12 Ways to Keep Your Business Relationships Alive | RainToday

"Every businessperson leads a busy life. There are marketing meetings to attend, RFPs to reply to, and client projects to finish. With so much work demanding so much attention, many of us never make the time to keep our business relationships alive, and wish we did: 'What does he do again?' 'Does she still work there?' 'Didn't I know someone at that company?'

Rather than regretting not staying connected, pick some of the twelve ideas below and use them to start conversations with people you've met before and want to speak with again."

You might want to also check out the RainToday series on LinkedIn 101. Click the title to read more...

Google Apps and Small Businesses

What are you waiting for?

Fitness enhances job performance | Small Business Times

"As an executive running a small boutique financial services firm, Dan Detlaff sometimes finds it hard to step away from work and go to the gym.

However, for the 43-year-old president of Dettlaff & Company Inc. in Brookfield, once he’s finished with hismid-day regimen that consists of swimming, weight training and running, he finds that he is able to approach work-related issues with a different outlook.

“I find I have a clearer and sharper mind in handling both day-to-day tasks, as well as those that require more mental ‘work’ or thought,” said Dettlaff, who describes himself as a financial adviser and relationship manager. “It becomes much easier to work with others, handle stress and be more efficient. Once you pull yourself away, regardless of all the fires that need to be put out and the people and items that require your attention, you’ll be so much better off when you return.”" Amen. I just lost 50lbs through diet, exercise, and lifestyle change and it's true! Click the title to read more...

Using Google Apps with Salesforce.com...

This is cool, but I'm no longer a fan of Salesforce.com...

David Allen Live on Duct Tape Marketing | Duct Tape Marketing Blog

"Join me Thursday, April 17th at Noon CDT for a live one on one interview with David Allen, author of the perennially popular - Getting Things Done - The Art of Stress-free Productivity. We will how to be more productive, how to get more of the right things done and how small business owners can relieve stress." Click the title to read more...

Maintaining “Inbox Zero” with Google Apps | Web Worker Daily

This is the article I wish I had written about how Google Apps, Remember the Milk and Firefox work together to make you more productive in email... "If I have more than 30 unread messages at any one time, I break into a cold sweat. So as a result, until recently I couldn’t imagine maintaining my maniacal level of control over my inboxes without a desktop email client’s notifications, rules & plug-ins." Click the title to read more...

Google Apps: Too cheap to ignore? | The Open Road

"I've had a few conversations with IT executives from Fortune 500 companies in the past several weeks, and I've been surprised by how often a new enterprise-software company kept getting mentioned. The company?

Google.

Google has the problem of putting finish on a lot of its products, leaving things in eternal beta, but the price point for Google Apps is forcing even the biggest of companies to seriously consider Google instead of a Microsoft Office 2007 upgrade. (Google Apps: It's not just small customers anymore.)

We may be getting to the point where Google's 'cloud' allows them to provision users so much cheaper than any given enterprise can that it will become the provider of choice."

A simple way to simplify email | Unclutterer

Wow! This guy's reading my mind...

"Like many other web professionals, I have migrated from desktop email to Gmail, the Google email service. Gmail has many great qualities, like integrated instant messaging, large storage allotment, and integration with Google Calendar and Google Documents. But for reasons that are totally unclear to me, Google has chosen not to provide an integrated task list solution (or ‘to-do’ lists), either in Google Calendar or Gmail."

A well done explanation of task management using Gmail. Click the title to read more...

Hard Work - The Most Desired Quality Of Sales Professional | Ezine Articles

"Whenever qualities of Sales Persons are discussed qualities like good communications skills, good interpersonal relationship, knowledge about own products vis a vis competitors' and Market Scenario are mostly talked about. Hard work either do not appear in list or given the last priority in the list. I am mentioning the hard word as the most desired requirement for this profession because hard work overrules all other qualifications. Hard Work is not only important in selling but it plays very significant role in all other professions also.The profession could be sales, operation or anything else. I would rather say that hard work plays very important role in one's personal life also. The first and foremost requirement which anybody should possess to succeed in any part of life is hard work. But the problem is that every body thinks that who hardly works is hard working." Click the title to read more...

Linux: 9000 PCs in Swiss schools will switch to Ubuntu only | Duvet-Dayz

"Beginning from next term, all computers at schools in the Swiss canton of Geneva will be switched to Ubuntu Linux only.

Geneva newspaper Tribune de Geneve reports today that from September 2008 all computers at schools that currently are dual-boot MS Windows and Linux will have MS Windows removed and become FOSS (Free Open Source Software) only." This is an approach that should be pursued in Wisconsin schools. The combination of Ubuntu, Google Apps and FOSS is unbeatable when it comes to reducing Information Technology costs...

Jott for BlackBerry | Jott.com

"We have a lot of happy Blackberry customers at Jott, and Jott for BlackBerry is the ultimate BlackBerry download. It is a simple, but very powerful tool that will let you reply to emails on your BlackBerry just using your voice - either speaking directly into your BlackBerry, or while wearing a Bluetooth headset. It is seamlessly integrated into the email application you already use, and is a huge leap forward for BlackBerry lovers in three ways: first, it is 3-5 times faster than ‘thumbing’ text; two, you won’t be known for sending just terse replies because you don’t want to thumb type out a normal email message; and three, you will be safer because you won’t have to take your eyes off the road.*" What?! Not a Jott user? It's one of the best productivity tools for road warriors and now it's available as a Blackberry app. Click the title to read more...

Google lets users access Web-based documents offline | SiliconValley.com

"Google, bolstering competition with Microsoft, is letting users of its Internet-based word-processing program access their documents offline. A desktop version of Google Docs, now available to a few users, will be rolled out more broadly over the next few weeks, the Mountain View company said Tuesday in a blog posting. While offline access is offered only in English for now, the company is working on other languages. Google is upgrading its Web-based programs in an effort to take customers from Microsoft, which dominates the personal-computer software market. With offline access, Google Docs customers can use the Internet-based program and automatically save their work to a PC, so it's available on airplanes and other places where they can't connect to the Web." Click the title to read the article online...

Google Docs: Working offline

Google Brings Offline Access to Docs and Apps | PC World

"Google is rolling out a much-awaited feature for its hosted applications: the ability for people to use them even when they aren't connected to the Internet.

The first application to get this offline access will be the word processor, said Ken Norton, Google Docs product manager. 'The design goal is to create a seamless experience, with or without an Internet connection,' he said.

Over the next three weeks or so, Google will turn on the feature for all word processor users, giving them the ability to view and edit documents while offline. During the same time period, Google Docs' spreadsheet will gain offline ability for viewing, but not editing, documents." Click the title to read more...

Reverse Engineering Google's Innovation Machine | Harvard Business Review

This is a must read article for fans of Google...

"Every piece of the business plays a part, every part is indispensable, every failure breeds success, and every success demands improvement."

Click the title to read more...

Google Apps For Education

"Google Apps is free for schools. It allows students and teachers to create documents
(Word, Excel, PowerPoint), share calendars, chat and more for free on-line. It is an excellent tool to provide elearning.

'Frantic troubleshooting by an overworked staff versus someone else fixing problems smoothly. A sliver of server space per person versus a five-gigabyte chunk. Half a million dollars versus free. That's what colleges are faced with as they decide whether to continue running their own e-mail services or outsource them to a professional service like Google Apps Education Edition' Chronicle of Higher Education, 1/11/2008" Click the title to read more...

Value For Time: 10 Keys To Having Worthwhile Conversations | RainToday

"Recently, I was trying to organize a conference call between the chairman of a large professional services firm and another executive. I said to the chairman, 'Let's just get a 20-minute call organized with William.'

He took a deep breath and replied, 'Andrew, you need to realize that I have about 50 people lined up here, and each one just wants 'just' 20 minutes with me!'

The point is that every senior executive I know could easily fill each day twice over. For every request, they are asking, 'Does this align with my most critical priorities? Can someone else handle this? Can it wait a few weeks?' They invest their time in relationships only where there is tangible value for them." Click the title to read more...

Separate your email from your to-do's | Geek To Live

"Your boss needs the updated PowerPoint presentation file by Tuesday. Your spouse wants to know how many vacation days you've got left this year. Your co-worker needs your office pool picks. Everyone gets task requests via email all day long, and it's so easy to let these messages slip through the cracks. Whether your inbox is stuffed with two-year-old fwd'd kitten photos from Aunt Edna, or if you empty it every day and diligently file away actionable email to a 'TO-DO' folder - it's still not easy to track the messages you've actually got to DO something about using email." Click the title to read more...

Email Overload: Download a Free Copy of David Allen's Email Rules

"David Allen, author of Getting Things Done and inspiration for a lot of posts 'round these parts, gives away a free four-page PDF at his website that covers his basic principals for keeping email organized. Getting specific without going too in-depth, he explains the 'two minute rule,' why action-able emails should be kept separate from others, and why creating your own system—such as Gina's modified 'Trusted Trio'. Great reading for GTD neophytes, and a good brush-up for the rest of us." Click the title to read more...

The Top 3 Questions Sales Managers Should Ask | First Border

"In the spirit of time is money, time flies and so much to do… then the shorter you can keep your sales reviews the happier everyone is going to be. Therefore, here are the only 3 questions that you need to ask…" Of course, it gets easier to use only three questions if you have the right system and process combined with the right Customer Relationship Management tool. Click the title to read more...