Getting Connected: The Business of the Internet — Presentation Transcript
Getting Connected
The Business of the Internet
I have an online
journal
I have an online
journal
I have an online
journal
photo by: robsmith-qld
I have an online
journal
photo from: Henry of Pelham
I have an online
journal
people are changing
the way we do business online
what makes the internet special is
people not technology
five topics
1. Getting connected
2. Searching, surfing
and social media
3. Email
4. Taking care of business
5. Ecommerce
five themes
1. Identity
2. Trust
3. Community
4. Efficiency
5. Connectivity
Identity
you have a brand
every action you take
(or don’t take)
contributes to your brand
when competing against the rest
of the world in today’s economy
you must be able to
answer the questions:
Who are you?
What do you do?
How are you shamelessly special?
product, person, company
the person made the sale
I am a person with
a unique identity.
I am:
emma@hicktech.com
emmajane@xtrinsic.com
ej.hogbin@utoronto.ca
emma@emmajane.net
ej.hogbin@gmail.com
Who are you?
info@
mail@
laura@
Be a person with
a unique identity.
Create unique email addresses.
Ask your provider for options.
“Some of the best brands are
those where personality
does shine through.”
Jennifer Rice
Spend 30 minutes every day
establishing your brand.
Use this time to:
1. followup on customer email
2. update your web site
3. participate in your
business community
4. participate in your
customers’ community
Trust
Trust
Photo by: xt0ph3r
verify the story
Who are you?
Photo by: carbonnyc
Evaluate identities
before giving your trust
On the web:
1. Look at the address bar
https:// and URL
2. Look for the lock
3. Assess the credibility of the vendor
Take your business online by
starting as an online consumer.
Experience buying online and
understand what you do (not) like
selling online:
offer the same assurances you
want as a consumer
investing in an ecommerce
system is not cheap.
explore alternatives.
look for other market places
to sell your products
Etsy, eBay, Amazon
use a trusted, thirdparty
commerce system
PayPal, Yahoo! Stores, Google Checkout
develop your identity
with a goal of gaining trust
Community
in the beginning web sites were
updated infrequently and only by
a computer technician
Photo by: geo
Photo by: geo
Photo by: geo
now web sites are
created by individuals
or a collaboration of individuals
Web 2.0
Social Media
community and collaborative
www.wikipedia.org
collaborative encyclopedia
www.facebook.com
social networking (and online Scrabble)
www.linkedin.com
business networking
www.myspace.com
social networking, music focused
Using Facebook
1. Find friends, share updates.
2. Create groups
3. Create events
4. Create (business) pages
communications within
your own web site
update your Web site on a regular
basis to encourage repeat visitors
do you already have
a newsletter?
blogfodder
convert your print newsletter
into an online “blog”
blog: contraction of
“web” and “log”
submitting new stories on a
regular basis is good for search
engine rankings
updated regularly, actual
information about the yarn shop
updated regularly
all the keywords
and with incoming links
add audio to make a podcast
add video to make a vodcast
Communication Photo by: ehnmark
newsletters are a great way to
“push” content to customers
enewsletters are cheap (yay!)
but safeguards have been put in
place to prevent you from
sending bulk emails
Photo by: Grumbler
most providers allow you to send
2050 emails at once
if you have more names (yay!)
you will need to use a
bulk mailing system
a bulk mailer is software that
combines your message and
your list of contacts to
send individual emails
Enter keywords in the
search engines to find
customers and competitors
related to your business.
Repeat daily.
Or have the search engine
notify you when
things of interest show up online.
remember this story?
google alerts
www.google.com/alerts
monitor your competitors
monitor your customers
watch for trends
don’t forget to search for your
own name too
an “egogoogle”
keep track of what others are
doing through bookmarks
(“favorites” in Internet Explorer)
or use a news reader to help you
keep track
visit only one
site for a
summary of all
other sites
Photo by: trainman74
popular online news readers:
www.bloglines.com
www.google.com/reader
Efficient finances
Photo by: Loneprimate
online banking
online bill payments
exporting bank statements
importing statements into your
accounting software
use useful tools
this presentation is made with:
OpenOffice.org
Creative Commons licensed photos
from www.flickr.com
“OpenDisc is a high quality collection of
free and open source software (FOSS) for
the Microsoft Windows operating system.”
www.TheOpenDisc.com
Connectivity
Photo by: ppdigital
Dialup – through the phone
DSL – through the phone
Cable – through the tv
Wireless – over the hills
Satellite – up in the air
http://www.greycounty.ca/broadband/providers.cfm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_Internet_access
DSL – Digital Subscriber Line
Available intown.
Bell Aliant, Bruce Telecom,
Wightman Telecom
high frequency noise
gets tired quickly source: wikipedia
Cable
Available where there is cable tv.
Amtelecom, Markdale Cable, Persona,
Rogers Cable
Where you have cable,
you have connection.
source: wikipedia
Wireless
Available in rural areas where there are
towers in place
Nine providers locally. Check
GreyCounty.ca for more information.
If you can see the tower,
you can have power.
Photo by: Andy_pants_in_Fred
Satellite
Available everywhere
Computer Service Center,
Logans Satellite and Internet,
Leeson True Value Hardware
The sky is the limit.
connecting your computer
to the world
typical
home
1 2 3
business
setup
Computers can also
be connected
Photo by: Chainsawpanda
WAN:
Wide Area
a router
Network
Lots of computers
LAN:
Local Area
a router
Network
Lots of computers
connections
are generally
a router
made by
routers
although sometimes they have
more complicated names
Lots of computers
The router is
your gateway
between the
two worlds.
Photo by: Troy B Thompson
Please close the gate
Photo by: Pikaluk
five tips to closing the gate:
1. add/change the router’s
admin password
2. enable your firewall
3. be suspicious of suspect things
4. create accounts that aren’t
administrators for every day use
5. ask for help
throughout the presentation we
talked about the experience I
had with mr. speck.
email daniel and thank him for
using google alerts
www.henryofpelham.com
