FredericMartin - Blognotes 2.0

A Business Check-List for New Times

I've been thinking all I would be doing during those crisis times if I were running  a business.  I came up with this list focusing on marketing and sales management points. It' s a mix of own experiences, thoughts and readings. I will try to upgrade and enrich it with third parties articles and best cases later on. And some points I will detail in separate posts. I chose to concentrate especially on mid and long term action points: you shouldn't expect too much from your short term activities in those crisis times if your markets are really depressed; but it's highly important and the right time to prepare for better times and set ready to harvest later on. And it's not just about crisis and after-crisis times; it's about a new paradigm: not only the financial system has collapsed, but many other parameters have actually changed dramatically, driven by the global hyper connectivity and competitiveness, by the emerging power of the masses and by a new generation that has a stronger voice to denounce failing models and to claim new values and perspectives as a citizen, as a consumer and as a worker.  Therefore, It's important in those deep times to think on that new order and adapt your business practices accordingly.

10 tips to read more, better and become an expert

Keeping and developing a high level of expertise in areas such as marketing, management and digital technologies is a challenging exercise: those areas are moving fast, information channels are exploding with good and bad stuff, whom and what should you follow, where should you focus? Without any consistent approach, you´re rapidly lost in the digital age and you might lose to other people who have a better control of information. The new age is about knowledge, is about information control. I keep upgrading a structured approach which I´ve clustered into 10 steps as follows. I will detail later on each of those steps and related tools. Methodology and adequate tools are both important.

What is cloud computing?

Cloud computing is a strong buzzword right now. What is behind? this brilliant video explains it in simple words.

The easiest and best reminder

The picture says it all: with Remindr you have the easiest and most effective tool to be reminded of anything on a given date and time via phone, mail, Twitter or Jabber.

 

Online notebook for self management

Springpad is a nice online notebook which allows to easily manage contacts, notes, lists and calendars. the Ajax interface is very clear and offers a tremendous design. This tool will satisfy most people for a personal usage.

Micro-Blogging Project Management

Harvest Co-op is an easy micro-blogging application which helps follow a project team, track timings and keep updated on who´s doing what. Learn more here.

 

Collective business intelligence portal

A major issue which we have at my company - might sound familiar to you as well: how to organize the floods of technical and market information,  consolidate the most relevant information and cross-fertilize across the organization. Information is fragmented. We could organize all those information into a strong collective system. Because  intelligence is key in our business. I've been working on this for quite a while and have accumulated many tools; I have combined and organized them into a unique gateway. A gateway where anybody can read, write, comment and challenge the information. My goal is to make it the best source of collective information for our business.

Easy and powerful file sharing service

Dropio: you can hardly find an easier and quicker way to store and share files online, especially with all those options. Without registering, Just name your directory, add as many files as you like and choose your settings (delete automatically after x time / readers can view/addd/edit). The directory is password protected and many options are available to share the files: mail, embedded code, twitter, facebook etc. Perfect!

Best productivity tools of the week

I found a couple of interesting web tools this week.
- VideoSurf (beta invite) is a new video search engine with an excellent user interface and video timelines.
- Cooliris is a search engine with a wonderful interface a la iTunes; with it you find pictures or videos in seconds.
- With World of Bookmarks you can create an engine that searches across your bookmarks.
- Zemanta is a powerful plug-in for your Windows Live Writer blogging platform: it instantly suggests web pictures and articles relating to your current post; you can then drag and drop to enrich your content.
- Breadcrumbs is a Firefox add-on which adds to your search toolbar. it automatically indexes all your browsing history; you can then search for any stuff that you previously came across.

You find lots of other great tools on this blog. You can also follow me on Twitter under FredericMartin.

Zoho launches Marketplace

I wrote a couple of times on Zoho. The Indian company is a direct competitor of Google Docs and has one of the best collaborative work suite (for free). Companies like General Electrics start dropping Microsoft and Google tools and replace with Zoho. I use it on a daily basis, especially for wikis which help me consolidate my market research and prepare reporting presentations. After launching lots of great applications including docs, presentation, CRM, database, chat, wikis etc, the company has done a major move by opening their API to developers. First results are impressive with new applications you can download for free and add to you suite like this great project management application.