9 Hidden Benefits of Blogging

An excellent post by John Jantsch from Duct Tape Marketing on the 9 Hidden Benefits of Blogging. These are some things that you probably hadn’t thought of. It is well worth a quick perusal.

TweetDeck and Twitter

I needed help when I first started to use this utility called TweetDeck to view and consolidate my Twitter feeds. I found a great video tutorial by Rich Brooks at Flyte New Media. Now, I wouldn’t use anything else.

New Meetup Group

I am hosting a new meetup group in Westlake Village, CA. It is designed as a small business forum to discuss technology without the sales hype or the geek-speak. This is a discussion for businesspeople by businesspeople using their language, and mirroring their concerns and goals. It’s called SmallBizExec Tech Roundtable.

Topics that may be discussed include, but are not limited to:

• Trends in Business Technology
• Social Media Marketing
• Cloud Computing
• Internet versus Desktop Applications
• Small Business Advantages
• Mobile Computing Applications
• Secure Your Business Tech
• Finding Reliable Business Consulting

NO SALES PITCHES ALLOWED. Otherwise, industry folks such as computer consultants and web designers are welcome. As long as we share Rule #1.

We meet on fourth Tuesday of every month at 5:30 pm at Vivoli Cafe in Westlake Village for little dinner, a little wine, a lot af discussion and a generous sprinking of fun.

To find out more, go to Meetup.

Small Biz Can Take Advantage of Federal Investment Dollars

Right now, one of the most asked questions that I get is, how can I as a small business compete and win dollars from the government. And more specifically, how can can I get a slice of the big pile of federal investment dollars. I recently asked a question on LinkedIn about this very subject and I got a great answer from Tiffeny Price, a self-employed marketing consultant and previously employed at Cisco as a marketing expert in the SMB market segment.

The answer is yes, and Tiffeny’s blog will tell you how.

Opportunity for Businesses in Ventura County

Naval Base Ventura County is the 3rd largest naval facility in the world. On April 2nd they are holding an open house for folks who have never done work with them in the past. They are going to explain how, who, what and where to do business with NBVC. One of the great innovations has been to give purchasing agents the right to buy up to $2,500 of goods and services locally to solve a problem locally, without having to go through the whole purchasing process.  This event is put on by Ventura County Economic Development Agency. Check out www.vceda.org/documents/0803-triad.pdf

Passwords: Silly or Serious?

I recently asked the question of my Linkedin connections ”how do professionals managed to design a password strategy so that it was usable and secure”. I had some great answers.

Andy Foote’s answer to the password question is worth repeating - ”Take your next door neighbor’s dog’s name, if it is a bitch, start with the first letter, if a male, start with the last letter, add a vowel and the letters ‘eze’ or ‘nuts’ ,and then add the last two numbers of your birth year. Do this every time you move address or the postman gets bitten.”

I like it, but that’s just me.

John Ross and Stacy Sneeden point out that complicated passwords and biometrics are a choice, but complicated passwords are a pain for the users and biometrics are an expense for the SMB. 

Jeremy Lee made the excellent point that humans are horrible random-number generators, and that there is a relatively simple way to provide secure passwords that users will use. He asked “What’s wrong with writing the passwords down?” (as long as it is not under the keyboard). Keep it in a wallet, purse, glasses-case or something else physical and personal. This then becomes a poor-man’s two factor authentication.

Something you know: “Where I hid it, and possibly how it’s recorded”
Something you have: “My wallet”

I love it. It has something the SMB loves (not expensive) and something his users love (not complicated). So I am going to suggest a modified solution that my company (a managed services provider) has been using for sometime.

One of the complexities that faces the SMB is that very often the password change affects the network login, Exchange access, smartphone email, and etc. My company takes responsibility for changing and recording the users passwords for our clients. What we do is to simplify by having a portion of the password that is common to the company that all the users knows (i.e. Acme Manufacturing Co. has all their passwords start with AMCo*).  We then follow this with a 4 digit addition to the passcode (AMCo*1234).

The strength is that the passcode is 1) 9 characters, 2) non-dictionary, 3) has all four types of chacters, and 4) the users only have to remember 4 numbers. The weakness is that 1) it still goes on the bottom of the keyboard, and 2) it is relatively easy to break for an internal ne’er-do-well (but they’re all on the bottom of the keyboards any way).

So why not give out a business card with the number of the help desk on it, and on the back: the date the card was issued (version control) and the 4 digits that the user has to remember. Voila, if there is a problem the user calls the help desk and the card fits easily into a wallet or purse. It is easy for the help desk to issue a new one when your password changes and we get to advertise on it.

Thanks to all input to the article from my friends at Linkin.

Small business doing well… so far.

I fully expected (and still do) that small business in my area would be affected by the general business malaise. For the most part (knock on wood…) they have not.

Although my largest client is now one of my smallest, all of the others have continued to do the same amount of business with us. In fact, the are generally looking for additional tools or savings that technology can bring to bear.

I tested my results at the SMBTN Los Angeles meeting the other night, and had very similar feedback. None of the small business IT professionals were seeing a slowdown at all.

It is extremely gratifying for a small business advocate like I am, to see the resiliency and the fire shown by small business. The question is can it continue with so many employees laid off, and so many enterprises chopping their business. It cannot help but affect small business. Let’s see how small business responds.