Category: Technology

Article Contributed by Sumeet

Web 2.0 existence

The introduction of Web 2.0 in the real world has made the life of every person very busy, as people use it too often in their daily working life. More and more people try to be online on these social interactions channels as much as possible because it makes so easy form them to have one to one talk with their friends, family members who are residing closer or even very far from them in other continents. These Web 2.0 social platforms like facebook, twitter, WhatsApp, etc. has also emerged in the online market with a great pace based on their popularity among the users all across the globe, so its just the people who are making these products popular.

Different aspects of Web 2.0

There are two different aspects of using and utilizing the benefits of these social communication channels and the way we use it make a lot difference in our personal life as well as on professional life. The negative aspect of the use of web 2.0 sites started when we overuse it just to interact with the virtual world people, however the positive aspects arises when we try to use it in more professionalism manner.

Negative Aspects: We can use these social channels for only interacting with our friends & family members and just spend our valuable time to update our own status, chatting with other members whether known or unknown, liking or commenting on some silly updates made by other member on these platform. All these kind of activities somehow are responsible to ruin our life with our own family members as by doing so we are trying to enter into the virtual world to have fun for a short interval of time and just ignoring our real interacting with real people.

For detailed analysis facts read Social Networking Fact Sheet

Positive Aspects: In-spite of using these web 2.0 sites for only social interaction, if we try to utilize the benefits of it for professional purpose then, we can attain much more positives out of it. As we know we can also use these social platform for highlighting any business through a proper brand management, it’s always better to use the major part of it for professional works. So, if we inclined 80% towards business use and 20% towards personal use then, it creates positive impact on our personal relation along with business success and make our life happy.

Inventing Innovation in Web 2.0

Web 2.0 sites are now heading towards innovation and inventing new ways for people to collaborate & communicate in such a manner that will only attain positive aspects of these social channels. Many organizations are now working to build niche social networking sites targeting only on a specific community and some of the sites are currently live for example DoctorsHangout.com(For medical people), Gamurs.com(For gamers), FindNerd.com(For web, mobile developer community). There are many more in the online market which are targeting to a niche community, so this is the big invention in web 2.0 which has been innovated through extreme creativity.

Here if we talk about innovation, creativity & engagement then FindNerd seems to be on top as it is a social platform specifically developed for highly creative & innovative minds. It provides opportunities for web, mobile developers to collaborate on a common platform for multiple tasks like tech blogging(content/video), project management, project freelancing, desktop sharing. Apart form this users can discuss their technical knowledge as users can post and view C, java, .net, flash, php questions and answers on this niche network and get the benefit of enhancing knowledge and tech skills. It has been noticed that more number of people are now searching for technology content on the web, so this platform fulfill this requirement where tech people can see content related c, php, java questions and answers, etc. which help to  develop their programming skills.

Conclusion

Finally, we can say that it’s your decision to choose a specific social network which will lead you towards success. So let’s thing and choose better one.

About the Author

Sumeet is the CTO at FindNerd an having decades of experience in IT industry with knowledge in all technologies including C,C++, java, php, Ruby, Android, etc.

Building a small business from scratch is tough no matter which way you look at it. That being said never has there been more immediately available resources for small business owners than are available today. Technology has finally allowed smaller businesses to compete with larger entities as the more and more individuals are connected through less traditional means. With that in mind here are 5 tips to use technology to jettison your business into the 21’st century:

1. Social Media

For Pete’s sake USE IT. Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, these programs are all free and absolutely invaluable for any business looking to increase communication with their customer base (which should be every business.)  The primary focus of any social media campaign, big or small, should be generating content that other users want to share, these outlets SHOULD NOT be used for advertising alone. A Twitter or Facebook feed filled with nothing but advertisements for products and services is a boring feed, and one that will most likely see little to no community involvement. So get creative and remember to actively interact! Otherwise what’s the point?

2. Cloud Storage

When is the last time that you pulled out a physical file or spreadsheet to reference? Chances are it’s been awhile. Why then do businesses continue to insist on wasting time and space by keeping physical records? Put everything in the cloud! Besides the saved physical space, cloud storage also allows for a contingency in the unlikely but possible scenario involving catastrophic loss of data. Saving information to either Google or Apple’s cloud storage takes little to no time at all and can save you massive headaches in the long run.

3. Conferencing Software

Intercompany communication is integral to the success of any new business, small or large.  Owners and managers need to be able to effectively communicate company goals and interests to their team, traditionally this was accomplished through time costly staff meetings but with the amount of affordable conferencing software available at the click of a mouse these time wasters are becoming less and less necessary. So hit up google download one of the many free or affordable conferencing software programs and get down to business. But please people, keep your coworkers in mind, don’t be one of these guys.

4. Remove Any Costly POS System

If your business deals in the type of commerce that handles physical transactions at your location the necessity of an expensive POS (Point Of Sale) system is a thing of the past. Programs such as Square have allowed business owners to handle transactions through simple smartphones or tablets. This removes another obstacle separating the business owner from the consumer allowing for more choice and freedom for both parties involved.

5. Use Inexpensive Web Tools in Place of More Costly Programs

Often a large expense for small businesses has been expensive office and reporting programs such as accounting and management office software. Thankfully the internet has allowed for cheaper but still similarly effective programs to take off and hold up surprisingly well against their more costly counterparts. Programs such as Freshbooks offers accounting and invoicing services for a fraction of the cost of similarly advertised, and previously more widely used programs.

In the knowledge era, financial institutions like banks, credit unions, and wealth management companies can thrive in the digital world by securely streamlining transactions for their customers. Recent trends in the digital finance field point are shifting due to a variety of pressures, including regulatory oversight and customer expectations.

A Growing Trend

Over the past few years, one emerging trend has been esignatures, with 48% of the industry adopting it by 2011.

Esignatures have been useful in a number of ways, and have been widely adopted in Request For Proposal (RFP) documents, where a bank announces funding available for a particular program and invites bids for its completion. Even firms that are not yet using it plan to use it for commercial loan origination.

The U.S. Bank Case Study

One reason for the growing trend in the use of an electronic signature for financial services is the improved efficiency at the branch level. U.S. Bank proved the value of esignatures when the bank adopted these digital signatures four years ago in over 3,000 retail branches for their business and consumer loan processing.

By adopting the use of esignatures, the bank benefitted in the following ways:

• ·  It eliminated almost all its loan exceptions.
• ·  It slashed the bulk of costs for document handling.
• ·  It exceeded compliance regulation standards.
• ·  It freed up more staff to focus on selling loans.
• ·  It improved branch customer satisfaction.

Industry Challenges

A wide range of financial institutions—banks, credit unions, mortgage companies, and retail-finance firms—are faced with 3 difficult industry challenges:

1. They need to balance cost reduction while championing new investments in technological innovations.

2. They need to support the modern, tech-savvy customers who mainly run their businesses from computers and mobile devices.

3. They need to meet with tougher compliance requirements during the Obama Administration by making fewer paper-based mistakes, including compliance with the Dodd-Frank Act and the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.

7 Benefits of Using Esignatures

The esignature trend is well-past the early adopter phase because the benefits far exceed any hesitation in adopting a digital solution.

Here is a list of at least 7 benefits enjoyed by financial institutions using esignatures:

1. Since transactions are more transparent, as there is now real-time evidence in the signature process, it is much easier to improve compliance and enforce regulatory rules.

2. With a stack of paper documents, errors are easy to miss, but digital signatures are easy to spot. Documents are now less likely to be pushed through despite missing signatures.

3. Digital documents are centralized in a computer system. Paper documents are easy to lose as they may be sitting in a branch, a client’s office, or lost in transition.

4. Customers can sign immediately from their office, instead of waiting for the mail or going to a particular location to sign a document. Moreover, there are no geographical or temporal limitations. A customer can sign in any time zone and from anywhere in the world.

5. The time it takes to complete a transaction has become incredibly fast.

For instance:

• ·  It would take 16 steps to get a consumer loan, now it can be done in 4 steps.
• ·  It would take 3 visits for a wealth management transaction, now 1 visit is enough.
• ·  It would take 2 weeks for a retail credit transaction, now it takes 10 minutes.
• ·  It would take almost 2 hours for a mortgage closing transaction, now it only takes 15 minutes.

6. Document preparation is faster and much more efficient.

Esignatures have created a system called STP, or electronic straight-through processing.

Before the invention of STP, a banker had to go through the following steps to prepare a document package:

• ·  Manually prepare the package.
• ·  Do a quality control of the loan.
• ·  Scan records.
• ·  Index records.

·  Repeatedly ask busy customers to make time to sign the documents.

7. There is a tremendous level of savings of time, money, and effort for financial institutions.

For instance, the following processes have been eliminated:

• ·  The need to spend millions of dollars to employ couriers to deliver green bags.
• ·  The need to scan 26 million pages a year.
• ·  The need for a sales teams to spend 82,000 hours selling to clients. (Which is the cost of hiring 41 sales people full time)
• ·  The need for bank personnel to spend 95,000 hours working directly with clients.
• ·  The need for 20 full time employees to do back office paperwork.
• ·  The need for customers to spend 30,000 hours to complete signage on document package.

Esignatures are easy to use for a large number of transactions. For instance, they can be used for account openings, retail and credit card applications, disclosures, investment products, and a variety of loans from commercial lending to a student loan. Additionally, there are also numerous ways to facilitate this signature—capturing a signature at a branch on a tablet, asking for a click-to-sign from a home or office computer, asking for a click-to-sign after a point-of-sale transaction, or sending a secure link via email.

Article Contributed by Diana Smith

In the year 2014 most businesses, regardless of their size, have relied on technology solutions for advancement of their businesses and no different it will be in 2015. In fact, if nothing, all entrepreneurs are advised by experts to rely on technology for strengthening of their marketing, product development, and customer engagement activities.

The best way to drive relative advantage over competitors is technology adoption. This is especially true if you are in business with computer and Internet technologies. Even though it seems like your business is technology enabled, you may be missing out on new, fast-evolving technologies. These technologies can be the main trigger in supercharging your business, regardless of its size.

Here are some strategies you may want to look into.

Strategy 1: Embrace Social Media and Expand Your Sales

Owing to the internet, we can now easily communicate with people all around the world with just a few clicks. Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and similar have given us the power to interact with our business partners and (potential) clients more easily. Also, they make for great business vehicles. What can rapidly enhance a company’s branding and visibility is adopting an effective social media strategy – communicating with your audience around a direct message or offer, and drive traffic to your website. Naturally, for this to happen, both content and design need to be worth driving traffic to!

In order for companies to supplement current sales efforts they need a social media strategy and focus, and this should be their primary vehicle for all sales activity. Social media is an effective method of marketing over the Internet as print advertising is losing ground to the Internet. Plus, they cost very little.

Once you decide who your target audience is, you need to identify the online communities and platforms where your potential customers spend time. The next thing you should do is create a strategy owing to which you’ll manage to engage with their interests. Further, you need to offer them useful, compelling content and something they can’t get anywhere else.

Strategy 2: Adopt New Technologies to Streamline Your Business

Most private businesses, no matter whether they are small or big companies, have adopted technology — they have created user-friendly websites, call centers and online catalogs and they use financial systems from QuickBooks to Oracle. Naturally, they have also streamlined inventory management. Other evolving uses of technology that are adaptable to small businesses and large businesses are adopting are:

• For marketing and product promotion – real-time, on-demand video (especially on tablets)
• Customer care to “re-personalize” their customers’ experience and online customer relationship management (CRM)
• Tablet-based systems for employees to provide instant, one-to-one responses to customers’ needs
• Minimizing of the up-front investment through subscription-based software as a service (SaaS), providing all kinds of services on a “pay by the drink” basis

Strategy 3: Take Your Business into the Cloud

The “cloud” is probably the most significant technology paradigm shift for private companies. It delivers hardware and software services via a network. It also offers a range of shrink-wrapped solutions which are amazing at reducing a small business’s capital investment in technology. The cloud is also incredibly cheap storage.

With tablet computers being used to take and fulfill orders and manage automated systems, it is so easy to already see the benefits.

Strategy 4: Spend the Money to Create Something New

This is the era of innovation and in order to succeed you need to create something memorable yet practical for your target group to use. It doesn’t really matter whether it’s a mobile App or some entirely new technological breakthrough, as long as it’s original and functional and customers can get it at a good price. Think about it – the offline world relies on good old steady business looking for the improvement of their customer service, storage spaces, warehouses, relying on forklift hire instead of the buy, at least till their business grows. You are in the online world and you need to take a step back and think of what can be done in the virtual realm that will make you special in comparison to somebody else.

Whichever field of technology-based strategies you pick, make sure you give your best to endure and succeed!

About the Author
Diana Smith is a full time mom of two beautiful girls interested in topics related to business and marketing.

What does your company email address say about you?

Nothing screams “newbie” as a free domain email address. And nothing dates you as much as a Hotmail or Yahoo! email address, especially if you are a technology-focused startup company. This is an #entrepreneurfail that can easily be avoided.

It is important that as you launch a company, you focus on building a sustainable business and not waste your time on unnecessary distractions. However, first impressions come from communication, preparedness, appearance and aptitude. Little touches such as your own domain name, and a web presence add significant credibility. If a potential client searches for your name or your company name, do they hear virtual crickets chirping? Or do they see a robust online presence including your:

• Website – even if it just a landing page with contact information
• LinkedIn profile
• PR/Blog posts about your Business

And when future customers look to contact you, are they typing an unprofessional phonetic alphanumeric email address like “mybiz4u@hotmail.com” or a more professional one like “info@mycompanydomain.com”?

How did we tackle it?

We use GoDaddy and Gmail to solve for our email. GoDaddy provides us the domain and linking it with Gmail gives us the UI and the accessibility that we are all used to. Here are the steps we used.

1. Purchase an operational domain name and a Gmail account.  Good luck to you if you need to find a domain name – see our post here for resources and inspiration to find yours!
2. We used GoDaddy for the domain name; they give you 100 free email aliases with every domain you purchase. (This means you can create You@YourDomain.com, YourIntern@YourDomain.com, Info@YourDomain.com, Sales@YourDomain.com, etc a hundred times over).
3. Forward the aliases to the appropriate Gmail addresses based on how your team is structured. For example, if you are wearing multiple hats, “You” and “Sales” can be forwarded to your Gmail account, while YourIntern and Info can be forwarded to your intern’s Gmail account.
4. Remember to create a catch-all alias (or use an existing one as a catch-all), so you still receive emails that may have typos in the address. Now, at this point, you are successfully configured to receiving mail to YourDomain.com.
5. To send email from your domain, we are going to leverage the free SMTP relay that GoDaddy provides when you buy a domain.
6. To configure this, create a mailbox on GoDaddy and make a note of the credentials. (Their customer service can help).  It’s these credentials that will be needed to configure your outgoing email in Gmail, so it looks like its coming from your domain.
7. Go to your Gmail account. Click Settings, then click Accounts. Here, Gmail gives you the ability to send email from a different email account. Follow the UI to add your applicable email alias using the SMTP settings from GoDaddy. You’ll have to update the SMTP Server, Username, Password and Port. (We used smtpout.secureserver.net and Port 25 but yours may be different).
8. That’s it! Your team is now configured to send email from @YourDomain.com. You will see a drop-down choice in your “From” field in Gmail, which will allow you to select the email address you want to send an email from.

What do you think? Do you believe using a Hotmail or Yahoo address may hurt your chances of getting your next client? Or do you think it is too superficial to matter? Let us know in the comments below…

This comic and post were created by Kriti Vichare for #entrepreneurfail: Startup Success.