@BasilPuglisi

Content & Strategy, Powered by Factics & AI, Since 2009

Mobile & Technology

Sneak Peak: Digital Brand Marketing 411: Educate, Embrace, Brand

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So, the internet is flooded with 101 courses, be it Social Media 101, SEO 101, Digital 101, SEM 101 and so on. The shocking part is that we are well beyond Freshman year, perhaps now it’s time for an advanced course.

This is a book in progress and the purpose of this post is to get feedback and support from fellow professionals who will have the chance to help shape its final publication.

Educate, Embrace, Brand

If training programs are a natural part of any induction to new employment, then should we not use this time to maximize the experience both professionally and personally?

Imagine a company that spends time introducing its new employees to Social Media during the training, helps them set up accounts, teaches them etiquette and the role that each different social media has both in personal and professional communication, even if it is at the most basic level.

That same company now embraces its new employees, like a press release, announcing their employment on the company’s Facebook page, twitter accounts, foursquare and more. At stage one, the companies’ own Social Media, has just gone viral with opportunity that has yet to be realized by corporations.

Educating and supporting an employee’s personal brand with the company would touch every contact that the employee has on a regular basis (i.e. profile pictures that resemble something like a baseball card with the team name, or in this case, the company name). The natural progression of Social Media would give the brand a reach and repetition beyond traditional marketing campaigns (This is not even considering the value for professional outreach to clients, service providers and more).

Features, Benefits & Pitfalls

“This section will be the core of the book”

Why?

The ability to control your brand has been lost for some time.  The introduction of reviews, facebook, twitter and more have shifted the spectrum. The current chain of command climate, has corporations and their brands operating as spectators or participants at best.

Your employees are already doing it! A claim like “When John/Joan made that racist, sexist, ageist, etc. etc. comment on facebook, it was not endorsed or supported by [insert company name]”. That’s a PR nightmare, because we all know s/he works for you and now your associated with the people you surround yourself with, or in this case employ.

Already employees are engaging or starting to engage in social media.  In most cases, the biggest threats come from those that will not let you into their social network.  Social Media demands a proactive approach or a great damage control team and understanding stockholders. The best way to understand what your employees are doing on social media is to be an active participant and take a stake in it.

The Coca-Cola Example:

In 2006, The Coca-Cola Company stated that 71,000 people worked for that company.  Imagine what that means in the way of networks if Coca-Cola Educated, Embraced and Branded their people!

If each employee averaged a modest 100 unique Facebook Friends, that’s a reach of 7,100,000 people that will directly see the company name, product or message at least once, if not on a repetitive basis. Take a minimal assumption that 10% of them may do something that others find worthy of sharing in their networks just once in a month and you just doubled your direct impact to a whopping 14 million direct touches with your brand, product or message.  That’s 14 Million a month based on just one touch. We are more than likely talking about a more realistic value of about 30 Million at least once and most of them more than once. How much would you spend to reach 30 Million people? Remembering you have to do it with someone they know and possibly trust or value.

The influence for the book:

Social Media has transformed the way we do business, “This is a massive socio-economic shift that is fundamentally changing the way consumers and companies communicate and interact with each other”, Erik Qualman (Socialnomics, 2010).

Is this True?

I believe that Erik Qualman is correct. However, what most are missing is that we are still stuck in the entry level courses or just fulfilling our general education requirements and the time to be undecided is at an end.

Companies continue to adjust to the trend that Social Media dictates on how consumers spend. Their reactive state has paralyzed them, and no one has taken a moment to stop, think and produce a proactive campaign or policy.

Social Media 101 was the introduction of Away Messages, Chat rooms and Buddy lists. Social Media in the 200’s was all about the personal networks we build.  Whereas, Social Media 300’s have been a consistent battle to generate ROI for business and balance the separation of personal and professional.

Social Media in the 400’s (Senior Year) will be the race towards the podium. The first to Educate, Embrace and Brand will be the Valedictorian. This senior year has some big potential leaders that are laying the ground work. However,  there’s not a single corporation in that list!

The Preview

This is a part of the conceptual work of my book that will be released in 2011. This post is to introduce the concept and ideas of the power behind Social Media that has yet to be realized by corporations. I specifically target corporations because small business owners all across America are already transitioning into this next stage.  Stating “separation” as the key to a business or professional image is proving everyday in small business to be false.

The Naysayers

Some will be quick to jump at the hesitation of individuals to cross the personal and professional barrier, as much as, the companies they work for. However, social media has already crossed those barriers. For those that wish to continue to try and separate the two on a continual basis, Mark Zuckerberg has already covered that for them. That is why education is the first step in this process. There is no one way to accomplish this goal.  Like fire, we can get burned, but without embracing fire we would be hard pressed to stay warm or protected. Companies, Businesses and Organizations are made of people and now more than ever its harder to hide who we, or they are, it’s just a matter of time.

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Google’s Social Search

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A few days ago Google changed the way the company is dealing with social media.

Since the launch of its Social Search in 2009, Google’s social media was kept a little hidden from the general public. You had to know about it and opt-in through Google Labs. Once you did, Google’s search results page would display the results to your query as it is vetted by machines (logarithms) and by people – what did your personal contacts on the social  search wrote about it. The results of people’s recommendations were displayed at the bottom of the page. All that would appear only to those who signed up for the service.

On Feb 17, 2011 Google unveiled its changes to the Social Search, publishing it in beta and turning it on for all who are signed in, in English (so far).

With this new integration, which includes Google images as well, Google is introducing a tie to social search outside its own circle, from Twitter, Flickr and Quara. It uses social profile connected to your profile on Google to deliver items such as photos or blogs and tweets that come from you friends.

The search results will not appear, as they did until now at the bottom of the page, but will be integrated in the search itself, blended throughout the page. This is done through a system that lets you know when a friend shared a specific link or search result in the subject of your query. It appears in the search result page under the site’s url.

In other words, now you can see what your friends have recommended, not only what the logarithms have found out, making the search more personal and specific.

The other change is in its appearance in the search results. Any comment done by your friends on Twitter for example will appear as an annotation saying that your friend “shared this”. The more recommendations, the higher this site will go in the ranking.

Users have control over what gets displayed in social searches. The user page gives the ability to connect their profiles publicly or privately, to their other Google accounts, Twitter etc.

One thing this update does not include is a connection to Facebook. Not at the moment anyway. While still in beta, the rollout will occur in the next few days.

What does it mean?

Even though this announcement went through pretty quietly, it might create a shock wave as far as SEO goes. Search Engine Optimizations means making your site as visible as possible. To be visible, your site should appear on the first page of Google. The ranking on the page is determined by rules Google has put in place years ago: the size of the site, the activity on the site, the backlinks and the keywords that relate to the specific query, among other things.

Now, with the new Google social search – what was written about the subject using social media will have an impact on the placement on the page. The more people wrote and commented about the subject, the higher on the page the article or site will go. Social media, especially those sites connected to Google social search, have become more important in the placement of the search results.

What’s more; the search results may appear differently to different people depending on their circle of friends! If many of your friends talked about a ski resort in Alaska – this resort will move up in your page, but not in mine. Those who didn’t sign up for the social search will get different search placements without the comments, since only the user of the service will be able to see those elements.

With this swipe, Social Media has become more important in Search Engine Optimization. That is, if this service will grow in popularity.

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QWiki: Full Media Search Engine with Results You Actually Need

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Is it the sum of all human knowledge? Tidily gathered in one place and put in the hands of every individual on earth, the internet has brought us unparalleled research capabilities, unforeseen technologies, and untold fortunes. However, there is no doubt that there are issues with the current systems.

[vimeo http://vimeo.com/15444551]

That said, Jan 24, 2011 marked the day that the term “Google It” started to fade away! On Oct 1, 2010 I mentioned qwiki as one of the major future technologies of the future and now just 24hrs after they have gone live I add to my thoughts.

Notoriously, as expansive as it is, it has for the most part remained a one way street. We bash some letters into a search engine, and patiently await a relative return. Google, Yahoo, Bing, and others have had great purpose, but also been an incredible source of confusion for some users who may not be incredibly aware of its algorithms and nuances.

The Solution?

Facebook Co-Founder, Eduardo Saverin launched a new search engine known as Qwiki that provides what is referred to as a ‘rich media narrative’ format. In the spirit of Wikipedia, a user can add to the knowledge available on any topic. This engine provides a combination of photos, audio and video clips that relate to the queried topic.  Opened for public testing on Monday, January 24, 2011, the game has just begun.

Qwiki says their goal is to bring science fiction film to life by enabling computers to collect data on the behalf of their human counterparts. Not exactly mind reading, but not the passive system utilized so widely now. Qwiki wants to make the internet a two-way street.

So far, reviews say they are doing just that. Instead of providing one-shot information, it provides more help when even deciding on a better topic of interest.

Using Qwiki

This is a straight-forward interface. Users land on the home page, input their topic and Qwiki will load and begin to play automatically. No more robotic sounding readers. Qwiki’s voice-over has almost completely removed the non-human, monotone Robbie the Robot voice, and replaced it with a surprisingly pleasant female voice that includes highs and lows in the appropriate places.  If you never thought an artificial voice could sound soothing, Qwiki may change that for you.

Resources? I would have imagined loading all of this media would have caused a bit longer load time. On a 64bit dual core processor +6000, it took no longer to load the search bar than Google blank page, it took .03 seconds longer to load the rest.

After your initial search plays, Qwiki offers you more options below and the topics seem to be highly relevant after many searches.

What Now?

I don’t see how Qwiki can help but change the way that internet searches currently work. The results are entertaining and at some point someone needs to jump on a research group that can dig into the details about learning curves and get Qwiki right now to the users who may be able to better retain information because of it. It is hard not to focus when you have a calming voice reading the text as it scrolls below gripping slideshows and photo galleries.

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How to Protect Your Digital Brand Online

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One of the first things the small or large business manager needs to learn is how to protect your digital brand online. Your digital brand is comprised of everything that is online about you so it is important to know what is already there before going any further.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9SRVIuNPCmo]

Damage Control

One of the easiest things to do is to go to a search engine such as Google and perform a search for your name. Googling yourself will give you a good place to start if you need to do some housekeeping on the web. You may be surprised at what you find and see the need to start performing some damage control.

Social networking is the way many people communicate these days and almost everyone has or has had a Facebook or MySpace account possibly beginning in their college days. If these sites do not project you or the brand that you represent in the way that you would like to be perceived, either clean up the site or take it down. Be aware that traces may remain on your friends’ pages.

Don’t Forget About the Good Old Days!

Go back through old history that you may have forgotten and delete comments and pictures that project you in a less than favorable light. You may still appear on your friends pages so if there is something particularly bad, contact your friend and ask them to remove it for you.

Training to Protect Your Digital Brand

When setting up social networking sites for your business, it is important that the people responsible for setting up these accounts realize their possible impact on the digital brand. Twitter can be one of the worst offenders as many business rush to have a brand presence on Twitter. An untrained employee can cause irreparable damage by tweeting unprofessional comments that may poorly reflect on the digital brand.

If you find untrue content on the web that is unflattering to your brand, you can ask the webmaster of the site to remove it. Many will do that just to avoid any possible legal consequences. Depending on your circumstances you may want to check the web for fake sites that are plagiarizing your content or products that can affect how people see your brand. The important thing is to stay informed so you can perform damage control.

Create a Positive Online Image

An online presence is a must for a brand to be successful in today’s competitive marketplace. A positive impact from your digital brand can be expected if you stay on top of the situation and take control. Make sure there are many positive images of your digital brand online which also helps bury any bad content that may exist.

Make sure that those who are trusted with the responsibility of maintaining these social networks are aware of the language, tone, and values that you want your digital brand to project. This is how to protect your digital brand online and make it work for you.

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Social Brand Visibility: Connotea (Great Academic Tool)

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Connotea has been in operation since 2004, but is not widely known because it caters mainly to scientists, researchers and clinicians’ communities. It is a free management service; it is a social network bookmarking service, similar to del.icio.us where users can save links to their favorite sites.

Although it is aimed primarily for the scientific community, it is growing among other academic disciplines; it incorporates special functions for academic resources.

Connotea is linked to a number of scientific sites and collects metadata for the page or article being bookmarked, including author and publication information. When saving a page to Connotea, users tag the articles with keywords of their choice so they can retrieve the information easily.

To make it easier on researchers the site has the capability to export the references in RIS format to a citation manager program, which means it is possible to save references without bibliographic software. It also allows easy sharing of bookmarks with colleagues.

As for the social aspect of this website, it recognizes what people have bookmarked and alerts them to related material. It also provides RSS feeds that allow users to keep track of interesting articles published by the websites they have bookmarked.

Each user can comment any number of times on any bookmark in his library, and comments from different users are combined to display a chronological, and conversational, thread about a resource.

References can be accessed from any computer, and can be saves with just one click, without leaving the page you are viewing at the moment.

Essentially you can create a library of important articles for research and study. There is nothing to download to your computer and there is no need for cutting and pasting. References can be public, private or shared with a selected group.

As of November 2010, Connotea had about 40,000 visitors a month and has 6,557 sites linking in.

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Apple & iPad: Credibility begins with admitting when you may be wrong, maybe…

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One of the most profound experiences may be when experts, gurus or a “know it all” steps forward and admit they may be wrong, or in fact flat out say they are wrong.

In most cases they will preface their mistake or misjudgments with what they got right, this is done to distract you from the blow about to come, the fact that they made a mistake or used their expertise to, well you get the picture.

  • Here is a great example:

At the end I will praise the iPad, especially in comparison to Android.

I Basil C. Puglisi have long held that Apple’s products are inferior and a waste of money. One of the defining features of this belief is that Apple has long failed to connect with the world at large with its technology. This connection that I have referred to is the massive restrictions that they have on their software and products, with inflated pricing.

I have long standing  praise for Apple in a brand perspective, as the very thing that makes Apple products inferior in technology has made them stand out in branding and marketing.

The technology perspective has been and seemingly always will be that Apple’s restrictive nature and discriminatory practices (tailoring to middle and upper class) has been a long standing pet peeve of mine.

When someone reviews a new apple product, they often compare it to a PC (a computer running windows), they often praise the apple product for its functionality and software as if apple brought value to the market, and in almost every case this has never been true.

The average cost of a entry level Mac Book is between $999 and $1,500 in 13″ models and $1,799 to $2,299 for some of the more advanced Pro models.

The average cost of a entry level PC running Windows is about half the price of a Mac Book, between $400 and $600, herein lies the problem with comparing apples to oranges (PC).

  • Case Study:

If you take the Mac Book Offered on apple.com and compare it to the HP Pavilion offered at HP.com.

Mac Book – 2.4 Intel Duo Core, 2GB DDR3, 250GB HD DVD Drive, GeForce 320M – sold at $999

HP Pavilion – 2.9 Intel i7, 6GB DDR3, 640GB HD DVD Drive Geforce 3000 – sold at $899

At $100 less the HP Windows based PC is three (3) times the computer that the Mac Book is, couple that with its limited interaction with the PC world and why people by a Mac Book is beyond me.

I like to say that the iPhone4 was something that strayed from this standard, but it does not. The closed world of Apple apps has lost ground in a landslide to Android (Google) and will continue to, especially when you think about AT&T and how even those that love there iPhone openly claim it does everything but make calls.

Android on the other hand has a far superior operating system and market penetration taking away the one shinny glowing hope that was iPhone. The T-Mobile commercials are a great example when you look at the MyTouch4G campaign.

iPad – Apple game changer or roadmap?

I LOVE iPAD, it’s been only a few weeks and I will say I hate Apple, but love iPad. The iPad is one of the most amazing technology accomplishments short or Gene Rodenberry imaginary warp drive and Star Trek. I had the Archos 101 and Archos 70 for a month running the Android 2.2 and while I loved the fact that I could work around issues with Android that I cannot with iPad, the truth is iPad leaves very little to work around (besides AT&T). The iPad provides a great user experience and I must say has left only a few common sense issues out and I expect they will fix those with the iPad 2 (4G) due out this Spring.

The only concern I see is that Google is a much stronger company then Apple. Google also now has a road map to work with from what the iPad has done and can do it with a larger market penetration. Should Google decide to push gTunes or Google Music, the all attractive iTunes which has really made the “i” series of products a success for Apple could be overtaken quickly. Google has two big pushes coming soon Android 3.0 which is the first Android design that will be tablet friendly and the Chrome OS which will eliminate the need for local storage and put us all on the cloud.

As for the time being, iPad is a great toy and a wonderful investment, if it gets Flash it will be hard to replace in the near future. I for one knocked the iPad as just another lousy closed market of “i” series Apple products, but I was wrong, maybe.

User Technology:

The current Technology that I have and use in my possession is:

  • Apple:
    1. Mac Book Pro,
    2. iPhone4 (AT&T),
    3. iPad,
    4. iPod Classic
  • Windows Based PC
    1. HP Desktop (2.83Intel, 8GB DDR2, 4TB HD, Blu-Ray Burner, etc)
    2. 10″ Acer Net book,
    3. Dell Inspiron 1501
  • Android
    1. G2 (T-Mobile),
    2. Archos 101 (Tablet),
    3. Archos 70 Tablet),
  • Household Members Tech:
    1. 15″ Gateway,
    2. iTouch (4thGen),
    3. Balckberry 9700,
    4.  MyTouch3G Slide, etc.

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Picking the Right Social Network for your Brand

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As for internet visibility, or digital brand as it is being called now, 2010 proved, without a doubt, the power of the social network. Facebook just passed Google in the number of hits per day. People are using the internet to connect and be connected more than they use it to perform searches.

Aside from it being a sociological phenomenon that no doubt will be talked about and researched, it opened a world of advertising not used before. Facebook makes it extremely easy to connect with almost anything that is a digital brand, with one click of a button. Just type into your Facebook page that you liked a certain television show and immediately you will be connected to their site, to see more.

As a way to advertising your brand, it is a goose that can lay golden eggs. And why not? It is free, it is simple and everyone with a little understanding of how the system works can join in and be effective. Right?

Not so fast. The problem with social media is that it is multiplying. New sites, with new possibilities for connectivity between people are popping up like mushrooms after the rain. You can join all of them and spend most of your time updating and chatting while neglecting your core business. You can hire people to do it for you, believing that bigger is better and the more sites you join will yield better results, only to find out that the ROI (return on investment) is not worth the effort.

Before you embark on the social media voyage, you should know that not all sites were born equal and knowing which one to join is the most important aspect.

Here are some questions you should ask yourself:

–          What is the strength of the site?  You have to do a little research. What can Twitter do for you? What can Dailybooth? Evaluate the site to see if it fits you and the character of your business. Think of a strategy; what do you want to achieve, how can this or that site get you there?

–          How much time you are willing to invest? How much time you can afford to spend on social networking? An hour a day? A week? Social media is, after all, just that – social. Scott Stratten (1), a man with over 74,000 followers on Twitter says the amount of followers started to grow when he dedicated time and interacted with others. You have to maintain presence for social media to work.

–          Do your customers use social network at all? Most businesses have communities. Check them out. Are they talking about your kind of business? Maybe they do on a forum of another kind. It is a bit of a detective work, but you have to find out where your potential customers are.

–          If you had to pay for the service, would you still do it? How much are you willing to spend on this form of advertisement? Granted, joining is free, but maintaining it will cost you a lot of time.

–          Social media is a long term commitment. Having a page up then not updating it for months has a worse impact than not having one at all. It shows you don’t care, don’t follow through and maybe you are out of business. If it’s up there it should be maintained.

Thinking ahead about a strategy before embarking on this trip is important. Treating social media seriously, as part of an advertising campaign, is important as well. Those are the things that will yield results. Use the questions above to get organized and start thinking in the right direction.

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New Year – Brand Marketing Educator

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What does this mean?

  • Brand – The name, image, idea or concept that is associated with something.
  • Marketing – Marketing is the processes for strategizing for the creation of campaigns that communicate, deliver, and/or exchanging offerings that have value for the general public, be it customers, clients, partners, or the society at large.
  • Educator – Someone who chooses to continually learn themselves, while teaching others what they have learned. An individual who seeks knowledge for the purpose of sharing or disseminating it to others.

As a Consulting Coach for the last decade I have taken what I have learned in Banking, Student Affairs, Public Policy, Politics, Small Business Development, Advertising and Marketing, Web Development, Social Media and more to help develop businesses, political campaigns and support non-profits. This decade long process that started as Puglisi Consulting has helped me define what role I have in society. I also believe it defines what I offer to those that I work with, work for, or have the pleasure of their company.

As a Brand Marketing Educator it will be my responsibility to continue to develop my understanding of how to reach people. In the end, a business, a political campaign, a charitable cause only finds success in its ability to get seen and be found. After all the best message, even the one that may save your business, organization, campaign or life has little value if it does not reach those who need or want it.

This blog is the collective work of so many, even in the last year as I started these articles, part or majority have come from volunteers and paid sources who helped research the topics. One person cannot claim to be a source of value alone, but can claim to be a facilitator of sources and knowledge.

I pledge to use this blog as an extension of what I know and more importantly learn during the next year. I ask for no pay, no donations and no for profit advertising on this blog. I do this in the hopes that those that visit it, will always find an unbiased opinion and suggestion for what I believe can help increase visibility, so that you can be successful.  

Why?

Because I am a SPARTAN! If those who can, choose not to, then they have lost the best of themselves or in some cases ourselves.

 Basil C. Puglisi – Brand Marketing Educator

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7h9dDEUG30c]

Google Aims to Save you Time

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Google Aims to Save you Time

The long tentacles of Google are everywhere these days – in a good way.

The company is thinking ahead and making life more comfortable, more connected, more immediate than ever before.

It is no longer just a search engine. Google Chrome is gaining in popularity among the web browsers. It had 10 million users at the end of 2008, 30 million at the end of 2009 and in mid-2010 already had 70 million active users. How is that for a growth spurt?

G-mail is popular, simple to use and basically works in a “cloud” – all your information is stored on servers, not on your home computer, accessible from anywhere at any time. It can store all your contacts, all your e mails; you don’t have to back up that information because it doesn’t matter if your computer crashes. The hardware became less important and the information is safe behind strong firewalls.

Google Docs  enables you to hare documents and collaborate with others on the same page, set appointments on Google calendar, and see what’s new with Google Reader and Google Reader Play.

Google Reader

Most of internet savvy people, and especially the young ones, have a few website they like to visit often to see what’s new. The sites can be blogs, professional sites, membership sites etc. Going to each website separately takes time, and then you might find that there was nothing of interest for you this day.

Google Reader comes to the rescue. A program which was launched in 2007, in now becoming very popular. Google reader is an aggregator of feeds and news from your favorite websites, all in one place. Once you go to the site and list your favorite websites, one click only will show you all the new stuff from all your favorite websites in one place, in a headline form.

If you are interested in the subject matter, another click will get you to the website for more in depth information. It saves time and effort and makes getting updates from the sites your anyway go to, much more concise.

Google Reader Play

Lately, Google introduced the Google Reader Play which presents the information in images with a big image at the top of the screen and the different items as thumb nails at the bottom. This is information aggregated from different web sources. You can click on the right and left arrows to scroll through the items or you can click on the thumbnail to enlarge them to the main screen.

The idea that the good stuff is mostly visual is behind this service. It adapts to your tastes as you click on the icons representing marked for later, like, and share. It is still in the experimental stage and can be accessed through Google Labs. This service doesn’t come to replace the Reader but to augment it. While the Reader gives you feeds from your chosen sites, Reader Play gives you information aggregated from sites all over the web.

This forwards thinking and development in many directions at once, is what make this company what it is today. A major player and developer. Where is Microsoft gone to? Google is overtaking them by leaps and bounds. Microsoft seems to be stuck in the browser and office arenas and coming up with new things that just complicate matters instead of making them simpler.

Visibility Marketing Trends for 2011

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As for Businesses and visibility, what can be predicted to be the trends for 2011?

Here are some thoughts:

Web Design – As the reliance on websites becomes widespread for small businesses, so does the competition. How to retain the visitors and make them go to other pages on your site has been a question may want an answer to. The trend for the upcoming year in websites, points to the fact that a basic page is not good enough anymore. Sites are expected to engage, entertain and interact with their visitors. The design process has become simpler and many sites are offering, for small amount of money, templates that and already set up, making them hipper, more fun to use and interactive.

Mobile Connectivity – Smart phones are gathering speed and offer possibilities that we never had before. Almost 50% of business owners already own smartphones. Mobile devices will change how we do business. They offer another platform for advertisement as well.

E Commerce – will continue to grow in popularity. A research done in the beginning of 2010 showed that only 30% of small business websites have e commerce capability.

Social Shopping – and interacting with customers is becoming increasingly important. More businesses will get into the social media plains. First hand recommendations in a saturated world are more important than ever.

Social Media – In the past year many business owners spread themselves thin over many social media platforms. The important thing is, and will remain to be, a consistent message and brand, with exposure to consumers.

Cloud Computing – In the beginning of 2010, a group of internet experts and mavens got together and announced that “we will all be leaving in the cloud by 2020”. It seems to be happening faster than they have predicated. Many business owners realized that cloud computing is very beneficial. It eliminates the need for an office and a desk. Everything can be accessed from mobile devices (laptops, tablets and smartphones). Having the ability to see everything that goes on, wherever you are anytime you choose to, is becoming a reality with cloud computing. It is the ultimate “virtual office”.

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