Best Business Investment? Kindle Fire vs iPad

Posted on December 14, 2011 by qcconsulting

I have had my kindle fire for several weeks now, and I haven’t been as excited about a piece of hardware since the iphone.  If you are a business trying to get as much as you can for your dollar, the Kindle fire is a definite alternative to the iPad. The screen resolution is fantastic, you can email documents to the device (please note this is not meant to be a workhorse machine or laptop replacement) and is a super inexpensive, portable device that could be used for content viewing on the fly. The silk web browser is lightening fast and anywhere you have a wifi connection you are up and running.  You can find almost all of the business apps you need such as QuickOffice, as well as, Social Media apps such as Linked-In.  The device provides all Android apps.

For reading, I love the ability to choose from the different backlighting options.  I personally love the ercu background with the brown text and I can set the line spacing and font size to my liking.  What really impressed me about the device is that I bought one for my 77 year old mother-in-law and she was up and running in 10 minutes.

You can add multiple email accounts to access your email (yes their is an app you can purchase to hook up to your exchange server and sync email, calendar, tasks, etc.).

If I had a sales staff and didn’t want to invest $600-$800 on iPads, I would absolutely use this as an alternative to showcase content on the go.

Here is an overview of the product

Congrats, Mr. Bezos to a job very, very well done.  ROI?  You got it with the Kindle Fire!

Happy Holidays to All!

Lisa Chipetine, PMP

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Hardware | Leave a comment

Mobile Credit Card Processing: Now Open for Everyone!

Posted on June 4, 2011 by qcconsulting

Mr. Dempsey of Twitter has invented a terrific new gizmo called Square Up. Even the little guy/gal can now process credit cards on the fly using their smartphones. If you have a mobile salesforce, this is definitely something to investigate. This service really targets the implusive buyer, who may not have cash on them at the time (or would just prefer to use credit). The nice thing is….the “square” is free! And it generates electronic invoices on demand!

Those of you who do tradeshows – this is a must! If you are a service provider (plumber, computer geek, etc.) also terrific for additional revenue. It is an accounts payable department on the go (reduces labor costs), gives a digital record for you (great for accounting) and keeps you in control! Also fulfills the keeping “green” – eliminating paper and reducing your consumable expeditures (printer cartridges, paper, etc.).

This is also terrific for artists, craftspeople for those local shows.
Go mobile!

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Mobile, Software | Leave a comment

Beyond the PDF: Make it an “Interactive” E-Book!

Posted on April 6, 2011 by qcconsulting

Many companies today think that the way to go paperless is to make everything into a PDF file and place it on their website, in order to save on printing costs, brick and mortar storage space, etc. However, while this is the easy solution, it may not be the best solution for your business. You don’t want to lose the integrity of the mission of the material you are presenting. Is it marketing material? Instructional?

One key component to successfully transferring print media to a digital format is to keep it “interactive”. Recently, I was involved in a project that took an association’s catalog of artists (and their artwork) and transfer it to an online digital, interactive portfolio. This was done by a company called nxtbookmedia

Example of Interactive Digital Marketing Portfolio

As you can see by the example above, this is a far cry from a basic PDF. An introductory video has been inserted, you have audience action buttons on the top bar for business drivers (Take a survey), (Join) and (Support), which can lead someone down the conversion pathway. The search options within this e-book format allow you to have various indexes: search by genre, geographical location or by the artist. You can zoom in or out, as well as, a variety of sharing options are available: by email, you can save to your desktop or print pages. But one of the best features of this e-book marketing portfolio is that you can share it to social media sites, such as: digg, linked-in, facebook, twitter, etc.

A key driver for audience adoption is the ability for the person viewing the material to create notes that they can review and reference at a later time – a wonderful knowledge capture and collaboration tool (especially if someone is reviewing your product line).

So although the simple solution is to make that PDF and slap it up on your website for download – keep some dollars open and get the greatest return on your investment. You will still remain paperless and for the cost of a print run you can have a dynamic, reusable, cutting-edge piece of digital media, that can be accessed from anywhere in the world on-demand. Adding a web analytical program into the mix on the back-end will give you reportable data on how your audience used the media-important metrics to analyze in order to determine what “engaged” your audience.

e-Book formats are fast becoming the new vehicle for presenting marketing materials and instructional training or reference materials. They can also be view from the iPad or various smart-phones – so they have a greater mobility than your typical print media. Join the bandwagon and save a tree – without jeopardizing the business intent of the media.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Digital Media, Technology | 4 Comments

Social Media Return on Investment (ROI): Start with Strategic Goals & Calls for Action

Posted on February 22, 2011 by qcconsulting

Many of my clients have asked: “Where is the Return on Investment (ROI) in Social Media?”  How do you measure it? By tweets, re-tweets, friends, fans, website hits – what truly tells you if you are being successful?

One of the easiest ways to approach this is by analyzing the “actions” you are asking of your audience- and how the results address your organization’s strategic goals, in conjunction with ascertaining which platform(s) the traffic that performed the action(s) came from.   Action examples for an audience could include:

Buy Now

Donate

Subscribe

Register

Join

Vote or Survey

Recommend or Recommendation

Examples of Strategic Goals that have financial outcomes:
Increase in Donations by promoting fundraiser (Donate)
Increase in product sales (Buy Now)
Increase in sale of services/training/conferences (Register)

Examples of Strategic Goals that have Customer Service outcomes:
Increase in Members joining a user community (Join)
Target Marketing- feedback from community for future product development /outreach (Vote)
Monitor effectiveness of Customer Service Staff (Vote or Survey)
Increased Client Satisfaction (Recommend or Recommendations)

 

Examples of Learning & Growth based objectives:
Increase in educational program attendance- alerts (Register)
Newsletter subscriptions (Subscribe)
Feedback on Success of Internal Initiatives (Vote)

There are tools that help you monitor this traffic, such as Google Analytics.  Additional tools include:

Unilyser.com
Netvibes.com
Ubervu.com
Socialmentions.com
Argylesocial.com
Twentyfeet.com
Postrank.com

These are terrific, but don’t underestimate the value of asking the audience member performing the action the “source” of how they got to the specific “action” point.  (Best Practice: Make this a “Required” field, even if it is a simple text field.  Note: Pick list of sources with “other” would be best).

Monitoring website hits doesn’t tell you a lot unless you know where they came from and what the individuals did once they got to the website.  For example: You may have a blog and you could monitor the amount of comments and the categories of the topics that drew the most comments.  This could help you develop your product or services suites.  It could also help you define your “target markets” in terms of demographics and geographical areas. 

So start with what you want to the outcomes to be, develop an “action plan” for your audience and then monitor the traffic and its source to determine true Return on Investment.

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Blogs, Social Media | 2 Comments

Weather Issues? Use Gotomeeting to keep your business on track!

Posted on January 27, 2011 by qcconsulting
Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Software, VOIP | Leave a comment

iPad versus a Laptop or Netbook – what makes sense?

Posted on December 31, 2010 by qcconsulting

My husband recently received an iPad as a Christmas gift. I took the opportunity to see if the machine was a viable option to purchasing either a laptop or netbook for business purposes.  My husband wanted the machine in order to go paperless in his flying pursuits.  Flight charts are constantly being updated and pilots must replace them on a regular basis, (which incurs quite a cost), but there is a program called ForeFlight that allows you to obtain these charts electronically.  So he needed something that would be good for viewing these electronic charts, as well as, provide the appropriate visibility at night.  You can see the clarity and visibility in these photographs taken from a recent night flight:

viewing flight charts from airplane on iPad

Closeup of flight charts at night on the iPad

As you can see, the iPad is a terrific way to view this content.  But that is exactly what an iPad is good for – content viewing.

In my opinion, the iPad is a terrific tool for those whose only purpose is to view content.  If you need to simply surf the web, obtain email, or if you are a salesperson or business owner who wants an easy, portable means of showing product presentations without the burden of carting around a laptop – then the iPad is the machine for you.

However, if you are considering purchasing an iPad as a replacement for your main machine, I would advise against it. The keyboard on the tablet is not effective in creating high volumes of documentation – such as Microsoft word or excel document creation or editing.  Yes, you can buy the associated peripherals and accessories, but by the time you purchase the keyboard, viewing stand, external DVD drives and other necessary items, you will be well beyond the costs of a good laptop or a strong netbook.  I have a Samsung N150 netbook which is a super light weight, powerful machine that satisfies my business needs as a consultant on the go.

Unfortunately, many of you parents out there were probably convinced by your children to buy these as a holiday gifts for a classroom tool.  It will be interesting to hear the feedback in six months.  These machines are like high-heeled shoes, they may make you look sexy, but you can’t walk great distances in them.

For those of you looking to purchase an iPad, I suggest you watch Ebay over the next several months.  I have a feeling that sheepish college students will be selling them off in droves.

TIP: Use Bidslammer so you are not staying up till 1:00 am bidding.

When I used the iPad all I could think of was that I wished it were a really big phone!


Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Data Storage, Hardware, Mobile, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Traveling with the iphone 4: Leave the Laptop at home

Posted on December 15, 2010 by qcconsulting

I recently took an extended trip to Jordan and to Turkey.  I was in a quandry as to whether or not I should take my netbook or laptop with me.  I made the decision, since I had just upgraded my phone to the iphone 4, to not bother schlepping the laptop and proceeded to download phone apps that I could potentially need and that could replace the functions on my netbook.

I started with the Skype app. I had initiate an account with $10.00 that would automatically refund itself if it ran out of money.  Using Skype, the international costs were 2.3 cents per minute versus At&T international rate of 2.59 dollars per minute.  Big difference!  I will admit I was a skeptic, however, I used the app to call home every day while I was overseas and talked to friend for an hour while in Turkey for basically under $1.50!  The key was that you must have a good strong WIFI connection with the iphone to make this work.

I needed an app for currency calculations.  OANDA currency converter app was wonderful, so I was able to leave my travel calculator at home.  Bargaining in the markets was a snap, because I could instantly see the exchange rates.  The app also allows you to choose an option of the 2% credit card additional fees if you choose to use a credit card for your purchase.

My American Express and Banking app allowed me to check accounts and deal with financial transactions.  My traveling companion needed to pay her mortgage on Wells Fargo, which we did through Safari (attention Wells Fargo you need an app).

At home, I use Gotomypc.com to access my home computer remotely – they do not have an app for the iphone, so I purchased an app called LOGMEIN IGNITION, (you also need to setup an account via their website to enable your computer).  I was able to literally see my desktop from my phone remotely!  There are special navigational commands to work on the phone, but if you need to get to your machine for any reason, you can.  It is the most expensive app that I bought but well worth it $29.99

I bought an app called FlightTrack Pro, but it really didn’t work well for me, I thought it would provide me gates, but the updates were slow.

The GeniusScan or JotNot Pro apps allow you to take a photo of a document or whatever and send it as an attachment, so if all you have is a hard copy of a document and you are not near a fax machine, this will work to email someone on the fly.

iTranslate app will allow you to put in basic terms and get the translation – so you could show it to whomever you are trying to communicate with!

The QuickOffice app allows you to open and edit Microsoft Office Documents, although there is a cost for it $9.99 as of this posting)

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Mobile, Uncategorized, VOIP | 16 Comments

A New Marriage: Google TV and Your PC

Posted on November 5, 2010 by qcconsulting

I have always thought that the natural progression of things would be for your TV and PC to become married into one unit, especially after cable TV providers became your phone and internet providers.  Google appears to be ready to become an all consuming content provider through the development of online television.

Google TV is on its way.  It broaches some interesting questions that are addressed in this article by Sam Diaz:

Perhaps we will actually have a use for that PIP (Picture in a Picture) functionality that has deluded me for so long.  If this works, you could monitor your email on one screen and watch the ballgame on the other.

Your TV will become just a “big monitor”.  Just think, would the history of movies change?  Although we have come a long way with content that we watch, such as being able to record via TIVO, wouldn’t it be great if we could watch whatever we want – on demand?  I think you will see online TV sites, such as HULU start to surface as this becomes the new reality.

Google Makes TV Smarter

The mobile app market currently held specifically for cell phones would now be able to expand their product suites to coincide with this interactive television phenomenon.

The big question will be – how many will you need for your house?  Do you have to buy one for every kid?  Will the internet have to become a paid service?  Will advertising become cheaper because there will be more opportunities?

On top of surfing the web, could you make a skype call with a TV app?  Straight from the Tube?  What will that do to the remote control industry (and the male population <vbg>).  What will the mute button mute?

What are your thoughts?

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Streaming Video | 3 Comments

Virtual Office Windows Live Office: Free Software and File Storage

Posted on October 19, 2010 by qcconsulting

Microsoft offers a wonderful free software and file storage service that is great way to have a virtual office on the go: Windows Live Office.  You have the ability to store up 25 Gigs of files  for FREE on Microsoft Windows SkyDrive.  You can even edit those files online or create them from any computer as long as you have internet access (the computer you are on does not need to have the Microsoft Office Suite Software loaded to it, the software will launch from the browser).  You can download the file should desire to – or share it with others online so team collaboration is possible anywhere in the world! This is a free software with mega power!

Windows Live SkyDrive Main File Page

Windows Live Skydrive File Options

Here is how the collaboration feature works – how you can share a file with a team of people:

Windows Live Skydrive Files Collaborative Sharing Option

By Pressing the Create a New Document Icon (word for windows icon), you will be given the option to name the file and decide at that time if you would like for the file to be kept private (visible only to you) or shared (visible by whom you delegate).  You can choose someone with an account, or add an email address.

Windows Skydrive File Sharing Options

You can decide what permissions you want to give to people you are sharing the file with,  they can either just view the file or they can have the ability to edit it as well:

Permission options for shared SkyDrive files

This is how the file looks if you open it straight from the internet browser:

View of Opened File from SkyDrive Internet Browser

All of this is for FREE.  Great if you don’t want to carry a laptop and are traveling – you can just go to hotel’s business center and get internet access and voila!  You can can create, download or share files on demand!

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Collaborative, Data Storage, Mobile, Software | Tagged | 1 Comment

The New Face of Twitter

Posted on October 14, 2010 by qcconsulting

Twitter is becoming more than just a short alert system, it now can highlight your overall social media presence.  It will now show profiles on tweeters:

http://www.silicon.com/technology/software/2010/09/16/twitter-gets-contextual-with-site-revamp-39746355

Reassessment is part of life; what is working for you?

Share and Enjoy:
  • Print
  • Digg
  • StumbleUpon
  • del.icio.us
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Google Bookmarks
  • email
  • LinkedIn
  • Technorati
  • Reddit
  • Suggest to Techmeme via Twitter
Posted in Social Media | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment