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

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

20 tips to survive the workplace

Guy Browning provides 20 tips to surviving life in the workplace including biodegradable email.

Disclaimer: follow his advice at your own peril

 

Technorati tags: email, workplace, The Guardian, work, office

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

Third of large firms admit their email systems are 'complete chaos'

More than a third of large British companies admit their email management systems are in "complete chaos". A similar number of firms either have no policy or do not know what their policy is on archiving. Similarly, a third do not have plans or procedures for dealing with compliance issues and the need to keep historical records.

Shockingly just 27% archived emails outside of Outlook and 16% don't care about the environment and archive email by printing paper copies!

Two thirds (70%) of organisations admit that content created by employees who have left is not archived appropriately. This is something that we've made really easy in OfficeTalk. Just go into Supervisor mode to users and right click on the user you want to archive. All of their interactions with contacts will still be easily available in searches or in history tabs.

The survey of large companies was carried out by enterprise content management association AIIM.

I suspect a survey of small and medium size businesses and organisations would reveal figures that are even worse. Not only is it essential that you archive your email but you also need to back it up.

Dylan Ambrust, editor of PCW, says that 40% of small to medium size businesses don't back up their data at all. But that's not the alarming figure. The one that you need to take notice of that 60% of businesses that lose data close down within six months and 72% that suffer major data loss cease to exist two years after the event.

If you use WorkgroupMail you should ensure that you've enabled email archiving and you are also taking backups of your data.

tags: email, SME, SMB, small+business

Scobleizer on email and productivity

Robert Scoble, aka the Scobleizer, says he is close to 'email bankruptcy'. He's just had breakfast with Merlin Mann (who writes productivity blog 43 folders) who introduced him to the term email bankruptcy.

This is when you get so behind on your email that you delete everything and email everyone to say "sorry, I got your email but I just can't deal with it/am deleting it, so if it's important email me back."

Luckily this isn't Scoble's idea as it is probably the dumbest productivity tip I've ever heard. Effectively what you are saying to people is that "I'm more important than you, so get lost."

Everyone has to deal with information overload and the worst possible thing you could do is to make it harder for someone else just because you're overloaded.

My tip - Robert should take a day off blogging to sort his email and then switch to using OfficeTalk

tags: Robert+Scoble, Scobleizer, 43+folders, email, productivity, David+Allen, GTD

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

IT Week podcast on employee email monitoring

This week's IT Week podcast (June 7) features advice from James Murray on employee email monitoring. Don't know what he says as I haven't had chance to listen yet but have popped it on my MP3 to listen to later.

Technorati : IT Week, e-mail, email, podcast

Don't take risks with your World Cup emails

Today we've joined in the World Cup fever to issue a warning about the risk to small and medium size businesses if employees circulate video clips of their favourite World Cup moments. Yes it's a shameless bit of self-promotion (although not as tacky as some companies are being!) but has a serious point.

As our warning says top corporate lawyers Baker & McKenzie are already preempting any potential copyright violations by sending warning letters to websites like Boing Boing. And just in case you think your emails will be safe and won't come to wider attention just read this news story about what happened when one of Baker & Mckenzie's own lawyers sent a saucy email.

We've used Del.icio.us to bookmark and share some useful, relevant and helpful web sites related to this topic. You can see our links here or why not subscribe to the RSS feed so you'll know when we update the list.

Of course from our self-promotion point of view the most important link is to WorkgroupMail, our email server for small and medium size businesses which is what enables you to set up filters and block those pesky attachments that might get you into trouble.

This post shows how easy it is to use WorkgroupMail to filter video file attachments.

Technorati : SMB, SME, Softalk, WorkgroupMail, e-mail, email, email filters, email server, small business

Did you know: creating a content filter to block attachments

You can use WorkgroupMail to create a content filter to block certain types of attachment, or alternatively to allow certain types of attachment. For example this is how you block video file attachments:

1. In WorkgroupMail open Administrator and double click on Content Filtering.
2. Click on add to create a new rule.
3. Tick the boxes for 'Check incoming messages' and 'Check outgoing messages'. Click next.
4. Tick the box for 'Message contains specific types of attachments.
5. In the description box click on 'specific types' and then enter the attachments extensions one at a time, clicking 'Add' for each one. You can see a full list of video file extensions here but these are but the ones we are blocking are .avi, .mov and .mpg. Click OK. Click next.
6. Tick the box for 'Quarantine message'. Click next.
7. Give the rule a name and ensure that the 'Enabled' box is ticked.

It's as simple as that.

Technorati : Microsoft Exchange, WorkgroupMail, content filter, e-mail, email, email server, messaging