I recently attended a conference of bankruptcy lawyers. It's one of those groups where business owners in non-competing geographies get together to share best practices in order to improve their businesses. I attended as the outsourced IT support provider to Indiana bankruptcy attorney Mark Zuckerberg. If any of the good ideas presented had to to with computer network services, my job was to make sure I understood it and how it might impact Mark's network support.

One of the attorneys ignited an interesting discussion about personal communications at work that made me realize that our Indianapolis small business IT outsourcing company spends a lot of time doing things that are intended to keep people from hurting themselves -- babysitting, in other words.

The conversation started with the need to block popular Internet sites like Facebook, Pandora, Amazon, and other social, entertainment, or shopping sites during work hours. It went on to include a debate about whether or not people should be allowed to use their cell phones at work and what can be done about it. I was surprised at how many had already implemented such rules in their workplaces. I guess I shouldn't have been. As more of us turn to the Internet for entertainment and socializing, it will become more difficult to separate our personal and business lives. In the end, nothing that your IT support services company can do will solve this issue.

We can add filtering and monitoring and alerting to the network, but clever people will figure out how to avoid or defeat these measures (I had teenage kids so I know what I'm talking about). In the end, as we agreed at the conference, staff has work to accomplish. As business owners, we may have to look more at quality and quantity of work than at how our people spend their time each day. Good people will do good work. Mine do.

Years ago the ideal salesman would wear a long button up coat with a hat that often had a feather to the side of it. So what happened to this fashion? I haven't seen anyone wearing a professional hat when traveling to or from our Indianapolis computer consulting clients. Granted, we can't really wear a professional hat with a feather in it when we are doing computer network consulting work but the hat should return again. The hat is what completes the business professional image. Next time you are out shopping for new clothes, consider picking up a business hat.

About a year ago, my business partner joined an industry peer group: HTG. Both of us had been members of the Young Entrepreneur's Organization. His group disolved and mine defected. He decided to join HTG to get a different peer experience. In YEO, the commonality is business size and geography. Everyone is local but works in a non-competing industry. In HTG, everyone is geographically separated but works in the Computer Network Consulting industry.

Last week was the fourth quarterly meeting of Rob's group, and he wanted me to attend with him. I had a blast! I'm a fairly gregarious person. I like meeting new people and I believe everyone has something to teach me. It's that curiousity about people that makes my job of supporting the Information Technology of many Indianapolis small businesses appealing to me. I get to learn how businesses in different industries operate. But I digress. At the HTG meeting, the owners of 12 IT support services companies spent two days talking to each other about their businesses.

Two things struck me. We are on a par with the companies that are most professional in our industry, and none of us has found the silver bullet or secret sauce that will allow us to revolutionize small business computer outsourcing. Both were reassuring revelations. I appreciate the challenge of running my little Indianapolis Information Technology company. If there were a cookbook, I'd want to treat it like all the other instruction manuals I get.

As United Airlines recently found out, not taking care of customer complaints can come back to haunt you.  After a year of getting the run around from the airline's customer service department, Dave Carroll decided to utilize youtube.com in an attempt to get his guitar fixed.  And so the smash hit United Breaks Guitars was born, and now it's approaching 3 million views.

As a provider of Indianapolis small business computer support, I certainly took that message to heart.  It made me realize that customers are far more likely to tell their friends about their bad experiences than their good ones.  Being proactive about problems with computer network consulting leads to not only happier clients, but also less negative word of mouth advertising about our company.  Every company is going to drop the ball at some point.  What separates the great companies from the not-so-great ones is what they do after that.  While United has attempted to spin the publicity from this and has said they will use the video in their employee training, I bet they wish they had quietly remedied the situation at the beginning.

Years ago, when Open Source software first started to attract public attention, I joined with the bulk of IT support services companies to deride the stuff as amateurish, buggy, and unsupported. I realize now that I was reacting to what appeared to be a potential threat to my livelihood. More than that, I had underestimated what could be accomplished by a group of people working for free at something. I shouldn't have. Today, I stand with many of my computer network consulting peers and say that Open Source software is changing the rules for small business computer support.

I have a computer at home that runs nothing but free software. It's too old to run the current versions of Windows, or Microsoft Office, or Internet Explorer, or Adobe Acrobat, or just about anything else that would cost me a couple hundred dollars at the local Office Depot. Nonetheless, I have an office suite, a web browser, an email client, a photo image editor, and loads more on the box. So why haven't we started using more of this stuff within the offices of our Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers?

They are still afraid of it. That's why. And to some extent, so are we. Afterall, if we have a problem with Microsoft software, we know exactly who to blame. With Open Source, we don't have any idea who to blame. Does it matter though? After we blame Microsoft, we go looking for non-Microsoft resources to help us fix the problem as often as not. The same could be done for the Open Source applications.

Don't think that I'm recommending we all abandon the major software vendors and send them running to Congress for a bailout. I'm only suggesting that it is past time we started trying to use some of this on the periphery. That's what I've been doing.

 Two new smartphone opportunities will become available in the next week: the Palm Pre (only on Sprint) and the Apple iPhone 3G S (still only on AT&T). As soon as the media started reporting these events, my Indianapolis small business computer support customers started calling me to get my take. Everyone knows that the portable device is my weakness. True to form, I've been looking at all of the reviews and reading the pros and cons. As of this moment, I've decided to pass on either of these new choices. It just feels to me that the Palm brand has sailed, so I'll have to wait until I hear Earth-shattering advantages before getting too excited. I do, however, have a line on a couple of people who will be getting them so there will be some play opportunities for me. With the iPhone, besides the new name being dumb, I can try out most of the new features by upgrading my current iPhone to the new firmware, which I will do as soon as Apple's servers get over the initial shock of downloaders.

The bigger reason I won't jump to get one of these new devices (aside from the fact that my partner won't have anything to do with me buying yet another device) is that even more is coming. HTC is working on a couple of Android based phones. Palm has all but announced that they will debut more WebOS based phones very soon. And my iPhone is still a fabulous way for me to get things done while on the move.


I'm not making promises or commitments that I'll still be using my iPhone 3G at the end of the Summer, but I'll keep it thru June. Right now, if my computer network consulting customers asked me what to get, I'd start by asking what carrier they have. On Sprint, the Pre. On AT&T, the iPhone. On T-Mobile, the G1. On Verizon, well, you've got that great network.

I tend to be a reader of the genre I call "Pop Business." I trace its roots to Tom Peters and In Search of Excellence, but it probably goes back to Machiavelli or thereabouts. Generally, these books tell about a good idea upon which the author has stumbled. After describing the Earth-shattering impact of this usually obvious idea, the author goes on to provide examples of his idea in action, usually quelled from other pop business books. I only deride this genre because it can cause damage to a good company if the leader decides to swallow the idea whole without applying a little common sense and knowledge of her own situation to it. From each of these books, I learn something that I believe can be applied to improve the way in which we provide computer network consulting in central Indiana.

One always needs an exception to prove the rule. Here it is. Hisashi Sakamaki, the CEO of Canon has written a book in which he proposes that you not allow your employees to sit down. That's right! He's taken away all the chairs. If that could be overlooked as an idiosyncrasy, how about the sensors in the hallways that alert workers if they walk too slow? Even better is the sign on the floor that tells employees: "Lets rush - if we don't then the company and world will perish."

Currently, Sakamaki's book is only available in Japanese. I can only imagine that it will get published in English at some point. The computer help desk technicians on my staff don't have to worry about me trying to pick up good management tips from that book.

 

I hate doing work more than once or making something more complicated than it needs to be in Indianpolis Information Technology. Take for instance, Casseroles! Casseroles are fast easy and everything is in one dish. One dish to take to a party, one dish to clean. No worries about the proper proportions of Veggies, and meat. Those choices were done ahead of time.

This is why I like Dell. Sorry, HP/Compaq and Toshiba. Although the Hardware in all three manufacturers’ Indianapolis Small Business Computer machines is pretty similar when it comes to their business class, Dell comes out ahead in the Indianapolis IT Outsourcing world for three main and very influential reasons.

Proprietary Software Galore! So let me ask you this. When did the world decide it wanted The manufacturer to create and install loads of poorly written software on business class machines? When receive a new machine for a client and it has more than 20 proprietary nonsense software installed which has nothing to do with the machine performing properly, it makes me ask why? Why make this machine more complicated and include more points of failure. I can understand 1-5 things the manufacturer may want to included to say, “Hey, we thought about you” but please do not drown us. It wastes our time by having to go through deleting all of this junk so it will not interfere later on. So Dell, you get an A+ for having far fewer junk applications installed on your new business class machines.

Speaking of making things harder and more complicated than it needs to be, HP and Toshiba have restore CD/DVD’s which ship with their new equipment. Great idea right? Kinda. If you are a regular home user or an in house technician with a small or medium size business then this should not bother you much. However, for Larger IT departments and  Computer Network Consulting Groups, and Computer Outsooucing scompanies managing more than 20 machines it begins to become quite difficult keeping track of so many CD’s and ensuring you have the proper discs if a machine needs to be restored. Especially if you have an HP machine, as HP requires 2 discs, one for system prep which Must be used prior to using the Recovery Disc. By the way, they are not labeled so be sure not to accidentally mix them up with another set.  Also, HP and Toshiba Recovery Discs are Model Specific. This means, as an outsourced company trying to follow the Boy Scout modo “Be Prepared” you would be insane to try and carry around recovery discs to clients, if by chance you needed one or the client miss placed their copy (which happens a lot).  Dell Shines here because each OS disc shipped from Dell can be used on any other Dell Machine. One Disc, Many Computers. Can you Say Freedom or Simple. Of course this opens the door for licensing problems, so be careful not to install Vista on a machine the only came with XP.

So far Dell has been Rock’n out with simple machines and simple recovery options for computer services. Dell continues this trend online support. If by chance you miss place your driver disc, all three manufacturers have support online to download the original or updated drivers. All you have to do is look at the three websites support pages and you will know who will come on top, as if this blog has not given it away already. Once again Dells simple design enables you to easily find and download the 5 or so drivers you need to run your system. HP and Toshiba are left to feel silly as they must offer the myriad of proprietary software which originally shipped with the PC, leave the technician to filter through to find the required chipsets nic drivers.

So Dell My Hat is off to you. Thank you for making my life simply easy. Everything from the initial install onsite to the rebuild/repair of a machine is simpler with your products. Keep it up and you will keep my business. I hope this has encouraged other IT support Companies as well. So Keep your Network Support Clean and Simple with Dell.
 

I was invited to speak at the Ingram Micro SMB Alliance meeting this August in Charlotte, North Carolina. The invitation isn't unusual. I have been invited to speak at several local, regional, and national events over the past few years. I enjoy sharing my thoughts with others, and my presentations always lead to people coming up to me afterward to share information that makes me smarter. The interesting thing about this request was the topic. I'll be speaking to my peers in the computer network consulting business about Search Engine Optimization, or, more precisely, Online Presence Management. SEO is no longer enough in the Web 2.0 world. In fact, having a great website with all of the structure built around your important keyword phrases is only a decent start at getting yourself found online by people who truly want to find you.

The fact that a conference full of people who do business computer support is going to have a session on SEO says a lot about the way in which computer services have changed and will continue to change. It is no longer good enough for your IT outsourcing company to keep your computers running (or fix them quickly when they break). Those of us who profess to be professional computer services providers have to recognize that our customers only have the computers because they want to accomplish a business function for which the computer is supposed to be uniquely suited. In order for us to help our Indianapolis area computer outsourcing customers succeed, we spend time finding out how they define success.

Lately that definition has included some element of their online presence and how they can leverage the power of the Internet in their business. They want us to help them with SEO, with cloud computing, with online interactions between them and their customers and suppliers. The reason Ingram Micro wants me to talk to my peers about Online Presence Management is that my peers had better start figuring out how to talk to their IT support customers about it.

I can hardly wait to see what I learn from this presentation opportunity.

I hear it so often that I sometimes believe it's true. One of my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing customers will call me to tell me that his computer just died only days after the warranty expired. Our modern electronics seem to know exactly when their death will lead to a new purchase instead of a warranty repair call. For this reason, we tell all of our technical support customers to purchase enough warranty to cover the expected life of the equipment. Once they've gotten the three or four years that they planned for, we give the device a "living will". It gets to hum along as long as they want, but if something goes wrong, we'll make no extra effort to revive the thing. We just try to make it comfortable while it dies.

The reality is that far more of the computers we support in the Indianapolis area have failures during their warranty period than those that reach the Do Not Resucitate phase. Our computer outsourcing customers don't notice those because our technical support staff handles the warranty repair work and gets the device back into service fairly quickly. By the time the machine reaches the DNR stage, our customers usually want to replace it in order to take advantage of the benefits of a new computer.

For desktop computers, this is becoming an issue. Since the increases in capability are negligible in terms of noticeable performance at work, we've been recommending longer refresh cycles to our computer network consulting customers. However, manufacturers are charging more and more for those outyear warranties. The decision now becomes whether or not to take a chance by running without warranty coverage. One of our schools just made that decision. They understand that a failure of one of their computers without warranty will likely mean replacement is more prudent than repair, but the cost to extend the warranty was not insignificant in comparison to the cost of buying a new one. They are ready to gamble that they won't have to replace too many and they will be able to survive until next year's budget.

We try to spend our computer services customers' IT budget wisely. Lately the decision on warranty extension has become more difficult to make. We no longer have hard, fast rules. We have to look at each piece of equipment and its use and importance in the overall operation before we can make an informed recommendation on replacement, warranty extension, or just flying without a parachute. Ask your IT consulting expert about these decisions that used to be easy to make. Be sure they aren't still using old rules of thumb.

 There are days when I'd like to fire the person who does my scheduling. The problem is that I am that person. Yesterday was a day like that. I struggle with the conflict between my desire to interact with everyone my Indianapolis Information Technology company touches each day, my need to provide the best service to each of our computer outsourcing customers, and the nonadjustable 24 hours that constitute each day. From time to time, I forget that time is required to get from the meeting in Carmel to the next one downtown. Well, I don't really forget that time is required. I just forget how much time is required. The result is my dashing from place to place and arriving just barely in time (or just slightly behind time). More importantly, my mind arrives a little bit after I do. 

I use all of the latest technology to keep myself up to date. I have my calendar synchronized with my phone. I carry a digital recorder to take notes while driving. I've read the oldest and the latest plans for effective time management. Still, I try to cram more into some days than will ever fit. And they are always days that are cold, windy, and wet, like yesterday.

My Indianapolis small business computer services customers tend to understand my dilemma. They are dealing with the same thing. We rush from place to place trying to squeeze in a few more minutes of productive time out of each hour. It's easy for me to tell my customers that they should take a moment and just breathe. It reminds me of the adage, "Do as I say, not as I do." One of my favorite computer network consulting customers reminded me of that statement near the end of the day yesterday. She said, "You and your people do good work for us. We will always want more. Keep doing what you're doing and know that we appreciate it, even when we sound like we don't."

That statement allowed me to slow down and enjoy the remainder of the blustery day.

I continue to be amazed at the number of people who aren't very good at their jobs. I don't know if it's due to apathy, or boredom, or just plain stupidity. Whatever the reason, it bothers me when I run into someone who seems to be doing a task for the very first time even though it is clearly a part of their daily routine.

When we started providing computer network consulting in Indianapolis, we often ran into other Indianapolis area computer consultants who would talk about their skill and knowledge in a particular area. We'd be awed by their confidence since we still learned an incredible amount about technology consulting every day. That's when we started speaking of these guys as the "One Page Ahead Guys." You see, they didn't really know all that much. They knew just enough more than others to seem like they knew a lot. We found that if we just turned the page in the manual, we'd know as much as they did. They weren't any more knowledgeable. They just knew how to fake it very well. Recall the scene in Mr. Mom where Jack (Michael Keaton) is telling his wife's boss Ron (Martin Mull) about his home rennovation project. Ron asks if he will wire it 220. Jack responds, "220, 221. Whatever it takes." An excellent example of the response you get from a One Page Ahead Guy.

We've done it to ourselves. There is so much to know about business computer support that it's impossible for any one person to know it all any more. Consequently, it's easy for someone to look like they know a lot. Well, I don't know nearly as much as I used to (as a percentage of all there is to know) about Information Technology, but I still learn something new every day.

 I frequently find myself wondering why my new Indianapolis small business computer consulting customers have such a hard time trusting us when we make recommendations. My long time computer outsourcing customers tend to go with our ideas without much discussion. That, of course, is the difference. Trust takes time to build. With new customers, we're still an unknown commodity. Sure, they chose us over their other options for IT outsourcing, but they still want to keep a close eye on us. Why? Because so many people do such a poor job at what they are supposed to do for us.

I recently hired a janitorial service. I made a checklist of the things that needed to be done each day, week, month, and quarter. I gave the prospective companies this list and asked them to give me a price for completing them according to schedule. We picked a company and they started cleaning our offices. Right away things didn't look good. They skipped items on the list. They didn't complete some of the tasks. We talked to them and pointed out the errors and ommissions. They were apologetic and repentent; promising to do better.

As time went on, things didn't get better. We continued to complain. They became defensive. Finally, we stopped complaining. We started looking for another provider. We didn't do this because we didn't like these guys. I actually hoped we could help them grow their small business by making referrals for them. We stop using these guys because we reached a point where we knew we could not trust them to get the job done right. If I have to spend my time wondering whether my janitors are putting in a good effort, I've got the wrong janitors.

The lesson I took away from that is that trust must be earned, and it must be earned every day. None of us will do our jobs perfectly. Few people expect that of their providers, especially their computer network consulting providers. We should expect that our providers will put in their very best effort, and will step up when something goes wrong. That's what Port-to-Port Consulting does when our Pertingo computer support customers call with a problem.

 I have a long time customer who used to refer to me as his "fucking genius" when he described me to others. At the time Port-to-Port started providing computer network consulting to his company, he hadn't done much with PCs and our knowledge amazed him. Today, he regularly tells me about things that he discovered about computer consulting that I didn't know. He has become his own computer consulting genius. Whether it's true or not, he considers himself more of a peer to me in his computer tech support knowledge.

That word genius has always bothered me, even before Apple gave that appellation to its computer help desk people in their stores. I don't think anyone who truly is a genius would ever refer to himself that way. I certainly haven't met anyone who describes himself as a genius with whom I would agree, but I have met some real geniuses along the way. The problem with topics like computer outsourcing is that the field is so vast that it's just not possible for any one person to know all that is needed to make a small business most successful -- not even the smallest of them. Yet, for the same reason, it's possible for any one person to know more about a single topic in technology than even the brightest of all the business computer support experts you can round up.

In the years that I've been providing computer services to Indianapolis small businesses and Not For Profits, I've become a lot more humble about what I know and don't know. There has never been a time when I would have described myself as a genius, but I was willing to toss around the word expert with wreckless abandon. I won't even try that any more. The PC based Information Technology industry is still less than 30 years old. New things happen every day. Significant new things happen every month. If you could know all there is today and didn't continue to learn, your knowledge would be nearly useless in about a year.

At Port-to-Port we're not computer experts, but we continually strive to be.

I've been providing computer network consulting services in central Indiana for nearly 18 years. We started during a dip in the economy, then we nearly went out of business during the downturn of 2000. Today, Port-to-Port Consulting is surviving the economic situation rather well. The thing that seems completely different than other hard times is that people seem to have forgotten that we are all people. In the end, whatever happens economically, it's important that we remain members of the tribe. A lot of people have forgotten that this time around.

I have a strong computer tech support team. We work hard together and we accomplish a good deal of good work. Every now and then, we drop the ball on a task or project. As soon as we find out, we dive right in to right the wrong and get things flowing again. In normal times, our Indianapolis small business clients are impressed that we put forth the effort to correct our mistakes. They appreciate that we own the problem. Lately that hasn't been the case everywhere.

We parted ways with several clients in the past few months. Some of them had been customers for years, but they changed as the times got tough. Suddenly, they spent a lot of time yelling at us on the phone. Since we run a computer help desk, we're kind of accustomed to getting yelled at by people. They are frustrated that they can't work because this thing that is supposed to be a tool for their success has turned into an anchor that is dragging them under. We understand and allow them to get it off their chest before we set about helping to make things better.

The recent calls have been different. People are getting personal in their attacks. They expect perfection, which none of us can achieve. I watch my talented team begin to wilt as they try to make these unreasonable people happy. And I make note that it's time to go in a new direction with that client.

Don't get me wrong. I like nothing better than having one of my network support customers tell me about something we missed. It gives us the chance to make things right and to improve on our processes to avoid the mistake in the future. I just don't think we should suffer the kind of treatment that would be considered unprofessional between peers in the same office.

Several months ago, I received a call from an Indianapolis attorney who was doing preliminary planning to start his own firm. He was currently working with a larger firm and desired to hang out his shingle. Having run my small business for nearly 18 years, I have a soft spot for people who are taking the plunge, especially when they aren't forced to do so by circumstances like layoffs or shutdowns.

I dove into helping this guy figure out some options that made sense for his new firm. I did much of the computer network consulting that he would otherwise have had to do on his own. I advised him on software, hardware, telephony, Internet providers, telephone companies, and even on ways to go about getting his client files when he left his current firm.

Along the way, I started to feel invested in this startup. I was providing business computer support at no cost because it was clear that if he went forward, I'd have a new Pertingo client. Well, you know where this story goes. As he built his team, he recruited a person to be his firm administrator. After all of the computer consulting work was done, she decided that she didn't need Port-to-Port any more. She called up the guys who she had worked with in the past. Then she called me to tell me that I'm out and they're in.

Most of you are assuming that I consider myself the loser in this story. Actually, I think I won. It took me a long time to figure out that I don't do what I do because computer tech support will make me rich or famous. I do it because it allows me to work with great people in great companies. I'm far better off to discover that I'm working with people who are willing to pimp their trading partners before we've inked a deal than after.

I won on this one even if I lost a piece of business. It would have turned out bad in the end anyway.

How often do you look at the number in the upper right portion of the screen when you do a search on Google? It's always an incredibly large number that indicates how many hits Google found for your search term. There are 2.68 million hits on my name. (I happen to be the number one result, but that's for another time.) Googling a common term will result in much larger results (872 million for "movies"). So how do you know if you've found what you're looking for? Most of us won't look past the second page which is only the top 40 hits or so. We really have put a lot of faith in Google's search technology.

Most of the time that's OK. We can get close enough with those first 40 hits. Afterall, I am the number one hit for "damon richards". But what about the times when we need something specific? The answer is the reason there are still new startup search engines even while Google dwarfs its nearest competitors. In the nearly 18 years that I've been providing IT support services to Indianapolis small businesses, I've found that there is good reason to root for the underdog in computer services. Last year, tens of millions of venture capital dollars went to small companies doing specialized search engines. They range from Hakia, which lets you see results from people with similar interests, to Viewzi, which does a super-search of the big boys and presents it in a friendlier way.

The continuous assault on Google's dominance is an example of why it's important to have strong computer network support. Even the things that seem solidly fixed are really constantly changing in the world of computer network consulting.

We've been trying to add to our technical staff for several weeks now. The task of finding good, qualified people is daunting even with the growing unemployment. The problem is not so much that we can't find people who have the technical skills for computer network consulting. It's that they don't have the skills that are most important to successfully provide business computer support in the Indianapolis area.

Eric Lundquist made this point in a commentary in a recent issue of eWeek. He summarizes the list of skills identified by the Society for Information Management, a decades old organization for technical managers:

1. Ethics and morals 
2. Critical thinking
3. Collaboration
4. Problem solving
5. Oral communication
6. Written communication
7. Interpersonal skills
8. Creativity
9. Managing expectations
10. Decision making
11. Functional area knowledge
12. Project leadership
13. Database
14. System analysis

Most job candidates find it difficult to understand that technical skills don't even make it into the top ten. My list doesn't exactly match this one from SIM, but it's not far from it. Having people who can't string together a sentence on paper or look me in the eye when talking to me is useless in the computer outsourcing business. My customers expect to get more than technical knowledge from us. They want help with their business problems -- especially the computer network ones.

Trust is a common theme that comes up when I write about the relationship between a computer network consulting company and its customers. I mention it often because it is the most important element in the success of that relationship. The same is true for other professional relationships we have like doctors, lawyers, accountants, and coaches. A recent malware attack led me to remind of this again.

According to Gary Warner, director of research in computer forensics with the University of Alabama at Birmingham, hackers figured out how to take advantage of the URL redirector function of some popular web sites including Microsoft.com and IRS.gov to send people to malicious sites. These people were looking for downloads to help them protect their systems from just such malicious activity. Port-to-Port Consulting's Pertingo(r) computer consulting clients can avoid these kinds of problems by trusting that we, their IT support services company, have taken care to protect their systems. They also know that because of the fixed fee relationship between us, a mistake in this area will cost us time and money to repair.

When people don't trust that their computer outsourcing company has their best interest at heart, they start searching for good advice from other sources. That search often leads, on the Internet, to bad results. It's like when your kids listen to their misbehaving friends instead of the good advice you give them.

So if you find yourself chasing online solutions to threats and problems instead of seeking your business computer support provider, you should perhaps seek a new provider. Find one you can trust and your life will be better.

User generated content is the key defining element of the Web 2.0 movement. Social networking is close behind. This makes sites that allow people to rate the quality of various items or providers seem the logical best step for a killer new web site. If you're thinking you have a great idea for a site where people can rate things, that ship has already sailed.

The problem it has created for my Indianapolis computer consulting clients is that the Internet is now filled with sites that contain information about them. Some of it is good. Some of it is bad. Most of it is inaccurate. Why should you care? Most of these rating sites will appear above your company web site when someone does a search on keywords of interest to you. So most people have a greater chance of finding your listing than finding your site. Take Port-to-Port Consulting as an example. If you search for Computer Outsourcing in Indianapolis on Google, the first hit is a site called GetFave. The first mention of Port-to-Port is this blog (4th place isn't bad). Luckily for us, we're the only listing in GetFave and the information is accurate. Why? Because I edited our entry on GetFave when I saw how well it was doing in searches for Computer Network Consulting and other terms.

Do you have someone who monitors these things for your small business? We've created a new practice area for just that purpose. We call it Online Presence Management. It goes way beyond search engine optimization and website maintenance. It involves finding, correcting, or creating your online image to be what you need it to be to succeed.