Social networking opportunities in the workplace

When the web emerged as a much faster alternative to find information than, say, paper-based archives, employers had no other choice than to provide their employees with access to this vast information network.

Spin doctored by the accountants and other flavors of bean counting nuts, employees started metering the time spent by employees online. That led to the enforcement of ridiculous “web access policies” which severely limited an employee’s options, when searching for information, online.

As such, while employers saw a drop in web access within the workforce, that was accompanied by waves of frustration, protest and a nasty combination of lower productivity and morale.

Once again, the bean counters had destroyed a model which wasn’t perfect but which had proved its merit.

Over time, smart bosses evolved from the backward thinking accounting logic to a progressive marketing logic where more windows to the world, if used to their full potential, mean many more opportunities for growth.

This is where social networking comes in.

Networks such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Orkut (to name only those) have changed the way people keep in touch.

Forget that afterhour lunch with the local chamber of commerce. In most cases, such gatherings now represent the epitome in unproductive use of one’s time. Hanging out at these meetings, luncheons and conferences serves little to no purpose, other than to blabber useless sales lines to generally untargeted “contacts” who, more often than not, simply throw away their stack of “acquired” business cards, after the event.

In other words, the world of human networking has changed and the companies which fail to look online for new leads risk missing out on all sorts of opportunities.

Employers who understand that finding motivated customers online is both faster and cheaper than in any other “traditional” way have unlocked all web access, including the much discussed social networks.

In the end, if companies focus on managing outcomes and goals rather than attempting to manage people’s time, everything feels more “natural” and the business can grow out of the severely limiting accounting rules which are designed to stiffle anything which thrives, instead of encouraging it.

Bosses with limited insight on how business happens will continue to downplay the importance of the web but these proverbial dinosaurs are being phased out and replaced with people who know one paying customer a day is better than ten “leads” which take forever to “convert” — if ever.

Tags: social networking, web access, online searches, e-business, e-commerce, doing business online, finding new customers online, networks of business people, chambers of commerce, meetings, e-meetings, social mixers, business cards

PrestaShop lets you open up your own web store

If you’re a merchant looking for a straightforward way to morph into an “e-merchant”, PrestaShop might make it on your shortlist.

For starters, it’s an open source (read: free) PHP and MySQL-based web script that, once installed, allows you to run your very own “electronic store”, with all the modern bells and whistles you’re used to seeing at the major e-tailers, including a comprehensive PayPal checkout.

The larger setups might swing towards the very impressive Magento Commerce web script, which is also open source and based on PHP and MySQL but for anything akin to a small to mid-sized store, PrestaShop feels like an awesome fit — even though it can technically handle a much larger store.

PrestaShop handle multiple languages, multiple currencies and multiple payment processing options brilliantly. It sports many “web 2.0″ features like a tag cloud, countless modules (extending the basic features) and a healthy dose of AJAX effects, namely when you add an item to your shopping basket.

From a customer’s standpoint, the web script looks very nice, is intuitive and performs flawlessly. All of which are essential for online sales to happen.

As an “e-store administrator”, you’ll be able to manage your catalog, customers, orders, payments and shipping to stay on top of what’s going on. The “admin interface” is easy to operate and the average semi-techie type will feel in control enough to enjoy working with this script (and that’s important if you’re going to use PrestaShop on a daily basis).

In a nutshell, here’s an overview of what PrestaShop offers, in its “front office”, which is basically the stuff your online customers will look for, see, use and appreciate:

• Special deals (price reductions, gift vouchers)
• Featured products on homepage
• Top sellers on homepage
• New items on homepage
• ‘Free shipping’ offers
• Cross-selling (Accessories)
• Product image zoom
• Order out-of-stock items
• Customer subscription & user accounts
• Unlimited payment methods
• Payment by bank wire
• Cash-On-Delivery (COD)
• Preconfigured for Paypal
• Multiple-recipient contact form
• Product tagging & tag cloud
• Search
• Merchandise return (RMAs) & credit slips
• Package tracking
• Offer gift-wrapping & recycled packaging
• PDF customer invoice
• Shopping Cart recall
• Sale of services & virtual goods
• Custom Favicon
• RSS feed
• Newsletter opt-in
• ‘Pick up in-store’ option

By all means, this is a highly credible (front-end) feature set which, coupled with your time, effort, creativity and marketing in setting up your online store can help you succeed in your e-tailing project.

Open source consulting firms might also adopt this script as it’s solid enough for serious deployments (now) but also set for a bright future with loads of upcoming features like 1-click purchases, affiliates management, per-item shipping cost and a loyal customer program.

It’s always reassuring to see an open source script being update regularly with such high-impact features that bring real value for both the e-merchant and the online customers.

Keep an eye on PrestaShop, this e-commerce web script is clearly going places.

Tags: prestashop, e-commerce, e-merchants, e-tailing, e-tailers, e-shops, online shops, e-shopping, web script, php, mysql, open source, paypal, bank wire, money, merchandise, package tracking, rmas, credit slips, free download, front office, online shoppers

Piwik as an open source alternative for serious web analytics

If open source is your thing and you publish web sites, Piwik might just be exactly what you were waiting for performing serious web analytics regarding your flow of online visitors.

Used intelligently, web analytics lets mere mortals extract decisive data which, in turn, helps shape the online experience the way visitors appear to want it to be.

To this day, the most vocal users of web analytics have been e-commerce operators but all flavors of web site operator are likely to learn useful things regarding their “analyticized” visitors, such as…

• how they found you;
• when they visited;
• what page they looked at;
• what they bought (or downloaded).

…as well as a wildly varied mix of all these things, within specific timeframes — for all useful purposes, it’s essentially limitless and smart managers can (more easily) stay on top of things if they have a superior understanding of what makes visitors “click” (call it 21st century “deep” data mining).

Even though Google Analytics does an amazing job at helping web publishers understand -and- improve their web sites (for free), open source enthusiasts have been waiting for an alternative like Piwik which can be used under the popular GPL License.

Piwik is the next logical step for phpMyVisites which is still being developed as more of a “general web statistics” engine, with less insistence on web analytics than Piwik which is still its infance, so to speak. Here are a few “static graphs” to give you a better feel for the script…

This PHP / MySQL script installs itself like a breeze and lets you concentrate on your task. Piwik may still be released under beta-labeled versions but it feels much more mature. The administrative interface is zippy and surprisingly customizable for whoever dares mingle with the templates.

It should also be said that if you use Piwik to monitor your web sites, you’ll own 100% of the data generated -and- you’ll be the only one, in the world, with access to it. For many privacy conscious web publishers, this is a major argument for switching to Piwik.

For the more adventurous coders (among us), it’s possible to develop your own plugins so your data will be handled exactly the way you want it to be. This highly modular plugin architecture clearly sets Piwik apart from the competition.

In the event you need to export data from your MySQL database, you’ll be thrilled with the open APIs that let you publish the data in many formats such as xml, json, php and csv.

If you blog a lot, the fact that you can easily embed your “live graph” stats will probably come in handy. The graphics look awesome and they have a definite 2.0 feel to them.

Again, it’s a free download and with a GPL License, you can’t go wrong!

Tags: piwik, phpmyvisites, analytics, web analytics, open source, open source analytics, gpl web analytics, free web analytics, php web analytics, mysql web analytics, data mining, e-commerce, e-intelligence, web 2.0, data formats, web publishing

Magento Commerce for your e-store

Are you aware that e-commerce sales will double, by 2012? If you are, will you be part of the lucky ones benefiting from it or will your business model be wiped out, by it?

Any smart merchant wants to be on the winning side but in the not-so-distant past, it’s been a bit hard to establish a credible e-commerce storefront since money, complexity and a general lack of flexibility were major issues.

Many prospective online merchants started with PayPal and had some level of success with it but the venerable service is, for all useful purposes, limited to the payment processing so it’s not a full blown e-commerce store. Then came the tryout of OSCommerce, the open source pioneer to establish a PHP & MySQL-based online store. It’s free, functional, extensible and can be dressed up very nicely but nevertheless, there seems to be missing a little something.

Meet Magento Commerce.

By all means, this is a surprising open source, PHP & MySQL, script — it looks like a million bucks with pull-down menus and all, offers an extensive number of core features and is supported by a huge community of e-commerce experts and fans.

This open source project has been evolving under the radar for many merchants and some are just discovering it and without any surprise, adopting it.

Here’s a short overview of what you can expect from Magento Commerce:

• Analytics and reporting
  • Integrated with Google Analytics
  • Admin dashboard for report overview
  • RSS feed for new order
  • Tax reporting
• Catalog browsing
  • Layered / faceted navigation for filtering of products
  • Product comparisons
  • Product reviews
  • Popular search terms cloud
• Catalog management
  • Inventory management with backordered items, minimum and maximum quantities
  • Batch import and export of catalog
  • Advanced pricing rules and support for special prices
  • Search results rewrites and redirects
  • RSS feed for low inventory alerts
• Product browsing
  • Multiple images per product
  • Product image zoom-in capability
  • Multi-tier pricing upsell
  • Add to wishlist
  • Send to a friend with email
• Customer accounts
  • Order status and history
  • Re-orders from account
  • Recently ordered items
  • Newsletter subscription management
  • Amazingly complete account dashboard
• Customer service
  • Contact Us form
  • Feature-rich customer accounts
  • Customizable order emails
  • Create and edit orders from the admin panel
• Order management
  • View, edit, create and fulfill orders from admin panel
  • Print invoices and packing slips
  • Create re-orders for customers from administration panel
• Shipping
  • Integrated for real-time shipping rates from UPS, UPS XML (account rates), FedEx (account rates), USPS and DHL
  • Shipping to multiple addresses in one order
  • On-site order tracking from customer accounts
  • Table rates for weight and destination
  • Table rates for product sub-totals and destination
  • Table rates for number of items and destination
• Checkout
  • One-page checkout
  • SSL security support for orders on both front-end and back-end
  • Option to create account at beginning of checkout
  • Accept gift messages per order and per item
  • Saved Shopping Carts with configurable expiration time
• Payment
  • Configurable to authorize and charge, or authorize only and charge on creation of invoices
  • Integrated with multiple PayPal gateways
  • Saved Credit Card method for offline payments
  • Accept Checks/Money Orders
  • Accept Purchase Orders
• Search engine optimization
  • 100% Search Engine Friendly
  • Google Site Map
  • URL Rewrites give full control of URL’s
  • Meta-information for products and categories
  • Auto-generated popular search terms page
• International support
  • Multi-lingual
  • Support for multiple currencies
  • Tax rate support
  • Localization
• Marketing promotion and tools
  • Flexible coupons (pricing rules) with ability to restrict to stores, customer groups, time period, products and categories
  • Catalog promotional pricing by percentage or fixed amount with ability to restrict to stores, categories and products
  • Landing page tool for campaigns
  • Up-sells in shopping cart
  • Cross-sells on product pages
  • Polls and newsletter management
• Site management
  • Control multiple websites and stores from one administration panel with ability to share as much or as little information as needed
  • Administration permission system roles and users
  • One-click upgrades
  • Content management system (CMS) for informational pages

Impressive, right?

In the unlikely event this isn’t enough to convince you Magento Commerce is ready to propel even the smallest shops into the big leagues, take their demo store for a spin and see for yourself how professional it all looks.

The current roadmap has a lot more “in store” for you, though. How about banner management, bundles, gift registries, customer balances, RMA support, full support for backorders, cost management, warranties, subscription management, required items, recommended items, gift wrap option, limited catalog access per user group, membership management and further performance enhacements? Well, that’s all being phased into the upcoming versions of Magento Commerce so with the one-click upgrade process, the online merchants using this open source script to sell their products and / or services will effortlessly be up-to-speed with the finest e-commerce sites out there.

Wether you plan to sell just a few things or a whole boat load of them, Magento Commerce should be one of the scripted alternatives you evaluate. Be ready to work hard setting up your e-shop but in the end, if you work your magic right, the final result for your customers should help you ring lots of sales.

Tags: magento, magento commerce, e-commerce, e-sales, e-store, e-shop, online shop, online store, paypal, oscommerce, php commerce, mysql commerce, merchants, web store, web storefronts

Business IT and cloud computing

IT executives, in organizations of all sizes, are growing more familiar with “cloud computing”, the made-up expression which illustrates a particular phenomenon where companies can run almost every information system they rely on without owning any tech equipment.

Businesses can therefore rent access to applications and IT infrastructure that reside on the internet, paying for them on either a subscription -or- a per-use basis while providing employees with access to information from anywhere, at any time, with nothing more than a connected device.

Wether IT folks are for the cloud or not, the very idea sounds great. No more headaches for software updates, no more server farms to monitor, no more growing storage requirements or any such “technical” worries. The cloud is sold as infinitely expandable so a typical “cloud-enabled” company can focus on what it does best while leaving the data management to the cloud-centric professionals.

In itself, this is a significant shift in the way the internet is used but the cloud story gets even more interesting when you consider it may hold the promise for transforming the role of IT within the business. Letting an external service provider sweat issues like server capacity, networked storage and bandwidth means the internal IT staff (on the company payroll) may shed some “hands-on” weight while filling new positions with IT strategists who worry more about data accessibility than adding more hard drives to the company data center.

This colossal shift isn’t going to happen overnight and chances are IT’s more technical bunch will likely leave companies to go work for the service providers, catering to the growing crowd of cloud-minded companies.

While we usually think of business computing as a desktop computer thing, cloud computing may also prove to be an ideal strategy for reaping the full benefits that mobile devices, when properly used, can deliver, namely by allowing companies to essentially push their IT environment out to employees rather than employees having to get access to the IT environment.

The cloud computing future may hold many promises but theory can sometimes hit a brick wall named “reality”. When it comes to cloud computing, just because it holds promises doesn’t mean it’s going to translate in practical solutions for real business tech challenges — at least, not anytime soon.

If anything, cloud computing serves as a reminder that computing models constantly evolve. As companies face increasing pressure to be more agile than the competition, they’ll be forced to adapt to changing computing models to stay competitive… and profitable.

For those who feel like cloud computing is their thing, there are security risks which can’t be swept under the proverbial rug. For instance, how would you feel if your companies’ data was dumped alongside other companies’ data? What happens if a technical glitch grants another company full access to your data? Will you even be warned it happened? Relying on strangers to handle your data is a typical C-level decision and it’s not just about the money savings, either.

Nevertheless, some companies are happy to deal with the glitches in exchange for the potential benefits of cloud computing. Big players like Salesforce (think: SaaS) and NetSuite (ERP, CRM, e-commerce), Amazon with its S3 and Elastic Compute Cloud offerings as well as IBM and Google (Google Apps, anyone?) are paving the way for a more dynamic cloud computing future.

The final on cloud computing might be that in the event this cloud thing sticks, it’ll help IT transform from a perceived technology cost center into a strategic business asset as companies likely apply hybrid models that lie between the proprietary data centers (for highly critical data) and the cloud (for everything else).

If anything, we’re seeing the cloud computing phenomenon unfold before our very eyes and for many venturing entrepreneurs, this, among other things, could come to be known as yet another web-related, big and fluffly cumulus-sized, opportunity.

Tags: cloud computing, outsourced hosting, servers, storage, saas, erp, crm, e-commerce, infrastructure

Accepting credit cards online

Selling goods and service over the web shouldn’t be the proverbial equivalent of dark magic — it should be easy enough that you can focus on your offerings, not on the technology.

While the open source initiatives like OSCommerce can help shop owners toy around with PHP and MySQL to create an expansive e-commerce storefront, lots of merchants prefer to use an outsourced “everything included” alternative.

While open source costs nothing to download and deploy on your own servers, the cost is hidden in the time it takes to set it up and keep it running. Over time, it can add up to scary figures.

SecureNetShop, on the other hand, costs money but fortunately, it’s not enough of it to be of any concern (a few hundred bucks a year, depending on your use of the service). The merchant can be operational quickly and no technical skills are required (other than basic web knowledge).

Here’s what’s included in SecureNetShop’s no up-front fee, no application fee, no annual fee and no paperwork e-commerce service:

• Toll free support, 7 days a week;
• Accept up to 9 methods of payment;
• Easy integration with your web site;
• Automatic sales tax calculations;
• UPS, USPS and FedEx shipping rates;
• Accept payments for eBay auctions;
• Sell products, digital goods or services;
• Compatible with Google Checkout.

While this kind of e-commerce service benefits to the merchant, it’s also appreciated by potential customers who will feel comfortable with the overall interface -and- the countless extensive “online shopping” features.

Bringing your future customers to your store is one thing, making sure they use it is another so it’s nice to know SecureNetShop provides a higher level of upfront credibility. The design can be customized by the merchant, mainly to fit his own colors and style but overall, the user experience will feel right.

From a merchant’s standpoint, this SecureNetShop’s service reduces operating costs, saves time while being fast, reliable and highly secure. Furthermore, merchants can control all the aspects of their online store from anywhere, over the web.

So, for all the merchants out there who are scratching their head about how to get paid for their products and services online, SecureNetShop offers a fast-track path towards higher revenues (for doing what they do best) while leaving the heavy tech lifting to the e-commerce pros.

Tags: securenetshop, e-commerce, credit cards, online payments, secure shopping

ClickBank gets a makeover

If you’re interested in generating a steady income by marketing mostly online products you don’t have to build, sell or support, then ClickBank might be your answer.

Sporting thousands of rather unique offerings, web publishers (like you, probably) can quickly link to products that match their web site’s theme.

For instance, if you’re an expert in water treatment, perhaps it would be a nice addition to your web site to market someone else’s book on that matter, while getting a fair commission on each sale.

The model is different from the pay-per-click model in that you only get paid when a sale is made. Some find it less profitable than pay-per-click but most web publishers like to mix and match different advertising models, namely the ClickBank offerings.

If you’re not signed up as a web publisher yet, now’s the time to get your own account to add another income stream to your monthly revenue!

Tags: clickbank, e-commerce, affiliates, online sales, web marketing, web publishers, revenue

Essential IT projects for modern organizations

Modern organizations usually find it easier to build on their current information system processes to meet tomorrow’s business challenges. Building everything from scratch, all over again, can cost a bundle.

As such, IT spending is spread across a rather varied selection of initiatives that help profit from the current infrastructure while pushing towards the latest trends in technology deployments.

Organizations need to protect their assets, understand what their information stream contains and analyze it thouroughly, expand to new markets without hurting their domestic business model all the while become ever more mobile and accessible, especially through the web.

In this light, here’s a quick list of projects your organizations might want to look into in order to get the most from the hottest business technology trends. Wikipedia links were added for easier access to complementary information regarding each theme.

• Application integration – legacy meets the newest gear
• Business analytics – finally understanding what the market is saying
• Enterprise portals – the ultimate team-building bridge
• CRM (Customer Relationship Management) – links your helpdesk to the customers
• Intrusion detection and prevention – lock the thieves out
• Data management – get a feel for more powerful databases and bigger storage
• VoIP (Voice-over-Internet Protocol) – the phone as yet another internet appliance
• Mobile devices – anything without a wire
• E-commerce – electronic transactions from all over the web
• BPM (Business Process Management) – eliminate inefficiencies across every layer of any organization
• Web services – that’s where the customers expect to get a hold of you

In most organizations, these initiatives are the ones already being alloted the most money and for a good reason, they enable new levels of performance across a extensive array of key features of any forward thinking corporation.

Fortunately, credible open source projects (look at SourceForge) exist for all of these projects to be successfully initiated and realized in every organization, even the smaller ones.

Tags: modern organizations, e-commerce, it, mobile web, voip, crm, open source, enterprise portals

Google Checkout makes online shopping easier

Online shoppers, rejoyce! Google Checkout promises to make your e-commerce checkout experiences a lot more intuitive, faster, secure and convenient.

For those who wish to see how this new checkout service works, there’s a cool little video that shows how the process happens. There’s also a list of merchants currently using Google’s Checkout service.

Here’s an overview of Google Checkout, in four easy steps.

Search for participating stores, across the web.

Finding stores is quite easy. Just surf in Google’s sponsored links and identify the ads with a little shopping cart to surf to sites that have implemented the Google Checkout service.

Checkout in a matter of mere seconds.

You don’t have to signup ahead of time, just do your e-shopping and click the Google Checkout button to complete a purchase. If you’re already a Gmail (or any other one of Google’s services) user, just sign in and if not, signing up is a breeze. After that, review your order and you’re done!

Keep your credit card number and email address confidential.

Avoid pesky merchants and fraudulent intermediaries with Google Checkout. Shop with confidence knowing that your credit card number isn’t shared with sellers. Your email address can also be kept confidential, if that’s what you wish.

Track all your orders and shipping in one place.

You don’t have to remember usernames and password combinations for every store you visit. Easily browse your purchase history, track orders and deliveries and quickly contact sellers… all from one web page.

For those who want to know, this isn’t even close to the much anticipated Gbuy service which is intended to compete head-on with PayPal. This being said, PayPal may choose to adjust its own service a bit in view of this new competitor, even if it’s a rather indirect one.

Experts believe this checkout process is part of a larger e-commerce strategy at Google which includes Google Base and the upcoming -and still unofficial- Gbuy. For the time being, it’s an outstanding boost to the Google AdWords program because with this new checkout process, the service is once again differentiated from the competition’s offerings.

Overall, it’s another service that will help merchants sell online and for anyone who loves the web, this is awesome news.