SME Blog

Excel tips

I should confess now. It's a problem I've had for some years now. I'm an Excel junkie.  It's hard to kick the habit as it's everywhere I go.  I've tried other spreadsheet brands, but they just don't have the depth and finesse of Excel.  To me they just seem like Excel Lite.  No wonder we're all using it.

I came across an Excel article in PC World called Who Knew Excel Could Do That? Ten Top Tips.  It's good, very good in fact.  If you are an Excel junkie or just an occasional user it is well worth checking out. If you're time poor then at least try tip 5.

N.B. Just in case you miss it (I did initially) tips 6-10 are on a second page clickable at the end of the first. 

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Philip Woodgate

SME future technology

In many ways technology is a marvel.  It is deployed by relief operations in the event of natural disasters to assist in tracking individuals and coordinating efforts.  It is changing how people live; one in eight couples who got married in the US last year met online.  People are interacting in new ways using blogs, Myspace, Skype and YouTube.  The problem is I'm increasing wanting more from technology and that's where the problems start.

Let's take a SME business to business service company.  Wouldn't it be great if:

A client rings the service company and on picking up the phone the service company employee sees a screen with ALL the client details. When I say ALL I really do mean ALL and include:

• All correspondence in electronic format to and from the client
• All other electronic documents found by an easy search facility
• All emails from ANYONE from the service company to the client company and vice-versa
• All details of client employees and booked client meetings
• All meeting notes for past meetings
• Debt outstanding and WIP
• Current stage of the business process on any services being provided
• Quick drill down opening up desktop client specific work in any software instantly e.g. a current spreadsheet, document, artwork etc...
• Quick drill down opening up shared internet applications e.g. online accounting system
• Latest internet news/references about the client

Okay, so that would not all fit on one screen, but with drilldowns and drop down boxes it would.  Perhaps it would resemble something like a website, but just with one client's information.

Of course anything can be done, but for it to really work for the average SME it needs to come pretty much straight out of the box.  The software has to fit together like pieces of lego (ideally the really big variety my 2 year old twins use).  The last thing the SME needs is the IT equivalent of complex plumbing in a 16th century mansion. 

Any guesses on the time frame on this?  Remember the software must fit together like lego (the really big kind). Come on give it a go (year and month).  I'm sure at least the enterprise irregulars could have a good stab at this.  I'll track it for the future and when I see it for the first time in a SME I'll send out a bottle of champagne to the person who guessed closest.  It should be a happy day for both of us.

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Philip Woodgate

Awards 2006 - A big thank you

This post is going to be a Big Thank You post – so here goes:   

Last night my firm, Goodman Jones, won the Accountancy Age Award for Best Use of Internet: Practice.  I’m delighted. I’ve really enjoyed collaborating with a great team on the main website, Twinfield powered online accounting and other internet technologies we use. 

Special thanks go out to David Terrar and Dennis Howlett.  David put in a tremendous effort in all areas and comes highly recommended.  Checkout his company’s website at D²C for what he can offer.  Dennis Howlett used his skills on editing, redrafting and honing the website content.  Dennis also provided great insight and analysis.  He and his blog continue to be a source of inspiration.

Thank you to all the blog readers that have supported this blog since its humble beginnings.  Many thanks for taking time to read and comment. It was a special pleasure to finally meet Stefan Töpfer from Winweb.  Stefan’s company sponsored the award and it was great to meet him and his fellow Small Business Blog contributer Emily Coltman.

I would also like to thank Tribal Internet especially Glenn Jenner the designer of the main website and not forgetting the GJ Team (Daren, Larry, Julian, Peter, Raymond, Katy, Yolanda & Kim.)

Finally, my wife Sue who has not only put up with me getting up at unearthly hours in the morning, but has been the sanity check on pretty much every idea - a big thanks.

Thank you to you all.

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Philip Woodgate

Computer interfaces

Business and technology are fusing together and how we interact with the technology is becoming increasingly important. The current mouse and keyboard approach will no doubt appear rudimentary in years to come.  Jeff Han provides another answer through his video at TED.  It is quite extraordinary.

Thanks to Will Swayne and David Koopmans for providing the link. 

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Philip Woodgate

IT and the 1970's car

It's not everyday you find yourself on the front page of a magazine so I may as well make the most of it. That's me on the front cover of Reach magazine discussing GJ's experience with Neverfail.

Looking back I can see how much technology has changed my industry sector.  I qualified as a Chartered Accountant well over a decade ago.  In those days we were all using pencils and paper.  There was one computer and that was seen as an extravagance.  We now collaborate internally and externally online, in real time, sharing the same business systems and using online meetings.  Our business processes are now welded together with IT which means we have to ensure the IT infrastructure can deliver business continuity and high availability. 

I tend to view current IT like a car in the 1970's.  Most of the time it worked, but some days it just had problems and was difficult to get started (especially in the Winter).  Looking back it is clear that the 1970's car just wasn't reliable or resilient as the cars we are now using in the 21st century. On top of that in the 1970's there was a big culture of not wearing seat-belts (compulsory wearing of font seat-belts only became UK law in 1983) something that is not unlike current SME IT disaster planning.

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Philip Woodgate

Quote of the month

"You know you've recruited the wrong person when you're on a stake-out with the police outside their house."

And you think you've got employee problems.

Taken from an actual event. Source does not wish to be disclosed. 

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Philip Woodgate

Company recognition

Do you think an elephant can recognise itself in a mirror? The elephant jigging in the BBC video certainly can - a fine jig jumbo.

Can you recognise what a company is by it's logo? I'm at Costa the Italian coffee company at the moment waiting for the train home.  I'm not going to struggle with Costa's logo.  Their logo is three coffee beans.  That's a real give away.  It's certainly sending the right message to me of good Italian real coffee (sorry USA, but isn't Starbuck's rubbish - since when does a cappuccino have so little coffee and so much milk.)

BusinessWeek (one great US organisation) have put some slides together on company logos.  It is very much a before and after together with the why.  The Pyrogrill slides are particularly good.  In an image obsessed society it is not just the large company that can benefit from good branding it is also the SME.  That's particularly true for online retailers where size of operation is less apparent.

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Philip Woodgate