Simply put, there is not one, but lots of ways to share documents amongst multiple users!

There has been an explosion of software as a service (SaaS) applications delivered over the Internet that allows you to manage everything in one online application. Many of these have free versions, some with scaled-up functionality in a paid upgrade or subscription version.

Here are some ideas for your documents:

Thinkfree ( HYPERLINK "http://www.thinkfree.com" www.thinkfree.com) offers an online alternative for basic use of documents of three types: word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation. You can store and share up to 1GB with up to ten users for free.

Open a gmail account with Google (www.google.com). Among the myriad of free applications you will have access to will be Google Docs, which handles the same three document types, with a little more speed and storage space.

If you’re an Excel power user and aren’t happy with the limited functionality available in thinkfree or Google Docs, try EditGrid ( HYPERLINK "http://www.editgrid.com" www.editgrid.com). It has all the features best loved by guys with pencil-holders in their pockets, plus a few especially impressive ones, like Real-Time Linked Sheet. When the online sheet changes, the Excel linked sheet also updates in real-time. Or Publish, a feature that sends up the MS Excel data you’re working on your desktop right up to EditGrid in one click.

For an amazing SaaS voice-memo application, try Jott ( HYPERLINK "http://www.jott.com" www.jott.com). You can Jott yourself, or Jott your co-worker, from any phone, using a toll-free number. Your memo is available at jott.com, but also gets emailed to you, handy for copying and pasting.

With the large number of developers working on new ideas all over the planet, making their great new systems available online, it is almost certain you’ll find something that will work well to help you work more effectively. Happy collaborating!

Have you ever heard the phrase “Shift Happens,” or watched the thought provoking video of the same title on YouTube? If you are one of those people who are slow to adapt to change, then I highly recommend you explore both.  The world is changing rapidly… and it will not wait for you. Mobile marketing (SMS, MMS and Mobile Web for the purposes of this
article) is thriving and it should definitely be considered in your company’s 2008 marketing plan.

The Web vs. Mobile Evolution.


Many people relate the current state of mobile marketing to the time when corporate web sites first started to launch in the early 90’s.  Nothing could be further from accurate. In the early 90’s, the web was a relatively new and unproven medium. Few people had Internet access, and for those who did, it was on dial-up modems which took minutes to
download a basic web page. Beyond just the poor customer experience, the global infrastructure wasn’t well established at the time, and the user base was not large enough to justify company’s allocating budgets to the web.

Mobile is Thriving. 


The biggest differences between the early stages of web and the current stage of mobile are that for mobile, the technology and infrastructure are already well established, there is a pre-existing global user base estimated at over 1.8 billion mobile subscribers, and the use of mobile applications is thriving. With the introduction of the iPhone in 2007, as well as similar devices that are greatly improving the ease of text messaging and mobile web use, mobile marketing is expected to continue
to experience explosive growth.


The supporting data.


If you need more convincing, here are a few eye-opening facts. Research firm SNL Kagal estimates current US cell phone penetration at 84%.  SMS text subscribers are estimated at 75.5 million in the US (Source: Frost and Sullivan). 75% of younger Boomers and 68% of older Boomers have phones that support text messaging--compared to 86% and 82% of Gens Y
and X, respectively (Source: Insight Express 9/07). 58% of US teens have cell phones (Source: Jupiter Research). 35.9% of US teens bought cell phones just to use text messaging (Source: IDC/SMS Survey).  Mobile advertising is projected to grow from $1.5 billion in 2006 to $13.9 billion by 2011 (eMarketer, 1/07).  For links to an extensive list of articles on mobile facts, visit  HYPERLINK "http://www.teamvision.com" teamvision.com/mobile


The Mobile Advantage


Why are experts predicting a major shift toward increased expenditures in mobile marketing?


“Mobile is always on and always with you.” 


Think about it.  Your phone is in your hand when you’re driving.  You check messages while in meetings at work.  It’s on your nightstand. It’s with you when you’re shopping. And, it’s always by your side when traveling.
Compare that to your laptop which is rarely in use outside of your home or office.   For this reason alone, mobile is a marketer’s dream medium. On top of ease of accessibility, mobile marketing also provides all of the great benefits of online, including e-commerce, user analysis reporting, push, pull and proximity marketing.

 

Enhance your marketing with mobile today.


The opportunities for businesses to capitalize on the mobile market are endless. Here is just one example to whet your appetite.


Mobile Short-Code Call-to-Actions.  Picture this.  You are sitting in traffic and hear an enticing radio commercial about a Las Vegas getaway package.  You hear a web address and phone number at the end of the spot, but you’re driving and can’t write the information down.  Now what?


Mobile technology offers you the ability to include easy-to-remember five- or six-digit short code call-to-actions in your
advertising.  Now, that same customer sitting in traffic can send a quick keyword text to a short-code address (i.e.vegas1) and a return text message will be automatically generated to that customer with the details of the promotion and all of the contact information for the company offering it.


Why is this a tremendous benefit?  The customer is given an immediate and easy to execute call-to-action. The customer now has all the pertinent information of the promotion on their phone. If their phone is web-enabled, they can simply click on
the text message and connect to a landing page optimized for mobile conversions,  they can click-to-call and book the package, or they can wait until they get to a computer where they can still book the old fashioned way – through a web site.


Shift happens!  Make sure you understand the benefits of mobile marketing … and get your company’s “shift” moving today.

There are some good reasons to keep your entire company on the same version of Office, but file compatibility generally shouldn’t be one of them. It’s true that Office 2007 has a new file format. Office 2007 files are now XML-based, which means that they are more open, more accessible, and smaller that the older binary-based files. In fact, Office 2007 files can be as mush as 50% smaller than Office 2003 files, which makes them easier to store, backup and transfer between machines than the older Office files were. But Microsoft makes available free file converters that you can install on your Office 2003 machines, which enable them to seamlessly read and write the new format. That way, you can create documents with Office 2007 and still read and edit them with Office 2003 if you need to.

That said, there are some other things to be aware of before your move to Office 2007. First is that it has an entirely new user interface, which may cause your users some pause if they haven’t seen it before. The old commands you’re used to are not in the same places. The look and feel of the programs is different and that may require some training to help your users get comfortable.

Also, while it’s a misconception that Office 2007 requires Vista, it does require at least Windows XP with Service Pack 2 and also a machine with at least one gigabyte of free hard drive space. I still see Windows 2000 (and sometimes older) machines in production, so I know that many of you have machines that aren’t going to be capable of running Office 2007. So you may have to incur some additional costs to upgrade your machines to even being running Office 2007.

However, like I mentioned, the Office 2007 File Converters are available via free download from Microsoft by visiting Microsoft.com and searching for “Office 2007 File Converters.”

So while there may be several prohibitive reasons – support, training, cost, machines that aren’t ready to support it – for not upgrading to Microsoft Office 2007, don’t be scared off from it due to file formats. Office 2007 is a pretty big advance over previous versions and it’s definitely worth a look.