I have heard this so many times in different conversations.  Especially when we meet people who find out what our company does.  It is like the definition of whether you really get mainstream technology or not.  Facebook seems to be a given – everyone and their grandmas are on Facebook, but what about Twitter.  Well, that is my mission – get an answer for those of us not on Twitter to find out “what Twitter is”.

 Twitter’s slogan on their website is:

“Share and discover what’s happening right now, anywhere in the world.”

If you check out Twitter’s About Us section, you will read:

“Twitter is a real-time information network powered by people all around the world that lets you share and discover what’s happening now.” and

“Twitter asks “what’s happening” and makes the answer spread across the globe to millions, immediately.”

They tell you that by using Twitter, you can make better decisions since you have the most up-to-date information.  Using it will enable businesses to stay better connected to their customers.

Simply, in 140 characters, or about the length of a sentence including punctuation, you can relay information that others could use or find interesting.  It is very effective when sharing basic information like a great book that you are reading or a restaurant to steer clear of, and since it is such fast paced information, news hits faster to more people .  For example, when basketball star Shaquille O’Neal was getting traded, he found out from Twitter before any person actually told him.  Another example, is the speedy information transfer to the public when a child has been abducted making rescue efforts more effective.

Now that we know the theory behind Twitter, step 1: Sign up.  On my computer and on my iPhone. 

Next time I will let you know how it is going.  Find me on Twitter under the username lisacjervis.

Currently on my iPhone to keep me in touch I have the Vancouver 2010 Guide brought to you by Bell.  This is a Free app that gives me the following categories to browse through:

• Schedule
• Events
• Venues
• Headlines (including medal count)
• Favourites

Great Feature: For each event that is on the schedule, there is a explanation for how the event works.  This could be very helpful in explaining that in curling when they say they are throwing the rock, they are really just sliding along the ice. 

The other very fun app that I have is the CowBell app from Bell (Free).  Just shake it and you have a great noise maker.  Perfect whether you are at the games or participating from your couch.  Bell has also made this accessible to BlackBerry users, but you will need to press a button for the ringing (not quite as much fun).

The CowBell 2010 1.1 App ($0.99) combines the functionality of both of the above PLUS you can customize the flag design of your cowbell (Bell’s just has their logo on it).  I personally prefer Free, but convenience is nice.

CTV has their own app, but so far the reviews are not so great if you go for the free version.  The tone so far is that you can get a lot further with other free apps than CTVs.  NBC also has an app, but not all functionality is available in Canada.

Greg Gazin on www.canoe.ca has a blog that lists 11 apps for the 2010 games.  Check it out.

What apps are you using to keep up-to-date at the Olympics? Let us know.  Leave a comment.

There was a very polite sign encouraging customers to be kind and courteous to the staff so that they can keep their staff. I have interpreted this to say “When you are angry about the wait for your double-double, our staff quit for something better.”

So does that tell me that the customers are contributing to staff turnover rates and if we treat them well, they will stay longer, become better at their jobs, and in turn get some great customer service in theory?  It doesn’t seem to be just in the fast food business this happens; people get angry more often in general, even to the point of yelling at staff. But where is the strategy in that?

According to the associated content website:

“yelling often doesn’t produce respect. The only major effect it may have … is to either be angry back, sulk, or live in fear…”

If the above is true, exhibiting anger towards something is ineffective, we need to stop it.  It is countrproductive.

Great Ways To Get Better Customer Service :

• Smile and be warm
• Express your concern concisely with the overall motive of improving their company rather than gaining on your end
• Use your please and thank you’s
• Explain what you were hoping to see and why you are disappointed
• Have a game plan; when you anticipate a poor experience (maybe you are phoning to give a customer “complaint”), rehearse what you will say and go through how you will react to anger coming from the other end

If you still have a major issue with what is happening, ask to see the manager just simply to resolve, not to complain.  Then turn something bad into a great experience for both you and the others along the way.

The bonus could be getting something for free – don’t let it be your motivator, but they usually give you something to keep your business. If cranky, no one wants to help you. And then when it keeps up, the company will lose out big time because their staff are going somewhere else.

Let me know what you think about this.  Have you had a poor customer experience that you turned into a great one by your actions?  Let me know about it with a comment.

I just finished reading Jim Collins’ book How The Mighty Fall.  It is the published results of the multi-year, multi-company study he and his colleagues did on large corporations who were very prosperous but completely bottomed-out.  Some may have been bought by other companies while others just do not exist at all anymore.  In their conclusions, they see 5 stages that lead to the destruction.

5 Stages to Destruction

1. Hubris Born of Success: This can also be summed as “Pride comes before the fall”; the company takes much pride from the success they have had.  This leads to decisions that are not wise.
2. Undisciplined Pursuit of More:  Growth of a company is necessary, but when the growth moves too far away from the roots, pieces of the strong foundation start to chip away.  A good example of this in action is when you look at the results of hastily planting the wrong people in the key jobs instead of waiting.  This sucks precious time and resources.
3. Denial of Risk and Peril:  Rather than regrouping and getting back to the basics, companies continuing their descent ignore what is really going on.
4. Grasping for Salvation:  When times get desperate, those falling will cling to anything, like the next big invention.
5. Capitulation to Irrelevance or Death: Surrendering to the company’s demise.

Some companies make it as far as stage 4 and make a grand return, but like most things, wouldn’t it just be easier to start right from the beginning.

Thomas Meron sums it up when he said “Pride makes us artificial and humility makes us real.”  Sam Walton’s Wal-Mart illustrates that for a great company to prosper, it must be humble.  No matter how big or small your company is.  Wal-Mart has had direct competitors, but none have overcome the giant’s humility. Read a quick story about Wal-Mart’s greatness here.   I think that it really has to come from the top.  A humble leader can pave the way to great things.

So, how are you going to keep your company humble?

Leave a comment about what you think about humble companies.  Do you have business practices to keep your company and leaders humble?

Other books by Jim Collins include Good to Great and Built to Last.

AntiSpam Engine that Requires No Training or Management

SureFire SPAM Defense is a cloud based solution that doesn’t require local software installation, licensing, power or air conditioning as most appliances and software require. Because SureFire SPAM Defense protects you and other users you do not have to train or manage it, SureFire SPAM Defense is monitored 24/7/365 and delivered as a subscription service.

Six Different AntiVirus Vendors Scanning Each Email

Not all antivirus vendors are the same: some are faster while some have better and more reliable definition sets. Each attachment passing through our system is scanned by every antivirus engine allowing us to provide the most current and reliable virus results.

Variety of Convenient, Secure Ways to Access Blocked SPAM

SureFire SPAM Defense allows you to retrieve your SPAM messages through the real-time web interface. We also provide up to two daily SPAM digest reports delivered straight to your Inbox. If you live in Outlook we also have an addin that allows you to manage SureFire SPAM Defense directly through Outlook. For more real-time alerts we also offer a Windows Desktop gadget that alerts you every hour when SPAM is waiting for review.

Policy-based Encryption

Enforce corporate security by defining which traffic should be automatically encrypted regardless of content. Your users can also selectively encrypt messages on demand by putting [ENCRYPT] in the subject. Encrypted mail requires no software or private keys on the recipient’s computer, just a web browser.

Web Filtering Protects Your Users From Dangerous Sites

Agent-based web filtering offers you 80 categories of sites that you can selectively prohibit your users from accessing. Because each user has their own private policy, some users can be granted access to web sites that others are not (ex: HR staff can be granted access to monster.com while other staff is prohibited). Web filtering automatically blocks dangerous sites known for virus distribution.

Enforce your Internet Use Policy and Address Violations

Each violation is reported to the centralized server, giving you an overview of all the sites that were visited in strict violation of the company Internet use policy. This data is convenient for reviews or can indicate serious problems with the computer that the client is accessing the Internet from.

For more information about SureFire SPAM Defense, please contact SureFire IT Solutions at 780.490.6705 or by email at Info@SureFireIT.com.

“Data compiled by the Public Health Agency of Canada and Statistics Canada, and crunched by the Liberals, reveal 42 people died in Alberta from the H1N1 flu up to Nov. 14, and 219 in all of Canada (Alberta’s death toll has since risen to 47).

The province’s death rate from H1N1 flu is 11.39 per million people — nearly double the national average of 6.49 and far above that of any other province with more than one million people.

Between April 2009 and Nov. 14, there were 893 hospitalizations in Alberta from the H1N1 flu — the number now sits at 1,042. That amounts to 242 hospitalizations per million people — again, far above the national average of 161 and second only to Quebec among the more populous provinces.”

Go to full article

Find Peace of Mind

With statistics like that, you can gain peace of mind using technology to work from home.  Would you like the ability to stay away from others in the office by working from home?  Let us give you access to your files from the comfort of your couch.  Not feeling so hot and you don’t want to be the one to show up to work hacking and coughing?  Reply to emails from your kitchen table. 

Let SureFire help you, like we have other clients, keep the flu at bay by giving you the ability to function from anywhere you have internet access.  We can make this possible through secure remote connections to your office or by implementing a SharePoint online system.

The ability to access your data from anywhere at anytime is  beneficial past flu season.  If you travel regularly or work irregular hours, flexibility and accessibility is key.  Our client Angelo Décor International says,

“We do a lot of traveling and someone from the office is usually in China, so the web based Outlook  has been excellent, it has been amazing.”

- Chuck Allen, Director of Marketing

To see how a SharePoint site has helped one of our clients achieve access to files whether in their Edmonton or Vancouver office, view our blog  Shining the Spotlight on Collaboration at Anaid Productions

Leave a comment or call our office at 780.490.6705 to find out more about how SureFire can help your office find relief during this trying time.

While some may say that it really doesn’t matter what your OneNotes look like, I think that colour and design help your notes reflect you. Those who use pen and paper notebooks take great pride and fun in selecting just the right book to muse in. They may wander through various shops picking up many different books before they decide that one is what they want to look at everytime they have something to say.

OneNote gives you stylist freedom through Page Templates and assigning colours to the Tabs.

A. Page Templates:

When adding a new page to your notebook, choose what theme or style you want for it by choosing the drop-down arrow beside New Page on the side bar.
From the menu that appears, select Page Templates …
You will find a whole variety of templates amongst the categories of Academic, Blank, Business, Decorative, and Planners.

Example, for students, under the Academic category, there are templates to use for taking lecture notes.

Need to know how to create your own template or to select a default template all the time? Leave a comment and let me know?

B. Customized Tab Colours:

At any point, you can adjust the colour of the tabs to match your fancy or design vision. Simply right-click on the tab. From the menu that appears, select Section Color. A range of colours for your choosing will appear.

Have another great way you customize your OneNote? Have question? Leave a comment or phone the SureFire office at 780.490.6705.

“Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.”

Start sharing whatever you can using OneNote.  For some, this may be a great piece of advice, the visionary thoughts from a leader to a team, or a fantastic recipe.  Your thoughts and musings can be shared in the following formats to others:

By Email:

Choose Share on the top menu options.  You will see the option of selecting “E-mail Page”

This will email the page that you are currently working on using your email program, such as Outlook.  The bonus to sharing by this method is that is does not require the recipient to have OneNote themselves.

Share the Entire Notebook:

Choose Share on the top menu options. In the drop-down list, click Send Shared Notebook Link to Others. An email will pop up that includes a link to the notebook.

Want to just try it out? Microsoft advertises a Free 60-day trial online here.

Do you have questions about using OneNote or tips for sharing your OneNote.  Want to tell us what you share with your OneNote?  Leave a comment.

When you are typing away in OneNote, as you go, mark it up with tags that are easily searched for at a later date.  See the list of possible tags below:

Some great ways to use this:

You are writing your notes during your business meeting when you come across a really great idea someone in the group mentions, mark it as “Idea”

A website that you are using right now but could use in the future to reference could be marked “Web site to visit”.  This could be really useful when you are brainstorming while writing a paper for school.

Make your master household task list to share with the family.  Mark items  as “To Do priority 1″ to let everyone else see where to start from.

Begin your “Bucket List” and tag something as “Book to read”

Then when you need to look for your tagged items, choose Find Tags

Additional Tag Option: Tasks

You can also tag the item to be marked as a task.  This will put a red flag in your OneNote beside the item plus the task is added to your Outlook.

Have you tried this?  Do you have a tip to add for how to use tags?  Want some help?  Leave us a comment or give us a call.

Let me first begin by saying that OneNote is definitely one of my favourite applications I use.  If you can picture one massive coiled notebook that has all different coloured dividers and sections in it, but digitized, you have OneNote.  You can have as many sections to a single notebook as you would like, and you can create as many notebooks as you would need.  All of the information is stored in one place.  For example, I have a notebook in OneNote for my SureFire information.  I have a section for my blog entries, meeting notes, newsletters, specific clients, and just random thoughts.  Within each of these sections, I have as many pages as needed.  Then next to the SureFire Notebook, I have a notebook dedicated to any vacations or trips we have taken.

Some Great Features of OneNote:

• All information is stored in one location
• You can type anywhere you want on the page
• You can draw on the page
• You can link other documents or items to the OneNote
• If you cut and paste an article from a website, the hyperlink comes with it
• Tasks for your Outlook can be created from OneNote
• Easy to find the notes you have created
• You can share OneNotes with others

For more information on OneNote, check out Microsoft’s Product Overview  Want to learn more about OneNote from a person?  Leave a comment or question here or contact the SureFire office at 780.490.6705.