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

Softalk Organizer 1.5 and WorkgroupShare 2.1.4

Softalk Organizer 1.5 and WorkgroupShare 2.1.4 are both now available for download from our website.

Major changes are:

• Now fully compatible with Internet Explorer v7 and Mozilla Firefox
• Spellchecker
• Significant performance improvements

For full details please see the Softalk Organizer release notes or download it here. See the WorkgroupShare 2.1.4 release notes here or download it here. There is also a new how to for upgrading WorkgroupShare.

Technorati tags: Softalk, WorkgroupShare, Softalk Organizer

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 It became increasingly difficult to update this directory and by the time the hard copy was produced, it was usually out-of-date before they were even delivered.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."

Customer Story: Pipestone Veterinary Clinic

Can you guess what this is? Are you any wiser if I tell you it's a Baby Burdizzo? Probably not. Brace yourselves gentlemen because it's used for bloodless castration. Softalk hasn't decided to diversify it's actually one of the products sold by Pipestone Veterinary Clinic, the second in our occassional series of customer case studies.

Pipestone is a good example of the diversity of customers that we've got and if you want a break from looking at technology web sites full of software and PCs then take a look at Pipestone's site where you'll not only find the Baby Burdizzo but also emasculators, hoof shears and ram harnesses.

Pipestone Veterinary Clinic has a large base in South-western Minnesota and performs many traditional veterinary services and also manages several livestock producing companies. It has been in operation since 1943 and has 450 employees who are "helping the farmers of today, creating the farms of tomorrow." It also supplies a wide range of innovative products to livestock farmers including tools for docking and castrating as well as a 'LambCam' to remotely monitor sheep during lambing season by using a web cam.

With 450 employees and three different sites it became increasingly difficult for the staff to work as closely together as they had when Pipestone was still a small local business. One of the things they wanted to do to improve communication and save time was to share contacts and calendars. Pipestone initially looked at Microsoft Exchange Server.

"We outsource our email so it wasn't worthwhile for us to invest time and money in Microsoft Exchange Server. It was too expensive for our needs, both to initially buy it and the resources in time and hardware to configure it and keep it running," explained Terry Huber, Pipestone's Network Administrator.

"We initially found Softalk by using search engines. Installation was easy. I was up and running in less than an hour. We now have three servers that support fifty users that needed to be able to share contacts and calendars."

Softalk has built a solid reputation of excellent customer support and Terry has first-hand experience of this: "I had to call support one time and they were good to deal with. Helpful and friendly, they got to the bottom of the problem in no time at all."

"It's hard to express how truly easy this was to setup. My users immediately started using it so there was no 'learning curve' for them. I would recommend this product to any company looking to share contacts or calendars between users but that doesn't want to spend big money on Microsoft Exchange. By using WorkgroupShare we saved thousands of dollars."

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.

Customer Story: Industrial Acoustics Company

Welcome to the first of what we hope will be a series of customer stories, looking at how different companies and organisations use Softalk's products. The first is the Industrial Acoustics Company (IAC) in New York. We chose to profile IAC first not only because they are longstanding customers but also because Hal Schlesinger was the very first person to comment when we started the Let's talk business blog!

Industrial Acoustics Company

Industrial Acoustics Company (IAC) is the world's leading acoustic engineering company and its achievements range from designing and installing advanced digital recording studies for the BBC to developing, manufacturing, and installing a light rail acoustical barrier system for the Santa Fe railroad in the USA. IAC is headquartered in New York and has subsidiaries in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Denmark.

As IAC had grown it made a significant investment in traditional mainframe computer solutions using an IBM AS/400 for payroll, finance and stock control. This reliance on mainframe technology made it difficult for IAC to adapt to the rapid changes in technology and in particular the need for email throughout the company. When IAC first introduced email it was restricted to sales staff and senior management who were given individual ISP accounts using dial-up analogue phone lines. This was expensive and didn't provide a company wide solution.

Hal Schlesinger, IAC's MIS director, said: "We looked at using the AS/400 email solution but it proved to be difficult to use and manage. So I started searching the internet to review what other software products were available."

IAC eventually decided to use Softalk's WorkgroupMail and WorkgroupShare. This provided IAC not only with a company wide email solution but also enabled it to start using Microsoft Outlook to share calendars and contacts between different members of the team.

"Installation of both products was straight forward, we just downloaded them from Softalk's website and followed the wizards to install. Basic installation was a breeze although I'll admit we did have some trouble with the anti-virus plug-in for WorkgroupMail, but Softalk's support was superb and they quickly sorted it out for us," explained Hal.

"It was then quick and easy to roll out the clients for our users and they were able to easily embrace their new communications ability. The great support provided from Softalk meant that our IT department felt they understood the product so were able to support our end users. We didn't need to pay for or take time out for courses either."

Hal finished by saying: "The performance of WorkgroupMail and WorkgroupShare is very good for our purpose and I like the way it's constantly being improved. I feel Softalk has listened to our ideas and I believe that some of them have even been incorporated into the latest release. I recommend Softalk's software without hesitation."

US small businesses optimistic about 2006

Management Issues reports that US small businesses are kind of optimistic about their prospects in 2006 in that they expect to hire more workers and pay them more money.

More than two thirds - 68 per cent - expect to grow faster than they did in 2005.

Small businesses need to think about how they integrate new workers into the team. Big businesses have formal induction processes and expensive team building programmes to help them create productive teams. Small businesses often don't have the time or resources to create fancy handbooks but that doesn't mean they don't need to do some of the same things.

Collaboration software such as Softalk Collaboration Suite, OfficeTalk or Softalk Organizer is only part of the jigsaw of getting your team to work better together.

You don't need to spend a fortune on expensive team-building programmes. How about volunteering to do some useful in your local community? Get the team out of the office to help decorate a community room for older people. Or help some youngsters to clean-up the local park and maybe paint the railings.

Volunteering is great for helping your team bond and what better way than helping people in need? You get a kick out of it and so do the people you're helping. It doesn't need to cost a fortune and you could consider spending the money that normally goes on corporate holiday gifts and cards.

If you don't know how go about it then try contacting an organisation such as Business in the Community (UK) or United Way (USA).

Eighty working days lost to inefficient office practices

I'm currently drafting a series of news releases to announce the launch of Softalk Collaboration Suite. As part of my background research I came across this interesting news release from BACS Payment Schemes Limited, the organization that handles automated payments and related services for the UK banks.

It reveals that British employees are losing up to 80 working days every year as a result of inefficient office practices. Predictably the number one time wasting culprit is technology which can waste up to 48 minutes a day. However, the most interesting figure for me was the 34 minutes a day wasted in dealing with colleagues. Much of this is doing simple things such as trying to set up an internal meeting which without a product such as WorkgroupShare (part of Softalk Collaboration Suite) or OfficeTalk requires a lengthy game of email or telephone tag.