Somethings I’ve done include turning off Outlook email notifications, not entering twitter and avoiding as much as possible using Instant Messaging while totally focused. The findings have been great. It turns out not all email needs to be answered immediately (it’s even better if you wait as you can think of a better response). Also twitter can wait, I can answer messages using the same system as with email.

Although I’ve diminish to the most these kind of interruptions, there are some that have been impossible for me to achieve, or even block, and those are software updates.

It’s unbelievable the amount of popups I get asking to install updates for this and updates for that. For example:

1. Windows: Every week there’s something new that needs to be updated. Some security patch or software update or component. The great thing about these updates is that the computer needs to be restarted. There’s no single or small update that doesn’t. Since I start hearing the hard drive screaming and I notice the update icon on the clock bar, I start sweating right way. I start planning to stop what I’m doing, or what  if I get up to take a glass a water and find Windows has already restarted the computer for me (thank you) when I comeback and I’ve lost whatever I was doing.
2. Adobe Reader: Really? Adobe Reader needs that much updating? Last week I had it and went to their site to check what was being updated. Like 70% of the list is made of security updates. Yes, security updates. Is Adobe Reader that hackable?
3. Apple: Yes, I have to generalize here. This little Apple window opens up every time one of their products needs an update. I’ve manage myself to meeting some of the Apple product line up by this update window. I have installed some Apple products I didn’t even know of, and yes, all of them requires me to restart my computer.
4. McAfee antivirus: I know, this needs to be updated to refresh the virus list, but the core software? In the last couple of months I received like 3 major updates to the core and if I don’t restart the computer it starts pooping out messages that I might be at risk. I turned off the whole thing and still keeps popping out messages of risks and restarting. Come on!

In conclusion, keep in mind when developing software to:

• Be gentle when asking to upgrade.
• Try to make it at least once a month (if possible once every quarter).
• Avoid restarting the machine once updates are installed. This is an architecture issue, it’s possible to do it.
• If a restart is needed, just ask me once. I know how to read.

PS. Windows updates have asked me thee times to restart the thing while writing this post. So long, I have to restart.

What software update annoys you the most?

It seems all that is gone by now. Yesterday I received an email from a vendor which we bought a software product about two years ago. The subject said something about their social media sites. When I read the email, they were simply sending a link of their twitter and Facebook site asking me to click on the link and follow them or to just like them. I just though, what? Just like that? I though about running into a high school friend that I haven’t seen for a few years and all of the sudden telling me: hi Jose, how are you? hey there’s something I wanted to tell you…do you like me? eehhh, mmmm, what was your name again?

So, this is email isn’t far from that story. I sometimes complain about some vendors, specially in the tech sector, that once you buy their product, you don’t hear about them never again. This was one of those cases. I haven’t heard from them since two years and now I receive this email asking me to like them.

Sincerely. Not cool software company, not cool.

Try always to have some kind of conversation. These are somethings you could do:

1. Send valuable things about you, your industry or about the product. How about that feature long hidden in the product?
2. What other customers are doing for the product.
3. Tips about what other things i can do with the product.

The point is to establish some kind of conversation, but don’t start sending me emails asking me to like you. It’s just too soon for me.

What are you doing to get your customers to like you?

Other venues get you to interact with clients, get to know them and they get to know us (sometimes maybe too much) but you can’t get an idea out there in 140 characters. That’s why your blog should be your command center for transmitting and developing your thoughts. Consider this:

1. Twitter is great way to get to customers and them to you, but with the 140 characters limit, it’s pretty difficult to express ideas and be sure they got the right impression.
2. Facebook fan pages are also very good, but still you can’t get an idea elaborated with wall posts. Although you can do some very good branding.
3. Elaborate the ideas and thoughts on your blog and point to your posts from these social media sites so you can start real conversations with customers and potential prospects.
4. Starting a blog now days is pretty simple, just go to WordPress or Blogger which are pretty good. Personally, I would recommend WordPress, the management is very easy and with the vast variety of plug-ins available nearly everything is possible without having to be so technical.

What are you using to express your ideas?

The site basically shows a Google Map with the principal Santo Domingo buses routes in the city in combination of the Santo Domingo metro (subway). For now, the subway only has one line (the red line in the map). This forms the official Santo Domingo Transportation system of the city and is a great resource for tourist but also to local users.

For the moment, the only income we can get from the site is the AdSense ads from Google, although we are brainstorming some other ideas.

For marketing, we are using SEO techniques and placing some special keywords that get us in front of search engines. We’ve create a Facebook fan page where users can joined if they liked the service.

It’s really a different service, but we’re excited in trying these new things and we’ll be updating ahead how everything evolves.

I really like experimenting with maps and playing with streets and avenues and trains. So, if you are planning to visit Santo Domingo when you get your latest vacation in Punta Cana, Bavaro or Samana, then take a visit to Santo Domingo Transit Map. You will find all the official bus routes in the city and also incorporated the recently created first subway line.

Leave any comments on the same site’s contact section.

Since the beginning of computing someone had the brilliant idea that for storing files and documents the best way to classify them would be to create a hierarchy and structure of folders or directories and begin dumping them in there.

Today we have end up with hundreds and hundreds of folders in our hard disks with lots and lots of files. Sometimes I don’t even remember where I created a folder and even further what the files inside there represent.

And a simple explanation for this is that we as human beings don’t think like a hierarchy. Our memories are not stored in a hierarchical path that we follow to remember where we left the keys of our car yesterday. We just kind of make a full search on the brain for keys and the place just comes up. Now, that’s a way to store and look for things.

My suggestion here is that we try to stop using folders in general applications and in document management systems like SharePoint. Try to classify files in document libraries using meta data fields in SharePoint which get indexed by the search engine and also lets create filtered views about information. Folders will just complicate things creating a hierarchy of files. Investigate a little and you will notice that almost any folder can be replaced for a meta data property. And also you will get sharepoint workflow like an added bonus.

We submitted SkyXoft Procx and got our
certification of good to go!

Some of the things you’ll get:

• Central document repository: no more storing files on your local
  hard disk or on a shared folder in the network. With SharePoint you will be
  able to store documents in a repository accessible via web. When some other
  person needs to collaborate on the document, they can just go the specified
  web site, open the document, edit it and save it back to the repository. No
  more documents lying around.
• Document versioning: yes, will have a whole history of all the
  edits made on the document and go back and recover that version that you
  need.
• One search: search for documents and information inside documents
  from a single place. When you install SharePoint Portal Server, you will get
  the ability to search across sites and document libraries everywhere. Now
  you won’t loose a document again.
• Metadata fields: Add information about documents. Forget about
  folder hierarchies for classifying documents. Add metadata fields for
  describing and searching.
• Forms: create a repository of standard forms used in your
  organization. Training requests, purchase orders, expense reimbursement,
  etc., etc., etc. Create and publish them in SharePoint.
• Sites: create special sites for collaboration. A site for the
  sale department, human resources department. For that new project we are
  starting.
• Collaboration features: create calendars, meeting spaces, assign
  tasks and create contacts around documents and other objects of the
  organization. Everything integrated in one site created for that purpose.
• It’s the future: yes, it is. We will have one environment,
  invisible in the background, where all our documents will live and all the
  collaboration information will be stored. Today is called SharePoint.

Of course, this are just some of the things you will get when deploying
SharePoint. There are a lot of other things you can do with it and customize it
to your needs.

After your implementation don’t forget to go a step further with workflow.
Add document approval and routing to those documents and forms in SharePoint
using our product, Procx. With it, you can really streamline processes and
really do more with less. Go, give it a look at our
SharePoint Workflow
site and our InfoPath
Workflow site.

When people ask me to define productivity, I respond a four word sentence: do
more with less. That’s it. Process more insurance claims without increasing
personnel, find company documents and information more easily without wasting
time, automate processes and relocate employees to perform value added
activities in the business, handle more loans without increasing officials, find
new channels of delivering your product without investing lots of money.

Technology has been playing a huge role in productivity, especially
information technology. Today organizations have a portfolio of software
products available online that can automate almost any part of your company.
Identify your needs, look for manual routines that employees do and think how
you can improve that part of the business and which software can help you
achieve your objectives. A small increase in productivity can yield into high
profit values.

If you go to the customer service representative, do you know how much time
is lasting for giving the customer a definitive answer on their problem? There
is no way we can improve these type of services if you are not taking measures
of the process. By doing so, then we can think about augmenting our customer
satisfaction index or reducing the amount of errors that a product has when
going out to the streets.

In this

article by Seth Godin, he makes a call to people to stop being afraid of
taking care of processes. Yes, we know this is a routinary thing, but it is a
strategic value to our business against competitors. If I’m more efficient
internally, I can handle more jobs and customers with less the cost of similar
organizations in the industry.

So, stop for while envisioning what your company will be in the next three
years and take care of those processes that customers and employees are
complaining right now.