Rob Bell's Notes from a Yorkshire Internet Megalomaniac

What is Cloud Computing?

The Growth of Cloud Computing

What is Cloud Computing? It is a revolution that will change your business for the better, letting you work faster, cheaper and better…. and from anywhere, just about.

Cloud Computing is one term for Internet-based software and hardware platforms – basically, instead of installing programs on your own computer, you access them over the Internet – Gmail is cloud computing, in fact most of what Google offers is cloud computing – you access it via a web interface. Are you familiar with Hootsuite, the social networking client? That’s Cloud Computing – also known as a Web Application (Web App). Many of you probably already use Freshbooks (get it free from this link) – one of my favourite apps, that lets you track time and estimate & invoice easily.

It’s cool because it allows for a number of wonderful things – you can access your business information and applications from any internet connected device, so you’re no longer tied to one computer at your desk – PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad etc… You’ve got real-time business information always at your fingertips – which allows you to make decisions based on up-to-date, accurate company data.

Because it’s not tied to one computer, you’re in no danger of losing everything if that computer breaks – your data is stored securely in data centres with backup systems. Plus, you’ve always got your documents to hand, as long as there’s a device with an internet connection nearby.

Because you’re accessing the app over the web, the company that writes the app can quickly correct bugs and introduce new features – so you never have to buy new versions like you do with traditional software. New features to let you do things faster and better are added all the time. Web Apps companies are also very good at supporting their users, in my experience.

Web apps companies also tend to be much friendlier to each other than traditional software companies, even building their systems so your applications can talk to each other, your contact lists are linked to your customer management system, which links to your project system, which also links to your invoicing system which is linked to your accounting system – so you can automate many of your time-consuming tasks, and get a lot more done.

If you have a company, perhaps staff are located in several different locations. Web Apps are great for teams like this, because they easily allow you to collaborate with team members and share documents – you can even work on them in real-time together, despite being miles apart. You can set up and work on projects together, see what’s in the sales funnel, track customer interactions, arrange conferences, training, customer presentations, seminars… in fact any sort of meeting, online. Cloud computing is letting people work together better, faster, cheaper and more profitably.

My company, Ex Ignibus, specialises in web apps (cloud computing) for small businesses – we install Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) as the interface, linked with applications for accounting, invoicing, email marketing, customer relationship management, project management, word processing, spreadsheets – and lots more – for single person businesses up to large, geographically-separate, teams. Web Apps are inexpensive, and can be afforded by any business – it currently costs around $50 per user per year to buy GAPE, and many of the additional Web Apps offered are free as long as they’re integrated with the GAPE solution. Others cost between $10-$25 per month, usually increasing as your requirements increase – so you, as a small business owner, can get a pretty awesome business system for less than $50 per user per month – in comparison to regularly spending hundreds of pounds or dollars buying new software licenses for installable computer-based software. Many Web Apps are also free for micro-businesses (single employee or small team).

So, as you can see, cloud computing offers a new way of working which breaks free of traditional single-computer information and restrictive private networks, offering a secure, simple way for small businesses and teams to enjoy the kind of software that only large corporations could afford previously. The only software tied to my computer these days is Expression Web, Visual Basic and Photoshop – development tools I build sites with that demand higher processing power than most business apps and usually involve large filesizes. To try Web Apps out requires little or no investment, and could have massive positive effects on your business, so why don’t you give ‘em  a try? If you need a bit of help, drop me a line via the contact form at Ex Ignibus.

Take care and have fun out there,

Rob Bell

Like most of you, no doubt, I used to take little or no real interest in Politics – even though, everyday, politicians make decisions that affect my life, that of my family and friends – and that of everyone else in our country. As I got into my 30s and experienced much greater adversity than at any point previously, I started to take an interest.

Historically, I had one major political event that’s stuck in my memory from childhood. My Dad was a coalman – he had the biggest round in Wakefield. I used to work with him when I was younger, during the holidays – especially the Winter.  During 1984, Margaret Thatcher and the Conservatives took on Arthur Scargill and the National Union of Mineworkers – causing the Miner’s Strike , that ran from 1984-85, and had a pretty devastating affect on Wakefield, where I live still to this day, destroying all the mining communities around – in fact, a big chunk of the country, particularly in the North of England – many places have never fully recovered, I believe the Wakefield area to be one of them.

The miner’s strike was devastating to my father and our family, as it was to so many in the Coal Industry. It seemed like the supply of coal dried up overnight – rationing started, Dad couldn’t get hold of much coal – and any stock he got was as likely to be stolen from his yard as it was to get to the few remaining customers who were able to get a coal ration slip. Dad’s business collapsed, we lost our home, all our savings went into propping things up until they ran out… and Dad nearly died when his heart failed as a result.

Since then, I’ve never felt that politics really represents the real people of Britain. A lot of the politicians we see are career politicians, born into privilege, and somewhat removed from the realities of life in the UK. The corruption within is disgusting – wealthy donors control and shape policy with their wallets, and the recent expenses scandal proved a lot of politicians to be self-serving, prepared to take liberties with money that we, their employers, certainly never intended to be spent expensively renovating up their multiple homes.

For my entire life, either the Conservatives or Labour have been in power – making the same mistakes over and over. Most people I know don’t feel that the Goverments, past and present, really represent them, or look after their interests. They seem to encourage profit at any social cost and looking after the wealthy and influential, while ignoring the needs of the average man or woman on the street. They spend vast amounts of the money we provide them with, in the form of taxes, on propping up banks – who nearly brought our economy to ruin with their maverick attitudes, speculative risks and pursuit of profit at any cost. What have the Labour Government done about it? Well, the banks are still handing out massive bonuses to staff, sticking 2 fingers up at us after we so kindly bailed them out of trouble. The Conservatives wouldn’t be any better – they want to slash Public Spending, causing further unemployment, and potentially causing the end of businesses who provide services to the public sector in the midst of our worst recession in decades. They will make the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer. You only have to look at the recent furor over the party funding (millions) contributed by Lord Ashcroft – himself a tax exile from the UK, so where do his loyalties lay? Not to the people of Britain, I’ll wager.

I, personally, have had enough – and I’m not on my own. Some people vote for extremist parties in protest, as they target the common man’s fears – the recent rise of the BNP shows this. I deplore such extremism – I just want to live in a country where people get along and have a Government that looks after their interests rather than the interests of the money men. I feel about it so strongly that I am even standing for council election next month. Who for? The only party I feel represents a real opportunity to make positive changes, and to take 21st Century Great Britain forward – the Liberal Democrats.

A lot of people I talk to say they won’t vote Lib Dem, because they’ll never get into power – so they’re going to vote Conservative or Labour – one in protest at the existing Government and hoping for change, or the other because “It’s better the Devil you know…”.  To you all – the Labservatives – I say “Balderdash! (Actually, my real choice of word was  ‘Bollocks’, but balderdash is so much politer!) You’re perpetuating an ongoing 2-party nightmare that’s held its’ suffocating grip over Britain for 65 years. I want off this sickening ride, I want positive change, and I hope you do to. Things won’t change unless you vote for change. When enough people want change, change happens.

With that in mind, I’m going to sign off this post with an email I got today from Nick Clegg, leader of the Lib Dems.

Stayed tuned – an all new RobBellBlog.com is imminent – with regular posts, news and tips for small business owners and freelancers, Better Living and Better Business Through the Internet, iPhone & iPad, Cloud Computing and Web Applications articles and discussion,  Tech & Gadget news and reviews, and guest bloggers. I’m currently developing the new format, and will keep you abreast of all the improvements.

Rob Bell
- not usually so political, but it’s important!

Here’s the email from Nick:

Dear friend,

Last week, we launched a spoof campaign for the ‘Labservative’ party. You can find the details at www.labservative.com. It’s a funny campaign, but it has a serious point, a point only Liberal Democrats are making in this election.

For 65 years the government of our country has been handed from Labour to the Conservatives and back again like a game of pass the parcel. Red-blue, blue-red politics – and look what it has got us: corrupt politics, recession, inequality, time and again. They just take turns at making the same mistakes. It has to end.

The old politics is not good enough any more. It is time for something different. Our strategy in this election is to make it clear that if you want real change, you have to vote for a party that is different. All you will get from the old parties is more of the same. Just think how much they agree on.
On the economy: the Labservatives have been in thrall to the City of London for decades, neglecting the rest of Britain and letting the banks get away with doing whatever they want. And now the Labservatives are both refusing to come clean about the tough decisions needed to sort out the public finances – it’s a conspiracy of silence.

It’s the same story wherever you look: together David Cameron and Gordon Brown have blocked political reform, including our plan to allow people to sack corrupt MPs. The Labservatives compete to sound tough on crime instead of doing what works to actually catch criminals and stop them committing more crimes. And the Labservatives have made UK foreign policy subservient to the interests of the United States, from the illegal invasion of Iraq to the decision to waste £100bn on replacing, like for like, the Cold War era Trident nuclear submarines.

Labservatism is alive and well in Britain today, and only the Liberal Democrats can change that. A vote for Cameron or Brown is a vote for the corrupt, failed status quo. Only Liberal Democrats offer real change.
So wherever you are out campaigning, from Scotland to Cornwall, from Ceredigion to Norfolk, from inner London to rural Cumbria, remember this:

We are not campaigning against two parties: we are campaigning against one. We are campaigning against the old, failed way of doing things. We are campaigning for real, permanent change to build a fairer Britain. It’s a simple choice between old and new.

So get out campaigning, and take on Labservatism in your area. Say No to more of the same and Yes to real change.

Thank you for all of your hard work,

Nick Clegg

Marketing is not Promotion People – Get that in Your Heads.

Promotion and Advertising are tools used within a Marketing programme when a product or service is ready to be launched. There’s lots of marketing needs to be done before that stage  though.

There are so many people around claiming to be marketing experts because they’ve undertaken promotional actions to some degree of success – that doesn’t make you a marketing guru that makes you a promotions guru.

Marketing is much more than just promoting products – it’s researching markets, identifying opportunities and problems, developing services and products to solve those problems in a manner a customer would like  setting up and testing Marketing campaigns, using above the line-, below the line- and digital- methods to formulate, execute and analyse the success of each actitivy, something that is particularly easy online given the availability of data, constantly testing and refining promotions as needed. And eventually, the product is ready to go, hopefuly with a well-armed knowledge of the new market that will allow him or her to dominate.

Market Research

A true Marketer knows that any product needs research prior to committing, here are just 15:

1. What’s the size of the market?
2. Who are the major players?
3. How competitive is it?
4. Have you done any Keyword Research?
5. What’s the customer profile?
6. What are people in the market desperate for?
7. Are there any problems there you can solve through your product or service?
8. Are you asking people in the market if they see a place for your product?
9. Would they buy it or try it out and give it a mark out of 100 for you??
10. Are you doing usability studies?
11. What’s the best way to reach your target consumers? It’s not always going to be online, many niches can found away from the computer.
12. What are the best factors to identify in order to do competitive analysis? Price, Features, Quality, Exclusivity – they’ll be different  for each market
13. Does your product represent what you want to sell to them, or what they want to buy from you?
14. How could you change the former into the latter?
15. Where can your potential customers be found?

Next time, I’ll look at competitive positioning and discuss how understanding a fairly simple topic to grasp can help you know more about your market than most others

I’m not quite sure what it is… it’s not time, it’s not lack of ideas, it’s not lack of content… but something makes this blog harder to keep updating than any of the rest of my web estate! Those of you who follow me on social networks know that I’m online plenty, always researching new and quality information and applications, engaging with and sharing with people. I have almost 2,300 Twitter posts to my name at the time of writing this, so why oh why oh why do I find it such a chore to look after my blog? It’s been 6 weeks since my last update here – shame on me!

Does anyone else share this malady, and find their blog to be the hardest part of their web presence to maintain?

Of course, I have a bagful of excuses – too much client work, medical appointments, other jobs to do, things to learn, too busy talking to people – but at the end of the day, they are just excuses. I can make time for this blog, I’ve just failed to do so, and I aim to rectify this starting today. I made an agreement with my mentor to finalise the core of each of my sites – I’m going to include this site too, so a redesign to fit in with the others is imminent!

I always put pressure on myself to make my blog posts fit certain criteria – they have to be a certain minimum length, be original content that isn’t lifted from somewhere else, pass my rigorous quality standard… and I set the bar too high for myself, it’s so high I can’t realistically hope to fulfil all the requirements every single time – I have been paralysed by my own perfection-demanding nature. I read Seth Godin’s blog posts each day via RSS and they’re not often very long at all – why do I crave lengthiness in my own??!?

So today I’m giving myself a slap and reminding myself of the saying “You don’t have to be great to get going, but you do have to get going to be great”

What are you going to get going today to get great?

Rob Bell

p.s. I stayed up until ridiculous o’clock to ensure I got my vanity link on Facebook, so I’m going to use it lots – friend me on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/robbell

p.p.s. And as if you didn’t already know, on Twitter I’m @robbell

The rise of web apps over the past year or two has been fast and extensive – I, for example, now run almost all my business processes through web apps – that talk to each other, passing data around to where it’s needed at that time. This helps me get things done faster, and to have far better contact with my clients throughout any business project. I also have applications that take away a lot of manual time-hogging processe, or give me greater coverage without extra work. I love it for a lot of reasons, of which 2 are listed here  – 1. because all my data is protected on servers in data centres, so a local hard drive crash won’t affect my business, and 2. because I can access the information and services I need from my business from anywhere there’s Internet connectivity – which includes on my Blackberry. I’ll have even greater integration next month when I get an IPhone because many of my application providers already have IPhone Apps, just waiting for me to integrate them into Robnet!

I keep an eye out for new web apps all the time, and look into any app that could offer me any of the following benefits:

1. It saves me money by reducing the cost of a business process
2. It saves me time by automating a process I previously did manually
3. It generates more income for me
4. It allows me to do something I couldn’t prior to using it
5. It allows for greater efficiency
6. It integrates with my existing application infrastructure
7. It improves my visitors’ experiences

Now the one I’ve discovered today is an absolute blinder – it has the most feature-rich interface I’ve ever seen, and eliminates the need to own Powerpoint or similar – it’s an online presentation application called 280 Slides, and here’s what I did on it in less than an hour – it’s a short intro to my new company Ex Ignibus. It was remarkably easy to do, and although not as heavily featured as Powerpoint, I can still access my presentations from anywhere with a Net link, and it has enough features to enable me to put together comprehensive presentations, on the fly. I recommend you check it for yourself – it’s free to use: