November 2011

The Art of Service

For IT and business professionals

magazine

Tips for the Small Business Owner Gamification for HR Setting Goals for Self Improvement Easy-to-Use Apps for Small Business

Contents
Stay Competitive: Tips for the Small Business Owner

magazine. After a bit of chaos, the team here is glad to be finally settled in our new office and ready to get the ball rolling on some great new projects. Weve got plenty of great reading lined up for you this month. Check out our feature article on page 3 to see the benefits of cloud computing for the small business owner. Or if youre looking for some tips on self improvement, check out the article on page 8. Dont forget to check the back cover to find out this months winner of the wishlist competition. It could be you! So enjoy reading, and, if you have any more question regarding this months edition, send us an email at: editor@artofservice.com.au

Welcome to the November Edition of The Art of Service

Gamification for HR

Setting Goals for Self-Improvement

Why do IT Professionals Attend Conferences

10

Learning from success is important, but learning from failure is vital to succeeding Jason Platnick

Smart Phone Apps for Small Businesses

11

The Art of Service magazine

Issue 16 Founders and Publishers Editors Contributors November 2011 Ivanka Menken and Gerard Blokdijk Owen Corby, Rebecca McCallion

Bringing Gamification to the Cloud

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Ivanka Menken , Kimberly Crossland, Brad Andrews, Rama Banerjee, William Manning
editor@artofservice.com.au

Subscribe/Contact /Advertise with us

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Stay Competitive
Tips for the Small Business Owner
Kimberly Crossland

space is dying. The power of the internet is starting to be released in the form of new web-based software solutions that give businesses the power to have anywhere, anytime access to their office. Now all a professional needs is a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or PC to connect to the internet and they have access to their office at their fingertips. What does this mean for small businesses? Lower costs and a stronger competitive advantage.

The idea of your PC being your digital storage

The world of technology has developed, opening doors for small businesses to eliminate their fixed costs in expensive infrastructure and IT management, and, instead, use pay-as-you-go solutions that are significantly lower in cost and offer more versatility. In addition, they have the tools to collaborate with their teams in a way never seen before. Through lower costs and increased productivity, small businesses are now able to level the playing field and compete with the big guys.
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No Infrastructure. No Fixed Costs.

Infrastructure is one of the most costly items for small businesses. The initial price to purchase and set up the infrastructure is enough to set a small business back months, if not years. Once it has been set up, the maintenance of the servers and infrastructure is laborious and budget draining. IT personnel have to maintain the system and protect against any downtime that could impair business productivity. Another expense for businesses is software that requires installation. Once a software solution is purchased, it must be installed and license keys have to be maintained on multiple pieces of hardware. The process to do this is laborious and the time intensive. To counteract these two ways of doing business, more companies are moving to the cloud. Once you have just a simple internet connection, you can do almost anything. Software-as-a-Service that runs in the cloud does not require installation, which is why more companies are leveling the playing field and adopting this way of doing business. It is seamless to set up and requires no maintenance. When a small business invests their money in cloud software, they significantly limit their spending, allowing them to invest in other aspects of their business, giving them the opportunity to compete and grow faster.

Dramatically Cut Overhead Costs

Investing in office space, travel, and other resources is a huge expense for small businesses. The world is shrinking and the idea that business must be done from specified locations is becoming oldfashioned. Smart businesses know that the way to be competitive is to lower costs in heavy equipment and have consistent access to your office, no matter where you are in the world. This can be done with cloud software. Software in the cloud allows businesses to conduct meetings and manage team collaboration online. Through the use of video and web conferencing, businesses are able to meet in cyberspace, instead of traveling thousands of miles, wasting time and money. Additionally, business files can be stored and shared online, giving professionals access to their important documents from anywhere in the world. Business collaboration tools have added value to the business place, allowing for improved communication. Small businesses with remote locations or people who work from home can now work together better online, staying ahead of the competition by increasing productivity and employee morale. With all of these benefits, it would seem that such a powerful piece of technology would take a while to implement. But the truth is, we already have the technology at our disposal, we just arent using it.

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Immediate Implementation

One factor that has scared some small businesses away from implementing new solutions, is the time it takes to transition to a new system. Transitioning to cloud software, however, is fast and easy and only requires access to the internet. In todays society, it is difficult to find a business that does not use e-mail or have a website. The idea of web-based software is not totally foreign to us. Because of this, small businesses are able to immediately implement new cloud software solutions into their business with little transition or training time required. The learning curve for employees is fast. Most employees use similar technology in their daily lives, making it seamless to integrate into their business life. Social networks, for example, are being turned into private business collaboration tools to enhance communications with geographically distant locations or work-from-home employees. Businesses can be instantly more hands on, making them more innovative and productive instantly. By leveraging current technology, businesses are seeing immediate positive results.

to succeed in the workplace and giving public recognition to those who do well, thereby, retaining quality employees. Even with a traveling sales force, work-from-home employees, and remote locations, small businesses can make sure their employees stay motivated and connected, wherever they are. By having a way to connect in the cloud, these employees get the support they need to succeed, boast about their accomplishments, and drive internal competition. Likewise, managers have a birdseye view of the business and employees have a forum to share their ideas and accomplishments. Small businesses are able to thrive and stay competitive with a motivated staff behind them. It is clear why cloud computing is taking the small business world by storm. With growing margins and improved employee morale, businesses can become more profitable. Lower IT and overhead costs give small businesses more ground to take off running with their business. Teams have the ability to adopt technology they are already familiar with and interact with their colleagues, partners, and clients in a way never seen before, increasing employee productivity and morale. Cloud computing and business collaboration tools are crucial to the success of any small business.
From: www.articlebase.com

Give your Team the Tools to Succeed

Employee morale is driven by the feeling of accomplishment. With the right tools, small businesses are giving their teams what they need

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Gamification for HR
Brad Andrews
How instituting Gami cation processes can boost e ciency and increase employee satisfaction in the process
Anyone who says they dont like games, or prefers sticking to highly-structured, unrewarding tasks in lieu of them, is probably playing mind games with you. An overwhelming majority of people would much rather engage in something fun and rewarding and would likely take preventative measures to avoid overly boring or complex tasks. This kind of thinking often extends into many individuals career fields as well. The field of HR (human resources) is certainly no exception here; HR is mostly confined to an office and requires a certain level of productivity and devotion from its workers. Too often in an office environment where tedious and repetitive work is being performed, individuals may become complacent and slip in their duties. This is to be expected, however, as human beings often require stimulation, gratification, and/ or exploration to keep them interested in something for an extended period of time. Its mostly due to the way our brains process information (in an abstract manner) and our desire to problem-solve or achieve. This of course brings us to gamification and how it might be able to energize employee morale and foster an atmosphere of progress. Gamification is, simply put, another way for employers (in this case, HR) to create incentive without devoting too much time, money, or energy to the cause. At its core, its really about giving employees an even greater level of creative freedom in exchange for their loyalty and steadfastness. Obviously, an employer cannot simply eliminate all rules, schedules, timetables, deadlines, codes of conduct, and short/ long term goals. However, they can create things like bonuses for certain achievements, awards for diligence, or various other incentives. This is what gamification seeks to achieve in HR: to give employees a reason to feel good about their job and offer them a potential for future growth and expansion in their duties and position. One of the age old quandaries in business management is how to keep things running smoothly at a brisk pace while, at the same time, maintaining employee contentedness. It is in the business managers best interest to keep his/her employees satiated for a number of reasons: Satisfied employees are easier to manage, more dependable, and, of course, more consistent in their output (which is normally much higher than that of a dissatisfied employee).

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As employee approval increases, so does the capability for increasing levels of both production (output) and efficiency (constancy). Contented employees are often prone to implement creative problem-solving or devise inventive solutions, which in turn, produces/saves profits. So the idea is to institute certain incentive programs (via gamification elements) in order to strike a balance between productivity and freedom. In doing so, an employer can expect nothing more than loyalty and renewed fervor from employees in their duties. This is especially important in HR, where employees in that department are expected to help others resolve their workplace difficulties. With gamification, it is also extremely easy to generate competition within the workplace. One needs to be mindful of the ethical implications associated with competition and gamification, however, as pitting employees against one another for the companys benefit (or your own) is disgraceful and counterintuitive to any businesses true goals. However, tapping into the competitive aspect of any professional environment is a sure-fire way to generate interesting activity (with gamification). Competition isnt all bad though; it often attracts the most determined and resourceful individuals and prods them toward even greater accomplishments, which, in turn, benefit the entire organization. A more competitive atmosphere might also increase the numbers of individuals that are actively participating in certain projects or tasks. Gamification is especially useful in this regard. For example, the easiest way to get that difficult and/or tedious project completed (which might have been lying there dormant for weeks/months) is to begin offering comparable incentives to those employees that are able to complete it. In many ways, gamification represents a microcosm of the way larger economic elements function and interact with one another. Sure, some incentives or awards might not be that outstanding, but compare them with endlessly performing the same type of tasks day in, day out with absolutely no acknowledgment. In fact, most people go out of their way to avoid dealing with management because seeing them usually means something went wrong or some disciplinary measure must be taken.

Gamification essentially reverses this stigma (associated with all forms or levels of business management). With gamification in place, the next visit from your boss might be to offer you a promotion.

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Setting Goals for SelfImprovement

William Manning
Read any self-improvement book and you will learn that hard work, focused goals, and persistence are important, very important, in getting to where you want to go in life. Goals or targets are an important part of managing your time. How many of you set goals or targets? If not long-term goals, how many of you set goals for how much you want to accomplish in a given day or how much money you want to have saved by end of year? Before you can develop plans, you have to know what you want to accomplish (your goals or targets); how you want to accomplish those goals or targets; what resources of time, money, and materials you have; and who will carry out the implementation. Most of us cannot hit a target if we cannot see it. So set some targets for yourself, targets that you can see.and we will start the journey to reaching them. Most of us settle for much less than we can be. Do not settle for that. It takes being willing to make changes, but we can changewe just have to want that change! Many of us are full of ideas but short on taking constructive action to put those ideas into play. Maybe we try something once and then meet failure because we did not think and plan the actions through. However, you know what they say about the lottery: You cant win if you dont buy a ticket. The same is true in life: if you stop trying, you lose all chance of succeeding. Goals and objectives are the basis for planning. As most of us will remember, the Cheshire Cat said to Alice, If you dont know where you are going, then any road will take you there. And that is often how we approach life.
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We can do a bit better than that, if we really want to. The first element of planning is knowing what we want to achieve, and the way we word our goals is the biggest factor in helping us achieve them

S-SPECIFIC

Goals should be SMART

When we make our goals too general, we are not able to visualize them, and, if we cannot see them, we have a hard time devoting our efforts toward reaching them. We are more apt to do a good job of redecorating the bathroom if we have a picture in our mind of how it will look when it is done.

M-MEASURABLE
If we cannot measure a goal, we have no idea how close we are getting to reaching it, and that can be de-motivating.

A-ATTAINABLE
We sometimes think that we should set high targets or goals for ourselves in order to grow and stretch. While we do want to grow and stretch, if we set goals that are not doable, we soon get discouraged and stop trying. The really high achievers in the world know this. They set goals that they know they can reach with a little stretching, and, when they get there, they set another goal they know they can reach. They climb the mountain one foot at a time.

R-RELEVANT
Goals have to make sense and have some importance or they will soon be discarded. Set goals that make sense to you (another word that is often used for the R in this acronym is Realistic).

T-TIMED (Time Bound)

Put a deadline on your goals. Deadlines are great for getting things done. You will also want to make sure that your goals have the three Ps. Personal: There has to be a buy-in Positive: You will not want to work towards if it is not Put in writing: Remember and can refer back to for

all of the above Make them Personal You set goals because you want to reach them, not because your boss or your spouse wants you to. Similarly, when you are helping your employees set goals, they must be goals that your employees want, not the goals you want for them. Without buy-in, you are wasting your time. Make them Positive We can create some negative energy by saying what we are not going to do, but the effect is more sustainable when we say what we will do. Goals are not just about work. You are a whole person with many more sides to you than just your skill as a supervisor for your organization. While you are thinking about setting goals, think about areas in which you want to set goals. Setting a goal is not enough though. The next step is deciding how you can achieve that goal. According to Brian Tracy, a very successful motivational speaker and trainer, most people do not have goals. Therefore, if you do have goals, you are onestep ahead of the pack. In addition, if you have a strategy for reaching your goals, you are two steps ahead of the pack. Finally, put these goals where you will see them often to remind you of what you want to achieve.

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Why do IT Professionals Attend Conferences?

Or is it simply that you dont have to think about who to approach for new information and knowledge around your subject matter of choice? To get close to the thought leaders of your industry even when you are too shy to contact people directly or speak with them face-to-face. Personally, I think the main value for attending conferences is the connections you make. Not just the personal connections (although they are very important), but the links between various items discussed that are specific to your industry. You attend three to four breakout sessions during a day and each speaker has a slightly different point-of-view to the same or similar topic. You ask questions to speaker no. 2 based on the information you received from speaker no 1. This way you are able to assemble your own viewpoints and approaches to various issues and topics you run into in your role at the company. The magic of a conference is that, after you attend these breakout sessions, you can test your theories and hypotheses by discussing it with other attendees! Do they feel the same way? Do they support your theories, and, if not, why not? That is the value you get from attending conferences. Instant feedback from other people in your industry in a non-threatening way. Yes, it does mean youll have to attend the networking sessions and get social during the weekbut you get so much back in return: a guilt-free and consequence-free way to solidify your thoughts and ideas (lets call this INDIRECT learning, as apposed to the direct learning mentioned before). Youll get back to your place of work a lot stronger and wiser and people will notice!

Ivanka menken

IT Professionals are an interesting breedand Ive had plenty of opportunity to study the species recently at the FUSION11 conference in Washington. Of the 2000 attendees, there was a group of people who clearly enjoyed the personal interaction and social aspects of attending a conference, but there was another group (probably even larger!) who appeared to be very single-focused: attend the sessions, take notes, and go back to the hotelroom to work a bit more. You didnt see them at the social events; they didnt attend the networking sessions. You didnt even see them at the motivational keynote eventsthey showed up at the breakout sessions, which were specific to their current job role. It made me wonderif attending a conference is only to gain more knowledge, arent there better options for you? There are some really great webinars around, many of which are free to attend. And most vendors that have a booth at the conference have all the information available on their websites or through corporate information portals. Alternatively, you can enrol in online learning classes to quickly increase your knowledge and skill level for a specific subject. You can even do this outside of work hours so your peers dont know how you got to this new level of knowledge and understanding. Direct learning is not the main reason for attending a conference, that is not where the value add lies So what is the value add of attending a conference? And where is the Return on Investment? Is it the schedule of industry specific learning interlaced with motivational keynote speakers? Is it the fact that you can distance yourself from the daily grind in the office? Is the value more at a personal level to build trust between peoplea relationship that cant easily be forged through email, blogs, and tweets?
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Five Easy to Use Smartphone Apps for Small Business Owners Rama Banerjee
According to a survey taken last year by Mashable, over 49% of small business owners have a smartphone. The smartphone has morphed into a pocket-sized powerhouse for most business owners and they have come to rely on it heavily in the daily management and organization of their business. Because of that, we thought it might be helpful to list some of our recommended smartphone apps. All of these apps are designed to help small business owners manage their companies more efficiently. From document storage, online contracts, online appointment scheduling, and more, these applications will keep business owners better organized as theyre on the run. Now you can access necessary files from anywhere. When you save a file to DropBox it instantly gets saved to your computer, smartphone, and the DropBox website. When you signup, youre given 2GB of storage for free. Its secure and even works when youre offline, so you always have your files regardless of your ability to connect with the Internet. So, whether you need to review a document on your phone, your desktop computer, laptop computer, or tablet style computerm, DropBox makes your files available to you. MileBug is an easy to use mileage tracker for iPhone, Nokia, or Android OS that makes it easy to keep records for business owners and employees who are always on the go or who just want a central, simple place to keep track of their expenses and mileage.

SimplifyThis

SimplifyThis is a premium online scheduling system for appointments, events, and functions that your clients can use directly from your website. SimplifyThis also allows you to invoice your clients online and take payments online via PayPal or a traditional merchant account credit card gateway. Its a complete online scheduling system and online invoicing solution for small businesses. With their smartphone app, SimplifyThis puts your office in the palm of your hand so that you arent tied to your computer. Check your schedule, add appointments, view client details, and invoice clientsall from your iPhone or Android phone.

Bump

DropBox

Theres no need to type in a new contacts information. Simply activate the Bump app and bump your phones together. You can swap basic contact information, social media profiles (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn) along with music, photos, and more. This is a great tool to have on your phone when you attend Chamber of Commerce functions, conferences, meet ups, and traditional new client meetings.

Evernote

Evernotes goal is to give everyone the ability to easily capture any moment, idea, inspiration, or experience whenever they want, via text, ink notes, pictures of whiteboards, copies of web pages, and more, using the device or platform they find most convenient and then make that information easy to find. These are a few of our favorite smartphone apps. We have found that by using these apps in conjunction with the larger services offered by these companies that were able to operate our business more efficiently and in a more cost-effective manner. We hope that youll find them helpful to the operation of your business too.

MileBug

From: www.articlebase.com

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Bringing Gamification to the Cloud

Brad Andrews

amification represents a push toward combining hands on entertainment, marketing, and brand development. Trending toward gamification also increases competing companys opposition with one another, which in turn will generate even more benefits for consumers in the form of price cuts, bonus offers, rewards programs, memberships, and, of course, entertaining apps delivered via social media. In other words, gamification is poised to usher in a new era of customer satisfaction and appreciation. Cloud computing is a groundbreaking computing/ networking solution, which has the potential to change the world. The modern trend of gamification through social media is a revolutionary new way to generate consumer interest, drive, entertainment, and achievement.

audience. For example, lets say company A is offering a cloud computing service for online music access and storage. At some point, company A decides to begin marketing via gamification and creates a limited feature version of one of their flagship apps for deployment on various social media sites. The proposed app would load like any other game and allow users to upload their own creations and market them to other users (soundcloud.com is a good example of this). Once individual users see the increased attention theyre getting via this new gamification element, they will often decide to purchase the full version of the product or subscribe to it. In this way, potential cloud users could be targeted and sold on specific features inherent in cloud computing without bogging them down or confusing them with the dizzying number of potential uses. However, marketing is not the only area where gamification can be used to drive people into cloud computing. Because there are very few dedicated cloud architectures in existence, there is quite a bit of room left for further improvements or establishments. Gamification could be integrated in hundreds of new ways to assist in managing, running, performing, and tabulating tasks/data on a cloud network. For example, many cloud providers are apt to offer pay-per-usestyle cloud service where users only pay for the resources/bandwidth that they use or

In what ways might these two concepts/ technologiescoalesce?

The most obvious application of gamification with regards to cloud computing would be in capturing new (cloud) users. For example, gamification elements that might represent and function like real components of a cloud computing architecture can be isolated and delivered via social media. This is to say that certain applications normally attributed to a cloud could be gamified and offered up as entertainment. In doing so, the functions, features, and uses for said app(s) could be more easily disseminated to a mass
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consume. In this sense, gamification could be used to not only help users keep a running tab on their monthly/weekly usage of resources but also perhaps even win or unlock certain trophies or achievements related to their usage. This might also be combined with programs offered by the service provider, which will reward users for particular actions (like in a video game) and offer them incentives like limited-period, reduced monthly costs, creation of additional user profiles, or other nifty possibilities. The point is that gamification can be used to capture new users but also secure a more loyal cloud clientbase (which is crucial for making long term business decisions).

Why is gamification crucial for landing new cloud users?

Cloud computing is still in a transitional/ developmental phase; most funding needs to be put toward the development of useful software, technology, or infrastructure. What gamification offers cloud providers and developers is a way to secure new users via social media without having to invest exorbitant amounts of capital toward those ends. This is crucial for cloud computing because it will not only help an organization to finance itself but to also greatly speed up the processes of development and adaptation as well. Both cloud computing and gamification are designed to make better use of particular resources. In cloud computing, the idea is to create an elastic hardware/ software solution that can expand and contract to meet any demand, be it the number of users or hardware requirements and resources. Gamification seeks to take smaller concepts and expand upon them to add additional value to games or apps by means of using them to captivate an audience. Together, the two concepts (gamification and cloud computing) would be a very effective tag team if you implemented properly, where one element (gamification) provides and the other delivers (cloud computing).

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Wishlist Competition Winner

We are proud to announce this months winner of our ongoing wishlist competition:

Has won himself a free copy of: The Cloud Computing Complete Certification Kit Valued at $199.95 Dont forget to keep your wishlist current. The next 100th item added will be given away free! Start shopping now at http://store.theartofservice.com and you could find your wishes coming true. You must have account registered at http://store.theartofservice.com for your chance to win. Sign up today!

Tony Phan