Even though your bottom line might not be what it was a few years ago, that doesn’t mean you have to forego all of those things that made your small business look big.  Yes, cutting back is a way of life these days in this unpredictable economy as businesses everywhere are struggling to keep their doors open.

However, it’s extremely important now - more than ever - to keep those existing customers close to you and away from your competitors.  Now you can reach out to them and hold professional conference calls and it won’t cost you a dime.

FreeConferenceCall.com (www.freeconferencecall.com) is a simple and quick way to setup free conference calls with your customers and clients. It’s easy to signup - just go to their site and signup by entering your name and email address and you’ll be quickly assigned a conference call number and access code that is yours to keep.  No need to get a new line for each call - the number you get can be used any time of the day or night for as many calls as you need.  The only restriction is that your call cannot go over six hours in length.  Well, that and you can’t have more than 96 people on your call, but unless your Bill Gates holding a  press conference on a new release, you’re probably safe on that one.

I’ve personally used FreeConferenceCall.com on client calls for multi-million dollar projects and it has never let me down.  You even receive call reports via email after the fact indicating length of call and other stats.  These can sometimes come in handy if you ever have the need to document calls and call lengths for project-related purposes.

Thought you already couldn’t get enough of Google.  It’s everywhere.  Gmail, YouTube, the best search engine ever.  I’ve read that Google’s home page gets 1.5 billion visits per day.  Incredible.  So Google is everywhere …. all at once.  And it’s already providing much of what you use on a daily basis.  With the new Google Buzz that promises to get even bigger.

Now Google has announced their intentions to enter the broadband service provider market.  Their proposed fiber-optic offering will bring users 1-gigabyte-per-second speed.  That’s 100 to 200 times faster than what we’re all currently used to … just stop for a moment and imagine that. Imagine a high definition movie downloaded in five minutes.  Imagine.

It’s not going to happen tomorrow or even next week.  In fact, I’ve not yet seen a good timetable, but if anyone can do it - it’s Google.  They’re working with local governments and members of the public to get a feel for the interest level of such a service.  I guarantee it will be high - the buzz on the net about it over the past couple of weeks certainly indicates that.

Google’s plan is to find a good test market of approximately 50,000 people to roll it out to.  Then, eventually up to 500,000 and beyond.  And this will be offered to businesses as well … not just residences.

At this stage of the process, Google wants to gauge everyone’s interest.  If you want to nominate your area or city as a test market, go to Google Fiber for Communities website before 3/26/2010.  Click the big, blue “get involved” button, then select the proper form, based on whether you’re a local government official or a community resident. Google’s form asks you a few questions including why you think your area should receive Google broadband and some questions about what is currently offered in your city.

There are many things that you can do to grow your business this year. You can engage in both online and offline activities that will increase your bottom line, grow your customer base or promote your brand. Unfortunately, you don’t have time to do every single thing that you could do to grow your business. You also don’t have the money to invest in every single marketing option available to you. Instead, you need to narrow down the field and choose the activities that are going to be most cost-efficient and time-efficient for effectively growing your business.

If you can only do five things online this year to market your business then these are the five things that you should do:

1.      Get your business name on Wikipedia. Ideally, you will write a Wikipedia page about your business that is informative, engaging and of high enough non-promotional quality that it will pass Wikipedia’s high standards and actually gain entry on to the site. If that’s asking for too much, you can still use Wikipedia to promote your business online. Find high-quality Wikipedia pages that relate to the work that you do and start adding content and including yourself in the references section. Make sure that you take the time to learn about Wikipedia’s writing rules so that this is an effective use of your time.

2.      Make sure that you’re using multimedia. Lets face it; a static web page is not going to be worthwhile for you anymore. You need to have videos. You need to have images. You need to be putting these images and videos on other websites that reference and link back to your own website. It’s important that you’re not being boring online these days. There are just too many other things for people to go look at if you are.

3.      Get familiar with Webmaster Tools. You would be surprised how easy it is to take your good website and to turn it into a great website. Check out the Webmaster Tools on Bing or Webmaster Central on Google. You’ll find a lot of helpful tools and information that can give a big boost to your business once you implement them on your website.

4.      Find ways to stay in better touch with your existing customers. These are the people who already like you. They’ll come back to you again if you stay in touch. They’ll also spread the word about you. Figure out what new online approach works for you - email marketing, social networking interaction, blog commenting - and incorporate this into your regular online activities to successfully market your business.

5.      Make friends with people who can write about your business online. Get to know bloggers and journalists who are relevant to your business. Write them emails saying what great work they’re doing and letting them know about what you do. The more credible sources you have writing about you online, the more your business is going to grow.

In my ongoing discussion on free or inexpensive ways to do things that used to cost big dollars, I’d like to cover the topic of PDF creation.  I remember back just a few  years ago it was a requirement to have a specific version of Adobe Acrobat that cost $200-300 in order to create PDF files.  Now, much like many other options available to individuals and businesses, the task of creating PDF files to share with others and for long-term storage is easy and free.

Here are a couple of options:

PrimoPDF

I’ve personally used PrimoPDF for the past 2-3 years and I really like it.  It installs easily and simply appears in your print options as another available printer.  I’ve always been happy with the quality and readability of it’s output and I’ve used it extensively - even on multi-million dollar projects that I’ve managed.  My clients have never been able to tell that it came from a free piece of software.

PrimoPDF’s website touts it’s product as the “world’s #1 free PDF creator.”  As with other PDF creators, you can create PDF files from any file type that is printable…including Word, Excel, and PowerPoint formats.

PrimoPDF’s site states that it “is a free, high-quality PDF creation utility that enables printing to PDF from virtually any Windows application.”  It is the only free PDF converter that supports drag and drop PDF creation - which can be a real convenience and a time-saver.

CutePDF

I’ve not used CutePDF, but I’ve heard it’s good and it’s reliable.  The output quality is great and it’s as easy to use as the other offerings.  As with PrimoPDF, you can create PDF documents from almost any available printable document format.  To my knowledge it does not feature a drag and drop function, but accessing it as a printer option and saving it to a file is easy and problem-free.

Mac

I’ve not mentioned which platform these are offered on and there’s a reason for that.  They are both - and probably all - Windows-based applications.  And since I personally become a Mac lover in March of 2009, I know why.  PDF creation is built into the Macbook’s OS functionality - it has been for a long time.  So, Windows or Mac, you’re fully covered.  And you’ll be producing professional output for your clients for free.

Fellow TechRepublic author Greg Schulz wrote in August 2009 about “10 Cool Things You Can Do with a USB Flash Drive.”  #1 on his list was “Run portable applications.”  I personally am hooked on USB thumb drives…I think they’re the best thing since sliced bread so his list intrigued me.  However, when I started to research his item #1 further, that particular one intrigued me even more.

At Portableapps.com, not only can you download enough programs to do everything you need while on the go, you can also do it for free.  FREE.  Everything is open source and everything is absolutely free.

Here’s what you can find there:

Portableapps.com Platform

The Portableapps.com platform provides you with a Windows-like program and utility list and also makes it easy to add and remove portable apps from your list of available applications.  It will even accept portable apps from other sites, you just need to follow the proper process to get them to show up on the app menu.

Portableapps.com Suite

You can download an entire suite of programs from the site which will allow you to do everything you probably do now on your laptop.  And this suite only includes a subset of what is actually available on the site.

All versions of the PortableApps.com Suite include the integrated PortableApps.com Menu (pictured below) and the PortableApps.com Backup utility along with a set of custom icons, an autoplay configuration, folders and a quick start shortcut. In addition, the packages include:

• Mozilla Firefox, Portable Edition (web browser)
• Mozilla Thunderbird, Portable Edition (email)
• Mozilla Sunbird, Portable Edition (calendar/tasks)
• ClamWin Portable (antivirus)
• Pidgin Portable (instant messaging)
• Sumatra PDF Portable (PDF reader
• KeePass Password Safe Portable (password manager)
• Sudoku Portable (game)
• Mines-Perfect Portable (game)
• CoolPlayer+ Portable (audio player)
• OpenOffice.org Portable (office suite)
  • Writer (word processor)
  • Calc (spreadsheet)
  • Impress (presentations)
  • Base (database utility)
  • Draw (drawing)

Keep in mind, the Suite contains only a subset of what’s available on the Portableapps.com site.  They’ve packaged those together because they are the core productivity tools that everyone uses.  Check the site out - it’s definitely worth your time.

It often takes a few long, boring minutes for a PC to boot up, load Windows, open a browser, and finally reach the Web.  Wouldn’t it be nice to circumvent all of that?  How much productivity would be added to your day?  Not that much, but a decent amount of top-of-the-day frustration would be immediately eliminated if you didn’t have to go through that process.

Google’s Promise

Now you may not have to.  While Google hasn’t told us too much about Chrome OS’s features, one it has promised - and that people seem to be coveting - is instant access to applications.

People want to get their email instantly - without waiting for the PCs to get ready to reach out to the Web.  Google’s VP of product management, Sundar Pichai, vowed that Chrome OS will take care of this frustration.

Other Contenders

Other companies have had somewhat of a head start on this idea.  Dell, DeviceDM, Phoenix Technologies, and Xandros are among those developing “instant-on” operating systems built on the Linux kernel that can get people browsing the Web in a few short seconds.

Dell Latitude ON is already available on several Dell business model laptops.  It bypasses Windows startup by using the MontaVista Linux distribution, customized with Dell’s help, running on a secondary processor to give users immediate access to email, the Web, and read-only Office and PDF documents.

DeviceDM says it’s 2-year-old SplashTop OS has shipped on more than 10 million laptops from Acer, HP, Lenovo, LG and other manufacturers.  SplashTop is a lightweight, Linux-based OS with a Firefox browser that can boot up in less than 5 seconds and offers access to the Web, instant messaging, Skype, and some basic gaming.

Public Demands

However, these other offerings are hardly household names.  That’s something that Google’s Chrome OS is likely to change.  With Google jumping into the market, a lot more people are going to be demanding instant-on applications and Web access.  With the growing popularity of netbooks and other mobile computing devices, the crunch will be on for vendors to keep up with the demands of the public.

In today’s economy, consultants and small businesses are trying to do more with less…and in many ways they can.  It used to be you had to buy a very expensive version of Adobe Acrobat in order to create your own pdf files.  Setting up conference calls required access to corporate conference lines.  Using an online meeting setup required access to a Webex account which cost valuable dollars every month.  And utilizing video conferencing for those long-distance status calls on projects required a very expensive setup.  No more….

I’d like to use this article and several upcoming articles to look at some ways that small businesses and consultants on shoestring budgets can perform some very necessary tasks for and look like corporate big-boys for little or no cash outlay.  Our computing options have only improved and now the smaller organizations can really benefit from these offerings.  For this article, I’d like to look at DimDim (www.dimdim.com), a free offering for video conferencing.

DimDim for Video Conferencing

As with any of these free offerings, there are premium options as well.  DimDim offers a $25/month (DimDim Pro) option that allows for 50 meeting attendees, premium audio, and 2 webcams…among other features.  And there is a $75/month (DimDim Webinar) option that 100 person meetings plus can accommodate events and webinars up to 1000 persons.

For consultants and small businesses trying to run your basic status call with the customer type video conference call, the basic free service should do just fine.  It offers:

- 20 person meetings
- standard audio
- support for 1 webcam
- and did I mention that it’s free forever?

DimDim tout’s itself as the world’s easiest web conference.  It is based on open source software and it is 100% browser-based so no software to load and maintain.  You’ll be able to share whiteboards, webpages, presentations, files, voice, and video - and no downloads required…period.

Signup is also easy.  You create your own ID, create your own password, give them your email address and your done.  It’s yours…forever.  If you feel that you might need - or want to just check out - their premium options, there is a 30-day trial offer to test those out…because of course they’d love you to try them and need them and pay monthly for them.  But free is always nice, too.

There’s a new game in town in the social networking market and it’s called Google Buzz.

Google has finally upped the ante in social networking with its new Buzz concept.  Using Gmail contacts to build your social network, Buzz will interact with Flickr, Picassa, Blogger, YouTube, and Twitter to share media content.  If you haven’t already been invited to Buzz, rest assured that Google will be contacting you very soon.

Google has also indicated that it will be releasing an enterprise version soon as well.  Google had been using it for it’s own purposes internally and have indicated that it has been a real productivity booster.

With Buzz, Google is now directly taking on Facebook, Twitter, and Myspace.  Users will be able to setup more private custom groups with Buzz and post to one or all depending on their choice.

A soon to be available mobile version of Buzz will interact with GPS to allow geotagging of information that is shared through the social networking platform.  Users will be able to see if anyone on Buzz has posted information about a nearby business or place of interest.  The mobile version is integrated with Google’s existing location applications and the interface with GPS phones will allow Buzz users to show where they are.  You’ll be able to see what other people on Buzz in your same vicinity are saying about places nearby … like a restaurant or shop.

Google is stressing that much like all of their beta releases, Buzz is a work in progress and they will welcome and incorporate user feedback.  Invitations to join Buzz will be arriving soon in the inboxes of Gmail.

Green is the New Black

Today’s buzz word is Green.  Feels a bit like Seseame Street, doesn’t it.  It’s true though…Green is everywhere.  You can’t attend read about an IT conference, product rollout, or IPO without some discussion of the ‘Greeness’ of the organization or the product offering or what their carbon footprint is.

Is this a bad thing?  Absolutely not….we’re finally becoming an environmentally concerned society.  We finally moved from the tree-huggers of the 60’s and 70’s to real efforts by the masses.

The Remote Worker

So what can your small business do to go Green?  Well, for starters you can utilize telecommuting.  There are other things you can do, but if you want to go Green AND save money at the same time, there’s no better way than incorporating a telecommuting policy.

Let’s first look at some facts (these come from findings published in InformationWeek magazine):

• Automobiles account for about 20% of US greenhouse gas emissions
• 78% of US commuters are solo drivers
• Commuters idling in traffic waste 2.9 billion gallons of gasoline each year and spent 4.2 billion hours sitting in traffic in 2005 alone
• Traffic jams and congestion cost the US economy $78 billion in 2005 - up 500% from 1982

Now that we’ve laid nice groundwork on why fewer commuting employees is very Green - meaning great for the environment - let’s consider the business benefits in terms of tangible and intangible benefits to both the worker and organization.

• Reduced real estate lease and utility expenses
• Improved business continuity (a disaster - flood, fire, etc. - at the main office location doesn’t mean a total shutdown…remote employees are still functional)
• Reduced travel costs
• Increased productivity - up to 30% in recent studies
• Enhanced ability to attract and retain good talent

Summary

Offering telecommuting to your workforce can greatly reduce operating expenses while increasing employee quality of life (less driving time) and productivity, resulting in a much happier and healthier workforce.  Studies have also shown that remote workers take far fewer sick days that onsite employees.  I can personally attest to this - since I began working remotely over three years ago I’ve not taken one sick day.  I’m rarely ever sick - but I’ve also remained healthier by staying away from the sick people that drag themselves into work when they shouldn’t.

Offering telecommuting for the right positions is just good business and is great for the employer-employee relationship.  At the same time, it allows you to promote your business as a Green organization….it’s win/win.

Windows offers a great feature called System Restore that nearly everyone has probably needed at sometime or another but it seems few people even know about it.  Before I go any further, let me say that I am of the opinion that there is no excuse for not having some sort of anti-virus and anti-spyware software running on your computer.  My personal choice for my backup laptop - an XP machine - is Grisoft’s AVG package.  It’s free and it works great.

With that said, there are times when you need more or something different and that’s where System Restore can come in handy.  System Restore periodically saves a system restore point to provide a means of returning to a known-good configuration should something go wrong. Windows automatically creates a system restore point for you any time you install new software, a Windows update, or make any significant change to your system.  You can also manually create a system restore point.

Now, suppose you get hit with some sort of malware.  The most popular one today seems to be the annoying pop-up that tells you your system is infected and you should run a specific virus removal software.  Don’t fall for it, it’s malware and if you let it run, you’re already infected.  But if you do get infected, you can sometimes get around it without having to do a full restore to factory settings.

Here are the steps:

• Click Start / All Programs / Accessories / System Tools / System Restore
• Choose “Restore my computer to an earlier time”
• Click Next
• Using the calendar, select a day and system restore point that you want to return to (choose a date that falls BEFORE the date your computer became infected)
• Save your work and shut down any open programs.
• Click Next to confirm your wish to restore your computer to the designated system restore point

At this point your computer will shutdown, reboot, make some changes, then be magically restored to the previous date.  Don’t be alarmed, it can take a few minutes.  You won’t lose data files on your computer, but if you’ve installed software in between the two dates you’ll likely have to re-install those programs.

This isn’t a perfect solution and sometimes your computer can become so infected that the virus or malware won’t allow System Restore to perform properly.  But in most cases this is a simple way to eradicate the problem.  And if it does work don’t just relax - count yourself lucky and get anti-virus and anti-spyware software installed on your computer immediately.