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022 Business Tech Weekly – How Can A Podcast Benefit A Business?

Cliff Ravenscraft — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 00:15:37 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
How Can Podcast Benefit A Business?

Andy and Cliff discuss whether or not a business can benefit by having a podcast.

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020 Business Tech Weekly – Google Mail

daviddoak — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 01:59:14 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Google Mail

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Andy and Cliff discuss why they use Google Apps for their email.

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018 Business Tech Weekly – Checkwriter

daviddoak — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 22:15:33 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Setting Business Goals And Surveys

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In this episode, Cliff and Andy share their thoughts on a piece of software that they both use regularly in their business. The software is called Check Writer. You can read up on the software on their website at http://CheckWriter.net. If you decide that you would like to use Check Writer in your own business, please consider getting the software through Andy at a discounted rate. For more details, please visit http://andytraub.com/getpaid.

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016 Business Tech Weekly – Setting Business Goals And Surveys

daviddoak — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:15:42 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Setting Business Goals And Surveys

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft share their business goals for 2010. Also, they share how generating an online survey for your clients to fill out before any consulting calls can make for more efficient use of your time when working with your client.

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011 Business Tech Weekly – Starting A Successful Business

Cliff Ravenscraft — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:01:15 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
How To Start A Successful Business

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft share a little bit from their back story of how they each left a career that they despised to go into business for themselves doing what they love for a living.

Stuff Mentioned In This Show:

Andy’s Business: More Profit Technology

Cliff’s Story can be found at http://gspn.tv/passion.

Dan Miller’s Book: 48 Days To The Work You Love
Cliff’s Review of 48 Days To The Work You Love: http://gspn.tv/48-days
Dan Miller’s Book: No More Mondays
Dan Miller’s Podcast: 48 Days Radio Show
Justin Lukasavige

Social Networks Mentioned:
www.48days.net
www.FreeAgentAcademy.com

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010 Business Tech Weekly – Interview With Jason Fried of 37 Signals

Cliff Ravenscraft — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:44:17 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Interview with Jason Fried of 37Signals.com

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft interview founder and CEO of 37Signals.com, Jason Fried.

- What do you say to people who are concerned about losing their data with cloud computing?

- Don’t you and Chris Anderson really actually agree on “Free” because you offer free versions of your services so people can try them out? Or do you really thinks we shouldn’t charge for anything, ever?

- Link to YouTube Cliff Mentioned: Marketing by Sharing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks2saa38Id4

- I notice that 37 signals just launched it’s first ever podcast episode on 10/28/09. Why start a podcast? Why Now?

- You’ve had tremendous success building a company, with employees, products, offices etc. What advice do you have for solopreneurs, people like Cliff and I who run our own shows and don’t really want to become a big company but we do want to become more successful in our form of business.?

- What were you doing before 37 Signals?

- Is your book going to be any good? Because I bought it on Amazon already and it doesn’t come out till March.

- Cliff suggest that everyone check out HighRise using http://gspn.tv/highrise

- Cliff also mentioned his full thoughts on HighRise as recorded in PABL Episode #441.

Here are a few links to introduce you to Jason:

Basecamp Link
HighRise Link

Preview videos of Jason Fried (Notice: Explicit language in 2nd video)
http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/video/bif3-jason-fried
http://www.businessinnovationfactory.com/iss/video/bif4-jason-fried

Wikipedia/Bios on Jason Fried

An article about a typical work day for Jason Fried

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009 Business Tech Weekly – Video For Your Business?

Cliff Ravenscraft — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:52:56 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Video For Your Business?

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the use of video for your business. It’s a great tool for communication and something that is becoming more and more popular.

The conversation started when Andy shared that hew was inspired by Cliff’s review blog post of the Kodak Zi8 HD pocket video camera.

What makes this camera so much better than the competition is that it has an audio input jack.

Have external audio input allows for you to take the audio quality of your video to the next level. In the episode, both Cliff and Andy refer to episode 134 of the Podcast Answer Man podcast.

Cliff pointed out that a 30 minute video of this quality can take as much as 5 to 7 hours from the beginning of the project to where you are able to embed the video on your site and release an iPhone version into an rss feed.

In the course of nine hours, Cliff is able to produce a total of 11 episodes of highly professional sounding audio content on a variety of different topics. Also, audio is a great deal portable for those who wish to consume your content while driving or out for an afternoon jog.

Here’s the video we were discussing:

In the episode, there were discussions about the various options for putting your video online. When it comes down to it, the important thing is that you simply put your content out there for people to consume.

Some valuable take away points are as follows:
1. Avoid paralysis by analysis – don’t wait for perfect
2. If it’s really bad…keep practicing till it’s at least presentable.
3. Great content will make up for lacking video professionalism.
4. Be a thought leader – If you do it first or say it first, that will help you have greater impact.

Also in this episode, we give a preview of our special guest for next week’s episode of Business Tech Weekly where we will be interviewing Jason Fried of 37 Signals.

Here are a few links to introduce you to Jason:

Basecamp Link

Wikipedia/Bios on Jason Fried

An article about a typical work day for Jason Fried

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008 Business Tech Weekly – Mac Vs PC

Cliff Ravenscraft — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 17:27:59 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Mac Vs PC

In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the idea of using either the Mac or a PC in your business.

Admittedly, this topic is way too broad to cover in just one episode of Business Tech Weekly. We simply provided a starting point for this discussion. While we’ll continue to take listener questions regarding this topic that come in via voice mail, I would strongly encourage anyone interested in switching to the Mac OS to check out our Help I Got A Mac podcast which an entire podcast devoted to the discussion of Mac Vs PC.

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007 Business Tech Weekly – Skype

Cliff Ravenscraft — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:02:30 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Skype

In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the advantages of using Skype.

Wikipedia on Skype

* History
o Written by developers in Estonia and got its name for Sky peer to peer and then Skyper and then b/c of domain name availability (See BTW epidisode #1 for more on that topic) chose Skype
o eBay bought it for 2.6B in 2006, valued it at 1.7B in April of this year but then sold 65% of it for 1.9B, which makes it worth 2.9B just a few mths ago.
o Skype is threatened b/c of a lawsuit from it’s originators – http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/01/ebay-case-threatens-skype-shutdown – “Millions of internet users who use Skype could be forced to find other ways to make phone calls after parent company eBay said it did not own the underlying technology that powers the service, prompting fears of a shutdown.”
o Skype made eBay over $600M in the last year and has over 480 million registered users. Skype is adding about 30 million subscribers a quarter. They’d have to settle the dispute or find new technology for the software to work.
* Features
o Skype allows users to make calls over the internet for free anywhere in the world.
o Calls to landlines or cell phones can be made for very small fees.
o You can buy a phone number that goes to your Skype acct and you can forward your skype acct to a phone number.
o Video conferencing
o File transferring
o Desktop sharing – bandwidth hog
o Multiple callers “Skype audio conferences currently support up to 25 people at a time, including the host.” – Wikipedia
o Available on cell phones – often limited to WiFi connectivity vs. cell phone network
o Customer service – non-existant? “As of September 2009, Skype does not provide any official means to contact customer support, apart from indirect assistance through its web portal only and contact email addresses. Skype is also unable to update user billing information.”
* For Business
o Call quality is amazing- makes conversations even more personal
o Makes you available immediately
o Skype gives me no boundaries
o I don’t use video during business – too personal in my opinion
* Alternatives
o Gizmo project

Forum Question: How does Skype help your business?

Andy’s POTW: A book! Six Pixels of Separation by Mitch Joel – It’s in the same class but more readable than Seth Godin’s books. A must read if you work with Social Media. I”m giving it away to people in a class I”m hosting starting in November and I’m telling many of my clients to read it to create a strategy of their own.

His Blog: click here.

Cliff’s POTW: Chris Anderson’s FREE

In Free, he makes the compelling case that, in many instances, businesses can profit more from giving things away than they can by charging for them. He demonstrates how this revolutionary price can be harnessed for the benefit of consumers and businesses alike.

UPDATES:
Google Document Suite now enables users to share entire folders between each other, not just documents. Way to go Google..maybe they’re feeling the heat from Microsoft’s new web based tools that are starting to roll out over the next few months. We KNOW that Google has lots of features they’re holding back and that’s why we LOVE competition.

Tungle v.2 is still on schedule for a November roll-out and Andy got a sneak peek of some really slick changes they’re making to an already stellar service. Bravo to our friends at Tungle and our thanks again to Marc, Tungle’s president for joining us on the show.

Big name coming to Business Tech Weekly November 12th. Jason Fried (wikipedia – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Fried) the remaining founder of 37signals will be joining us. He’s so popular that Seth Godin drops his company’s name in his blog as an example what’s cool and he’s got a book coming out next year that’s already in the top 20 books on Management on Amazon.com as of October 14th and it doesn’t come out for another 5 months! His book is like the Harry Potter of management books! His company makes some amazing tools for businesses of all sizes and he’s going to talk to us about his company and how anyone can build a successful business. This guy’s huge and he’s coming to Business Tech Weekly on Nov 12th!

CEO/Presidential Visits:This will become a regular part of our show – interviewing the leadership of companies that create business technology we believe in…got ideas or names of CEO’s we should invite to be on the show? Visit the GSPN Forum and look for the BTW section and find the “Which CEO should we have on?” discussion.

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006 Busines Tech Weekly – Google Voice

Cliff Ravenscraft — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 05:03:58 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Google Voice

In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the advantages of using Google Voice.

What it is Google Voice?

1. A phone number for any area code you choose
2. Integrated with your google contacts with whichever gmail account you set it up with (not able to have google apps addresses integrated with Google voice)
3. Vanity phone numbers are a standard – you can choose letters and they will find the corresponding number – 605-610-TECH / 605-610-UASK
4. Call forward tool
5. Voicemail box
6. International calling?
7. Visual voicemail box
8. International calling very cheap
9. Web based interface to make calls
10. Phone call recording for INCOMING calls only
11. Instant messaging tool
12. Call log – Placed, missed, received
13. Block callers
14. Create specific voicemail greetings for individual callers / groups in your gmail account
15. Send specific callers to different phone numbers
16. Create button plug-ins for specific actions – sends straight to voicemail, forwards to specific phone line etc.
17. Call your Google Voice # – call long distance number through that number

* Google Voice Now Makes Fee Calls To Hawaii And Alaska

Online Class that Andy will be hosting starting in November on how to use these tools for your business. Click Here For Details

Cliff’s Pick of The Week: This week I actually have a “TIP” of the week… My client decided to stop the auto-play of audio on his website! Thank you for these great responses… http://gspn.tv/autoloadaudio

Andy’s Pick of The Week:HelloTxt integration w/ Google Talk – Open a helloTxt account, update all of your personal sites through a simple message in Google Talk from your gmail inbox – Simple!

Next week, we are going to discuss the use of Skype.

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005 Business Tech Weekly – Tungle Scheduling

Cliff Ravenscraft — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 22:34:31 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Tungle Scheduling

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the following.

Every now and then, an online service comes along that has a major impact on your productivity in a positive way. Tungle is one of those services!

We are excited to have Marc Gingras – CEO of Tungle on the show to help us understand where the idea for this service came from and to give us an idea of what is in store for it’s future.

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004 Business Tech Weekly – Google Docs

Cliff Ravenscraft — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 05:03:07 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Google Docs

In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the following items.

Wayne called in to thank us for the information about sending large files.

Stephen called in to ask if there was an easy solution to backing up your Google Docs.

We mentioned the following links as examples of easily published Google Docs.
http://gspn.tv/btwnotes
http://gspn.tv/episodeguide

Competition Coming/Existing From Microsoft:

Competition Coming From IBM?

Andy’s Pick Of The Week: Twitter Bar Plugin For Firefox

Cliff’s Pick of The Week: Screen Grab Plugin For FireFox

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003 Business Tech Weekly – Sending Large Files

Cliff Ravenscraft — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 11:45:42 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Sending Large Files

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the following items.

Jay Carter called in to ask what options are available out there for sending large files via the internet.

We put the power of the community to work on this one. You can read all about the various options discussed by clicking here.

We want to thank Lee Andrew for calling with some audio feedback on the topic and providing a great deal of valuable insight on the topic.

Here is a link to LifeHacker’s top 5 file sharing services.

The most professional option would be to use your own web hosting package. Simply upload the file into a temporary directory on your hosting server. Then you can create a customized page on your site that you can direct your client to. On that page, they will see the file thank you have linked to for them, a customized message for the client, and instructions on how to download the file.

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002 Business Tech Weekly – Online Meetings

Cliff Ravenscraft — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 05:02:10 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
Online Meetings

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the following items.

* On-line meeting solutions:

* How we used to have meetings: In person, Over the phone – in a conference room in an office building, Over the phone – on a conference line, In a chat room/on the web with audio…

Many Options for Online Meetings: GoToMeeting, WebEx, Adobe Connect, DimDim, Yugma.

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001 Business Tech Weekly – The Importance of Domain Names

Cliff Ravenscraft — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 15:00:35 +0000

Business Tech Weekly:
The Importance of Domain Names

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In this episode, Andy Traub and Cliff Ravenscraft discuss the following items.

* The Importance of the domain name for branding your business.

* Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views at www.expertsexchange.com can be viewed as ExpertSexChange.com (Note: This site no longer exists).

* Looking for a pen? Look no further than Pen Island at www.penisland.net. When you put the words Pen and Island together, it looks like PenisLand.net

* One of the funniest domains is from a group of designers, and their whacky website Speed of Art.com. Though it looks more like SpeedoFart.com

* Does your domain name communicates professionalism?

* If you have an address that ends with .blogger.com, .wordpress.com or anything other than yourbusiness.com then you really don’t have a business, you have a hobby. Thing is, most people can’t make a living with a hobby.

* Where do we buy our domains?

* GoDaddy – Price has gone up but coupons are always available via Google, Price is currently $10.69 for .com domains. Coupons are easy to find. Sometimes they run coupons for renewals as well

* Your Host – Often you’ll get a free domain when you purchase hosting for your web site. You’ll likely have to pay for renewals in the future

* What domain extensions should I purchase? Andy suggests your personal name in .com/.net/.org. Your business’ name. Your family’s names.

* What extras do I need to get when I buy a domain? We usually don’t buy any extras.

* Shapes and Sizes of URL’s?

* Short URL’s can be very catchy. Though they can be very hard to find quality ones b/c many of them are taken already.

- Long is good b/c it’s not confusing and you can communicate your business title clearly. PodcastAnswerMan.com – (Always capitalize the first letter of each word – increases readability considerably, especially if a letter repeats like MoreProfitTechnology.com.

* Hyphenate or not Hyphenate? Avoid punctuation in URL’s b/c it makes is very hard to spell/remember the address

* Numbers in my URL? Avoid using numbers or even having people spell them because it just gets too confusing.

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