Let's talk business

Office managers are the real VIPs

Some interesting research by Staples in the US confirms what many of us already knew - that in small businesses many office managers are very important people indeed. Far from being simply responsible for stationery and clerical work, many play a decisive role in areas such as human resources and information technology.

Office managers are definitely important in choosing small business software for collaboration and email, such as OfficeTalk and WorkgroupShare. They can also be some of the biggest beneficiaries as they are relieved of the burden of managing team diaries and multiple contact lists.

via Anita Campbell at Small Business Trends.

Technorati tags: small business, SME, SMB, office manager, Staples, IT, information technology, collaboration, diaries, calendars, email, contacts

SmallBizPod blog has new writers

Alex Bellinger's SmallBizPod podcast about UK small business is always worth a listen. It also has a companion small business blog at SmallBizPod, which should start to get even better as Guy Clapperton and David Tebbutt have both just joined the writing team. Guy is an excellent freelance writer, mainly on small business, technology and Dr Who. David Tebbutt is a veteran IT journalist who is always worth a read.

UK small businesses set to boost IT budgets

Silicon.com's Gemma Simpson reports that UK small businesses will increase their IT budgets by 10.7 per cent in 2007. The top priority will be better ulitisation and analysis of their data.

This is obviously good news for Softalk, as all we do is software for small and medium size businesses. Very soon we'll be announcing a new product that makes it even easier for SMBs to use their data by sharing it more effectively.

If anyone has seen some similar figures from the US we'd be interested in hearing about them. Let us know in the comments. Thanks in advance.

Technorati tags: SME, SMB, software, business, small business, Silicon.com

Urgent need to amend your email signatures

On January 1 the new UK Companies Regulations came into force. The regulations apply to all UK limited companies and limited partnerships with websites and that use e-mail to communicate with customers.

The regulations mean that every UK company now has to list its company registration number, VAT number, place of registration and registered office address in legible characters on its website. The regulation even says that this information must also appear in e-mails and online order forms.

This has always been a requirement on business letterheads but has now been extended to cover websites, electronic order forms and electronic documents including email. Some of this was already implied in the 2002 E-commerce Regulations Act, but this new legislation clarifies it.

Directors of companies that fail to comply face a fine.

You can read the full details of the regulation here (warning - written in legal jargon).

The regulation is as a result of a European law, the First Company Law Amendment Directive, which had to be implemented by the end of 2006. This probably means that companies in all other EU member countries have to do the same thing, although sometimes countries miss the deadlines for implementing EU law.

Later we'll post some quick updates about how to ensure your email signatures are compliant if you are using WorkgroupMail, OfficeTalk or MailDisclaimer.

 

Technorati tags: small business, SME, SMB, OMB, email

Work.com for small business owners

Work.com is a new Web 2.0 site designed to help more than 25 million US small business owners run their businesses. The launch press release says:

"Work.com features unique "How-to-Guides" for more than 1,000 business topics, ranging from start-up basics to advanced management techniques. The Guides are written by business experts who can now share their expertise with others through a new form of "Expert Generated Content" (EGC). Work.com is being launched by Business.com, the leading business search engine and directory."

I'm delighted to add that the Softalk Let's talk business blog is featured as one of the Best Blogs and Forums (well actually the only one at the moment) on the messaging how to guide.

 

Technorati tags: small business, work.com, business.com, web 2.0, messaging, management

Management guru Charles Leadbeater's new web first book on collaboration culture

Management guru Charles Leadbeater has published a draft of his new book on the collaboration culture, called We-Think, on a website and asked for your comments.

This is another great example of how the social interweb is enabling us to do things it was impossible to do before.

That said, it's also a good example of one of the barriers that ebooks face. I might dip into bits of of the draft, but I'd still far prefer to have a paper copy I can read properly whenever and wherever I want. And crucially that I can pass on to a friend to encourage them to read it to. None of the stupid digital rights crap that prevents me from enjoying what I've paid good money for.

I also like the idea of having both a print and digital version. The print one is to read and enjoy. The digital one I will keep and use as an easily searchable reference.

Thanks to Antony Mayfield for the link.

XP: A PR Guru's Musings

Technorati tags: Charles Leadbeater, We-Think, Antony Mayfield, Business, management, collaboration

Rub shoulders with royalty and pop stars

If you run a UK-based family business and fancy rubbing shoulders with royalty or pop stars then the 2006 Prize for Family Business from Coutts (best known as bankers to the famous and seriously wealthy).

tags: family+business, SME, SMB, owner-managed+business

Self-help from an ex-Dragon

Let me stress that this is a personal view (so I don't know if Simon and Stuart at Softalk will agree with me) but my least favourite Dragon's Den star was always Rachel Elnaugh, the founder and former chief executive of Red Letter Days.

It's not that Red Letter Days went bust. That's not actually a bad thing and in the UK there is far too much stigma attached to it compared to the US where it is almost a badge of honour to have failed and picked yourself up to try again.

My problem with Rachel was always that her questions to the entrepreneurs were all a bit - well daft. She appeared to operate on how she felt rather than the facts. My favourite was Doug Richards who gives an impression of someone who knows what they are doing. I used to like Simon Woodroffe as well as he appeared to combine fact and feeling.

That's a long way of explaining why I found this story of Rachel Elnaugh's latest venture to be amusing. I can't imagine anyone less likely to motivate or inspire me.

Email tax: "it's a ******* stupid idea"

IT Sneak reports on a rather refreshing response when it called a 'leading global telco' to find out its stance on the EU's investigation into taxing emails and text messages.

"We tend not to comment on legislation when it is at the proposal stage," said the corporate mouthpiece. "Because what will happen is that the EU will spend two years looking at it and then come to the same conclusion as everyone else: that it's a f***ing stupid idea."

Hey, if they'd asked us we'd have given them the same response. It's much the same as what our PR man Stuart said yesterday in his blog post about the same subject - except he was politer!

Technorati : EU, Europe, IT Sneak, IT Week, Messaging, e-mail, email

EU lawmakers consider taxing email and SMS messages

Reuters reports that European Union lawmakers are investigating a proposed tax on emails and mobile phone text messages as a way to fund the 25-member bloc in the future.

A European Parliament working group is reviewing the idea, tabled by Alain Lamassoure, a prominent French MEP and member of the centre-right European People's Party, the assembly's largest group.

Personally I doubt the idea will get very far. MEPs I know tell me that such working groups discuss lots of ideas that are then rejected in favour of more practical and beneficial proposals. In fact these discussions are the source of many of the straight banana' type Euro-scare stories that appear in popular British newspapers.

Technorati : EU, Europe, e-mail, email, messaging