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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

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

Top ten fastest growing software company

The blog has been a bit quiet recently because we're all so busy preparing for an exciting new product launch. The tech team are burning the midnight oil to get the coding finished, while I'm working away behind the scenes to get ready to let customers and prospects know all about it.

In the midst of all this we were delighted to find out that the 2006 Deloitte Technology Fast 50 has ranked Softalk as the eight fastest growing software company in the UK and the 35th fastest growing technology company overall.

You can see the official news release in our media center.

 

Technorati tags: fast50, fast 50, Deloitte, technology, software, UK

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

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

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

Did you know: assigning tasks in OfficeTalk

If you are lucky enough to have someone to delegate to, then OfficeTalk provides a great way to manage tasks that you assign to other people. Tasks may be entered into either your personal task list or added to an OfficeTalk project, which is a Gantt view of related tasks. In both cases you can assign tasks to other OfficeTalk users or to anyone with an email address.

When you assign a task to someone, they receive an email containing a description of the task and any instructions that you have added to accompany the task assignment. If you assigned the task to an OfficeTalk user, the task will automatically be added into their task list as soon as they have opened the email.

Now here's the cool thing: OfficeTalk will automatically track any changes made by the assignee to the completion status of the task and will display the status on the original task in your task list, or in the OfficeTalk project. It even works for non-OfficeTalk users. They simply reply to the task assignment email, specifying whether they have fully or partially completed the task. This means that you can assign a list of tasks to various people and then just sit back and watch the tasks as they get worked on and ultimately become marked as completed or become overdue. 

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