by Tom Williams on January 8, 2010
in Companies
You know what one of the best things about owning your own company is? Flexibility.
Many of you who don’t know me well have no idea that I have a 5 year-old boy, a 3 year-old boy and a newborn little girl at home. In addition, I help to chair the AMA SIG on Social Media and the Columbus MBA Club, volunteer my time every Wednesday evening to work with kids, sit on a few boards…you get the idea.
Owning my company gives me the flexibility to bend my work around my life. Today I had breakfast with my family, took my son to school, worked from home in the morning, ran across town for meetings and now I’m at my office at 7:30 pm. Tomorrow will be different. Flexibility is critical.
Software isn’t much different than life. Software that forces you to bend around it is like being stuck in that 8-5 job. You lose flexibility and control. When you are forced to bend your business to fit the software, something is wrong.
http://www.scottberkun.com/
The sad thing is much software is like this. You know, those multi-million dollar ERP systems that require an entire consulting firm to install and configure? You then spend the next six months reworking how you do business to fit the software. As you grow and change, the software doesn’t change with you.
Now I suppose that’s fine if you plan to stay exactly how you are. Be sure not to innovate or try new things, enter new businesses or change your processes to be more efficient. Just keep on doing things the way you always have and that big clunky software you bought will do just fine.
Otherwise, you may want to invest in that small firm who knows how to bend around you and grow with you. Just a thought for the year 2KX.
Tagged as:
agile,
big software,
Blogging,
flex,
flexibility,
SaaS,
software
Some people still say “social media is a fad”. In fact I have heard several individuals say they will not advertise or spend time on social media marketing because they do not think that people use it. They think it’s for teenagers to chat with each other after school. But new reports are showing this “fad” is now being seen by business and marketers as a way to influence brands and build their relationships with customers.
According to a new report from The Nielsen Company, in August 2009, 17 percent of all time spent on the Internet was at social networking sites, up from 6 percent in August 2008. And the marketers are well aware of this. Estimated online advertising spend on the top social network and blogging sites increased 119 percent, from approximately $49 million in August 2008 to approximately $108 million in August 2009. Most industries are seeing a surge in advertising revenue this year.
Year-over-Year Percent Change in Online Advertising Spend by Industry (U.S., August 2009)
|
Estimated Spend on Top Social Network Sites*
|
Year-over-Year Percent Growth
|
|
Industry
|
Aug-08
|
Aug-09
|
On Social Network Sites*
|
On All Sites
|
|
Entertainment
|
$1,097,700
|
$10,012,800
|
812%
|
40%
|
|
Travel
|
$473,700
|
$2,198,200
|
364%
|
-11%
|
|
Business to Business
|
$683,400
|
$1,941,700
|
184%
|
-8%
|
|
Automotive
|
$1,110,200
|
$3,085,800
|
178%
|
-26%
|
|
Health
|
$1,131,500
|
$2,754,900
|
143%
|
8%
|
|
Web Media
|
$11,231,800
|
$26,855,700
|
139%
|
30%
|
|
Software
|
$526,400
|
$1,202,500
|
128%
|
-29%
|
|
Financial Services
|
$3,233,900
|
$6,415,900
|
98%
|
-10%
|
|
Public Services
|
$6,836,500
|
$13,203,100
|
93%
|
13%
|
|
Telecommunications
|
$12,449,500
|
$23,550,300
|
89%
|
-1%
|
|
Consumer Goods
|
$1,913,400
|
$3,349,200
|
75%
|
8%
|
|
Hardware & Electronics
|
$654,000
|
$1,022,900
|
56%
|
-47%
|
|
Retail Goods & Services
|
$8,101,400
|
$12,556,800
|
55%
|
-12%
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Source: Nielsen AdRelevance
*Estimated spend on social networking sites is based off of data for the top ad-supported member community sites ranked by unique visitors in August 2009
To read the entire News Release from the Nielsen Company, click here.
Tagged as:
advertising,
Blogging,
Blogs,
brand,
marketing,
software
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