Move Your Operations Online

I’m in the process of moving my business operations online!  I’ll tell you why and you can decide if this is a good move for you.

1. Data Security.  I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to work with more secure client information.  And to be honest, I don’t like the idea of having client data living on mobile devices like laptops, CDs, flash drives and even desktops.  I’ve got backups on external drives – but that’s a hassle.  I want my clients to be able to login and upload data securely.  I want us to have access to this data when we are out of our offices.  And I want things backed up.
2. Accessibility.  No one seems to be at their office at the same time anymore.  Deadlines still happen and we want to be able to work on -demand.  So web access to information makes sense.
3. Collaboration.  I’m finding that I’m a part of so many virtual teams and groups where we are collaborating on creating documents and doing projects.  After cluttering up several gigabytes of storage space with several versions of giant worksheets.  I started looking for a better way.
4. Easy transitions to new devices.  Computers are getting older faster.  As my business grows and I develop more history, transferring data to new computers and backing things up is getting harder and more cumbersome.  Hello Web!
5. Combining my web site and blog.  Since I’ve started this blog, the web site as sort of …well, gone by the wayside.  But there are still things that a web site is good for.  So I want my blog traffic to start benefiting my web site too.
6. Mobile devices and synchronization – I’m tired of synchronizing and managing my contacts with a USB device.  I’m reviewing e-mails on the device, then reviewing and deleting again on the laptop.  This is ridiculous.  I’m going to Microsoft Exchange!

So these are 6 of my reasons for making this change. And I can’t begin to tell you how excited I am about this.  I’m feeling sort of "free" about the whole thing.  I’m not worried about a major technical disaster and it feels like I’ll be able to manage my business so much better.  Not only that, I’m thinking that I will be able to expand my virtual teams to include all sorts of experts and build a real collaborative team and community dedicated to the new world of marketing.

So, now you’re wondering how can a little boutique firm like mine do all this?  Let me tell you!  I’ve moved to 1&1! 

1&1 is an online web hosting service that allows you to create a whiz-bang web site even if you’re in the HTML programming gifted class (like me).  Not only that, but they use WordPress as their blog software and I’m hearing that’s the blogging software of choice. You get all kinds of space and e-mail options, on line promotional options and flexibility.

Here’s the really exciting part.  1&1 is offering Microsoft Web Exchange for $6.99 per month.  I’m hearing that can cost organizations thousands of dollars.  But for $7 per month even little old me can run my outlook online and seamlessly with my mobile device.