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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

OfficeTalk 4.5.1 now out

Today we've released OfficeTalk 4.5.1. You can download it from the main Softalk website. Probably the most significant thing about it is that it now has a free single user license. Just download the 30 day trial and it reverts to a single user at the end of the period.

However, we're sure that most people that work in a team will want to register and stick with it .

If you don't know about OfficeTalk it's an alternative to Outlook, ACT! or Goldmine. Its biggest benefit is that it has actually been designed to help small and medium size organizations to collaborate and work together as a team. It provides shared calendars, task lists, contacts, email and project management. OfficeTalk's other big benefit is that it handles contacts properly by associating them with a company or organization. This makes it really easy to update records and you can see at a glance the history and pending activity. 

Softalk's PR company (well actually that's me) has also experimented with issuing a 'social media release' about it. This is a new way of doing news releases or press releases and was pioneered by Shift Communications, a technology PR firm with offices in Boston and California. Softalk and BMA PR are one of the first to use this format and the beta of a new tool called PRX Builder, created by Shannon Whitley.

You can take a look at the release here:

• Softalk Media Center
• PRX Release
• PR Newswire (to follow shortly)

And a more traditional version here:

• SourceWire
• Softalk Media Center

 

Technorati tags: Softalk, OfficeTalk, collaboration, social media release, news, software, small business, SME, SMB, PRX Builder

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

Getting Things Done online seminar on team productivity

If you're a fan of David Allen's Getting Things Done then you should check out his online presentation on 'Best Kept Secrets for Personal and Team Productivity' on Tuesday, October 10, 2006, 1:00-2:00 PM EDT (that's 17:00-18:00 GMT). You can register here.

You might also want to check out Stuart Prestedge's post on Getting Things Done using OfficeTalk.

Thanks to Lifehack for the tip-off.

tags: lifehack, productivity, gtd, software, officetalk, team

18 ways to say focused at work

Lifehacker points to an interesting post with 18 ways to stay focused at work. OfficeTalk makes it really easy to use some of these tips:

1. Write out a daily task list and plan your day. You can schedule any OfficeTalk task simply by dragging it onto your diary. The Activities view is also really useful as it will just show the tasks that are due on the day, week or month that you are viewing.

2. Allocate time slots colleagues can interrupt you. This is where OfficeTalk knocks the socks off the competition. Not only can you easily view colleagues' diaries (if you've been granted permission) but you can also create groups and view diaries alongside each other. Meetings mode will search for free time slots. Makes it really easy to let people know when you and can't be interrupted.

3. Apply time boxing. This is something I've always done, but I've never called it time boxing. Working on something and then switching to something else does keep you fresh and for me certainly helps me to think better. Using OfficeTalk you can mark a task as being partially finished so that colleagues can see where you are on it. We also use the notes field and time stamp to keep a note of what's happening, making it easier for colleagues to update clients if you're not available.

4. Setup filters in your email. Not only does OfficeTalk let you create all of the rules you would expect to filter your email you can also set flags for follow-up or assign a task to yourself or a colleague.

 There are 14 other tips to check out - not all of which I would agree with. For example the 'Do not check personal email in the morning' wouldn't work for me as all of my email accounts go into into OfficeTalk so that I can keep track of all of my conversations and tasks. The history and pending views on contacts are ideal for refreshing your memory before you speak to friends or business contacts.

tags: productivity, collaboration, email, scheduling, calendars

Good new developments in IM but is it enough?

The world of instant messaging is changing but I do wonder if the big players have really "got it". First I see that Microsoft has released Windows Live Messenger. Then Stowe Boyd reports that Yahoo has some interesting ideas in the pipeline for its Messenger. Both sound really good and tempt me to try them.

Except for one major stumbling block - they still don't talk to each other. I currently use Trillian and Skype. My IM contacts are spread across AOL, MSN, Yahoo and Skype (I don't think I know anyone who still uses Google Talk). Trillian means I only need to run the one client. I also run Skype because I use SkypeIn to give me a London and New York phone number.

Text messaging (SMS) never took off until the mobile operators saw sense and allowed inter-network messages. IM can't become a viable business communications tool until the three (four if you include Skype) big players grow up and make it simple to connect with anyone on any IM network/client.

The one feature of OfficeTalk that we never use anymore is Notify. Years ago when I first stated using OfficeTalk it was one of my favourite features but for us it has long since been replaced with IM.

Technorati : IM, Instant Messaging, MSN, Microsoft, Microsoft Messenger Live, OfficeTalk, Skype, Stowe Boyd, Yahoo, Yahoo Messenger

Email is dead, long live email

David Tebbutt has an interesting column in Information World Review in which he predicts the growth of new collaboration technologies such as blogs, wikis and RSS doesn't spell the end of email as many predict. But rather it will lead to the rebirth of email as a person-to-person communication tool - "exactly what it was invented for" says David.

Technorati : collaboration, email

Customer Story: East Aurora School District 131

Aurora is one of the largest and fastest growing cities in the state of Illinois with a population of more than 142,000. It is located in Kane County 40 miles west of Chicago on the Fox River and I-88 Tollway. East Aurora School District 131 is made up of 17 school communities with 11,000 students and 1,300 staff.

Keeping track of staff changes and communicating between the different schools in the district is essential. Before implementing the new solution, the district had previously given hard copies of its staff directory to every one of its 1,300 employees. It became increasingly difficult to update this directory and by the time the hard copy was produced, it was usually out-of-date before they were even delivered. 

Gary Tollaksen, director of instructional technology for the district looked at a wide range of solutions that were available. "We researched a variety of options before finally selecting WorkgroupShare. Other contact management programs we tried always failed."

Gary Tollaksen and the technology team at East Aurora School District 131

WorkgroupShare enables staff to search and find contact details and also access co-employee calendars which has improved the organization and efficiency of the schools. WorkgroupMail also provides a district-wide email solution. "Technical faults have been almost non-existent in the district and on the odd occasion when it has been required to get in touch with Softalk, assuring help was on hand conveniently and quickly," added Tollaksen.

"For Aurora East School District 131 the security of the system is paramount so I'm reassured to say that we have had no security issues at all with this product."

Tollaksen summed up the district's experience of WorkgroupShare by saying, "We are very pleased with this product. The staff that use WorkgroupShare are especially pleased. The ability to update our contacts real time is the major plus for us. We love the product and the new version should only be better."

OfficeTalk wish list

On the OfficeTalk forum there is a post by "an all-time supporter and former distributor" that creates an OfficeTalk wishlist. I thought that this was worth 'promoting' to the blog. Use the comments to let us know what's on your wishlist.

Webrunner's wish list was:

• synchronization with Pocket PC.
• connection to exchange server.
• importing of file structures (complete directories).

My wish list is:

• synchronization with Pocket PC (after years of using a Palm I've just switched to a T-mobile MDA Pro (which is a badged HTC Universal running Windows Mobile 5).
• proper notes similar to those in Outlook - can be very basic and only need categories and ability to have public or private links.
• ability to duplicate projects or create a project template. Many of our projects are the same thing where we have to repeat the same tasks over and over again. The ability to copy an old project structure and then edit it would make this much quicker.
• directly dial contacts using Skype (or other VOIP system) and automatically opening a conversation (caller recognition and opening a conversation would be even better).
• synching/linking OfficeTalk tasks/projects with mind mapping software such as MindManager (interestingly this was one that Softalk joint CEO Stuart Prestedge also mentioned recently in his post on Getting Things Done with OfficeTalk). My projects frequently start in MindManager and its frustrating and time-consuming having to convert all the arms into tasks.

What's on your OfficeTalk wish list?

Why a lot of Web 2.0 sucks!

Some of the whole Web 2.0 thing is great - the social media/networking part.. A lot of simply sucks. The fundamental flaw for me is assuming that people will want to or are able to do everything online.

It might work for the geeks and techno early adopters but out in the real world it ain't going to happen anytime soon. This Techcrunch post about 14Dayz helped highlight it for me. $99 for an online time tracking app! Why would I pay that much for something I can use only some of the time?

Most of us don't live in a world where you have constant internet access. Wifi hotspots still only cover a tiny part of the world and cost far too much.

It's the same for a lot of these cool looking Web 2.0 apps such as Writely, 30boxes and voo2do. If they only work when you are online then they don't work! I want to be able to work when I'm in the park, on a train, in a cafe or at a meeting.

What does work are desktop apps that can be synchronized over the net. It's great to be able to access my calendar, to-do lists, contacts, email, documents etc on the net from any PC but it's more important to be able to work where I want, when I want, on what I want.

For most people in most places web-based apps won't do that for many years to come. The future for me is web-aware desktop (and palmtop) apps.

NOTE: These are my personal views and not necessarily the views of Softalk.