Let's talk business

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.

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

A blog about dealing with email overload

I've just come across the Email Overloaded blog. It's full of tips about how to manage your in-box better. The tips mainly assume you are using Outlook (so would suit WorkgroupShare users) but many would work with other email clients as well.

When version 4.5 of OfficeTalk is finally released I'll post some of my own tips for using it to manage your email. The reason for waiting is that some cool new features are being worked on which should improve on how I manage my email.

What is a small business?

The US Supreme Court might be just about to tell us exactly what a small business is. Hat-tip to The Entrepreneurial Mind for pointing to this story from Inc. 

Of course it still won't make any difference to the big IT vendors who will still continue to try and sell small and medium sized companies cut-down or restricted versions of thier bloated-enterprise offerings.

The benefits of user forums

I think one of the most useful additions you can make to a product related web site is the provision of user forums.

1. They help create a real community of users.

2. Your customers get to share their experiences with each other, making your website a more valuable support resource.

3. You build confidence in prospective customers that your product has a thriving community of users.

4. They provide a great opportunity to get new ideas and hear feature suggestions from your customers.

5. They can also work as an effective way of polling your own customers for their thoughts and feedback on your own product enhancement ideas.

With great benefits like these, all product related web sites should have a user forum. That's why we've added a set of product user forums to the Softalk web site. You can access them at www.softalkltd.com/forums.

New standard symbol for RSS web feeds

The confusion over how to identify an RSS feed on a web page looks like it might finally be over. Microsoft has announced that it will be using exactly the same icon as is currently used in Firefox. Microsoft will use it in the forthcoming releases of both Internet Explorer 7 and Outlook 12. I've updated the Softalk blog to use the new icon.

If you want to use it on your own blog or web page then Matt Brett has created a vector graphic version that you can download to scale as you need. Matt suggests that you change the colour to match your website. I'm not so sure about that one as I think orange has already started to symbolize a feed - most RSS and XML buttons are orange. At the moment I've left the Softalk one orange rather than changing it to red or blue, but I'll monitor what other sites do.

Hopefully overtime this means all the RSS and XML icons will change and we'll have a single icon that works in any language. Once people start to see it in Explorer and Outlook they'll more quickly recognize it on web pages.

Top 10 most practical blogs for entrepreneurs?

About.com has a list of the top ten most practical blogs for entrepreneurs. The author, Scott Allen, makes it clear that it's a personal list although he does explain his methodology. What do you think? Are those the top ten? Or are some of the best missing?

The ten listed are:

• Small Business Trends
• Just for Small Business
• WorkHappy.net
• Duct Tape Marketing
• Home Office Voice
• Sacred Cow Dung
• The Entrepreneurial Mind
• Escape Velocity
• BizzBangBuzz
• Business Opportunities Weblog

One point that struck me is that they are all American (I think). Aren't there any good entrepreneur blogs from other English speaking countries - UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Ireland or what about emerging economies such as India and China?

Incidentally Small Business Trends moved at the weekend and is no longer on an amateur blogspot address.

Hot new business blog by Caspian Publishing

UK-business magazine publisher Caspian Publishing has started a hot new business blog. The Business Editors is billed as "20 top journalists... 194 years of experience... One blog".

New blog offers hints and tips to solve PC problems

Propellerhead is a new blog that claims to offer hints and tips to solve PC problems. It's a commercial blog by Shiny Media and hopes to make money through clicks on its ads.

AccMan Pro

Freelance journalist Dennis Howlett has started AccMan Pro, a blog that "discusses innovation and change among professional accountants". It's only been going a month but has already clocked up some pretty impressive statistics:

• 3 merchants banks
• 16 practices with more than 10 partners
• 5 practices with more than 25 partners
• 17 individuals deemed the stuff worthy enough to sign up for automatic receipt of postings (timed daily)
• EU Commission (they had a serious dig through!)
• HMRC (at least a couple of their people are looking at this site)
• Readers come from 11 countries (so the issues ain't so local after all!)
• 16% of readers in the US