CRM & Tech for The Small Business

Continuing with my theme of ‘free’ (or close enough) from my last post, now I continue looking at a couple of nifty tools that Microsoft offers that we think can offer a real value for many of our small business clients.

While we don’t typically think of Microsoft and ‘free’ in the same sentence, due to competitive pressures from Google Apps, Zoho, and open source software, the Windows giant is working hard to remain relevant in a ‘cloud’ based world.

Following is an overview of two Microsoft products that on their own are rather revolutionary, but combined should result in some powerful results for those who are ready to think outside their daily box.

 The first item on deck is Microsoft Mesh. 

I won’t get into a lot of detail since my previous post here at Inside Small Biz CRM provided some depth on Mesh, but as a recap:  Mesh is a cloud service from Microsoft that allows you to share files across the web. 
You simply create ‘mesh’ folders, and specify the sharing rules.  A copy is created on your local machine and another on your Mesh desktop in the cloud.  Depending upon your rules, new files or changes to existing files will automatically replicate through your mesh to other members and machines (called ‘devices’ in Mesh lingo).  If a machine is offline at the time you update or create a Mesh file, when it is next connected to the web, it will be updated.  You do nothing further.

The benefits?  1) Universal access to your critical files.  2) Version consistency since changes automatically replicate through your mesh.  3) Informal back up of sorts – there is always a copy in the cloud no matter where you are or what happens to your PC.

Mesh is free and allows up to 5 GB of file storage.  (To make it even more interesting, Mesh allows you to remotely access your Windows based Mesh PCs – need to look up something from your CRM system back at the office – no worries!  Login to your Mesh and access your office PC from anywhere.  Sweet!)

The next Microsoft tool that I want to talk about is not really free, but it does come bundled in Office Home & Student 2007 and also Office Ultimate 2007, so there’s a good chance you own it already.  (If not, fear not – you can buy it Staples or Best Buy for just $99.)  My guess is that this is one of the most under-utilized components of Microsoft Office:  I am referring to Office OneNote 2007.

Do you often find that you are juggling Adobe Acrobat, Word, and PowerPoint files, web pages, emails, online slide shows, even video, while researching for work? 
You need all of these disparate yet important information sources in some kind of cohesive format, yet there is no simple way to do so.  Sure, your contact manager or CRM is great for tracking phone calls, emails, and meetings, but unless you do some hefty customization, things unravel pretty quickly when you start throwing browser bookmarks and various document formats into the mix.

If this sounds at all familiar, you owe it to yourself to discover OneNote.  
Beyond offering a central location to store and manage your important business intelligence – no matter the format – it provides flexible organization along with support for tagging and full text indexing.  Never get buried again. 
OneNote lets you share your ‘notebooks’ with other team members so they too can access, and add to, a project repository. 

The basics of OneNote are quick to master and the possibilities are limited only by imagination.  If you already have OneNote installed on your PC, take 10 minutes to learn the basics.  You’ll earn that time back within two hours of using it.

So, take ubiquitous data access, team sharing, full text search, remote control, and a universal data repository for web and desktop media, and you have the makings of a potent SMB collaboration solution. 

All for (almost) free!  Enjoy.

M Scott Schaffernoth
www.winnovative.com
Twitter: mscotts
moreinfo@winnovative.com