Being hands-off on tech news and updates is neither hipster nor cool. It’s just plain impractical. So instead of acting all snobbish about the things that you’re missing out on, get to know the technology innovations that are starting to get more and more mainstream and in-demand.
Cloud Computing
The word “cloud” is a term that pertains to the Internet. Cloud computing, therefore, translates to using the Internet for business processes such as information exchange, storage and communications. Because it is relatively cheaper than getting on-site tools that require expert handling, a lot of vendors have already sprung up the market, ranging from phone VoIP service providers to document storage services, and even online virtual meeting platforms.
Just make sure that as you choose your online scheduler, VoIP service or financial tracker, you consider different factors such as security, scalability and reliability. RingCentral, a virtual PBX vendor, combines VoIP with documents storage and mobile apps for a more comprehensive cloud computing experience for users.
SEO
Search engine optimization is a process that aims to get your website popular among search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Why not, when the largest activity online is search? Once you get to the top of that list when prospect clients search for the keywords that are related to what you offer, you can expect more traffic to your website, which then translates to more clients and of course, more profit.
SEO is one of the biggest new industries in tech and marketing today, proving how much of a big deal it is. There’s a lot to learn, and if you’d rather spend your time in other marketing thrusts, why not hire an SEO team to take care of your rankings in Google. However, for local businesses with a target market that’s only within 20 miles from their offices, optimizing for the whole Web can seem useless. So make sure that the scale of what you will do is relevant to the scale of the market that you’re targeting.
Crowdsourcing
Crowdsourcing embraces the simple truth that today it’s much easier to pool talents for a super awesome output. For instance, if you want your website redesigned, instead of getting a designer full-time, you send out the message to all graphic designers in the world and from a shortlist, get the best one. There are different communities through which you can outsource a task to the crowd.
However, the challenge comes in having to choose from the large pool of potential providers. To succeed in crowdsourcing, you need to learn how to craft your instructions in such a way that it would attract the right kind of talents, and not the whole graphic design industry, for instance. Check out CrowdFlower and crowdSPRING.