Sunday, June 27, 2010

Pondering Facebook Advertising - Part Two: Are You a Good Fit?

Last time I gave an overview of Facebook advertising and the basic difference between selling products versus services.
A key point is: You're sending people to your landing page. That landing page has a job to do. Don't confuse the Facebook Ad's success in getting people to CLICK with the landing page's success in getting them to take the next step (buy, fill out a form, pick up the phone, etc.).

The goal of your Facebook ad will be to get someone to click the ad. Period. After that, it's up to you.

So what works well on Facebook? Great question. Facebook is an interesting medium. In addition to having rich demographics, it's a generally fun place. And there are a variety of people online. As with all advertising, you have to look at

- Who is your target?
- How do you isolate them?
- How do you attract them?

We'll talk about those next time.

For now let's consider what you're trying to sell and whether it "fits" on Facebook.

What are you selling? More importantly, how can you present what you're selling? For the sake of argument, let's say you are a technical consultant selling the standard array of hardware, software, installation, maintenance (managed services), and cloud service offerings. Immediately you see that you have the same challenge here as with every other bit of marketing you've ever done: Your competition sells the same thing.


- - - - -
Disclaimer: This advice is NOT intended for big companies with big budgets. You can just buy as many ads as you want and place them over to the side. Your target will be inundated with your message until they click.

This advice is for companies with a smaller budget who aren't going to plaster Facebook.
- - - - -


If you sell yourself as a commodity, even on Facebook, then you're competing on price. Not a good strategy.

And it's worse on Facebook because the pages fly by, which means the ads fly by. Before you can say "We are a managed..." CLICK they're gone! So you need to stand out and you need to define either a Solution that people are looking for or address a Pain Point they want to get rid of.

Put that thought on hold for a moment while we consider who's doing this clicking. Again, you'll use demographics to narrow your market. You're not looking for the I.T. guy, right? He thinks you're going to replace him (probably true). You're not looking for every business on earth. You're not looking for everyone who works in a small business.

You are looking for business owners and decision makers who just happen to be cruising Facebook.

Unlike a magazine or an industry-specific web site, the audience on Facebook didn't wander in looking for work-related topics. They probably did not hit the search field and type in "computer help." No, they checked their profile, looked at the news feed, responded to a funny video, and commented on a friend's status.

They are "at home" in their environment and not really in the mood for you to knock on the door and hand them a business card.

Put yourself in that mindset. I've said many times that people don't like to be sold but they love to buy. That's doubly true on Facebook. Facebook is a medium that allows the participant to completely control what they see. Have you noticed that you can actually opt-out of an advertisement? See the same ad 1,000 times and never clicked? Make it go away and hope the next ad is more interesting.

Interesting.

Entertaining.

Useful.

See where this is going? Consider the mindset of the person cruising Facebook. Do they want cloud based offsite storage? Probably not . . . at least not right now in this context.

People aren't wandering Facebook looking for business solutions. They're wandering around relaxing, exchanging pleasantries, and joking around with friends. And, of course, business owners are also tuned into the networking, etc. But they're exercising emotions here, not looking for a rational answer to a problem.

So you need to figure out whether you can posistion your service to appeal to that mindset. Appeal to the emotional.

Luckily, this means humor is completely appropriate. Even anger. Graphics are good. Anything that can appeal to the non-rational part of the brain that's browsing Facebook looking for entertainment.

If you can't help yourself and everything you produce ends up as a list of features, then Facebook advertising is probably not for you. If you can appeal to the emotional side and offer up benefits or solutions, then it's worth exploring.

Reality Check
A few paragraphs back I defined you as a left-brained, linear-thinking, serial-processing techno-geek. If that's true, you need to get some help before placing ads on Facebook. You need to find other ads that work. You need to talk clients about why they click. You need to hire a right-brained person to help you appeal to the emotional side of your prospect.

Even if the person you're targeting is totally left-brained and linear/rational (and they probably are), those aren't the traits they're using when they're on Facebook. For this short period of time, they're soaking in the experience of the right brain, exploring and enjoying the experience. Meet them in that environment and you just might get a click!

:-)




Join Me In Portland

July 13, 2010 . . . for

Migrating from SBS to The Cloud

If you've made a living installing servers into small business environments, then you know it's time for a change. Join us and learn how you can step into the next generatoin of Small Business Solutions!

Find Out About Migrating from SBS to The Cloud

Friday, June 25, 2010

Pondering Facebook Advertising - Part One: Overview

I have fiddled with Facebook ads. Fiddled to the tune of about $1,200 for the first half of the year. I don't know if my experiences are particularly relevant to your business, but here are a few observations.
First, Facebook has an amazing ability to zero in on demographics. After all, whether you share it with the world or not, Facebook knows your birthday (and therefore your age), as well as your occupation, address, your interests. If you've filled out your profile with interests in music, books, and games, then they have all that.

And they know who you hang out with. Who are your friends? How widely dispersed are they? What do you all have in common? Because those "surrogate measures" will reflect back on you. As your mother warned you, you're known by the company you keep. So if all your Facebook friends are computer technicians who love XBox, you might get an ad for an XBox game even if you haven't listed it.

Bottom line: Between the information you give Facebook and the intelligence they mine from their databases, they have the ability to do some amazing targeting.

So . . . Is Facebook a good place to advertise?

Well . . . that depends on what you're selling, who you're selling it to, and how you want to package it.

The first question people wonder is whether products or services sell better. It doesn't matter. You just need to be laser-focused clear about what you want from your ad.

If you're selling a book or a CD (I have some experience here), then the ad needs to attract people interested in that book/cd. If you're selling a service (also some experience here), then the appeal is a little different.

With a product you can throw up the product, title, and maybe even the price. Or you can appeal to a need (e.g., network documentation) and draw people in. The ad will NOT sell your product. The most you can hope for is that someone clicks on the ad and goes to your landing page. The landing page is where all the action takes place. See, for example, http://www.networkmigrationworkbook.com/. That's a landing page designed as a long sales letter.

This is extremely important. The Facebook ad will not do your sales for you. Period. You can't link from there to your shopping cart. It's job is to get people to your landing page. The landing page has the job of actually selling the product. So you need to put some energy into that page.

And what about services?

Services are basically the same deal. No one is going to click on a 1" x 1" advertisement and sign up for a $1,000/month service contract. Okay there might be one, but he's not going to click on YOUR ad, so forget it.

Services are a little harder because you probably won't have much luck throwing out terms like managed services, remote support, RMM, SCE, HaaS, SaaS, Exchange collaboration, SharePoint, and BDR. Blahdy blahdy yack yack.

Everyone is offering up what they sell. After all, KPEnterprises is Sacramento's Best Computer Support, but everyone else says the same thing. And we sell cloud services. And we sell disaster recovery. And we sell maintenance contracts. And we sell 98% of what you sell and you sell 98% of what we sell . . . and the casual business person on Facebook sees us as background noise.

Services have to appeal to the void in a business person's life. What's missing that you can offer? Of course I go back to the great Robin Robins campaigns. Is your current I.T. Guy avoiding you? Do you worry about your data?

Facebook zooms by at 100 MPH. Think about how many pages you click on when you hit facebook. Zip, zip, zoom. Then you're off to do something else. Your potential prospects are doing the exact same thing. So you need to grab their attention by appealing to their needs, NOT offering a solution in a tiny ad.

"If you need SBS2008 premium with its excellent flexible licensing, SQL server, SharePoint Services, and built-in Exchange . . ." Ooops. Gone to the next page.

So what can you do? Grab their interest and send them to your landing page. It's key that your landing page address the topic you promised in your Facebook ad. But once you do that, you have their attention. Now you can go on about your excellent services, customer service, references, love, long-term clients, miracles performed, etc.

Just be aware: Unlike a product, the service landing page will result in prospects figuring out how to get to your primary web site. So it also has to do it's job.

Even with all this, people are not likely to swipe a credit card (we're working on that). So the call to action has to be to give your their contact data. Call the office, fill out a form, request information, get the download, get the recorded webinar on CD, etc. Somehow, you need to capture their information so you can follow up and make the sale.

Facebook won't sell your services. All it can do is deliver eyeballs to your landing page. The landing page has to do the job of taking the relationship to the next level.

Next time we'll talk about fitting your offering with the audience you'll find on Facebook.

:-)




Want to figure out how to make money with Cloud Computing?

Join the Cloud Services Roudtable today and listen a great series of podcasts!

http://www.cloudservicesroundtable.com/

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Harbor Computer Services is MS Small Business Specialist of the Year

I am so happy for my good friend Amy Babinchak or Harbor Computer Services. They have been name the Microsoft Small Business Specialist of the Year! Way to go Amy and team!

Got this news release today:

    Thanks for the shout out on Facebook! I'm proud to announce that Harbor Computer Services has won Microsoft's Small Business Specialist of the Year award. As a small woman owned IT business in Royal Oak, we are very proud to announce that our work with Michigan small businesses has received an important award from Microsoft. It is very exciting for us that Microsoft recognizes the importance of small business to the Michigan economy and our role in helping those businesses thrive. For Release June 23, 2010 Harbor Computer Services Honored in the 2010 Microsoft Partner Awards as Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year Royal Oak, Michigan, USA - June 23, 2010 - Today, Harbor Computer Services proudly announces it is a Microsoft Partner Awards winner as Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year. The company was chosen out of an international field of top Microsoft partners as delivering market-leading customer solutions built on Microsoft technology. "Our submission highlighted our efforts to bring the best of Internet technologies and software subscription programs to our clients while co-mingling these new technologies with on-premise solutions for a rock-solid best of both worlds approach to IT. I believe that this is the path that will help our clients keep the competitive advantage by maximizing return on IT investment. I'm beyond excited that Microsoft has acknowledged our work with this award", said Amy Babinchak, President of Harbor Computer Services. Harbor Computer Services was recognized for superior technology and innovation in Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year. The Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year Award honors partners who use Microsoft technology in innovative ways to deploy integrated solutions that serve their customers in the small to midmarket business (SMB) space. This award recognizes Harbor Computer Services for demonstrating innovative excellence and proficiency in deploying solutions that leverage Microsoft technology scaled for SMBs. They have successfully provided ways to help small business owners save money and be competitive all while using Microsoft campaigns and sales tools. "Microsoft is pleased to announce Harbor Computer Services as the Small Business Specialist Partner of the Year," said Birger Steen, vice president, Worldwide SMB and Distribution, Microsoft Corp. "Harbor Computer Services is committed to helping small to midsize business customers find and utilize the best IT investments that reach their business goals. Their deep knowledge of Microsoft technologies enabled them to create a customized solution utilizing Windows Server 2008 R2 Foundation and Microsoft Online Services (BPOS) to satisfy the customer needs of a fast network and remote access." ---------- The Microsoft Partner Awards recognize Microsoft partners that have developed and delivered exceptional Microsoft-based solutions over the last year. Harbor Computer Services is an IT services firm serving businesses with 100 or fewer computers across Southeastern Michigan. We believe that your IT investment should be making your company money and we care about your business. For additional information: Amy Babinchak, President - Harbor Computer Services Phone (248) 850-8616 mailto:[email protected]?subject=Congratulations Amy!

:-)

Thursday, June 10, 2010

Interview with Robin Robins June 23rd - Author of the Managed Services Blueprint

I have tried to keep it a secret, but I'm a huge fan of Robin Robins.

For the uninitiated, let me give you my un-official, un-approved, unauthorized introduction to Robin Robins.

At the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference a couple years ago, a product manager from Microsoft asked about the best decision I ever made in my business. I proceeded to tell him that this was a very easy question for me. The best decision I ever made in my business was to buy into Robin Robins' Technology Marketing Toolkit.

After fifteen years in business, this is still true.

Why?

Well, I think Robin misrepresents herself as a marketing consultant. To me she is a business consultant. She doesn't necessarily know about every aspect of running my business. But she interviews people, provides resources, and makes connections for her members so that every aspect of the business is improved.

I originally bought Robin's Technology Marketing Toolkit. Then I joined one of her monthly "clubs" so I could get the updates. Then she introduced her Managed Services Blueprint. So I got that. We have about three feet of shelf spaced dedicated to RR materials.

Don't tell Robin this, but I'll pretty much buy anything she asks me to. Why? Because I make more money from her materials than I spend on them. Period.

(Gulp. I just signed up for This Monster Seminar . . . because I believe it will make me more money than it will cost me.

From time to time Jennifer, my office manager, goes through our expenses and credit card bills to see where we can cut. "Do we really need this? This? That?" Everyone once in awhile she'll ask about the Technology Marketing Toolkit and I have to say Do Not Touch. Take that off the list of things we might cut some day. That monthly payment is permanent!

Let me take you back to that Microsoft product manager. After listening to me preach the Gospel of Robin for ten minutes his only comment was "Damn, I wish I could get Microsoft Partners to get that excited about what we do for them."

It is what it is. I don't mean to detract from my love for Microsoft.

- - - - -

Please Join Me for a special teleseminar. I'm going to interview Robin
Wednesday, June 23rd
3:00 p.m. ET / 2:00 p.m CT/ 1:00 p.m. MT / 12:00 noon PT

Register for free at Robin's Site.

The official topic is . . .

5 Profit-Boosting Strategies For Struggling MSPs

If you know me, you know I can promise real content here. You should listen with a pen and paper ready. You will learn valuable information here. I guarantee it.

Will there be a pitch? Yes. Hello! We're talking to an amazing world-class marketing person here. So that's part of the deal.

And I have been promised that the people who listen to this call will really, honestly get a deal on a program that will not go on sale to the general public for another week at a much higher price.

But even if you don't spend a penny, I promise you'll get value from this call.

Please sign up today.

Register for free at Robin's Site.

- - - - -

Here's the official description:

If you want to know the absolute BEST way to secure more high-profit, Managed Services contracts, don't miss this session. During this presentation, Marketing Guru Robin Robins will talk about what's working right now for IT business owners to not only convert most of their clients to Managed Services, but also how to secure new contracts, quickly and easily. You'll learn:
  • The biggest mistakes 97% of all MSPs make when marketing Managed Services that is causing them to turn off new prospects and devalue what they are selling.
  • How to stop competing on price and secure top dollar for your services.
  • The absolute BEST marketing strategy for drawing in more qualified prospects than you ever thought possible; implement this and your competition doesn't stand a chance.
  • What marketing works best for selling Managed Services, and which ones will drain your wallet and waste your time.
  • Surprisingly inexpensive ways to get more appointments with new clients.
Full description at Robin's Site. :-) Disclosure: If you want to know about financial relationships between me and Robin, please read the discussions regarding the FTC around January 2010 here: http://blog.smallbizthoughts.com/search/label/Robin%20Robins

Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Cloud Based CRM - Grace Schroeder on Cloud Services Roundtable

Please join us on the Cloud Services Roundtable
June 16th at 9:00 AM

Register Now:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/243890456

Our guest will be Grace Schroeder, CEO of Idea2, a cloud based CRM solution that makes work life easier because it is easily customized, rapidly deployed, and quickly adopted by users.

We'll talk about the challenges and advantages of using a cloud-based CRM or Line of Business Application. We're seeing these services more and more widely across our clientele.

Here's an interesting point to ponder: A cloud-based LOB (line of business) application can be a major in-road for you because it can place you squarely between a prospect and their in-house I.T. people. In other words, the people most likely to put in a road block to outsourced I.T. will be working with you to implement an LOB.

Cool stuff.

Grace's career spans from large corporations to small and growing business concerns. She has started and managed several companies ranging from privately funded managed hosting companies to a day trading firm. Interspersed with entrepreneurial endeavors, Grace has held leadership positions in large telecom and financial services companies. At Qwest Communications, Grace led Channel and Field marketing for both the direct and partner channels. At Transamerica, as Vice President of the Broker/Dealer Channel, she introduced a successful variable annuity product in conjunction with the Dreyfus Funds - achieving $400MM of sales in the first year.

Grace specializes in leveraging valuable emerging business models by assembling unique teams that provide companies the ability to connect the dots between technology and business opportunity.

For a great introduction to a cloud-based tool, and a better understanding of cloud-based services, please join us June 16th.
Register Now:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/243890456

. . .

And of course you can always check out past and future broadcasts at Cloud Services Roundtable.

:-)

Vlad Looking for Feedback on Cloud Services Book

My buddy Vlad Mazek has been providing hosted infrastructure, servers, services, and applications for a long time. He has also been working very closely with the SMB community that entire time. So he sees what we look like from the cloud.

Now he's writing a book to introduce YOU to cloud services.

Along those lines, please read he recent request for input. What do you want to know and how can he make this book as valuable as possible to you? See http://www.vladville.com/2010/06/writing-a-book-on-cloud-services.html.

Also . . .

I am proud to announce that Vlad will be joining us on the Free Cloud Services Roundtable broadcast on July 7th. Check it out and register now at Cloud Services Roundtable.

:-)



Now Shipping . . .
The Best NOC and Service Desk Operations Book Ever!

by Erick Simpson

Ships from stock right now!

Stuart Crawford on Search Engine Optimization . . . In Plain English

Well, plain Canadian English, anyway!

My friend Stuart Crawford is hosting a webinar on Search Engine Optimization . . . In Plain English at the end of this month. Give it a look.

His company, Ulistic, focuses on VARs, MSPs and Resellers. They will also help you introduce social media to your clients and help train you to spot opportunities.

Here's Stuart's Promo:

- - - - -

Today consumers and journalists alike use a variety for search tools to discover and share credible sources of news and information and unfavourable news. Can your news be discovered where digital media are looking? Does it stand out from crowd and notice of what everyone else is saying online? Is your text, image, audio and video content optimized for search and the social web?

Learn how to understanding the fundamentals of search engines and how to optimize for their audience can be key to website owner's efforts. Blog, tweet and build profiles with purpose. That purpose being to appeal to your two audiences… the real people and the real search engines!

Title: SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION IN PLAIN ENGLISH
Date: Monday, June 28, 2010
Time: 10:00 AM - 11:00 AM MDT

After registering you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the Webinar.

Space is limited.
Reserve your Webinar seat now at:
https://www1.gotomeeting.com/register/732994848

:-)

Monday, June 07, 2010

Script Your Outbound Communications

Last Time I talked about filtering your inbound communications. This is critical to functioning as the world around us goes faster and faster.

It is also very handy to automate your outgoing communications. There are three primary types of automated outbound communications, but there are certainly many more. The primary examples are:

- Automated Responses

- Automated Marketing and Social Media

- Outsourced Outbound Communications


Automated Responses

The most obvious automated response is the Outlook "Out of Office" reply. Someone sends an email and ZAP, they get a reply. You can use this or similar tools for all kinds of purposes. People can send an email to receive a free report, join an email list, and so forth.

You can also automate many other responses. The automation might be by computer or by a standard procedure within you office. If your assistant is doing the "automated" response, you'll need to provide a series of email communication templates. For example, when an account goes past due, a standard form email is much better than letting someone craft a new email each time. This bring consistency to your process.

All of the PSA systems now have automated responses when tickets are created. You can also send emails whenever time is added, notes are added, or the status has changed. We don't go that far because we don't want to spam clients. Most of them don't care that we have a really cool tracking system. Is it done or not done? That's what matters.

But when the job IS done, we send the automated response asking for feedback.


Automated Marketing and Social Media

I have an elaborate series of autoresponders I use for trickle marketing of my business. These fall into the category of "Hey, just one more thing you might be interested in." No hard pressure sales. Drip drip drip.

One a very simple scale, my weekly email is scheduled to go out every Sunday night/Monday morning at Midnight Pacific time, 3am Eastern. This forces me to finish the newsletter on a regular schedule and allows me to relax and go to sleep because I know it will magically go out in the middle of the night.

I remember one time I was at a conference and about a dozen of us were sitting around a poker table. Suddenly everyone looked at their cell phones and commented that they had just received an email from me. I don't remember what time zone I was in, but it was somewhere between midnight and three AM. :-)

On social media, there are a number of fancy tools to schedule your tweets, Facebook feeds, etc. These need to be used carefully so you don't become a spammer. But if you have an up-coming event, it makes perfect sense to post notices on a regular basis leading up to the event. But follow these simple rules: 1) Don't over-do it. 2) Don't repeat the exact same message every time.

When I add someone to my Twitter feed I immediately go to my home page on Twitter (yes, my most common method for using Twitter). If it is overwhelmed with that person's posts every three seconds, I remove the new person I just added. Lesson: If you make a communication medium unusable for someone, it reduces your effectiveness.


Outsourced Outbound Communications

Write this down. You saw it here first.

A HUGE growth industry over the next few years will be outsourced Social Media Management. In other words, you pay a service to manage your twitter feeds, Facebook profile, fan pages, and so forth. Sounds stupid? Write me a check and I'll explain it to you.

Once a year someone throws a three inch thick paper book on your doorstep. You immediate pick it up and place it in the recycle bin. That's called a Yellow Pages Book. This year, before you throw it out, take a look through it.

Depending on where you live, you might pay $1,000 to $5,000 a MONTH to have an ad in that book. A small ad. Think about the people who have big ads. Who has ads in this book? People who 1) Need new clients and 2) Have money to spend to get those clients.

And those poor folks are in businesses that have to serve as many markets as they can. So they're not just in one Yellow Pages book, they're in many. It is very common for these folks to be spending $50,000 or $100,000 or $250,000 a year on Yellow Pages Advertising.

So . . . along comes someone who offers up daily activity online, a "personal" touch, constant twitter feeds, Facebook activity, etc. For only $40,000 a year!!! This is a great bargain and makes sense for everyone involved. Except the Yellow Pages.

Right now, the people offering these services are charging WAY TOO LITTLE. Like nothing. Like almost free. Stupid cheap. But soon they will figure out that they are the hottest marketing agent around.

Of course it will also be done very poorly by many. And that makes it easier for people who have a system to raise the prices and measure return on investment. Those who outsource will also become more sophisticated. That will raise prices as well. So just like the computer business, there will be people at all levels in the same market. Each price point will find clients.

And it's all good if you know where you stand.

- - - - -

:-)



Now Available:
Introduction to Zero Downtime Migrations
Seminar on MP3 Download

Thursday, June 03, 2010

Having Yourself Replaced By A Shell Script

Someone posted on my Facebook Page that they didn't know how I can be "on" all the time with Facebook, Twitter, blogging, writing books, speaking, and running two companies all at the same time. My first reaction was to simply be flip and say that I'd replaced myself with a shell script.

Then I got to thinking and realized that might be true.

My friend Vlad Mazek sometimes jokes about having himself replaced by a shell script. The truth is, many of us are already walking down that path. When I think of really, really busy people and really, really well known people I realize they all have "scripts" of some kind to deal with the overload.

For example . . .

I've had the same email address for fifteen years. [email protected]. It's been public since day one. It's on hundreds of domain names we own or manage. It's on dozens of web sites I run. It's been in newsgroups the whole time. And on and on.

In addition to being the greatest spam magnet on earth, this email address attracts a massive amount of legitimate opportunity. But I also filter Google Alerts, sales information, Facebook Feeds, Twitter tweets, PSA tickets, and all kinds of other information through this email address.

The other day I was on a conference call. 60 minutes. When I got off there were over 100 new emails in my inbox. Legitimate, not spam. Believe me, many people have it worse.

A couple years ago Gregory Davis, VP and General Manager of Dell, spoke to the XChange event. See my blog post about him falling on his sword apologizing for how horribly Dell treats their partners. Well, he gave out his email address and asked for feedback. So I posted that on the blog.

One partner came up to me and was angry with me for posting someone's email on the blog. Under the circumstances I thought it was appropriate.

But I also informed the partner that they need to think about what happens when you email Mr. Davis. Do you think he sits in front of his computer and opens every single email he gets? No. Couldn't possibly happen. Like many people, he has processes and procedures -- and shell scripts -- to filter his email

I have two assistants who scoop certain items out of my email so I don't have to deal with them.
I have autoresponders to deal with some things.
I have Outlook Rules to deal with a lot of things.

If I'm lucky, I can actually keep up on what's left over.

Another example . . .

is our PSA or CRM system. Whether you use Autotask, ConnectWise, Tigerpaw, Commit CRM, or whatever, your PSA system dramatically improves your life. I would bet that 90% of all business owners that use such a system are hooked for life. They might change from one PSA system to another (as we did), but they are not likely to going back to "notes" on their pocket PC.

Ticketing systems just make the world flow very easily. There are multiple ways for clients to communicate. Lots of ways for things to flow into the system. The tickets can be accessed from anywhere, worked from anywhere, closed from anywhere.

Automatic Rules

The original Industrial Revolution (mid 1800's) represented a massive explosion in automation. It was accompanied by unprecedented increase in new ideas, new occupations, and new opportunities. But there were also challenges because everything in the world seemed to be going just a little too fast. Of course all that innovation and opportunity went even faster in the late 1800's, early 1900's, mid 1900's, and late 1900's.

(If you're looking for a great book on the effects of everything going faster, see Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything by James Glick.)

While some people simply pine for the good old days and want to stave off the modern rush into the future, you can't. The world will continue to evolve faster and faster all the time. Technologies will continue to evolve.

And your coping mechanisms need to evolve.

My favorite Robin Robins marketing campaign is the "Bad Date" letter. Basically, the message is, "Is your computer consultant treating you like a bad date? Not returning your calls . . . etc." That campaign works because people want instant access and fast communication. It's also a good campaign because frustrated people will pay more than people who are not frustrated.

When you create automated processes for communications, you get more done. you appear to be in more places than one. And you actually make it easier for people to communicate with you.

:-)



Now Shipping:
The Network Migration Workbook:
Zero Downtime Migration Strategies for Microsoft Networks