Our last blog post explored the reasons why developing a vibrant business culture is crucial for your brand. The positive effects of a healthy culture are extensive, while the result of letting the culture of your company diminish can be very detrimental indeed. In our last post, we touched on how to measure the cultural health of your company, but how do you strengthen that culture when necessary?

The first step is to decide how you want your business to “feel.” Below are a few questions to ask yourself:

• How do you want your company to feel? Fun, creative, open, accepting, respectful, etc?
• What are your company’s values and how can the culture mirror them?
• How is information currently distributed in the company and how does this affect the culture?
• Do you reward employees and in what ways? 
• Does everyone in the company feel heard? If not, how can you improve this?

These should lead you to more questions. Consider having a brainstorming session with your employees to find the right solutions for your company. Listed below are some ideas we came up with:

Suggestion/Thought box – Providing people with a way to share their thoughts, anonymously or not, helps make the culture of a company feel more open. You may learn some important things that need tweaking and may wish to bring them up in companywide meetings.

Empower employees – Let your employees make decisions. Treat the employees as peers; let them have a say and listen to their thoughts. Also be a transparent leader. Don’t just tell your employees when things are great, but also let them know tactfully when things aren’t going very well.

Flexible hours – Trusting your employees to get their work done is key. Don’t always hang over or micro-manage them. Trusting your employees to get their jobs done will give you less anxiety, as well as result in the general company culture more respectful.

Dress code – Have a more laid back dress code. It’s astonishing what permitting individuals to express themselves can do for a company’s culture. Consider themed days: silly hat day, Hawaiian shirt day, or anything that gets people thinking creatively and brings smiles to the day.

Celebrate – You’re all part of the same organization and hopefully have the same goals. Celebrate this by having a monthly movie day, a team outing after work, or a lunchtime game day – anything fun that gets the group doing something with each other.

Below is a list of things that real companies have done to incorporate some fun to their culture:

• Spontaneous Nerf gun wars
• Painting inspirational quotes on the walls
• Hitting a loud gong when there is a success to let the whole company know
• Foosball tournaments
• Lunchtime Yoga
• Lunchtime Crafting Club
• Monday Mad Libs, whoever wishes to contribute, does, and then the completed Mad Lib is emailed to the company

Strategy is typically at the forefront of a company’s focus. Strategy is not the only thing that makes a company successful. Culture also plays a vital role. The culture of your company impacts your branding, your marketing success, and daily operations, all of which have an effect on how the world sees your business. The logos of brands like Apple, Google, and Starbucks are recognizable not only because they seem to be everywhere, but also these companies have strong cultures that shine through their employees, storefronts, and logos. These positive, strong cultures all begin inside the walls of their offices.

Why Culture is so Important

A healthy workplace culture encourages creative thinking. When employees like the place they work and feel like they are part of the team it can make them challenge themselves in innovative ways. In a workplace in which people feel invisible or stifled they’ll often do the bare minimum required. It is part of human nature to want to feel appreciated and important. An organization is made of its people so whatever attitude prevails will show up in your brand and the products and service you provide. Ultimately, nurturing the culture of your workplace is everyone’s responsibility from the CEO to HR.

Below are just a few of the benefits of cultivating a healthy culture.

• Focus – Keeping employees aimed at the same goal helps a company run with efficiency. Getting people to care about the goal comes with having a healthy focus. If your employees feel like they are an essential part of attaining that goal they’ll be more likely to push themselves. When individuals feel like they have no effect on the main goal, they loose focus, and can become cynical.

• Cohesion – Healthy culture can bring about strong communication in good and bad times. In a place where there is unhealthy culture people may frequently resent being told what to do because they don’t feel their views are heard or appreciated. When a problem arises they may avoid pointing it out as they fear backlash.

• Motivation – It’s simple; motivated people achieve more. This may seem obvious, but in companies where the culture is suffering, efficiency may also suffer.

Measuring the Cultural Health of Your Company

You should examine your company’s culture a few times a year. How can you do this? First, consider how your workers are managed. It is true that a few individuals may never be happy but, in general, if the opinion is unfavorable you may start thinking about adjustments to improve the culture to help your business. Tune in soon for some tips on making your company culture better.

Chances are you started your business because you love what you do. You opened your doors because you have a solid product that you believe in.  You probably did not start a business because your paperwork skills were unrivaled.  Paperwork is an important and necessary evil for any business owner and accurate invoicing can’t be ignored. We all need cash flow to keep our businesses adrift, so using a good invoicing system can help us keep cash in the bank and our clients happy!

Invoicing help online

Online invoicing services are plentiful nowadays that make the financial side of business far more manageable. Online services make the laborious task of paperwork much quicker.  Depending on the service you employ, the communication to the client can also be automatic! Let’s consider some of the most reputed online invoicing services available:

A free but powerful invoicing service

BillingBoss has a big advantage: It’s free. This online tool allows you to set up automatic invoicing of repeat customers and send out once-off invoices to those customers that aren’t regular. Don’t be misled because this service is free. It should be plenty robust enough for the majority of small business owners.

A power tool

AcceptPay from American Express is without a doubt for the power user. For only $30 a month, users of AcceptPay can connect with QuickBooks, collect online payments from clients, and set up a variety of customizable automatic invoices. It seems a fairly small price to pay for such a powerful tool.

Invoicing for the tech-savvy

If you’d like more control over your online invoicing, you might think about downloading BambooInvoice. This is another free service. What sets it apart, though, is that small business owners host it on their own servers, not in the cloud. Since it is an open source program, tech-savvy entrepreneurs can personalize it to fit their business’s unique needs.

The best news for entrepreneurs is that these services are just a small sample of the numerous online invoicing services available, many of them free or low-cost. Those business owners who want to quickly gain control over their invoicing process should check them out.

It looks as if Microsoft is ready to do its part to discourage cyber crimes. Microsoft plans to offer real-time feeds that partners can use to analyze possible cyber threats and take the proper steps to boost their defenses against these attacks.

Microsoft currently has a process set up to take down destructive botnets. Microsoft “swallows” the botnets and permits them to infect accounts that are highly controlled by Microsoft’s team. Once the botnets infect the accounts, Microsoft learns how they work and eliminates them as a threat.

Previously these details had not been shared, but now this data can be given to the government and private organizations, CERTs, & ISPs. Even though the number of attacks will not likely decrease thanks to this real-time feed, the impact of a feed like this will be great. The degree of damage from a cyber attack will likely be greatly lessened because IT security professionals will be able to more rapidly answer a threat.

Another great impact a real-time threat feed could have is an increase in overall information sharing between IT security companies. For too long IT companies have been unwilling to share threat information for the fear that it could fuel more attacks. Most analysts say this an unsupported fear.  The cyber criminal “community” has already been sharing and gaining knowledge from each other.  It’s only logical therefore that IT security professional share as much information as possible to combat the seemingly unending barrage of new cyber threats.

Let’s hope that security professionals soon realize that sharing information is more valuable than secrecy. And let’s hope that Microsoft’s move is a first step in this change of attitude.

The cloud has been a great thing for small business owners fighting through tough economic times. Rather than purchasing pricey enterprise software, business owners can save their dollars by accessing powerful computing programs in the cloud, everything from high-end word processors and project-management tools to spreadsheets and Photoshop alternatives. But, the cloud isn’t perfect, particularly when it comes to security issues. Business owners need to be aware that their documents, presentations, and marketing materials can be damaged when they’re stored in the cloud.

Password issues

The biggest security issue that company owners face when it comes to cloud computing happens to also be the biggest security issue that users also face when it comes to computing: passwords which are either too easy to guess or shared too freely.

You should always carefully select passwords to your projects stored in the cloud. The more complex your passwords are the more challenging they are to guess. A great way to achieve this is to use a mixture of numbers and letters in your passwords. Also, you shouldn’t share these passwords with lots of people.

Hacker alert

Hackers, malware, and spyware remain serious issues for cloud environments, just as they are problems that business owners face when logging onto their personal computers each day. The thing that makes this particularly scary is that individual business owners have little control over how secure cloud services are. The big names — companies like Microsoft and Google — must provide their own security for the data that business owners store in the cloud.

Common sense protection

As with all computing, companies can protect themselves from the loss or theft of data with some common-sense practices.

First, owners should consider what sort of information they are storing in the cloud. The most sensitive data, data that could damage a company if it is lost or stolen, might not be ideal for cloud storage. Instead, this data may be better stored on a business owner’s individual computing system and dependably backed up.

Secondly, be careful about who is allowed access to the data stored in the cloud. It seems obvious that business owners protect their laptops and desktops with passwords. The same should be applied to the cloud.

The advantages of storing information in the cloud are numerous. Backing up important data, creating more space on your servers, and having your data easily available to your employees are just a few. If you’ve been considering this route, you almost certainly have many questions about the security of the cloud. If your company deals with sensitive information that belongs to your customers you may need to stay compliant with HIPAA, PCI or Sarbanes-Oxley regulations.

Is your cloud storage solution following these requirements? If they don’t indicate it in their privacy policies, it can be hard to tell. Let’s explore this further below.

Compliance

More and more companies are using the cloud for storage. For obvious reasons, it is a very cost effective way to go. However, improper handling of your client’s information can damage your reputation and lead to a loss of business for your company. If your company requires that client data be handled in a controlled way, you must first learn how secure the cloud service is and what regulations does the cloud service providers comply with. If a company has not specifically said they comply with certain policies, it’s safe to assume they do not.

Who is responsible

Whose responsibility is the security of the cloud? It is not presently required that a service provider be explicit regarding their compliance with these regulations. While the safest option is to assume that if they haven’t clearly stated that they’re in compliance in their privacy policy, they are not. This may mean that cloud computing is not for you. However, if your business does not require tight regulations, then the benefits of cloud computing could be an excellent solution for you. 

Currently there’s no law in place that requires a company to divulge this information. Cloud computing services can save your organization money while boosting efficiency, but they may also risk noncompliance with privacy laws. This leaves the risk on your shoulders and it is up to you to weigh the benefits and threats for yourself. The topic of cloud security will probably be one of much debate in coming years. At the moment, the right road to travel is the the one that best meets your company’s specific needs.

As a small business owner, you may have worried about all the what-ifs that come into play if a disaster were to occur. Exactly what does it mean whenever we talk about a disaster? It could mean a natural disaster destroying all your data, a simple download of a virus that corrupts your systems, or an employee accidently deleting something they shouldn’t have. No matter what happens it can be hard and time intensive to recuperate from. Develop a disaster recovery plan to ensure that if the time ever comes, there is a plan set up so that you can get back on your feet as fast as possible.

Decide What’s Important

The first step is knowing what you have and what’s essential. Take an inventory of all the data that is critical for your business to run. This will lead you to the data that should be backed up. Using an online provider or the cloud to store all of your data is one method to ensure data recovery if your hard drive crashes and burns.

Make a Plan

Next, decide what steps have to be taken to recover that data that is lost in case a disaster strikes? What data and systems need to be up and running first? Begin with the worst possible scenario and determine what’s needed.

Know Your Workflows

I’m sure you have the big picture of your company processes, but how about all the day-to-day processes that you don’t have memorized? Ask your employees to document their workflows and the specific tasks they preform. This way, if something does happen, anyone can pick up where they left off and nothing gets looked over.

Decide Who is in Charge

Many people panic when disaster strikes. To make sure the panic doesn’t make things even worse, put someone that has helped you build the plan in charge of executing your data recovery plan. This way you are free to reassure everyone and manage the company and you can be the strong leader your employees need in time of crisis.

People often think disasters can’t happen to them, but we never know what could happen in the future! So it’s important to have a plan in place just in case. This will help put you and your employees at ease.

What do you think of when you hear the name Segway? If you’re like many around, “tech failure” pops into your head. Dean Kamen’s invention of the Segway PT scooter was expected to revolutionize personal transportation. The Segway was meant to usher in a new era of errand running and puttering around town.

That vision hasn’t quite come to fruition and it’s pretty rare that you see someone using a Segway. They are still around and have recently celebrated their 10th anniversary. So while they may be named a tech failure, they’re still alive and kicking.

How do they work though? Below we’ll take a look at the tech powering the Segway.

Powering the Segway

The Segway PT is powered by electric motors.  Those motors are fueled by a number of lithium-ion batteries which are easily charged by a common household electrical socket. Five gyroscopic sensors, two tilt sensors, and two computers with specialty software keep the Segway from tipping over.

Making the Segway Move

The user plays the biggest role in making the Segway move. Simply by shifting your weight in the direction you wish to go and moving the handlebars a little, the Segway’s sensors acknowledge the modification in balance point and react appropriately. The most recent version of the Segway features a top speed of 12.5 MPH. For obvious reason, it performs best on flat surfaces.

Lowered Expectations

The buzz was pretty big around the Segway when it was first announced, but it never quite lived up to it all.  Some even believed that the Segway would be more popular than the Internet as a whole!

Of course, we all know what happened. The Segway looked odd, and people looked peculiar riding it. Which was enough to prevent the Segway from taking off as its promoters predicted.

The chances are good that you, as a small business owner, are juggling many projects at once, and the odds are equally high in this age of virtual workers that many freelancers and consultants dispersed across the country are working on these projects. It can be difficult to monitor the progress of these projects, and it can be equally hard to assign new tasks, share crucial documents, and request updates from these far-flung workers.

Project management solutions

Luckily, for small businesses, there are several project management solutions.  These tools can provide assistance to keep projects on track, and employees and clients connected. Here are some of the top project management tools available:

Basecamp

This well-known project management tool has gained popularity as it is just one tool that allows businesses to manage projects, assign responsibilities, communicate with employees, and more. It’s truly a one-stop shop! It even allows clients to evaluate and comment on their project. In addition to schedule meetings and calendar events, which keeps everyone involved on the same page.

Quickbase

From the makers of Inuit, Quickbase is fairly comparable to Basecamp with its capability to serve both large and small businesses. It features a simple and easy to use interface.

Huddle

For the more creative projects, such as marketing and advertising, Huddle is ideal. Certainly one of this tool’s perks is its live-conferencing tool. If you need to gather the team in a quick and easy fashion, this tool lets you, regardless of where your team members may be.

Deskaway

This is a great tool for updating team members on a projects progression. Easily create blog posts, congratulatory messages, and quick updates.

Project management tools are consistently getting updates and new options are becoming available.  Each of these project management tools can give you ways to strengthen your business’ ability to maintain organization and create a great experience for your clients. Keep your eye out for the tool that will best suit your business’ needs.

We have been hearing about the paperless office for what may seem like years now, yet most offices today still depend upon fax machines, copiers, and forests worth of paper documents. Is the paperless office like the individual jet pack? Long promised but never delivered? The simple answer? No. The world is still moving toward paperless offices. It’s simply taking longer than some would like.

The advantages of paper

There’s a reason why paper hasn’t yet vanished from most offices: It is useful. Employees at even the greenest of offices—those workspaces most committed to decreasing the level of paper they consume—have uses for paper. Paper is portable. Employees can easily scrawl notes on it. They can fold it up and slip it into their wallets or shirt pockets. Many employees prefer proofreading crucial documents in hard-copy form. There is something about proofreading a document on the computer screen that causes some employees to miss important errors or typos.

Less paper than ever

Paper has become less and less important.  Quite a few past paper processes can now be done on a computer. Team communication is handled via email. Even instant messaging has taken the place of paper notes to coworkers. Smartphones and tablets have taken over the need for a physical calendar/schedule system. If you take a glance back at how far business has come in the past decade, it’s pretty clear that paper, while not fully obsolete, is no longer king.

The future

It’s obvious that offices of the future will rely on less paper than even we do now, but will paper ever really go the way of the milkman? Maybe. Some people still prefer having their milk delivered from a local dairy but most are content to pick it up from the store when they need it.

Paper will most likely go the same route and it will be a personal preference as to how much paper is consumed in the office. As many of our business processes rely on digital solutions, there will always be a select few who prefer good old-fashioned pen and paper.