So what is Under Cloud?

While the web is a deeply connected shared space, the relational structure of any web page lies in the hands of the authors and not the reader.

What I propose is a web application that allows the reader to create relationships between web pages that goes beyond the hyperlinks within the very web pages they discover and read.

By allowing the reader to create annotated relationships between those web pages they find, they then build a referential catalogue of interlinked web pages that builds towards a store of not just meta data, but meta information, organized chronologically.

Additionally, because this is a social web application, people can share their store of collated, curated and annotated web pages with friends, colleagues and family, or everyone else.

So that’s Under Cloud, in simple terms. However, having had the chance to share my ideas with Keith Evans of CIDA yesterday, Under Cloud clearly has potential, and that potential is clearly as an assistive aide to those performing research.

Under Cloud is a working web application, but it’s essentially just a fancy way of bookmarking web pages. Over the long term, the aim is to turn it into a substantial venue for aggregating and sharing research, either publicly or privately.

And to that end, I have a few choice questions to ask. First of all, a few disclaimers — Under Cloud will:

1. allow you to bookmark web pages, add tags, as well as link to other related web pages.
2. not assist in the actual process of finding research materials.

Dear researcher…

You, and what you do:

• What kind of research do you do? Such as industry, for example.
• Do you conduct pure (basic) or applied research?

Doing what you do:

• What is your present workflow? In terms of process, procedures, software et cetera.
• Do you collaborate in a team, and if so, how do you share things?
• What (if any) mobile technologies do you use to assist in research? Such as a mobile phone, camera, dictaphone or dictation software, notes software, for example.

Sharing what you do:

• What kind of documents do you use in your research? Either as an aide, or as actual reference, like web pages, PDFs, spreadsheets or photographs, for example.
• Thinking about your research once complete, how do you present that body of research to the intended audience?

In an ideal world:

• What would be your ideal workflow? Thinking about collating and storing your research materials, including notes, as well as the web pages you’re bookmarking and the documents you’re using.
• Again, assuming things aren’t ideal, what would be your ideal way of presenting your research? As as example, perhaps in the form of an interactive discovery tool, sharing your findings via a web presentation, or within Microsoft Office.

Please reply to the above questions as a comment, and if you wish your opinions to be kept private, please say so in the actual comment.

DirectGov is a portal-cum-directory for a whole slew of government services, initiatives and resources. What I see is a start, but there’s much, much more that can be done. Fortunately for us, Miss Fox appears to agree.

Hmm, still wondering what I’m talking about, I see. Before reading any further, you might want to have a squint at my primer on web applications, whereupon all will become clear!

By way of an abridged background, British-born Fox, founder of Last Minute, the leisure travel website, managed to retain her government advisory role, surviving the General Election defeat of the Labour Party who brought her to table in the first place. Contrast that with the departure of business “Tsar” Lord Sugar. But that’s politics, and Sugar is a Labour man, which probably explains everything.

Championing the web application, sort of

Anyway, Fox has reviewed the DirectGov collection of web-enabled services, offering several recommendations. That aside, what’s most interesting about this whole review, for me, isn’t the review itself, or even DirectGov for that matter. And the less said about the politics the better. No, what’s really interesting is that the whole idea of web-enabled services — henceforth referred to as web applications — have been pushed into the unblinking gaze of the public eye, and that of many a politician, too, I no wonder.

For a company like Octane, this is crucial, because this room to breath helps legitimize what I do for a living; which is designing and developing web applications.

At some point, the hope is that the conversation won’t start with the question: “So what is a web application anyway?” but with: “So I have all this data, fifteen members of staff divided across three different locations and I need them all to be able to manage that data. Can you do that?” Well of course I can! But right now, that conversation is some way off, and I have to scramble through that explanatory briar patch before I get to the aforementioned money question.

How does this raised awareness help you?

Good question. Firstly, at the governmental level at least, over the next few years, more and more of your transactions will be on-line. Everything from accounts being filed with Companies House, to VAT returns to Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs. I’m already doing this kind of thing, but there are many of you who aren’t. More crucially, your accountants probably aren’t, either.

Anyway, as time passes by, you now get the whole web thing. In time, you’ll understand the difference between a website and a web application. You’ll begin to realize there’s money to either be saved or made, and that has very direct impact on your business.

So the conversation then changes. More resources become available, more businesses like me enter the fray, and services emerge, allowing you to do things over the web that were unthinkable just three years ago, all without costing you too much money.

Your expectations are now higher because you appreciate what can be achieved, and what your business can achieve, via the web. You reap the rewards of your curiosity, just like Premier UK Venues did all those years ago when I built To Book for them.

How does a web application help save money?

Miss Fox recommended the Conservative-Democrat coalition party move a third of services onto the web:

“Shifting 30 per cent of government service delivery contacts to digital channels would deliver gross annual savings of more than £1.3bn, rising to £2.2bn if 50 per cent of contacts shifted to digital.”

So how does that work? Well, in different ways. Especially if you compare print to a web page:

“She contrasts the process of applying for a student loan, which ends with the printing out and signing of a 30-page document, with the simplicity of booking a flight.”

The fact is, print costs a lot of money. The cost is divided several ways. Firstly, there’s the initial production, which is unavoidable, irrespective of the media, then there’s the design phase, actual print and then finally delivery. Then there’s the re-prints, which becomes a constant cycle. Clearly there’s a huge argument for going paperless, which I’ve discussed previously, and is doable for some.

Work smart, go web-based, save money

Are there any other ways in which a web application help save money? To answer that, I must quote myself:

• Automating business processes saves you time
• Increased work capacity
• Reduced data errors, loss and duplication
• Work more efficiency
• More accurate data entry
• Save money over time (greater ROI)

In conclusion

Getting a big-up from a big industry name like Martha Lane Fox won’t happen often, so it’s up to people like me to make the most of these moments, when awareness is raised and people are just that more curious, or educated.

But these are curious times in which we live in, and right now, in spite of the hardships many are likely to endure, Octane is getting along nicely. All of which is rather prophetic really, given my earlier thoughts on how a web app’ can save a business money during a recession.

Aside from me whoring what I do to pay the bills, the core aspect of what I’m driving is that you can adopt the same perspective as myself — by striving for the precision of thought and vision to take a good long look at what you do and remove waste and refine what remains, wherever possible.

Don’t ever become complacent and believe that what you’re doing is the best you can do, there’s always room for improvement. Just ask Martha Lane Fox.

What inspired me to start a business?

The question posed by StartUp Donut prompted a reply from me, but I soon started to wander off-topic, meandering into the minutia of the why and the when. So I reigned in my thoughts and decided to put them all here, on Octane.

To answer the question, I just wanted to be the master of my own destiny. The thought of working for someone else simply wasn’t (and still isn’t) in the least appealing to me.

In the beginning…

Originally, the intention was to start up Octane with a couple of guys from college, but things just didn’t work out that way. I was, in many ways, forced into the decision by circumstances largely outside of my control.

At the time, I was working in Leeds, as a new media designer, which entailed designing and building interactive CDs, web design and elements of video and 3D production. The first 3 years were excellent, but then the last 6 months became utterly intolerable. I still don’t know what happened, but something had clearly changed in the guy I was working for. In the end, I had to go.

In hindsight (which is always 20-20 vision), I should have looked for employment elsewhere and built up my network. But I didn’t. I should have waited until I had someone who could partner with me to handle the sales and marketing. But I didn’t.

At the time, web design was very, very new. So I was striding straight into a completely new market, with all the perils and potential you’d expect. And even today, what I do is still widely unknown and new to many.

I also saw a lot of confusion on the part of businesses, business owners and marketing managers, who weren’t quite sure what the whole “web thing” meant. And inside that moment of perfect confusion, a circling swarm of web design agencies were visibly preying on the the confused and the bemused.

From the very beginning, I was determined to, firstly, do things my way, and secondly, to do things right by everyone I did business with, and to be as honest as necessity would allow, without harming my self in the process. That mentality and philosophy stood me in good stead, and I began to win the respect of not just clients, but of those other agencies who, over the coming years, would see me as a constant in an ever-changing industry.

So from 1999 to about 2004, I was more a fireman and a trauma councillor than a web designer — intervening in emergencies and then tending to the people burnt by one disaster or another. While that earned me a solid reputation and won me a substantial amount of referral work, selling directly was extremely difficult because I was guilty by association and constantly walking through dirty water.

The first 10 years really didn’t hit home until after the event, sometime in late June of 2009. Again, in hindsight, I ought to have done more to celebrate the occasion, but things were hard for everyone I knew and the moment just slipped by. But I did manage to scribble together a few thoughts on my time running Octane from 1999-2009:

“There have been trials. There have been tribulations. I’ve survived everything from the bursting of the Dot Com bubble to the current global economic downturn.

For any business to last ten years is a major milestone. But for a web design agency, I breath very rarefied air, shared by few others.”

A special kind of hell.

Running your own business is a trade-off between control and stability, and it’s a trade-off I’ve been a willing participant of since 1999.

I see so many businesses and business people fail for so many totally avoidable reasons, many of which are as a result of poor decision making, over-reaching self interest, an inability to say “no”, and a lack of vision and objectivity.

Conversely, a lack of success is not always the presence of those things, but an absence of good fortune and an array of friends and colleagues to assist wherever they feel able to. Those early decisions to go alone have proved to be instrumental in my relative confinement as an individual and not a team.

But the thought of giving in and working for someone else, to be beholden to their politics, and having to be a witness to all of those bad things is to me some kind of purgatory. I simply could not stand being a party to and being expected to be a participant in a failure of thought and deed, when I know for sure there are better and more viable ways.

“Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven” — Paradise Lost, John Milton

The future of Octane?

Right now, the future of Octane looks very bright! I’m presently working on a number of large projects, which I fully intend writing about in due course. Rather than tease, I can tell you about two in particular.

Qwiktax started out as a relatively modest bookkeeping web application, but has since grown into a more mature, feature-complete accounting package, designed to allow small businesses to manage not just their bookkeeping, but employee payroll, fixed assets and VAT, as well as view on-going trading results, loans and profit & loss accounts. So far, we’re making good progress, but there’s still much to do before it’s complete and ready for general release.

To Book is an existing web application that is to be re-designed and re-developed, taking it to version three. In simple terms, To Book is an accommodation management tool specific to the needs of one particular business. To Book 3 will be a generic system, which we can sell to just about anyone who wants to take control of their event management needs. To Book 3 will be, by far, the most ambitious project I’ll have undertaken so far, and I just can’t wait to get going. Right now, we’re moving through the various agreed stages of the project plan, having signed off the initial wireframe designs and flow diagrams, I’m now moving onto the actual design stage proper.

Here and now…

So, all in all, there’s much for me to look forward to and exciting times ahead. With winter just around the corner, and all of the attendant festivities in tow, there’ll be no let up for me, but that’s business!

Image credited to Flickr and Amythyst Lake.

StartUp Donut — What inspired you to start a business?

I hate filling out forms. I may have an allergy to paperwork. So much so, I often go to extraordinary lengths to avoid paperwork myself.

I rarely work hard. I work smart instead. You may find me toiling over something for a while, only to discover that over time, I’ve made a saving in some way. So I’m always on the look-out for novel ways of doing boring things faster and more efficiently. Going paperless falls slap bang into this area, but it’s not been easy.

Why go paperless?

But that’s not the only reason I wish to go paperless; email is much quicker and simpler alternative to sending a letter. And then there’s the green argument, which is entirely justified, too. Even though I’ve been working towards going paperless for years, the reality is much different to the imagined.

While I very rarely send a letter to anyone these days, I still get lots of written correspondence, especially from government agencies, like Her Majesty’s Revenue & Customs, as well as Customs & Excise. Then there’s the junk mail, which is annoying to say the least.

3 reasons to go paperless in the office

To a greater and lesser extent, I have to make concessions, sacrifices and some extra effort to keep the paperwork to a minimum. And here’s three reasons why you should try running a paperless office:

1. In your own small way, you’ll be helping the environment. So if you’re a big company and you manage to make the transition to electronic communications and document management, you’ll be making an even greater impact.
2. Save valuable storage space. I have clients who dedicate entire rooms to filing cabinets and storage boxes. Imagine being able to recover all that space and use it for something more worthwhile.
3. Going paperless also means going electronic, which means things should be much easier to store and find. I emphasize the word “should” because unless you have a good idea of how you want to store your company data, you’re just as likely to lose a file on your computer as you are a letter on your desk! So unless you have the right processes in place, you won’t feel the full force of the savings a paperless office can offer.

What kind of things can you do electronically?

There’s no point going paperless if you’re not aware of the very things where going paperless will have the greatest impact on your business. So here’s a few places where going electronic will pay dividends over time.

So here’s some ideas, with suggestions for alternative ways of doing things, depending on what the idea is and what it involves.

Internet banking

My internet banking offers a wealth of options for managing my business finances. I can view my account, see next day payments, settle invoices, transfer money between my various accounts, as well as view all of my previous bank statements and much more besides.

I’m in the process of adding my accountants to my internet banking account so they can handle all of my finances, keeping my involvement to a minimum. There are also other savings to be had here, such as less time spent traveling to and from their offices, as well is the calls between the two of us as we try to track down that one lost bank statement.

Submitting your VAT and filing your company accounts

You can now file your VAT on-line. I’ve now authorized my accountants so now I don’t even have to sign anything. And once they get access to my internet banking, I doubt I’ll have any involvement at all.

It’s been possible to file company accounts to Companies House for some years. Slowly but surely, the various government agencies are getting their act together and moving onto the internet.

Manage your projects and time sheets

I wrote my own software some time ago to help me manage my projects and to keep track of my work time. But in the end, I ran out of time to add the kind of features that I needed. In the end, it was cheaper to buy a 3rd party application than spend my time updating my own.

So I bought Daylite and Billings. I’m a Mac, not a PC. So unless you own a Mac, Daylite and Billings are no good for you. However, there are tons of alternatives out there.

Daylite is CRM (Customer Relationship Management) package with some solid project management tools thrown in. I use Daylite to manage all of my client projects, emails and events, and more. Billings in a time tracking and invoicing tool.

They’re both from the same company, which means they work quite closely together, so I can shunt tasks or entire projects into Billings from Daylite.

Here are alternatives to Daylite and Billings for PCs, and here’s some earlier thoughts of mine on project management.

Make notes of meetings and telephone conversations

When I make calls, I often make notes of what was discussed, especially if it’s a lengthy call to (or from) a client. Daylite is great here because it has a calendar built right in. So all I do is double-click on the approximate time in the day cell of the calendar and up pops an event window. All I need to do is add in what was said, by whom, when and for how long for. I bypass paper all together.

Send and receive emails with PDFs, not letters or faxes

So once I’ve completed a project and the client is happy, I send an email containing a copy of the invoice as a PDF file. Billings gives me the option to print the invoice, or save it as a PDF. As a backup, I save all of the PDFs to a special folder, so I have copies available.

This is applicable to anything, really. If you use a Mac, you can “print” any document as a PDF from the print window, which is a huge bonus. Again, make sure you have a good storage policy in place so you know precisely where your documents are.

You can even send and receive electronic faxes. I’ve been using You’re Always Connected for years. You get a number to use for either voicemail or faxes. Now, all of my faxes come through as emails with the fax attached as a PDF. So if the fax is from a client, I just move it to the client folder in my mail client. Simple.

Buy ebooks rather than a printed books

Thinking of buying a book to learn something new? Many publishers are now offering electronic alternatives which you can buy on-line and download right there. In many cases, not only are they cheaper, they often include bonus tools and other extras. If you really, really must, you can make a hard copy — and if you really, really, really must print a copy:

1. make the type size as small as possible, without it being unreadable;
2. make the margins as wide as possible, without loosing anything;
3. if your printer supports it, do a duplex and print both sides, and if not, do it by hand.

Use your iPhone as an ad hoc route planner / alternative to maps

Going to a meeting for the first time? Planning on using Google Maps to plot your route and then print it out? If you have an iPhone, use the Maps app’ and then use it just like a GPS for your car.

You get all of the benefits of Google Maps, such as a turn-by-turn route planning, and it even shows you when you’re in motion, moving along the road.

A better workflow

Sadly, there isn’t one application that will scoop everything up and make all of your paperwork suddenly vanish. You need to commit to a slightly different way of doing things. I’m not going to fool you into thinking this is simple because it isn’t. You need to sit down and workout your workflow and make it more efficient. If you have a team, then it’s a team effort.

As an example, I wrote a web application for a client, which took their system of pen, paper and Excel and transformed it into an app’ called To Book which automates and manages almost all of the hotel room booking process, from initial request to confirmation of reservation. Here’s some ideas for making your company workflow paperless:

• There’s no getting away from the fact that at some point, you’ll still be using paper. So when you do (be it a print out, or a doodle), use the clean side for making quick notes, and then when you’re done, recycle it.
• Having the right software is paramount, especially when it comes to notation. You need to be able to launch that app’ fast and make notes quickly, especially when someone calls you on the phone. So make shortcuts to those applications and ensure you can export your notes into something else, like your CRM software.
• When it comes to software designed to deal with customer data, for example, try to standardize across the business, so everyone is using the same tools for things like notation, calendars, office productivity etc. This way, it’s much easier to synchronize and share your data.

Here’s an article of mine (as a PDF, funnily enough) discussing ways of making your workflow more efficient.

Use web-based office productivity software

Here I’m thinking of Google Docs, but now Microsoft are getting in on the act with Microsoft Docs. You can create and share spreadsheets, presentations and text documents with clients and colleagues wherever and whenever. Also, you can sort and store your documents in colour-coded, named folders, which will help make managing you digital assets that bit easier.

And then there’s Google Wave, too. Wave is a word processor with some added smarts. Several people can type into the same document at the same time, which has some truly amazing side benefits, especially for brainstorming. Also, there’s a visual revision history tool, so you can skip backwards and forwards through the different changes that everyone has made, should you (or anyone else) make a mistake or wish to go off in a different direction.

Here’s some ideas of mine on how to make the most of Google Wave.

Use document management software

Chances are, you’ve got thousands of documents that you can’t just send of to be recycled. Besides, you may still need them. So what do you do? You need a document management system. Essentially, a document management system contains the scanned versions of all your printed materials.

This does depend on the kind of document management software you’d be using, but the process typically involves some kind of OCR, which stands for Optical Character Recognition. Which means? Once scanned, you can search your documents as if they were word processed files. In fact, that’s exactly what they become.

So that room filled with shoulder-high filing cabinets can be squeezed into a modestly sized external hard drive, with room left to spare.

Thoughts from the community

“Fujitsu Scansnap scanner, industrial shredder, eFax, Instapaper on iPhone. Paperless office sorted.” — Sally Church of Icarus Consultants.

“I find using Evernote removes the hassle of paper notes. Plus, it also allows you to keep notes sync’d across devices.” — Simon Barker, owner of Zath, the tech & games blog.

“A good place to start going paperless is invoicing — much easier and cheaper to produce and send out PDFs instead of printed forms.” — Brian Heys, freelance software tester.

“Scan your signature, paste it into your documents and email back contracts. Sign up for electronic billing wherever possible. Tick the ‘don’t pass on my details to third parties’ box at all times. Always choose email / text / phone as preferred contact method and not postal mail. Sign up for something like EchoSign so that you can get e-signatures. think before you print, usually you just don’t need to. Cancel newspaper subscriptions, and read news on-line, or get a subscription to Factiva / Lexis Nexis for comprehensive electronic access to the news.” — Emily Cagle, communications consultant.

“Forget business cards connect using LinkedIn (simply typing in a public URL).” — Joe Edwards, designer and marketer for Hurricane Marketing.

“Make a list of all the crap publications you get and wipe them out [unsubscribe], all of them!” — Jon-Marc Creaney, architect and designer.

Conclusion

Hopefully, we’ve managed to fill your head with no end of new ideas. But if you’re already running a paperless office, we want to hear your ideas!

Image credited to Flickr and Luxomedia.

Saturday saw England lose to France in the Rugby Six Nations. As is often the case in rugby, when the attacking side gets close to the try line at the base on their opponents half of the field, all fifteen men are often gripped by “white line fever”. The parallels between business and sport are often lazily made, a cliche almost. But there they are none the less.

And so it is with those businesses easing themselves into the realm of social media management — they chase down the business behemoths and ignore the rest. But is that where the money is?

Earlier, I was to be found reading through a list of social media management systems. Yes, content management systems are now passé, apparently. Although I do well enough from them, as a web application aspect of Octane.

But, here I am, making lazy comparisons with sport again. First it was football and professionalism (no longer two words that are happy bed fellows, in light of the recent bed-hopping indiscretions of Messrs. Terry and Cole) and then it was football and questionable antics on LinkedIn, of all things.

So what is a social media management system?

Since SMMS is still relatively new, the standard features are still subject to change. That aside, here are some of the core features you’d expect to see.

Manage your social media profiles — Much like a content management system, a social media management system is about aggregating a particular kind of content. In this case, profiles for social media websites and social networks.

So, after you sign into your new SMMS, you’re presented with the option of granting access to your Pages on Facebook, Twitter accounts and YouTube Channels.

Create and share content — Like any marketing campaign, your efforts need to be coordinated, possibly across a team, across time zones, different languages, in addition to the various social media channels.

Analyze and measure engagement — All of your furious industry counts for nothing if you don’t know what happened to all of that great content you’re creating. So here’s where comments, clicks, votes, sentiment and distributed discussions are pooled and analyzed, helping you put a pounds and pence value on your investment.

All eyes on the prize

The list of social media management systems is concise, but sadly, the emphasis in most cases is on the enterprise prize at the expense of every other business, which prompted me to comment thusly:

There appears to be a mad dash towards the enterprise (a noble venture, assuming they have the time time and money to stick out the sales process through the myriad departments they’ll have to navigate), with hardly a look over the shoulder at the vastly more populous SMEs / SMBs who would be serviced and served just as well.

After all, if it wasn’t the case that small-to-medium sized businesses were being neglected in the social media gold rush, I would never have written my ebook, The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media, which wouldn’t have been downloaded well over a thousand times, and I would never have picked up new clients via social media as a result.

Whatever the reasons, these guys have their sights set on the enterprise. Perhaps it’s at the behest of their investors. Who knows. Either way, there’s a gap in the market, an opportunity for someone to develop a social media management system for the masses of businesses out there not in the Fortune 500 list, who don’t have a fleet of private jets, no international offices, nor a politician sympathetic to your cause.

Look at it this way, just the one client worth £30k a year might look better than ten clients worth just £3k. On the face of things, managing one client would appear to be simpler. But if you had to lose just one client, which would prefer; one worth £30k or one worth £3k?

So as I stand, looking across the field of play, the prize is staying true to the strategy, being mindful of the be-suited potential suitors in the executive box, but keeping in mind the goal of creating a genuine crowd pleasing, seat filling spectacle for years to come.

Image credited to Flickr and Jessica.

Your ideas are your most valuable assets, even if you don’t realize it. But even a great idea is nothing if not acted upon. Sometimes, it’s necessary to share an idea, to make it real, but there are hazards to sharing ideas; you’re effectively giving them away.

“Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason so few engage in it.” — Henry Ford

Crucially, it’s all about how you share an idea. And the best way to share an idea is to sell it to someone. No, I don’t mean to put a price tag on it and then hand the idea over once they’ve paid you, although that’s not a million miles from what happens in the end.

When I say sell, I mean to pitch an idea, as in to a client. A client will come to me with a problem, or a set of problems, and I’ll have a think about how I could fix those problems as quickly, efficiently and cost effectively as possible.

As was the case with the To Book hotel booking application I developed for Premier UK, when I came up with a very efficient way of processing bookings that kept the user on one page, minimizing the number of actions (and by extension, the number of clicks) they had to make.

The client calculated that using this one feature often shaved off between 30 and 60 seconds per booking, which is a massive time saving when you’re dealing with hundreds and sometimes thousands of bookings.

Would you like to know more about web applications, or perhaps you’d like to know what a web application is? Read on to find out more.

Protecting your ideas from theft — the big tease

Clearly, this is a very valuable idea, but it’s an idea that only really worked within the context of the web application itself, although I’m sure someone could easily replicate the idea elsewhere.

The thing is, once you come up with all of your clever and innovative solutions, the trick lies in how you pitch those ideas as features of something much bigger.

You want to say just enough to tease them with the benefits and the potential for cost savings, efficiency etc, but not give them too much information that they could go elsewhere with your ideas, leaving you out of pocket.

Using project management to profit from your ideas

For a business like mine, the up-front innovative thinking is a legitimate cost centre; one that requires your valuable time. But it’s hard to put a cost to those ideas up front, so you’re best bet is to recover the time from within the execution of the project itself, over time.

But the challenges are still present, even once the project is underway — what’s to stop a client committing to work, you spending a month implementing your ideas, and then having them walk away without paying a penny? This is why you must break the project down into key stages and charge based on the completion of those stages.

By doing this, you’re financially insulating yourself and at the same guarding your ideas. Typically, I’ll withhold the major ideas until later in the project, but this does depend on the client.

Would you like to know more about projects and payment planning? Read on to find out more.

Balancing your ideas — protection against exposure

Ultimately, it’s a balancing act. On the one hand, there’s your ideas and your natural urge to protect them, and on the other hand, before a client is prepared to make a decision, they need to know what that idea entails.

A good relationship with a client is always going to be the more ideal start to any project, but even that is no guarantee. So do you consider some kind of contract? Many businesses think this kind of formal arrangement will scare a client, but I’ve found many appreciate the effort and understand the potential protection a contract offers.

Those that dislike contracts might not be the best client to get involved with; are they really all that trust-worthy if they squirm at the prospect of putting their name to a mutually protective contractual agreement?

NDA (Non Disclosure Agreement)

You could also consider a NDA, or Non Disclosure Agreement, which could work within a pre-existing contractual agreement, and be applicable to a specific project only.

A NDA is essentially a brief that often contains commercially sensitive and very specific technical details. The purpose of the Non Disclosure Agreement is, as it’s name suggests, to ensure you do not disclose anything outlined within the agreement to which you’ve put your signature to.

IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) contract

Let’s imagine you need to use a third party to help out, perhaps providing programming services. Also, the client has come to you with a NDA, which you are obliged to sign. There’s a chance that during the course of the project you and your third party:

• could be providing intrinsically new methods / ways of accomplishing certain activities;
• as well as using code used elsewhere, from within previous projects of your own;
• and perhaps using commercial code for specific functions.

In these situations, you need to draw up an outline of who owns what aspects and which parties are entitled to do what with the various parts of the project, and perhaps for how long. If the client is willing to fully compensate you for your efforts, then fine.

However, if there are portions of code in there that belong to you or someone else, then some licensing arrangement may be required.

So the purpose of an Intellectual Property Rights contract is basically to protect the rights of your work, otherwise referred to as IP, or Intellectual Property.

Final thoughts

All of the above are personal / professional experiences of my own, drawn from over ten years of being in business. And as is the case with anything that involves contracts and signatures, it’s best to speak with a qualified legal adviser first, to ensure you’re using the right language, and that your agreements are enforceable, should either party break them.

Above all, don’t be put off by the pit falls and legal machinations. Just keep your mind open and those ideas flowing. You can always deal with the legalities later on.

Image credited to Flickr and Leff.

Automated versus Manual processing

A few weeks ago, a client of mine asked me if I could automate the processing of a list of data. I asked her to send me the list. In total, there were just over 30 items. My advice was to just process the whole thing manually. She wasn’t pleased, but worked her way through the list.

I’m a PHP developer, which means I can write all kinds of things for the web — everything from a simple scripts that automate response forms for websites, right up to full-blown web applications, that process vast amounts of commercially sensitive data.

So, depending on the circumstances, I can write small scripts to batch process things like lists. My client knows that I’m a programmer, which is why she asked about some automatic way of processing her list. But the thing is, I had to invoke Smallman’s first law of energy conservation:

“1st law — If you’re dealing with a single array (or column) of data that’s less than 100 items, do it manually. Beyond that (more than 100 items, or a list of multiple arrays), automate it, so long as it’s possible to do so in a fraction of the time it would take to process the list of data in its entirety manually.”

But my laws don’t just apply to processing data, they also apply to images / photographs, for example. Adobe Photoshop has some excellent batch processing tools.

Let’s say I have 10 images that need resizing, given my experience, I could probably do them manually in the time it would take to set up a batch process in Photoshop. But let’s say I have 10 high resolution images that need re-sizing, their colour profiles changing from RGB to CMYK, and then saving as JPEGs. At that point, it’s more than likely I’d save some time automating the whole thing — especially if there’s a chance of me repeating the process at some later date.

This is where I’d have a conversation with the client, asking them if there’s a chance I’d be repeating this process at some point.

Write once, process many times

Even though you’re solving a problem (not just for yourself but you’re client), it’s not the best way of spending your time. So even though you’ve automated a process, the client is still coming back to you with Microsoft Excel files or emails full of photographs, asking you to process them all.

Here’s where I take my automated process and turn the whole thing into a small web application, where the client can do the processing themselves:

“2nd law — If there’s any chance that an automated process will be repeated, give the power to the client (write an application or script) and let them process their own data.”

Of course, this might not apply to digital imagine processing, although there are ways of doing this, but the cost become prohibitive.

By handing the power to your client, you’re adding value to your service. At the same time, your time is freed up to do more meaningful things. By all means, charge the client for the effort you made handing the power to them, but make sure you explain the cost savings they’ll be making over time.

Let’s say the client needs to change the data in a table on a web page. Initially, I’ll do this manually. As time passes, the table gets bigger, with more columns. At some point, it’s just not practical for me to do this manually any more. This is where I write a script that allows the client to upload a .csv file and upload the table themselves.

A problem shared is a problem out-sourced

Have you ever been asked to do something that’s either right at the edge of your skill set, or just plain out of reach? Of course, it’s tempting to swat up and try doing it yourself. And good on you! However, in the meantime, there’s a deadline to meet, on top of which, are you actually making any money doing this?

“3rd law — If in performing an activity that’s not a core service you’re likely to lose money and / or exceed a deadline, out-source the work, or delegate to someone with the requisite skills.”

If this is something totally new to you, and it’s got an appreciable learning curve, there’s a better than average chance you’re not making a profit. Also, there’s no guarantee the quality will be sufficiently high enough to meet the exacting standards of your client. Worse still, you might not get the work done in time.

Of course, choosing to out-source or delegating the work to a colleague is no silver bullet, so it’s all about selecting the right person to execute the work for you. In the end, it’s better to get the work done right and on time than not at all.

If you think there’s a good chance of there being more of the same work in the future, there’s a good argument for learning on your own time and getting good enough to take the work on. But that’s your choice.

Working smart and not hard

I see so many people squander huge amounts of time, it’s unreal. They might feel they’ve done a good days work, but working hard is not nearly as rewarding as working smart, so long as you do it right.

If you’ve got your own tips for working smart, feel free to share them here…

Rather than discuss the wider aspects of more commercial high-end web applications from the likes of Microsoft, SAP or Seibel, I’ll instead concentrate on the general aspects and features, giving you a broader overview of what a web application is.

What’s the difference between web applications and desktop applications?

The most fundamental difference is that you won’t have to install a web application onto your computer — nor will you have to double-click an icon to start it!

There are several key differences between a web application and a desktop application:

• As mentioned, you’re unlikely to install a web application onto your computer.
• Because a web application exists (is hosted) on the web, you can access them from almost any location where you have access to an internet connection and a suitable web browser.
• Most web applications allow for teams of people to work together, sharing the same data & information.
• Software licenses are often more flexible than their desktop equivalents; modest “per seat” licenses or no license fees at all.

What are the advantages / benefits of a web application?

Certainly from a business perspective, having a web application written specifically for your business means you’re unlikely to be paying for features that you don’t want, as is often the case when you buy off-the-shelf application software like Microsoft Office, for example.

Assuming you’re having a web application developed for your business, the advantages / benefits of a web application are:

• When you have a web application developed for your business, your needs are being addressed specifically.
• By automating key business processes, you and your team can save valuable time.
• Far greater work capacity, so you can commit to higher work volumes without increasing working time.
• A web application should help towards reducing data errors, loss and duplication.
• The potential for much higher efficiency across any / all business processes that have been automated by your web application.
• A web application will free up valuable computer resources, allowing key staff to work remotely.
• An increase in the accuracy of data entry and manipulation.
• Measurable cost savings over time (greater ROI).

There are also a number of differences that can be considered disadvantages:

• While web application software is now very sophisticated, certain standards that govern the way a web page is assembled and viewed by the web browser means there can be inconsistencies between the different web browsers, in some cases even leading to a web application simply not working at all.
• Since web applications exist on the web, they may be vulnerable to attacks and exploits that could compromise sensitive commercial databases and customer details.
• If your internet connection is faltering, or the host is experiencing issues, you may not have fast or complete access to your web application.

Some of these negative factors can be mitigated to some extent, but it is impossible to remove all of the issues completely.

Testing a website or web application

Any website or web application should undergo rigorous testing stages to ensure maximum compatibility with the web standards and the web browsers you anticipate are most likely to be used by your users.

Reducing security issues

When developing a web application, there are number of standard programming methods and guidelines that can significantly reduce the likelihood of a successful intrusion, possibly compromising sensitive data.

What’s a typical web application?

Almost any kind of desktop application can be turned into a web application (given enough storage space and bandwidth), with the addition of the advantages outlined previously.

Typically, web applications for SMEs (Small-to-Medium Sized Enterprises) would be:

• Job ticketing, auditing, billing and invoicing.
• A CMS (Content Management System), for managing web pages for a website, or a corporate network.
• Selling products / services on-line (more often referred to as e-commerce).
• Managing digital assets like video, audio and photography.
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.
• Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems.

How does a web application work?

The application itself exists on a web server, which is essentially a computer used specifically for hosting (or serving) web pages from websites, or in this instance web applications.

Unlike a website, there are no web pages as such (certainly not in same way as a website), although you will move from one web page to another, those web pages are often virtual, in the sense that they are created instantly for the purposes on a particular task.

A typical web application will:

• Have a sign-in screen, with accounts for each user, each user in turn may (or may not) have different permissions to access different parts of the web application.
• Because the principle function of most web applications is to manage data, it is common for the user to be entering data into form fields, or otherwise managing previously entered data.
• Once the data has been processed in some way, then that data (or digital asset) is often exported out in some other fashion.
• This manipulation of data may be in the form of reporting, data analysis, generating charts & graphs, or simply saving the data for use in Microsoft Excel, for example.
• If it is a requirement that the data processing be shared amongst a team of people, it may be a requirement for there to be some form of reporting and annotation, so that each user can explain to or receive reports from other users, relating to their activities.
• There may also be the need to send reports or other notifications via email from within the web application itself, to a client for approval, as an example.
• In the vast majority of cases, a web application will save the most if not all of its data to database of some description.

Are web applications cost-effective?

In the short-term, a web application will most likely be an expensive commitment, both for the initial planning stage and the subsequent development of the application itself, but offering a superior ROI (Return On Investment) over the long-term.

Additionally, to ensure that the web application itself meets with the specific requirements of those who’re going to be using it most often, a commensurate commitment of time is required by those parties, to outline their needs in detail to the developer.

In conclusion

As the internet deepens its penetration into our personal and professional lives, permeating our living rooms and our offices, we demand ever more agile and flexible tools.

Also, being on the move is no longer the barrier it once was. With the help of mobile devices like the Apple iPhone, RIMs BlackBerry and other smart phones, we can work from almost anywhere, wirelessly in some cases.

However, all of this flexibility counts for very little if our business requirements are held hostage by inflexible software that doesn’t meet our specific needs.

In time, as the cost of mobile communications continues to fall, coupled with ever more inexpensive software development tools and hosting fees, web applications will become more and more common place in businesses of all sizes — businesses just like yours perhaps?

Related articles

• How a web application can save your business money in a recession
• Will your business survive the hardening economy?
• 8 free must-have internet tools and applications for your business

Octane can help your business maximize profitability by reducing costs through automating tedious and complex tasks.

Right now, business owners all over Britain are looking at 2009 as a year of change. Many businesses are going to struggle, which is sadly inevitable. The question is a simple one: will your business survive the hardening global economy?

Building on your strengths and removing weaknesses

Many businesses have their own routines and their own ways of doing things. Microsoft Office is good to a point, but businesses need more flexibility.

Certain aspects of their business processes are automated, some are paper-based. It’s when one of those processes moves from computer to sheets of paper, and then back again, that things become difficult to measure, even harder to quantify and innumerable errors creep in.

This need not be the case. This is where a custom-built web application picks up where Microsoft Office et al and sheets of paper stop short of fulfilling their business needs.

By automating as many of their processes as possible, we remove most, if not all, of the traps that snag businesses, ruin productivity and invite error.

You, the innovator

I will sit down with your whole team and invite a candid, honest discussion, detailing specific needs, at the end of which, I’ll be equipped with an intimate knowledge of how your business functions. From there, we as a team will develop an outline of the ideal solution to your business needs.

• Bespoke software specific to your business
• Access your software from anywhere location
• Secure and private access
• Completely automate specific aspects of your business
• Track, measure and analyze your data

Your business. Your needs. Your solutions.

• Automation saves time
• Greater work capacity
• Reduced data errors
• Increased work efficiency
• Increased data accuracy
• Cost savings over time (ROI)

I can really help your business possibly save thousands of pounds over time, freeing your team up to be more productive elsewhere in your business — where it matters most…

On offer are web applications and internet tools specifically chosen for business people who’re on the move and need to make the most of their time, with the least expenditure of effort.

Google Local Business Center

Think of all those times you’ve gone onto Google and searched for: “car repairs Sheffield”, or: “plumbers Oxford”, and then you see the map to the left with a list of results to the right.

Here’s a chance for your business to get itself some free exposure, so the next time someone does a search for what you do in your area, you stand a great chance of being found. Pay a visit to the Google Local Business Center. If you don’t already have a Google Account, get one, sign up and add your company’s details for your free listing:

“Use the Local Business Center to create your free listing. When potential customers search Maps for local information, they’ll find your business: your address, hours of operation, even photos of your storefront or products. It’s easy, free, and you don’t need a website of your own.”

If you want your business to be found, a little search engine marketing can go a long way.

Facebook

Facebook might not seem like the obvious choice for a business tool, but there’s so much to Facebook, it’s difficult to ignore the potential.

Facebook even has its own advertising tools, which I’ve heard good things about. But it’s a must for you to know your target audience before spending a single penny, or every penny you spend might just be wasted.

Then there’s the Groups and Pages, which you can use to create a simple presence for your business, if you don’t have a website, or even if you have! The benefit here is that people can join and follow you, leaving messages and befriending you. Also, you can send group messages to all your followers, much like you would if you were making an announcement.

Facebook is also (as you might expect) a really good way to gather all of your family, friends, colleagues and clients into one place, keeping everyone up to date with what you’re doing, where you’ve been et cetera.

There’s no doubting the enormity to Facebook, but I really would recommend you persist and reap the rewards.

For those who’re new, TechRader offer an short introductory guide to Facebook. Also, if you’re totally new to social networking and social media, then I recommend you read my free ebook: The Beginner’s Guide to Social Media.

Google Docs

Yes, yet another Google tool. Trust me, this collection of office productivity tools are an excellent adjunct, or depending on your circumstances / needs, a replacement to Microsoft Office.

Google Docs consists of 3 applications; Documents, Presentations and Spreadsheets. As you can see, there’s an obvious correlation between Google Docs and Microsoft Office, which will no doubt ease the transition.

You can even open existing Word, Powerpoint and Excel files using Google Docs, as well as saving out / exporting as those formats, too.

The major benefit here is that you can access your documents from anywhere there’s a web connection. In addition, you can share your documents with colleagues, all editing the same documents at the same time.

Want to know more? Then have a look at the Google Docs guided tour.

Skype

If you’re serious about reducing your phone bill, then I highly recommend using Skype for voice calls and video conferences. If you know of anyone else using Skype, you can call them direct, either by voice or video for free. However, you do need a broadband connection to make the most of Skype.

You’ll need to install Skype onto your computer and register with them for a username. You can also get yourself a number, as well as buy credits to make calls to fixed land lines and mobile phones.

It’s worth mentioning that international calls are appreciably cheaper than with most mainstream providers, so it’s ideal for cross-continent conference calls, or for calling friends & family abroad.

Skype is also a great tool for text chats, as you might do on your mobile phone. In addition, you can send files to your recipients, which could be individuals or groups of people.

I use Skype myself all the time!

Google Gmail

OK, one more Google application. I think it’s fair to say that Google are producing some of the best productivity software right now, which is why you’re seeing 3 of their packages listed here right now.

Gmail is Google’s very own email client. To get you going, you get 7 gigabytes of storage, which is a handsome amount of space, easily enough for large email attachments. Imagine never having to delete an email again!

To help you sort all incoming mail based on a wide range of criteria, there’s Labels & Filters, so you can find all your emails quick and easy.

Related emails are grouped into “conversations”, so you can see an email conversation in its entirity, from the first to the last, even over weeks / months worth of emailing back and forth between friends, colleagues, family, clients et cetera.

You can collect email from any other email accounts (POP3 type accounts), so you can use Gmail as a central depositry for your emails, or even as a backup option for other email accounts.

You get a junk (or spam) filter, which grabs all of the crap you get sent, which are placed in a safe folder for later review. Additionally, the junk email filter is a good learner; able to figure our new kinds of junk, and sort them from genuine emails.

For power email users, Gmail can be set up as forwarder onto another account, or you can just set rules to forward specific emails to another email address, which is great for website / support contacts, checking for keywords / rules and sending copies to other people to ensure you never lose that customer because someone was out of the office or was away from their email.

Remember the Milk and Wipee List

Why the double listing? Based on the people I know, these two to-do list applications are highly prized as serious productivity tools.

Put simply, Remember the Milk and Wipee List are to-do list web applications to help you keep your life and business in check. Both boast a slew of features, but Remember the Milk may just edge things by having a version for Apple’s iPhone and iPod Touch, plus a few more extra features for you to play around with.

And because these are web applications, you can access them from wherever you an internet connection — ideal for people who’re always on the move.

Mozilla Firefox

Firefox is a web browser that is growing in popularity. It’s an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer and sports some very interesting features.

To ease the transition, the first time you install Firefox, you’ll be walked through a import option, which grabs all of your stuff in Internet Explorer and imports them into Firefox.

If you’re using Internet Explorer 7, you should be very familiar with the feel, such as the tabs, for example. Tabs are different windows within each window, so you can have multiple websites open in the same window. Ideal for people who’re busy working on different websites, or who’re into social media & social networking, like I am.

Firefox is also generally much more secure than Internet Explorer, which is essential in these strange times of scams, hoax websites and “phishing” exploits.

Firefox is also faster at leading web pages and supports a wider range of web standards; shared rules that dictate the layout and functionality of web pages. So you’re less likely to see a web page look strange, or not load properly.

And finally, and arguably Firefox’s biggest feature, the Add-ons. You install Add-ons which then enable Firefox to do things not natively supported. There are literally thousands of Add-ons for Firefox that do all kinds of things, many of which are productivity tools in their own right. However, the quality can be variable, so be careful. Some can Firefox unstable.

To get you started, here are 10 Add-ons for Firefox, which should point you in the right direction.

Conclusion

A lot of business people still suffer from web allergies, so this article is my attempt at an internet analgesic, to help you surf more easily, without the sniffs, gasps and groans!