Archives for October 13, 2010

Here are 21 simple, cheap/free technology tools that virtually every company or leader can use to help them run the business more efficiently.  And I don’t care if they don’t work on PCs or Blackberries – those are freakin useless so 2008 – move to an iPhone & Mac – join me on the dark side 😉

1. Outsourcing Things Done – This company hires and manages executive assistants based in Manila for people like me.  My assistant Melanel Perez is based in Manila and managed by people I’ve never met.  In fact, they interviewed and trained her for me.  I assign tasks to her weekly, and she cranks through them like a normal assistant would.  We communicate via their company Wiki & Task software as well as Skype Video & email.  Sure beats paying someone $40,000 a year who lives in North America when I can get the same work done for $1,200 a month by her.  She’s got her business degree from one of the top schools over there too.
2. Time Scroller – great free App for iPhone & Widget for MACs that allows you to see multiple cities time zones at the same time.  You just scroll over with the mouse and it shows you when meetings can be set up at times that make sense for people in different time zones, countries etc.  I find this super helpful when setting up conference calls with CEOs that I mentor in Europe, Asia & Australia.
3. Tungle.com – free online application that seamlessly uploads your calendars.  Others wanting to book time for meetings or calls with you simply look at your Free/Busy slots.  All they can se is if you are free, they can’t see any details of the busy appointments at all.
4. Dragon Dictation – allows you to leave a voice message which comes back to you transcribed for you to tweet, send as an email, copy & paste etc.  Works awesome.  It’s free.  And works great in noisy environments too.
5. Duo / TweekDeck – Great Apps to Update your status in multiple places like Twitter, FaceBook & LinkedIn at the same time.  Duo is for the iPhone.  Tweetdeck has both iPhone & free software downloads for your computer too.
6. CardSnap – Great simple app for iPhone to take a photo of a business card.  The data on the business card is then automatically imported into your database using OCR (Object Character Recognition).  For $5 total – this is WAY better than any scanner I’ve used.
7. Automator – MACs have a built in software program that allows you to Automate Tasks – (similar things can be done with a PC).  An example is if you open the same 6 applications each time you start your computer – why not have it set up to open them automatically for you.
8. eLance, Guru, Mechanical Turk – All three are great services for getting miscellaneous admin and technical tasks done by remote casual workers around the world.  If eBay is a place where you sell stuff and people bid on what they pay to purchase your stuff.  These services work the same way.  You simply post your project that you need done, when you need it done, and people bid on what they are willing to do the work for.  You’ll get references & samples of prior work and you can often get work done for 1/10th of what you’d pay a full time employee to do it in America.
9. Skype Video – Why use a telephone to make sales calls or customer calls.  We’ve been waiting for years to play with the technology that we saw on the TV Show The Jetsons.   Now you can use it for free.  Skype video calls are a fantastic way to keep building the relationship between you and your team, clients or prospects.  Something extra happens with the face to face communication.
10. Google Docs – There is no need to keep purchasing software applications like Word & Excel for your employees.  Google Docs gives you these applications for free and IF you need to have something specific you can have one version of the real thing running on a shared computer in the lunchroom.  Why pay for software licences year-after-year when you can get the same tools for free in the cloud.
11. Basecamp – Fantastic project management software.  Simple to use.  Easy to access.  And way less cumbersome than any of the big project management tools companies waste time using.
12. Crowdspring & 99 Designs – These are both great services that many companies could utilize when getting random things designed.  You post your project up and what you’re willing to pay and people from around the world submit designs to you hoping to be chosen.  If you chose them, they get paid.  It’s a great way to use Crowdsourcing to get marketing work done cheaply and quickly.  It’s often as good as anything a normal designer would do for you.
13. HARO – This free service which is called Help A Reporter Out sends you emails daily with writers around North America who are looking for experts to include in stories they are writing.  Its an easy way to grow your brand.
14. LinkedIn – This has been around for over ten years now.  And it’s a great way to get introduced to people you need to talk with at companies.  It is also a great way to read up on potential employees you are thinking of hiring.
15. FaceBook – We all know what it is now, but many are missing the biggest opportunity that FaceBook provides.  It’s a fantastic way to really get to know potential employees or companies you are looking to get affiliated with.  People put a lot of information and pictures of themselves up there which give keys to valuable insights that normally take yeast to learn.
16. RSS Readers – Don’t waste time going to each individual persons blog that you read.  Set up an RSS Feeder such as NetNewswire that downloads all the blog posts for you to one place – and has them synchronized both on your laptop & iPhone.  That way you can read them when you have spare time to kill versus reading them while you’re at your desk and could be focusing on project work.
17. Ambiance – Simple App for the iPhone which plays background sounds at night when you’re on the road, trying to fall asleep in a strange hotel room.  I used it recently while staying at The Driskill Hotel in Austin which is supposedly haunted.  Falling asleep while listening to waves rolling up on shore made sleep easier than worrying about ghosts, or listening to traffic 10 streets below.