SOHO Solo West Cork

omahonydonnelly January 5th, 2009

Oops… just spotted this languishing in the “pending” queue. Apologies all, especially Ann :-(. (CJ)

OK, it’s December 8th and I feel like I should be out doing some shopping and taking advantage of Clon’s 10-20% off.  In fact I did take some time out this morning to pick up a couple things.  Oh, then an interesting email newsletter came in and I couldn’t help reading it.  Is it lunch time, yet?  Maybe I’ll just put on the kettle and throw in a load of laundry…  You get the picture.

When you don’t have a boss breathing down your neck, how do you keep focused on the tasks at hand?  Two months ago (and a bit) we had a good talk on Time Management and all those things are good, but do you find it difficult to keep from being distraction when you are working alone nearly 100% of the time.  Do have any techniques that you use to help keep you focused?  I have recently picked up a couple (of course, they aren’t really working that well for me at this very minute, obviously, but for the most part…):

- Use your to do list and just keep plugging away at it.

- Set aside specific times for certain tasks. Monday am is my time for admin (invoicing, statements, etc.) Some of you don’t do that during the working day, but I need to.  (I definitely need to schedule my time for my blogging and twittering, or else that will become the biggest time waster of all!)

- Set a target for the day or week (so many sales calls, jobs done, etc.) and give yourself a reward.

- Have a good answer phone/voicemail system and use it.  I only answer my phone during certain hours so that I can avoid distractions from the outside world.  This doesn’t seem to impact on customer service and many know that I run a small operation and expect me to be either on another call, in a meeting or out of the office temporarily.  I make sure to make up for it when I do call by being prepared.

- Never give in to doing personal tasks during work hours — I do break this one occasionally and this is probably my worst downfall.  I use the excuse that the kids need some of my time, but then it comes down to doing personal errands, etc. that really should be done during lunchtime (see below) or on the weekend.

- Be sure to take breaks - lunch and a tea break perhaps.  Sometimes I work through lunch to make up for some other time waster that has come up, but I find I am less productive.  I used to work in a printing company in and admin job, but sometimes I’d work O/T in the pressroom.  In the manufacturing environment they had to have a 10 min break for every 4 hours and a 40 minute break for lunch.  After packing boxes, etc. for a couple hours you really did need that break and you’d find yourself recharged and ready to head back on the line after.  We all should use that as a work model.

- Get someone outside to provide a support (perhaps a SOHO Solo buddy, kinda like Alcoholics Anonymous).  Sometimes I think the problem is procrastination because I have all the ideas going around in my head and no one to bounce them off of.  I had some business coaching and I think that, more than the actual advice, having someone to talk the ideas through with brought energy to them.

I do well with this most of the time, but I do feel like I am losing a good few hours a week — and end up making up for it at night, when I should be concentrating on personal matters.

We all have different working styles and personalities and home living situations, but we all probably have at least one good tip that would benefit us all.

(OK, enough time wasting…..)

Tags: Home Working, self employment, time management

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Calvin January 4th, 2009

For many SOHO Solo’s the web plays an important part in marketing their businesses. Their website is a fundamental part of their operation — the hub of their online marketing endeavours and one of their main opportunities to attract and engage with customers who are often geographically remote.

If you’re one of the many SOHO Solo’s that relies on selling goods directly through your website here’s some good advice from Kim Krau Berg, writing on usability and online user behaviour for the Search Engine Land site. While the start and end of the article are a bit anecdotal and rambling, the meat of it is a series of solid tips for landing that all important online sale.

One of the main thrusts of Kim’s argument is the importance of helping your customers know how to use your site/shopping cart. If you want to secure that sale, then offer them guidance when and where they need it (you can use your analytics package/service to find likely steps in the sales process… but a bit of common sense works wonders too).

4. No guidance, no interaction, no sale.

…is one of the mantras she advocates among her list of usability tips for e-commerce websites.

I’d probably go a step further, and say that as well as offering all of the instructions, guidance and support a customer is likely to need to complete their order, the real key is to build your web application/store to be intuitive and easy to use from the ground up. Have guidance available, sure… but strive to make it unnecessary. Some customers will read instructions, many won’t bother.

Don’t try to be clever with your design — stick to online conventions that users expect and are comfortable with. There are areas for breaking new ground with web user interface design… the place where you’re trying to close the sale isn’t one of them.

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Tags: business, Marketing, Usability, Website

• Web , e-commerce , internet
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Calvin January 3rd, 2009

Welcome to 2009! We all know that this is going to be a challenging year in lots of ways, especially for small and micro-enterprises like the typical SOHO Solo outfit (actually, I don’t think there is such a thing as a “typical” SOHO Solo but that’s a topic for another post :-)), but there are also opportunities out there that SOHO Solo’s are ideally positioned to explore.

One such opportunity is the use of technology to help reduce costs and improve efficiencies – and there are some pretty amazing online services available to help small businesses do exactly that. Over the coming month’s we’ll explore some of them – starting in January.

Our usual SOHO Solo West Cork meeting haunt, the Celtic Ross Hotel in Rosscarbery, is closed – which leaves us venue-less for our January meeting. Rather than hunting for a different venue, I thought this might be an ideal excuse for us to try an online meeting / web conference instead.

We’ll be using Vyew, a FREE Anytime Collaboration and Live Conferencing service. It’s something I think most of us are pretty new to… but let’s give it a try and see what it has to offer. From the little I’ve played with Vyew it seems to have great potential for both online seminar / webinar type presentations and collaborative working. There’s also no need to download and install any software on your computer, it all runs up in “The Cloud” – which makes it quick, easy and convenient to connect and engage from anywhere.

I’ll post more details about our virtual January meeting soon. Meanwhile, check out Vyew for yourself – it could be just one of many online tools that could help your business be more productive in 2009.

Tags: collaboration, online meetings, Resources, tools, Vyew

• Home Working , Meetings , Next Meeting , Resources , Social Media , internet
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Calvin December 25th, 2008

Just a very quick post to say a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Prosperous New Year to all SOHO Solo West Cork members, and to all home workers and indeependent entrepreneurs everywhere.

Don’t forget to join us here on the SOHO Solo West Cork website in 2009 for more small business hints, tips, stories and news.

Enjoy the rest of the holidays… and I look forward to seeing you all again in the New Year.

Calvin!

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Calvin December 18th, 2008

Image by future15pic via Flickr

• Why Social Media marketing may not be right for your small business.
• Tips and a host of useful links on Using Twitter for Business from John Jantsch of Duct Tape Marketing.
• Our usual venue is closed in January, so I’m thinking of holding a virtual SOHO Solo meeting on Vyew…details to follow.
• Roll out the online welcome mats to attract visitors to your small business website.
• Make em laugh…. and your blog will be flying!

Tags: SOHO Links

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Calvin December 15th, 2008

Catching up with my feed-reader after three weeks of forced internet abstinence, I stumbled across a great post by Damien Mulley called simply “And?”. It’s an interesting piece that challenges the Irish tendency to focus on excuses when it comes to starting a business.

Its true… both here and in Britain we’re not short of great ideas… it’s just that we tend to litter the path ahead of us with self-created obstacles to hinder our progress. Instead of focussing on the benefits of pursuing a good idea with drive and conviction, we instead ponder the reasons NOT to do it. We keep churning out the excuses until we find one that resonates, and that’s the end of that.

I have to admit that I’m as guilty of this as the next man. I have so many things on the back-burner at this stage that I’m in danger of snuffing out the flame. A more adept procrastinator you’re never likely to meet. In fact I’m doing it now… working on this blog post instead of the website project I should be concentrating on.

While it is scary striking out into the unknown on your own, I absolutely agree with Damien’s assertion that there’s no better time to take the plunge. Yes times are challenging, but challenging times are laced with hidden opportunity. You just have to be creative and tap into it.

Look at it this way: if you can make a go of your idea during the hard times, imagine the confidence and success you’ll achieve as things start to pick up.

As Damien says in his post:

You can always go back to living in mediocrity, taking s**t from a boss who is flailing about in a bumbling along industry. You’ll have learned more practical stuff in one week working for yourself or in a small startup than you’ll ever learn in a lifetime in that pensionable job.

So go on, make 2009 the year you take the plunge; follow your dreams, and don’t forget, if you happen to be located in South West Ireland join SOHO Solo!

Tags: business, entrepreneur, opportunity, startup

• Home Working , Membership , Networking , Small Business , Soho Solo , West Cork
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Calvin December 2nd, 2008

SOHO Links are now going to be hosted in a more ad-hoc fashion. They will remain a regular part of the SOHO Solo West Cork blog, but rather than appearing every Friday they will turn up as and when the posts are ready.

Enjoy!

• The Irish Internet Association’s (IIA) Social Media Working Group has released a business blogging whitepaper and is looking for comments… take a look and have your say.
• If you’re looking for a way to take a break from work and recharge your SOHO Solo batteries, West Cork is one of the best places in the world to see whales and dolphins, and this is the best time of year to go. What are you waiting for?
• Krishna De talks to Joe Zefran, Head of Internet Development at RTE.ie, about the the national broadcaster’s foray into Social Media.
• Damien Mulley of Cork Based Mulley Communications asks why are businesses so hung up on making a Business Case for Social Media?
• As a SOHO Solo I’m usually home for lunch. Here are a few suggestions on ways to use up that leftover turkey post-christmas

Technorati Tags: SOHO Solo,West Cork,Business Networking,Solo Entrepreneur,Links

Tags: SOHO Links, Soho Solo, West Cork

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Calvin December 1st, 2008

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An impressive collection of international thought leaders in the field of green technology and renewable energy gathered in Cork last week. Their destination, the annual IT@Cork Technology in Business conference, their focus… Green IT: how organisations can use technology intelligently to reduce their environmental impact and improve profits.

There were some excellent speakers at the event – truly world class – and collectively they delivered a sobering and compelling message of spiralling carbon emissions and the pressing imperative for all of us to take action now to reduce our energy consumption at home and at work.

Much of what was said at the conference focussed on using technology like smart meters, intelligent monitoring devices and clever software to reduce large organisation’s energy usage and flatten the electricity demand curve, making supply more efficient. But there were speakers who examined the ways technology can help us to work smarter, to do our jobs more efficiently and effectively.

There’s no doubt that technology is changing the workplace irrevocably. The way online tools facilitate the exchange of information and mass collaboration is having a profound effect on the way businesses operate around the world, and consequently on the way employees do their work — or perhaps it’s the other way around.

One of the most interesting presentations at the conference was by Pierre-Olivier Carles, co-founder of Stonfield InWorld, a French company that specialises in helping businesses to create virtual world solutions to their business problems.

“Virtual Worlds represent a tremendous opportunity to reduce companies’ carbon footprints,” explained Pierre-Olivier. “They will change the way we work, reducing dramatically the volume of business trips, which will not only have a huge positive impact on costs but also on a company’s carbon footprint.”

Virtual worlds are exactly that: three dimensional computer generated facsimiles of the real world. In them you can meet with other people, and interact in ways that are broadly parallel with the way you’d interact in real life. The most well known of these virtual world is the Linden Lab developed Second Life.

In his presentation Pierre-Olivier delivered some compelling examples of how implementing virtual worlds for online training, business meetings and even online retail can deliver significant real world benefits for businesses, reducing their costs, improving working conditions for employees and of course reducing their environmental impact.

For example, a pilot virtual classroom project for the Pyrénées Gascogne division of French bank Crédit Agricole realised a saving of €400,000 per annum in travel costs, improved training efficiency, and saved employees a lot of valuable time and additional stress. A residual benefit of the programme is that Crédit Agricole is effectively future-proofing it’s workforce – preparing them today to use the technology that will be commonplace tomorrow.

The day when virtual worlds are seen as ubiquitous mainstream business tools, when they become a routine component of everyday working life, is still some way off. But with pressure growing on businesses to reduce both their costs and their carbon footprint that day could well be closer than we think.

Tags: IT@Cork, ITC08, Pierre-Olivier Carles, Second Life, Social Media, Virtual Worlds

• IT@Cork , Small Business , Social Media , internet
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Dave December 1st, 2008

ScribeFire Blog Editor

2,680 weekly downloads
2,001,077 total down loads

ScribeFire is probably my favorite blog post editor. I am not alone judging by the figures above from the Firefox download page this week. It functions as my everyday workplace, I open it up to do some note taking when I’m online.

I do have a few issues. Let me explain. (Close your eyes now if you are not into writing blogs or at all technically inclined. This may get a litte messy).
Continue Reading »

Rated 4/5 on Dec 1 2008

Vote on Dave’s reviews at LouderVoice

LouderVoice review tags: blog, editor. software, firefox

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Calvin November 24th, 2008

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Where: The Kingfisher Bar, Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery

When: Wednesday 17 December 2008 @ 12:30 until whenever we finish up….

One of the real downsides of being a SOHO Solo during the festive season is that there’s no company Christmas bash to look forward to. Well, we might not be able to compete with the full on corporate Christmas party, but we can certainly get together for lunch and a bit of festive fun.

So come along, meet up with your SOHO Solo Peers for a festive bite and a few laughs. Because it’s always difficult to gauge numbers I’ve opted for the “everyone order what they fancy from the bar-food menu” option rather than going down the “Set Christmas Lunch” route – if you disagree let me know via the comments or contact form. Also we’re looking for suggestions on SOHO Solo themed festive activities to inject a bit of fun into proceedings… so let us know what you think.

See you there – and yes, the wearing of silly party hats is compulsory!

Tags: Celtic Ross, Christmas Lunch, Next Meeting

• Meetings , Next Meeting
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