A rising trend these days is the integration of a company's Web based marketing - social media and online presence - with their physical operations. As such, many programs have been introduced with the goal of giving businesses a chance to get their name out there. There’s a new online map that’s doing just this: integrating Web and physical presence.

CityMaps is a novel new online map. At first look it appears similar to any other online map: streets, check; transport routes, check; geographic features, check. So, what sets it apart? Well, when you zoom in on a neighbourhood you don’t get a fancy street view, or outlines of buildings, you get a map populated with businesses.

What is CityMaps? Think of those city maps that we’ve all used while on vacation, the ones with restaurants, shops and tourist attractions, and that’s the basic idea of CityMaps. When you zoom in on an area, you will see icons and logos of businesses. Click on one and a popup window will open with the business name, contact information, pictures, related tweets, reviews, and more.

Essentially, it’s a tool to help you plan your next adventure in the city. If you’re out with your friends and looking for a place to go for dinner, you can search for nearby restaurants, look at reviews and deals, and finally: make a reservation, all from the app.

How will this help my business? With social integration, a business like yours can post a special offer on one of the many deal websites, and it will show up in CityMaps as an unobtrusive blinking green dollar sign. If someone tweets about your business, the tweet will show up on the map as well.

This program is a great example of good integration across social media and business. If a review is posted online, it’ll show up on the map. This can also be beneficial to your business as you will get near real-time feedback. CityMaps also encourages businesses to develop and maintain an Internet presence, while giving them a practically free way to literally put their name on the map.

Currently, the map is only available for New York, San Francisco and Austin. There’ll be more cities soon, but it’ll be a few years before every city in the US is on the map. So keep your eye on this program if you’re not in the three cities, as you’ll soon be able to take advantage of it.

If you would like to learn more about CityMaps, or other Web trends, please let us know, we are happy to help.

No matter what industry your business is in, managers and employees will at one time or another need to give a presentation. Presentations can at times scare many employees, causing undue stress and poorly created presentations that could cost a company a key contract.

It’s important that you, that as a manager, you ensure that your employees are creating PowerPoint presentations that are effective. Here are a few tips you can give to your employees to help them improve their presentations.

Simplify and minimize The best presentations are simple and minimal, often shifting focus from the presentation to the presenter. Minimal presentations follow the 6-6-6 rule. There should be no more than: 6 bullet points per slide, 6 words per bullet and 6 slides full of words in a row. Being visual creatures, you should encourage your employees to create slides with engaging and related visuals. A caveat: be sure that you have the rights to use the images.

A great rule taught in business schools across the country is: KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Refrain from using confusing words, jargon, uncommon acronyms and irrelevant information. Keep it short, sweet, and to the point. Following these rules will help engage the audience and hold their attention for a longer period of time.

Be consistent “Consistency is key” - a saying often used but rarely followed in the creation of PowerPoint presentations. You should ensure that grammar and spelling are all consistent, and errors are minimal, if existent at all. Have another employee or manager review it for errors and inconsistencies.

For the slides, use the same background and font throughout. The easiest way to ensure this is by using a template. A word of warning: don’t use templates that are heavily animated because they can cause significant distractions, and don’t choose backgrounds that are similar in color to your font. The best slides have a light color for a background with a darker font for your text.

Summarize The goal of most presentations is to build interest and inform or update the audience. In fact, the majority of audiences just want a short summary so they can develop their own questions to ask after the presentation, or at a later meeting.

When creating the presentation, be sure to keep the audience in mind. If a presentation is being made to IT managers, chances are it does not need to have advanced financial spreadsheets. If you are presenting on a topic that has lots of graphs, extra information, or appendices, put the most important information in the presentation and the rest in a handout. This will keep the audience’s attention on the presenter, not the slides.

Practice, preview, review Practice makes perfect. In an ideal world there would be hours and hours to practice and tweak a presentation. Normally, that’s not true. Schedule at least a comparable amount of time the day before a presentation for a dry run. Always review the presentation with your team and ask them for feedback. This will help encourage employees to keep improving and developing themselves.

For more tips and tricks on giving presentations using Microsoft PowerPoint and other Microsoft products, please contact us.

So much for Spring… Summer is here! It has been a wild ride the last few months. Catalyst has taken on a couple big projects like the ‘Cloud’ project and revamping the way we track issues from our clients and invoice out (called ‘Connectwise’) while keeping our customers’ requests at the forefront. Always a balancing act. It is important that we are serving you, so feel free to let us know how we are doing by sending myself or
Jeny (john@yournetexperts.com , jeny@yournetexperts.com) an email or giving us a call.

A quick update on our ‘Cloud’ project: We are now hosting over 750 users in a set of hardware that is hosted at the Long Lines Data Center (on the Western Iowa Tech Community College Campus). We are working with a software company in Mason City called Dealerbuilt that provides software to car dealers to host car dealerships in the cloud. This has given us the opportunity to see the pros and cons first hand of the Cloud and to financially model how a cloud works. As with most technology, but buzz surrounding ‘Cloud’ generates a lot of excitement, but the actual implementation is not as simple. The techniques and business practices we are learning from this project will benefit Catalyst customers, just as having developed SiouxLAN.com in 1993 helped Catalyst customers with choices about the web.

The Cloud is not touching everyone yet, but it’s impact will grow significantly in the next several years. Having Catalyst as your technology solutions company will benefit you through that transition.

Many of us have had the pleasure of working with the Windows Operating System, more specifically, Windows 7. From time-to-time there is a problem and something stops working. When this does happen, our normal response is to hit CTRL-ALT-DELETE; restart the computer, losing what we were working on, and try to start from where we left off.

It can be extremely frustrating when you are working on an important document, Windows 7 stops working and you’re forced to reboot. Before you restart your computer, here are three useful things to try.

Using the Resource Manager If your computer starts to act sluggish or slow, and is taking a long time to open a program or respond, it may be because it’s taking up a large amount of processing power, forcing other programs you have open or running to use less - this is commonly known as a “bottleneck”. To figure out where the bottlenecks are when your computer is slow is relatively easy:

• Click Start and type: RESMON and select RESMON.exe. A window with all running programs and processes, graphs and tabs will pop up. This is called the Resource Manager.
• Under the Overview tab, you will see a list of programs. Click Status and the programs will be ordered by their status, an easy way to quickly figure out what is working and what isn’t.
• Once you have identified the bottlenecks, you can look for solutions using the Internet or contact the people responsible for your IT. It will make their job easier if you can tell them exactly what’s wrong.

If you want to find more information on why a program isn’t working, click the CPU tab, beside Overview. You will be presented with a dialog box similar to the task manager from XP. Select a program which isn’t responding, right-click on it and select Analyze Process. Windows will run an analysis and try to tell you why that program isn’t working. This goes a long way in figuring out what is happening, and also gives you more information if you have to call your IT team.

If you have a program that has completely stopped working:

• Open the Resource Monitor; click start and type RESMON.
• Click the CPU tab, and the program should be highlighted in red.
• Right-click and press Analyze Wait Chain.
• If there are more than two processes, the lowest one on the bottom is the process that isn’t working.
• Click the box beside it and select End process. The program should re-open.

A word of warning on the Resource Monitor: don’t go stopping programs or processes just because they take up what looks like a lot of processing power. They could be essential to the operation of Windows, and if stopped you could make the problem worse. If in doubt, make a note of the program, search the Internet for more information, or ask your IT department for help.

Open Program in New Process If you are working on an important project and would prefer not to have it crash when another program does, you could start the program in a new process. This essentially creates another window in the same environment. If one crashes, it won’t affect the other. To open in another process, hold down Shift and right click on the program, and select Open in a new window. The downside to this is that it will consume more system resources, so your computer will run slower.

Record Your Steps One neat and underutilized feature is the Problem Steps Recorder. When activated it will record mouse movements and clicks, key presses, folders opened and even take screenshots. When the problem is solved, it will put them all the recordings into a file and email them to you. This is extremely useful if a problem keeps happening, and you have your IT team come in to help. To turn on the recorder:

• Press Start and type in PSR, select PSR.exe
• Press record.

If all else fails, and you can’t fix the problem, then you can try restarting the computer or calling IT. As ever, don’t forget to save your work often, and ensure your data is backed up regularly. If you would like to learn more about Windows 7, or other Microsoft products, please contact us.

It’s hard to find someone who isn’t using social media in some way, or at the very least isn’t aware of its existence. Companies are becoming wise to this and are starting to utilize social media tools to build their brand, or bring in new customers. If your company does not use any form of social media, it may be time to look into getting your business out there.

Social media, once called a fad, has become the norm and is going to be with us for some time. A large number of companies already have an online presence, and are taking advantage of the benefits that social media can bring. Here are a number of things you can do to get your social media adventures underway.

Be Clear on Social Media It’s important that before you start looking into the different forms of social media that are out there, you are clear on what social media is, and what it isn’t. Social media is a way to meet people, and share content and ideas with them. For companies it’s a form of non-traditional marketing - think of it as soft marketing - it’s not meant to be the place where you flog your products, rather a place to develop interest in your company, so people will want to do business with you. By using social media you can show people who your company is, and connect with them on a more personal level. If you are clear on what social media is from the beginning, there’s a higher chance that you’ll be successful when you develop your online presence.

Before You Launch Into Social Media There are a number of things that your company needs to have either already done, or considered, before you jump in:

• Have a website: It’s a good idea to have a solid website with information about your company, contact information, products and services. Most potential customers will look at your website after looking searching for you online, and before they choose to do business with you, so your website needs to provide the relevant information they are looking for. If you don’t have a website, or feel yours is lacking, it’s easier than ever to get a professional looking site. With a quick search you will be able to find some competent designers.
• Get educated: It will be beneficial to educate yourself on current trends regarding social media. This can be done by simply going to social media websites, taking the free introduction tours and reading blogs related to the sites. Beyond that you should also research your competitors’ websites and Internet presence. Observe what content they have online, and more importantly: what they don’t have. It will also help to connect with and observe industry experts, see what they post online, and note the style and tone they use. This will help provide you with a sound knowledge base from which you can then create a more effective online presence.
• Set goals: As with any step in business, you should have a plan with realistic goals. Aim for results that are achievable for your company. If you’re a small, local IT company that focuses on providing support for banks, don’t expect to have the same massive hype that Microsoft and Apple do. Clearly set objectives and review periodically.
• Develop a focus: In real life, you can’t be all things to all people. The same goes for social media. You need to develop a focus on what type of online content you would like to share. You should aim to create content that your customers will want to share with people.
• Stake a claim: You should to go to the main social media websites - Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube - and reserve your personal and business usernames. This is important because it will make you look more professional by having the same username across all sites, and users will be able to find you easier.
• Ask for help if you need it: While some companies make social media sound easy, it can be deceptively hard to master. If you feel lost, or are having a tough time with it, there are knowledgeable consultants out there who are happy to help.

Time to Get Social When you feel you know what direction you will take, it’s time to start developing your online profiles. It can be tough to decide which social media tools to utilize. Unfortunately there is no right answer. Most small businesses follow the crowd, and this means having pages on Facebook and Linkedin. This does not mean that you should join these networks simply because they have the most users. It is recommended that you follow what similar businesses or direct competitors are doing. If they are on one service but not another, do the same to begin with, but be on the lookout for new social media sites, or features being added to existing sites.

One Thing to Not Forget There is one really important thing we can share with businesses thinking of pursuing social media: it isn’t a turnkey operation. You can’t just, “set it and forget it.” To be successful, you need to be active by posting updates, news, and above all interacting with the people who reach out to you. After all, they are your customers. If you do establish your social presence but forget to keep it up to date, you will be the company that’s forgotten.

If you would like help with your social media strategy, please get in touch with us. We’d love to hear from you.

March is almost over, many of the big companies and MNCs have released their bonus figures, tax season is in full swing, the economy is kind of rebounding and people are looking for work. Chances are, your company will be hiring a new staff member or two in the near future. One of the most popular ways is to conduct interviews via VoIP based programs such as Skype and Microsoft Lync. Do you conduct interviews using VoIP?

Let’s face it, there are very few people out there who love conducting interviews. The ones that do, are journalists, the rest of us see it as a means to the end. But that doesn’t mean that you should put interviews on the back burner. Remember, the purpose of the interview is to find an employee that meets your needs and is a good fit for your business. Many of us have watched or conducted interviews over VoIP, and have walked away unimpressed, or unsure of the results. Here are some tips to ensure you get the most out of VoIP while interviewing.

Remember the Rules Many of us have another identity or personality when we are online, it’s common to see people who are usually quiet and reserved in real life become very vocal when placed in front of a computer. This also happens when people conduct interviews online, another personality often comes out during the interview. Remember: even though you are conducting an interview over VoIP, it is still an interview, and as such, you need to follow the same rules and guidelines you would when conducting a face-to-face interview. One of the biggest things interviewers forget when they conduct interviews via VoIP is that you are a representative of your company and its brand, the interviewee will form their own opinion based on what you say and how you act. Adopt your face-to-face interview persona, not the online persona.

Lights, Camera, Office? When conducting the interview it is best to pick a well-lit spot, with minimal to no distractions. Your office may be the one with Nirvana posters on the wall - which is cool - but they’re probably not the best thing to have as your background during the interview. The best spot to conduct face-to-face interviews is in a conference room, so why not conduct the online interview there? If you don’t have a conference room, pick a quiet spot in the office. Wherever you settle, be sure you are comfortable there, as chances are you will be conducting more than one interview.

When you have found a good spot, be sure to turn off your cellphone, or at least put it on silent. Also be sure to turn the various sound alerts on your computer off. Nothing is more annoying to interviewees than being interrupted mid-sentence by a telephone call, or the ubiquitous IM alert.

Test the Tech Before you conduct the interview, ensure you are familiar with the program you are using. You don’t want to accidentally mute the interviewee, or even worse, hang up on them. It is a good idea to set up in the place you are going to be conducting the interview, and check that the internet connection is stable, or if you are using WiFi, that the signal is strong. Conduct a test call with a colleague or another person to ensure that your webcam is working correctly, and you can hear the other person. It is best to do this a few days in advance, so you can iron out any glitches or problems with lots of time to spare.

If a technological mishap occurs during the interview, or you lose your connection, don’t give up and walk away, simply call the interviewee back, apologize and carry on. Better still, establish at the outset that if there is a problem, you will definitely call back. This will ensure that the interviewee isn’t calling you when you are calling them.

The Interview Remember that you are using technology for the interview, and this technology has many useful features, the most pertinent being the ability to record. Being able to play the interview back later if you feel you have missed something, or want to know other employees’ opinions, is an excellent perk to using VoIP. Be sure to let the interviewee know that their interview will be recorded, as it could be illegal to record the person without their consent.

One common oversight by both the interviewer and interviewee is time. It may happen that you need to conduct an interview with someone in another timezone. It’s important to be aware of the time difference and ensure that both parties are on the same page. Also, if you’re in an area that has Daylight Savings Time, be aware that some places don’t observe it, and adjust accordingly. If you know the interviewee is in another timezone, clearly state when you are setting up the interview time, if you mean your time or the interviewee’s time.

Finally, when conducting the interview: be aware of where you are looking. Most programs will have the other person in a large image with you in a smaller image. Look at the image of the person when they are speaking, and at the camera when you are speaking. This is the best way to replicate eye-contact in a face-to-face interview.

When you remain professional and can execute a good interview using VoIP software, you can be sure that the interviewee will be impressed and will want to join your company. Good luck! If you would like to know more about using VoIP for interviews, or other business operations give us a call - we are more than happy to hear from you.

Hey, it's nowhere near the gargantuan status of Facebook or Twitter, but lesser-known Pinterest has a following, and especially if your target market is females, it can be a very versatile and unique online marketing tool – that is, if you use it the right way.

What is Pinterest? In a nutshell, it's something like a social media scrapbook, album, and bulletin board combined. Each interest / theme has its own 'Pinboard' where you put photos, videos, or other media that interest you.

What makes Pinterest unique is its concept, which has been consistently growing in popularity, especially with female audiences. And while Facebook and Twitter are more open to overt advertising, Pinterest takes a more conservative stance. While advertising isn't exactly prohibited, the marketing should definitely be more subtle and more consistent with a personal Pinterest profile. Here are some basic tips that will help you utilize Pinterest to your advantage.

1. Understand your market. The first question you should ask yourself is if Pinterest is something worth your time investment. Since the majority of Pinterest users are female, ask yourself if your products and services appeal to them directly.

2. Invest time. As in many other social networking sites, you need to put a personal and human touch to your Pinterest profile and in the way you interact with your audience. Log in often, update regularly, and respond quickly to any kind of feedback. Let your audience know that you're there.

3. Use other social media to augment Pinterest. Since Pinterest is less known, use your other social media accounts to point people your way in Pinterest, such as Tweeting or updating your Facebook status with your most recent Pinterest profile update.

4. Talk about what you represent. As mentioned earlier, since Pinterest isn't big on overt advertising, you need to market yourself in a different way. Talk about what your brand is all about. What do you represent? What content can you provide that would inspire your audience to share on their own Pinboards? If you're a furniture company, for example, you can try giving some tips on basic interior design and picking the right furniture pieces for spaces, with pictures or videos. What's good about Pinterest is that it challenges you to be more creative, and thus, more appealing to potential clients.

If Pinterest interests you, give us a call so we can discuss how you can maximize this new social media platform for your business.

In late February 2012, Twitter hit 500 million users. This milestone has cemented Twitter as a major Social Media player. With this large user base, companies should be seriously considering integrating twitter with their marketing strategies. Benefits of integration include increased followers, brand awareness, and potentially a better bottom line. Here are some tips for increasing your followers.

Search for companies and people you know While it’s easy to use the search function in Twitter, it can be time consuming to search for people one by one. Instead:

1. Log into your Twitter account
2. Press the # Discover button at the top of the page
3. Press Find Friends
4. Log into the various accounts available
5. Add people as followers

This is a great way to rapidly increase your followers, and reconnect with customers and contacts you may have lost contact with.

Combine your Twitter and Facebook feeds You can combine your Twitter and Facebook feeds easily:

1. Log into your Twitter account
2. Select Profile Settings
3. Select Profile
4. Select Post your tweets to Facebook
5. Follow the instructions provided

Within minutes, your Tweets will show up in your Facebook status, enabling you to reach two platforms simultaneously. Be warned, this could spam your followers, causing them to stop following you - so it’s best to keep your Tweets or status updates to the most important information.

Join Twitter Ads for Small Business This recently announced service will be up and running soon, allowing small business owners to advertise on Twitter through Promoted Tweets. This service will be released in the near future, enabling businesses of all sizes to advertise.

If you are not on Twitter, would like to join, or know more please contact us.

On one hand, social media is simple enough that a child can use it – which nowadays, is happening literally. But when it comes to business and social media, it's a different ballgame entirely. Sadly, this concept is lost on many businesses, who unknowingly commit all sorts of mistakes that actually hinder growth, rather than help speed it up.

Social media is booming. Since its introduction a few years ago, social media platforms have not only changed the way people connect on the internet, it's also changed the way business is done. When applied correctly, it's a cost-effective tool that helps businesses connect with a much larger audience and client base, as well as potential clients. That is, however, IF it's used properly.

One common mistake businesses make is the failure to draw the line between personal and professional. While showing a human aspect of your business isn't bad at all, doing it too much makes you less consistent as a business entity and makes followers or audiences lose touch of what you're really about.

Another common error is the failure to handle bad feedback correctly. More often than not, one negative comment can balloon into a full blown argument that will only give people an even more negative impression about you and your business. While you should acknowledge even bad feedback, more detailed discussion should be done privately and only between the parties concerned.

Social media is not a "set it and forget it" kind of thing. You need to constantly update and monitor your social media platforms so they don't become stagnant. People will be more encouraged to follow you on Twitter or visit your Facebook page if they have something new to look forward to every once in a while. Make sure, though, that you don't post too frequently – or worse, fall into the trap of making it too promotionally-driven, which comes across as self-serving and impersonal.

If you're interested in knowing more and drawing up a comprehensive and effective social media plan for your business, please don't hesitate to contact us so we can discuss things and better respond to any issues or questions you might have.

Have you heard of the term Unified Communications before? Curious as to what Unified Communications is all about? Read on to find out what it is and what it can do for your business.

Because of continued improvements in technology and changes in the way people work, we now have a multitude of options to communicate with one another. This can be both a boon and a curse, as not only do we have to learn and master a variety of devices from which to communicate—but also contend with an equal or higher number of forms with which to communicate. For example, not only do we make a phone call to talk nowadays, but we also chat, text, tweet, post, like, poke, huddle, share screens, do white board sessions, and more. We can do all of these whether on the desktop computer, laptop, netbook, tablet, desk phone, mobile phone, TV – and soon maybe even from the kitchen refrigerator! Not surprisingly, people have started looking for ways to tame and simplify all of this complexity—and thus was born the concept of "Unified Communications."

Unified Communications, simply stated, encompasses the organization of different communication tools and models so that it can be used and managed in an integrated way, with the goal of improving flexibility, efficiency, and effectiveness. To illustrate the benefits of Unified Communications, here are some examples of how it can be used in several business scenarios:

1. Have a "single number to call" or a simpler way of reaching people. Instead of remembering and sharing a phone number, IM handle, email address, twitter account, and more, you can have just one number or address by which people can reach you—and systems will bridge that with whatever device or application your Unified Communications happen to be on or you prefer. So you can easily have calls placed to your desk phone routed to your mobile phone when you are out, and have voice mail emailed to you as a recording in case you can't answer.
2. Reaching people when you need them. If you are working remotely, or managing remote workers, Unified Communications systems can indicate your or your colleagues' location or "presence"—i.e., whether you or they are available at the normal location, working remotely, or out in the field.
3. Synchronous or asynchronous way of working. If you work with people in different time zones you can opt to conference when your schedules overlap, or swap messages that can be answered at their convenience if they don't —and be able to track and tie all of these together.
4. Richer collaboration. If you work on projects, Unified Communications can allow you or your team to get in touch and collaborate in a richer and more interactive way. While working on a project you can chat, switch to voice calls for better clarity, or conference via video to provide more context, as well as share screens for easier collaboration—all from a single screen or session.
5. Application integration. Imagine if you had the ability to call people from your email application's address book, or initiate a web conference from your instant messaging tool. With Unified Communications that is all possible.

Unified Communications may sound expensive and complex, but in reality it can actually lessen costs and make things simpler for you and your business. Learn more about Unified Communications and what else it can do to improve your business by contacting us today.