alison
posted 9 days ago

What design do you think is better for a jewelry e-commerce website?

Alison's Contribution:

Done. You might also want to look into Visual DNA by Imagini.

I believe it will be one of the deciding factors which will impact the bottom line of sites which rely on images to sell their product.

All the best,

Alison
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagini
Alison K Murray also suggests this expert on this topic:
Charles Wiles
posted 8 days ago

Tool for required course assignments

Alison's Contribution:

Not sure if this is what you are looking for. I ran across it this week and thought it might be something which would be of use.

Hope it helps.

Alison
Links:
http://www.skills-survey.com/DemoMarketing/Skills-SurveyMarketingPresentati...
posted 8 days ago

Question: Your on LinkedIn. Are you also on Twitter? What would you like to know about Twitter?

Alison's Contribution:

I'm on Twitter - a real newbie (2nd day). I've follow a number of people who have provided me with valuable information. I've tried to do the same in return - you'll have to ask them how valuable it's been so far.

I have a specific target for using Twitter, but I'm not ready to share that just yet. I need to figure out how to make it happen first.

All the best,

Alison
posted 9 days ago

Would you use web based software - e.g. google docs - to write a book? Why or why not?

Alison's Contribution:

I don't see many risks as I'd like to think my google password is safe.

I do however, work locally. Why? I'd hate to lose my work if my broadband reset itself.

Hope this helps.

All the best,

Alison
posted 9 days ago