Computer Data Recovery Options

Author: Brad Triggs

Losing files on your computer can be a frightening experience if the files are of importance to you personally or professionally. Computer data recovery techniques include the most simple of operations, like simply retrieving an accidentally deleted file, to very complex file retrieval procedures that only professionals should attempt to do.

If you are trying to proceed with your hard disk recovery solution on your own, first start with the most obvious answer. Look in your recycle bin to see if the file has been placed there. If it is, you can choose the ""restore"" option, and your system will automatically put the file back on your computer where it was stored originally. Of course, if every retrieval was this simple, there would be no need for computer professionals who specialize in data recovery, so chances are you'll need to try a different technique to find your lost data.

If you've deleted a file on your computer, and you've emptied your recycle bin, don't despair. When a file is deleted on a computer, it's not erased immediately from the system. What actually happens is the computer marks the deleted file as ""deleted"", and it is no longer in view to users within your computer's files. The file remains on the hard drive until new data is saved over it, similar to recording songs on cassette tapes. So, in order for computer data recovery to happen on files that have been deleted, you'll need to attempt to recover them before new data has been written over the file.

The best thing you can do to increase your chances of success is to immediately stop using the computer until you've retrieved the deleted file. The more you use your computer, the more information will be saved and the more likely the information could be saved over the file you are hoping to get back!

About the author:

******************************************* Brad Triggs provides more information on Data Recovery at his website: Data-Recovery-Central .com - Computer Data Recovery *******************************************

Nucleus Kernel for FAT & NTFS data recovery software

Author: Nucleus Technologies.com

Nucleus Technologies.com offers a complete range of data recovery software and utilities for various Platforms including Windows operating system and supports various file systems including FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5, The Hard Drive Data Recovery Software offered by Nucleus Technologies ensures safe and precise data recovery against numerous threats like accidental file deletion and disk formatting, Nucleus Kernel for FAT & NTFS data recovery software is a non-destructive and read-only file and partition recovery utility that helps you in recovering data lost due to accidental formatting, virus problems, software malfunction, file and directory deletion, and sabotage. The program examines your inaccessible hard drives for damage and corruption and recovers the data. It provides partition recovery from FAT16, FAT32, NTFS and NTFS5 file systems. It recovers deleted files and folders, even after the recycle bin has been emptied. It recognizes and preserves long file names when restoring files and folders. Nucleus Kernel FAT & NTFS File recovery from deleted partition, formatted logical drives or deleted files, File recovery from Missing or Lost folders. During recovery process a complete scan of the damaged drive or data storage media is performed to locate and revive the lost partitions, files and folders. After the complete scanning the data found in the damaged disk is displayed in a tree like structure from where you can easily copy your recovered files to a working disk or volume. Kernel for FAT+NTFS Data Recovery Software uses QFSCI (Quick File System Component Identification) Technology for searching and restoring lost partitions, files and folders and hence is a fast, simple and easy to use Windows data recovery software, which helps you to recover your lost data and files in minutes in case of disk crash or data loss disasters and hence supports your business continuity. Nucleus Kernel for Windows supports FAT, NTFS, HPFS, and NTFS5 File Systems. For more information on the product please visit http://www.nucleustechnologies.com .

About the author: Nucleus Technologies.com offers a complete range of data recovery software and utilities for various Platforms including Windows operating system and supports various file systems including FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5, The Hard Drive Data Recovery Software offered by Nucleus Technologies ensures safe and precise data recovery against numerous threats like accidental file deletion and disk formatting.

How You Can Avoid My Data Recovery Nightmare

Author: John R. Barker

Many subjects related to your work might be more fun, more sexy. Who wants to talk about data backups, disaster preparedness and data recovery?

I sure didn't.

But, a disturbing thought kept popping into my head for days . .

""You better spend Wednesday . . . Thursday . . . Friday . . . backing up your hard drive.""

Did I listen to that intuition?

Just a couple of weeks prior I begrudgingly sat through a presentation on disaster preparedness for small businesses.

It was a great presentation, actually. I learned a lot. I knew it was a weak spot in my business. But priority number one?

So back to present past time:

It was 12:30 AM on Saturday night / Sunday morning. Sitting on my couch in the living room, I closed the lid on my laptop - the core of my business and family income.

Five hours later, at 5:30 AM, I woke to the frantic screams of my wife. ""John, the kitchen is on fire! Oh my god, our house is on fire!""

We lost everything.

Including my laptop and a lot of precious information. Email addresses, new projects, software, my audio library. Customer testimonials, purchase records, receipts, passwords, bookmarks and more.

Fortunately a lot of it was backed up. Well, at least the guts of my business. But if it had been backed up better, I'd have saved myself a lot of headaches and a LOT of money.

It's easy to put off subjects like data recovery, data backups and disaster preparedness. There are more pressing things to be done, and what are the odds? Right? When you consider the many things that can happen to your data, regular data backups are just smart.

Don't get burned like I did - be prepared.

Backup Your Data

To see what's left of my living room, visit http://www.4data-recovery.com.

About the author: To see what's left of my living room, visit http://www.4data-recovery.com.

John R. Barker is an Internet marketer. His unexpected life disaster has inspired him to launch a site that will, hopefully help you from enduring the same.

Disc Recovery - Data Recovery - Raid Recovery

Author: J. Brian Keith

Data Recovery is probably the last thing on anyone's mind when they buy a computer. Most of us never think something will go wrong until it's too late. Data recovery or Disc Recovery services is something we hope we will never have the need for. Whether your computer simply crashes or you accidentally delete software that is important or imperative to you, it may seem that your information is lost for good. Although, if you have quality data recovery software already in your system or on your computer, you should feel good in the fact that it has backup, even though things like this can and will happen at times. This can be extremely important for you state of mind and well being when it comes to safeguarding your personal or business information and software.

What many don't understand is that there are numerous reasons things can go wrong on their computer. Whether it is your own personal computer you are responsible for, or a large business computer system, having a method of restoring the information when things go wrong can be of the utmost importance. Your computer could run slow or be packed full of non efficacious adware and spyware that can ultimately destroy your important files, siphon and transfer personal data, this could cause a computer crash. In a blink of an eye, everything that is important to you could be gone. Storms can cause Power surges quickly and without much or any advance warning, that could be all it takes to lose everything.

These are not the only ways you can lose the data that is stored on your computer. Most people think this will never happen to them, it's human nature. So what do we do? Nothing, which means you could lose everything. Disc recovery is an absolute must to avoid these things from happening. Disc and Data Recovery is very easy to install and use and can be virtually self maintaining. So why doesn't everybody take advantage of data recovery? It could be the expense, but it doesn't cost much, more likely they just don't understand the importance or simply don't think about it at all until it's too late. Data recovery is quite possibly the most important thing for computer users. Don't get caught without it!

About the author:

For more information about: Data Recovery ,

Computer Forensics or Articles about Data Recovery Services

Hard Disk Data Recovery Expert: Choosing Yours

Author: David A. Williams

If you need a hard disk data recovery expert, you need one now. You have just lost a good amount of work that you need to send, well, yesterday. No matter how well versed you think you are in the computer world, chances are that at some point, something will go wrong. This is when you will want to find the right person or company to help solve your problems. Data disk hard recovery is a touchy situation, though. So, to help you find the hard disk data recovery expert that you need, here are a few helpful hints.

* First off, take the time to find the right company. Don't simply choose one that says they will do the job for you. They can make things worse if they are not prepared. It only takes a few minutes to find out what they can do for you. * Consider the company itself. Does it have the ability to service your manufacturer? What experience do they have? How do you know its not a bunch of college kids? Ask questions, do some basic research. It takes only minutes.

* You will want to know what specifically they will do for your data disk hard recovery needs. The hard disk data recovery expert should be able to handle your specific problem. More than likely, they will ask you just what happened, what type of application is being used and if you know what the source of the problem is. From here, they should provide you with some sort of plan of action that they will take.

* Very important is that the work that they do will not violate your computer's warranty. You will specifically want to make sure of this. * Will they need you to bring your system in? Or, many of the hard disk data recovery experts will work with you over the phone to help you restore data within minutes. That will save you quite a bit of time and expense. Often times they will log into your system and handle the issue professionally. In many cases, though, you will need to take your system in.

* How will they provide the lost media to you? The hard disk data recovery experts often offer a number of methods to provide you with what you lost. They can often be transmitted to you, sent to you on CD-ROMs or hard disk drives. Most of the time, the choice is up to you. * Lastly, it is also important to know what the hard disk data recovery experts will charge you when the data disk hard recovery is unsuccessful. Will they charge you for the service or will the service be free? Perhaps they will offer you a lower price?

Finding the right company to choose from is not that hard. The hard disk data recovery experts that are available to you are able to help you in your time of need. In many cases, they can have your files restored as you need them within a few hours, days or in extreme cases a little longer. Nonetheless, their data disk hard recovery service is something you will likely need and not be able to think twice about having the service preformed. But, when you take the time to find a qualified hard disk data recovery expert, things can go right, right from the beginning!

About the author: David writes for the Business Catalyst where you can find information on Small Business Startups in Nashville, TN. For more information on Data Recovery visit http://www.mydatarecoveryexpert.info

Nucleus Kernel for NTFS Data Recovery Softwares

Author: Nucleus Technologies.com

Nucleus Technologies.com offers a complete range of data recovery software and utilities for Windows, operating system and supports various file systems including FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 Kernel for NTFS recovers data from deleted, formatted, damaged, or corrupted partitions where NTFS based operating systems, such as Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 are installed on the hard disk or data storage media. During recovery process a complete scan of the damaged drive or data storage media is performed to locate and revive the lost partitions, files and folders. After the complete scanning the data found in the damaged disk is displayed in a tree like structure from where you can easily copy your recovered files to a working disk or volume. Kernel for NTFS Data Recovery Software uses QFSCI (Quick File System Component Identification) Technology for searching and restoring lost partitions, files and folders and hence is a fast, simple and easy to use Windows data recovery software, which helps you to recover your lost data and files in minutes in case of disk crash or data loss disasters and hence supports your business continuity. Kernel for NTFS data recovery software Recovery of deleted and damaged partitions. Data recovery after the loss of MBR, Boot sector or File Allocation Table. Provides recovery of data lost due to accidental formatting of your hard disk. Recovery of lost data due to variety of viruses(s). Full support for long file names. Recovery possible even if the disk partition has been formatted with different file system type or with different parameters. Kernel for NTFS data recovery software Full support for IDE, EIDE, SCSI and SATA, PAN, ZIP and USB drives. Nucleus Kernel for NTFS will recover your data if the drive was formatted, fdisk has been run, a power failure has caused a system crash, files were lost due to a software failure, files were accidentally deleted. For more information on the product please visit http://www.nucleustechnologies.com .

About the author: Nucleus Technologies.com offers a complete range of data recovery software and utilities for Windows, operating system and supports various file systems including FAT16, FAT32, NTFS, NTFS5 Kernel for NTFS recovers data from deleted, formatted, damaged, or corrupted partitions where NTFS based operating systems, such as Windows NT, Windows 2000, Windows XP, and Windows 2003 are installed on the hard disk or data storage media.

Choosing a Data Recovery Company

Author: Yaroslav Shkvorets

There are many different factors to consider when choosing a data recovery company. All of them may have strong advantages in some areas but be weaker or less efficient in others.

If this is your first time choosing a data recovery company, you will want to learn as much information as possible regarding them. Browse their websites, contact representatives and find the answers to the following questions. This will help you to make an informed choice. Do they have specialists specifically devoted to data recovery? Some companies offer data recovery as supplementary to other computer support services. You should definitely avoid these since data recovery is a complex process and it requires many years of devoted experience. How do they perform an evaluation? Most good companies offer a free evaluation and do not have any cancellation fees. However some firms will try to make money on ""unsuccessful"" diagnostics attempts. Do they charge for unsuccessful data recovery attempts? Make sure that you won't be charged in case a firm fails to retrieve your data or else may lose your money, time and information. When will they give you a final quote? Upfront pricing is a good choice. You should always have the right to cancel your job if the price or other circumstances don't suit you. Don't leave a final quote for the last moment or the price might shock you. What are their prices like compared to the competitors'? Data recovery is a very comple complex procedure, so prepare possibly a few hundred dollars. Very high or low prices are not usually an optimal solution. Explore your local market to find the golden mean. What about an emergency service? If you need your data back urgently, find a company that offers this type of service. It may be costly but worth the expense. It is also a good idea to discuss responsibility for possible delays. There is also a number of ways data recovery companies may try to trick customer in their advertisements. Among them are: Unbelievably high successful recovery rate No ""magic machine"" exist that can automatically retrieve all data from the hard disk. 15-20% of all cases are entirely unrecoverable and there is nothing anyone can do about it. If a company claims to have successful rate of more than 90%, they are definitely being dishonest with their customers. Class 100 Clean Rooms Clean rooms are only used in most difficult cases when engineers have to disassemble a broken drive in order to fix its mechanical parts. This is a really complex and expensive procedure with very low rate of success. And besides, mechanical failures happen very rarely(only 4-5% of all accidents). Most companies mention clean room for marketing purposes only and most likely you will pay for it from your own pocket. Free Diagnostics A good company SHOULD offer free diagnostics. But sometimes this is misleading. It may still be free, but if you become unsatisfied with the price offered after evaluation and try to withdraw your order, you will be charged a so-called ""cancellation fee"" (that may go up to $200). Be aware of this.

About the author: If you want to learn more information about data recovery in general please visit Choosing data recovery company website. There you can also ask your particular questions in data recovery forum and receive consultation from experienced specialists.

Yaroslav Shkvorets, http://datacent.com

Data Recovery Help

Author: T. Potter

If you are looking for help with data recovery, you are likely not in the mood for the sales hype and the marketing schemes. Individuals looking for it are usually in need of it because their system has crashed or they can not locate the data and information that they desperately need. Many individuals find themselves lost without the precious memory that they have to have in order to make a sale or to contact a company or even worse the data to keep their computer in functioning order. Data recovery options are available though.

There are two main ways in which you can find help here. First, you can call on data recovery specialists that can come in and help you. These individuals can help by accessing your computer and finding what has happened. They are skilled and able to read more into the problem than most computer users can. A good individual to call on for this type of service is someone that has the ability to be around anytime that you need them, experience dealing with your type of system and honesty. You do not want to go with just anyone and it's important to establish a working relationship with a company before you have problems.

The second type of data recovery option that you have is through software. Many software programs are available to help you. These will store and keep your very precious information on file so that if something were to happen, they would have it available for you. Of course, this type of data recovery really only works if you have it in place before a problem.

Do you need data recovery help? Do you need to call on someone to help you through one of the worst computer situations of your life? When all else fails, the best thing for you to do is to call on a specialist. Sure, your brother's wife's aunt's husband says that he can help you, but unless you really know that they can and you have the time to wait around for him to fix it, it is best to call on a professional to handle your situation in data recovery.

About the author: Written by T.Parker.Visit No1 in Data Recovery for further information.

Contract Management Software: the Solution to the Problem of Coordination

Author: Joe Miller

Charles Petrie, from Stanford, released a short article entitled "The Problem of Coordination," which highlights 4 categories in which businesses find it difficult to connect:

Interoperability

Agent Communication

Semantic Unification

Coordination

Though this article refers to a specific type of business, its principles are just as applicable to any business, especially when collaborating on a contract. Contract collaboration and management is difficult in any business, and the negotiations can go on for weeks, months, or even years. In seeking to manage contract deliberations, organization of personnel, documents, and software can make or break a clean operation.

Using Petrie's model, this article explores how the right contract management software is the solution to the problem of coordination.

Interoperability

Interoperability is defined by Petrie in the question "Can you read my data?" Search "contract management software" in Google, and in .44 seconds you will be introduced to millions of products indexed for your specific search-18,400,000 to be exact. The only problem is that they are not all compatible.

The most commonly used business software is MS office software, which coordinates email with other applications targeted toward common business needs: spreadsheets, word processing, presentations, etc. The problem cited by Petrie and applied to contract management is that businesses which work together need to have the right contract management software, which will aid collaboration within these commonly used business applications. The solution is surprisingly simple.

Agent Communication

Again, some questions: "What is the protocol? How will you find me?" In contract management, generally a draft is drawn after much negotiation and deliberation. The man or woman who is "lucky" enough to draft the contract must draw from up to thousands of documents of drafts and notes. This draft will quickly multiply into an almost unmanageable number of drafts and documents.

The old way to handle this document influx was either to file them in a drawer, paperclip them together, or pile them on your desk. This is virtually impossible to handle because it takes up so much space and is so difficult to organize. What most people don't understand is that if you are saving these drafts electronically, you still have the same problems. It is almost impossible to manage all of the drafts, and you may overload your desktop.

The other way protocol becomes a problem is that the editorial cycle is really not a cycle at all but a cyclone of drafts whirling back and forth in no particular order. The likelihood of always finding the most recent draft right away is about the same as reaching out into the cyclone for a specific thing and finding it in the first grab. In other words, you may send several drafts to several people before any of them send their collaborative efforts back. When they open and save your drafts to a drive, they are not only needlessly taking up too much space on the drive, but they have also just downloaded a pile of drafts that they now need to sift through in order to make their changes. Now, imagine what will happen to you when they send all of their drafts back-the cyclone image comes to mind again.

How can the right contract management software solve this problem? The answer, again, is surprisingly simple. The right contract management software will have Digital Thread technology, which connects the who, what, when, where, and how of each draft, even creating a "family tree" of the drafts or a flow chart to help you to see exactly where you are in the protocol. No matter what order the drafts whirl by in, they will always be tracked, saving you time and storage space and protecting the integrity of the contract protocol.

Semantic Unification

"What do you mean by ______?" Semantics is a nightmare in contract management. The precision in wording is an important service to any business, and creating the right wording produces a solid contract. It also produces the most drafts. One word can be deliberated over for hours, days, or weeks. Drafts will go back and forth, and a quick and easy way to review changes as small as word choice in a document that could range from 10 to 1,000 pages long.

Document Signature is a feature that is almost a necessity to keep up with semantic changes. It produces a window attached to any document you open that lets you know that changes were made and who made it. It's that easy.

Coordination

"What do I do now?" This question probably cycles through every professional's mind, no matter how briefly, at least a few times a day. In contract management, the question might be altered to "How do I go about implementing all of these changes?"

This simple answer is probably the most surprising. You need the contract management software that will record changes and merge them for you. You are involved in so many drafts and changes that you can barely keep track of them, but with the right contract management software, all of the changes are tagged and tracked, almost like a DNA strand. The changes from various drafts can then be merged within seconds, giving you the ability to review the merge when it happens and use it to produce your final draft.

In collaborating any project, whether a contract, a budget report, a presentation, or even a memo, these four problems of coordination always loom over professionals' heads. Contract management software answers back to the rescue of every collaboration committee. Narrow the search using the answers provided in this article and you will find the right contract management software for your company and finally find the solution to the problem of coordination.

About the author:

Joe Miller is specialist in

online advertising . For more information on

contract management software , please visit NextPage.com .

Finding a Search Engine Friendly Content Management System

Author: Mike Goldstein

What is a Content Management System? A Content Management System (CMS) is a third party software application which allows web site administrators to add, update or delete content, photos, and documents to their web site in ""real time"". Many web sites are modified using these web-based tools as they require little to no knowledge of HTML or web scripting languages. CMS programs make it easy for a webmaster or site owner who does not know HTML or have access to a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) HTML Editor, such as Macromedia's Dreamweaver, to update their site.

In today's high paced web world, a good CMS is integral to the efficient operation of a web site. Many webmasters and web site developers are building database driven, or dynamic web sites, which require a third party solution, such as a Content Management System, to update the content that lives in the database. In addition, a CMS allows the web site owner to outsource content development remotely to contract copywriters and other willing contributors. With built in access level hierarchies, webmasters can allow various users to register as authors and start submitting articles and news to be published on their site.

How do Content Management Systems Work? Content Management Systems create a dynamic web site environment, where all the content is stored in a database or XML file. Using a web-based interface, the webmaster can select which page they want to update and then can modify the web content in a text editor, with many of the familiar formatting keys that can be found in a word processing program. Once the content has been updated, with the simple click of a button, the CMS will turn their text into HTML code and publish the content to the web site.

Problems Between Search Engines and Content Management Systems Historically, search engines have had difficulty indexing dynamic pages. While their ability to index and rank dynamic pages has improved dramatically, there are some basic things to avoid. One of the greatest enemies of search engines is URL strings that contain many URL parameters. URL parameters are variables that are passed to the CMS through the URL, which tell it what information to retrieve from the database. URLs with too many parameters generally make little logical sense to the average user and may also scare off search spiders. For example see:

www.mysite.com/mg/vbclass/search.asp?A9_MAKEVBCookie=Yes&vertical =CLTH&cat=Mens& subcat=ID&displayTarget=Subcategory It is suggested to limit the number of URL parameters to two or three per URL to ensure that that search spiders will not have difficulty indexing pages deep within the web site.

Certain URL parameter names may automatically flag a filter on the search engine. One example is the URL parameter names that contain 'ID', such as 'sessionid', 'sid' or 'userid'. Historically, search engines detect the term ""ID"" and assume it is associated with a session dependant variable. As a result, search engines have learned to flag these parameter names and it can cause problems with page indexing. Passing session dependant variables through the URL is a problem for search engines because the spider essentially sees a unique URL each time they visit the site because the session dependent variables change with each visit. For example, on one visit to the site, a page URL may be http://www.mysite.com/page.asp?sessionid=12345. The next time the spider visits the page, the URL may be http://www.mysite.com/page.asp?sessionid=56789. This creates a situation where a spider may think that there are multiple URLs with duplicate content, resulting in penalties which will negatively impact search rankings.

Based on the above, it is imperative to employ a CMS that does not pass session dependent data, such as session variables, through a URL string. Doing so will not only create potential usability issues for the end user, but will also result in indexing problems for the search engine spiders.

Finally, search engines gather understanding from your web site's content by filtering through the HTML code. For this reason, it is extremely important that your CMS generate HTML code that adheres to the latest requirements of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). Use the W3C Code Validator to determine if your code meets the W3C standards. Be aware that some CMS's add in many lines of proprietary code or JavaScript at the top of the file, which can choke search spiders. This violates a cardinal rule of SEO; 'To always have more content then code'.

Finding a Search Engine Friendly CMS that will Work for You Now that we have explored many of the potential problems with Content Management Systems, lets look at how to go about finding one that will be both search engine friendly and suit your specific needs. First you will need to determine what server platform you will be using. Many Content Management Systems use scripting languages and databases that are platform dependant. If you are married to a particular platform, it may limit your CMS options. Ideally, you will want to find a CMS that is platform independent, which can run on any server.

There are many search engine friendly CMS's that will allow the web site owner to generate a URL structure that is both meaningful to their users and digestible by search engine spiders. Instead of having a URL that is packed with parameters, you can create a URL structure that looks like this: http://www.mysite.com/children/hats/prodid/121576. Your next step is to check whether your CMS builds HTML pages to the latest standards established by the W3C. Most CMS providers will be able to tell you if their solution generates valid code. If they can't, then ask for a sample page and run it through the W3C Code Validator. In order to rank effectively in organic results of the search engines, it is imperative that your CMS allows you to update your title tags, meta data and alt tags on a page-by-page basis.

The most important aspects of a good CMS are the ease of use and richness of content formatting features. This one is a no-brainer because the very reason that you are looking for a CMS is that YOU DON'T WANT TO CODE. Any good CMS should provide an editing stage that is similar in feature and function to a standard word processing program, such as Microsoft Word. The technical term for this is a WYSIWYG Editor or a Rich Text Editor. This important feature will allow you to type and format your content using standard buttons and keyboard shortcuts. When you publish the content to the live web site, the CMS will write the HTML, CSS and scripting to display your content as it was formatted during the editing stage. Many Content Management Systems are offering additional technologies, such as RSS feed, shopping cart solutions, forums and live chat integration, which can really enhance the functionality of your web site. The key is to find a CMS that will suit your core needs and then determine what add-ons would be beneficial. The ends result will be a web site that is easy to manage and usable for both your customers and the search engines.

This Article was written by Mike Goldstein. Mike is the SEO Manager at Rock Coast Media, a Boston-Area search engine marketing firm that provides results-driven custom search marketing solutions .

About the author:

Mike is Rock Coast Media's Search Engine Optimization (SEO) manager. With extensive experience in web application development, SEO, and instruction at the college level in all web development disciplines, Mike creates the processes and practices that deliver increased organic search rankings for clients of Rock Coast Media.

Before coming to Rock Coast Media,

CMS - Content Management Software

Author: Lee Asher

If all this talk of coding and designing scares you off, you might want to know that there is an alternative to all this. You can install a kind of software called a Content Management System (CMS) that allows you to put content up on the web without ever knowing a thing about HTML.

Now in its 8th Edition, the acclaimed CMS Report provides a comprehensive overview of Web Content Management products and best practices, including updated, 5- to 12-page comparative surveys of 31 Web CMS packages (26 in the Standard Edition), as well as short descriptions of 15 other products across 7 vendor categories.

The report is ideal for companies looking to develop a business-driven Content Management strategy, or who are considering selecting a CMS product and need unbiased technical assessments, or who simply need a clearly-written guide to this confusing, fast-changing landscape. Further details can been found here: http://www.cmswatch.com/CMS/Report/

Fantastico

Depending on your host, you might find that you already have a selection of CMSes available and ready to install from your cPanel. Log in, and take a look for the Fantastico script installer. If you have it, then you'll be able to read a description of each piece of software you have available to you - try out a few of the CMSes to see which ones you like.

Finding a CMS

If you don't have Fantastico on your host, or you don't like what it offers you, don't worry: there's plenty of choice out there on the web when it comes to CMS software.

For finding free CMS software, a truly excellent resource is www.opensourcecms.com. At that site, you can use the menu at the side of the page to see lots of open source CMSes running before you commit to downloading them and installing them yourself. Textpattern, Drupal and Plone are very popular right now, so they're a good place to start.

If you're considering commercial CMSes as well, then you should take a look at www.cmsmatrix.org, which provides an up-to-date comparison of almost every CMS out there. Be prepared, though, that commercial CMSes can be ridiculously expensive or unnecessarily expensive.

Getting a Custom CMS Built

If nothing out there seems to meet your needs, you might consider having a web designer build you a custom CMS in a scripting language like Perl or PHP. Any web designer worth their salt should have something basic already that they can build whatever features you want onto. This can be really good when it comes to making your website work the way you want, since the CMS will be built around your website to make it as easy as possible for you to modify.

Using a CMS

The whole point of a CMS is to make it much easier to add content to your website and to edit the content that's already there. Once you've installed your CMS, you will generally be able to log into its user system using a special admin password. This will add 'edit' options to the existing pages of the site, as well as giving you a 'new page' link somewhere to allow you to create a new page.

When it comes to actually writing the content of the pages, most CMSes will make it easy for you to copy and paste from programs like Word: they shouldn't require any special HTML formatting. Some will require you to mark words with special symbols if you want them to be bold or italic, but it shouldn't be too troublesome.

Changing the design with a CMS usually involves installing a template into a template folder and then selecting it in the options. Creating your own templates can be complicated, depending on what software you're using, but it shouldn't be any trouble for a web designer, and most template sites will provide designs in a format suitable for this kind of use

Finding a Hosted CMS

Once you know which CMS you want, an alternative to installing it on a web host that doesn't necessarily support it is to do a search and find a host that specifically supports your CMS. You shouldn't have too much trouble finding a host somewhere that will support you - if nothing else, you might try opensourcehost.com, which supports almost every open source CMS out there.

Using a host solution might be a little more expensive, but it will save you a lot of time in configuration and a lot of problems if anything goes wrong. Using a hosted CMS is one of the quickest ways to set up a website: you simply pay the host, log in, add your content and you're away.

About the author:

Original Source: Articles-Galore.com

Information supplied and written by Lee Asher of The Home Income Portal

Home of Serious Online Business Options.

Content Update Management

Author: Delphine Campes-Edouard

The phrase ""content is king"" is no longer new, but its message is stronger than ever. The competition among online retailers is fierce. Businesses of any size are scrambling to grab a domain name and take advantage of the growing online shopping industry. To do this, companies are looking for ways to improve online exposure. After all, if internet users can't find your site, they'll spend their money with the competition. One of the most effective ways to ensure a steady flow of web traffic is by maintaining current information on your site. However, for many small companies, editing pages requires technical expertise--and content update management is left to webmasters and programmers. This often results in update delays, leaving stale content to collect dust on the Web. How can you avoid this?

At Systems Web, we offer DotNetNuke, a revolutionary content update management system that puts the site owner in control. This browser-based system enables site owners to edit, add or delete pages in real-time with just a few clicks of the mouse. Systems Web customers are now enjoying the freedom to update or alter their websites around the clock. What does this mean for website performance? Search engine spiders thrive on fresh copy. With the ability to edit or add copy instantly, our customers are experiencing high volumes of traffic and higher conversions.

Need another reason to choose the DotNetNuke solution? Since our content update management system is open source, you are not obligated to stay with Systems Web throughout the life of your site. In fact, if you want to transfer hosting services at any time, you can--and your content management system will stay with you. For more information on how we can help optimize your website, visit our web site at http://www.systems-web.com or call us at 801-733-5800.

About the author: Delphine Campes-Edouard is currently Vice President of Systems Web, a web development company in business since 1999. Systems Web specializes in the open-source Content Management System DotNetNuke, a simple-to-use tool to edit your web site without any knowledge of HTML. Their award-winning web sites are now all using DotNetNuke. Go visit their web site at http://www.systems-web.com.

Content Management Systems Demystified

Author: Tim Priebe

A content management system can be puzzling to non-web savvy users. It can even be complicated for web designers and programmers. This is not a guide for the latter, rather it is a quick overview for the former. If you have heard of a content management system (or CMS) and are wondering what one is, this is the place to start.

A CMS can basically fall into one of two categories. It can be a catch-all that is intended to do a million things. Alternatively, it can be very specialized.

To add to the complication, some specialized CMS's can be integrated into a catch-all CMS. We won't really get into that specific situation much here, but I will mention when it's possible.

Also, there are tons and tons of CMS programs out there. I'm only going to be mentioning some that are available for free and are open source. That way, if you read about something here that interests you, you search Google and get it immediately with no monetary risk to you.

Catch-All

PHPNuke

PHP-Nuke is an excellent CMS for a news site. It is divided into modules, each of which performs a specific functions. In addition to modules made by the PHP-Nuke team, there are tons of other modules available from 3rd-party programmers.

The primary module for most sites using PHP-Nuke is the News module. The Reviews module is for reviewing books, movies, or pretty much anything you would want to review. The Advertising module helps you set up banner ads on your website for revenue. A Downloads module is available for web site visitors to download PDF files, movie files, or any type of file. A Recommend Us module allows users to (you guessed it) recommend your website to someone else.

The possibilities are really endless for someone who decides to use PHP-Nuke. However, because it is a catch-all content management system, it isn't for everyone. It may have way more features that you need.

Drupal

Drupal is a CMS that also uses modules. There are lots of modules available. A Story module provides a similar functionality to PHP-Nuke's News module. A Profile module supports configurable user profiles. The Blog module enables keeping an easily updatable blog. An Upload module allows users to attach files to news stories or blog entries.

Again, you end up with the same issues as other catch-all CMS's where this may be more CMS that you really need. But Drupal does have about the same amount of modules out there as PHP-Nuke does. Drupal even does a better job than PHP-Nuke of listing the best modules at their own website.

Image Galleries

Gallery

Gallery is the definitive gallery software. You can upload images, sort into albums, resize, delete, restrict access, etc. You can even plug it into most catch-all CMS's, including both PHP-Nuke and Drupal.

Coppermine

Coppermine is another popular gallery. It has most of the same features as Gallery, but cannot plug into catch-all CMS's as easily as Gallery. Also, if you are wanting visitors to your site to be able create albums, Coppermine currently doesn't support that.

Blogging

bBlog

bBlog is reportedly used by thousands of bloggers world-wide. It allows for text formatting, visitor comments, syndicated RSS feeds (If you don't know what that is, don't worry about it. You don't have to for your visitors to be able to use it.) and categories.

The downside is that bBlog is not quite as powerful as some of its competitors. However, if you have a site that's a pretty straightforward blog, bBlog can be a simple, effective solution.

WordPress

WordPress is one of the most popular free blogging software packages. It's very easy to use, and unlike bBlog, it has a toolbar for text formatting. Of course, it has visitor commenting, searching, categories and other features.

Being much more popular than other blogging systems like bBlog, there are a lot more plugins available from third parties.

Forums

phpBB

phpBB is probably the single most popular feature-rich free forum software out there. It's so popular that it comes pre-installed in some catch-all CMS's, including PHP-Nuke.

The downside is that it can be extremely complicated. You may not need 10 different forums for 500+ users. If not, this software package may be a bit of overkill for you.

WWWBoard

WWWBoard is a simple forum package. It shows all the message subjects on one screen. Once you click on a message subject, you are shown the message itself. From there you can reply, or view another message in the same thread.

Remember that for the majority of the software I've mentioned here, you have to have mySQL database capabilities on your server, in addition to PHP capabilities. If you are using free hosting, you probably don't have that. If you're not sure, contact your web hosting company and ask them.

About the author: Tim is the owner and senior web designer at T&S Web Design . His company has developed and maintained website for dozens of small businesses and organizations. Tim also maintains a blog with free website advice for small business owners, GetASiteOnline.com .

Internet Basics: A Content Management System is Like an Interior Decorator

Author: Grant Pasay

Ever see an interior decorator at work? They come into a home and move things around, get rid of old things, bring in new things, and maybe even add new rooms. They do it all with ease and delight. They're masters at changing things and making them look just so.

That's what a Content Management System is like (except it doesn't work on your house, it works on your website).

With a Content Management System (CMS), you can change the content on your website whenever and however you want:

·Change text

·Add/change photos/logos etc.

·Add/remove webpages

And a Content Management System that's good will be WYSIWYG (pronounced wizzywig). WYSIWYG stands for ""What You See Is What You Get,"" which means you just drag and drop things where you want, and all the coding required to make things look like that on your website is done for you automatically without you having to know about it or understand it.

If it sounds great, that's because it is.

So why don't most people have a Content Management System for their website?

Because up until recently, they were too expensive for the average website owner to have. But now there are lots of companies offering Content Management System services, and they fall into two types:

·Hosted solutions: the company has their own software installed on their own servers. You log in to their website and use their software to change your website.

·Software solutions: you buy software to install on your computer. The software lets you open your online webpages and change them instantly. A great example of this is a product made by MacroMedia called Contribute -- it's easy to use and very affordable!

Whether you go with a Hosted or Software solution, you'll love having the ability to make your website exactly the way you want it to be, quickly and easily.

And that's why a Content Management System is like an interior decorator.

Copyright (c) Grant Pasay 2005. All rights reserved. You may forward this article in its entirety to anyone you wish.

About the author: Grant Pasay is a writer, musician, moviemaker, and author of the new eBook, ""The Internet Is Like A Refrigerator: And Other Weird Comparisons That Make it Easy to Understand Everything From AOL to Zip Files.""

Check out Grant's free/brandable ebook at: http://grantpasay.com/refrigerator/

Check out Grant at: http://grantpasay.com/

How to Make your Content Management System / Web Portal more secure durring setup.

Author: Jason Grant

Most people who use a CMS/Portal do so because they are very simple to setup. A web site in a box so to speak. What 99% of the users dont know is that there are ways to make it more secure and less likely to be hacked durring the install process! What i am going to explain here is the simple change one can make durring the install to help keep the database secure! I will be using PostNuke CMS/Portal as my example!

Most people take for granted that the information preloaded in the database setup screen is there and should not be changed. Well the example here is the Database Table Prefix. For Postnuke and PHP-Nuke they come with a default setting of ""nuke"". When setting up these settings you should follow your host's information as far as database host, user name, password, and database name are concerned. On the issue of the database table prefix you can and should change it from ""nuke"" to anything you like.

An example of a good database table prefix is alpha-numeric. ""If for example your first name is Eric and you want to use that as your database table prefix i would use ""3r!c"", or if it were Amanda and you want to use that ""4m4nd4"""". You can use anything you really want for the prefix but for a more secure database dont use the default ""nuke"", or whatever default setting comes with the CMS/Portal you decide to use!

About the author: Jason Grant is lead developer of Custom Portal a content management system written in PHP scripting lanuage.

Web Design and Content Management

Author: Jerry Goldfarb

Web design or Web development has become immensely popular over the last few years. In these short few years, many new code standards, technology and design concepts have come to the fore. There has also been an immense amount of knowledge distribution and with it the demand for more functional and independent web design packages and tools.

The knowledge distribution has also led to shift in demand to the content management systems which facilitate content updates. These updates have become immensely necessary to keep the consumer's interest for visiting the web site again and again and also to keep the consumer abreast with latest happenings regarding the company and its products and services.

CMS or Content Management Systems are becoming more and more popular with web design organizations. They have come to realize that CMS is the future of web site design and may be left behind in the industry if they do not begin offering CMS services.

CMS does not in any way spell doom to web designers. CMS certainly saves the company's time it spends on web design and allows tem to put more efforts into marketing. CMS gives the company the freedom it needs by providing them with an ability to update the site when needed, not when convenient. CMS also saves the company's costs by not having to run to the web designer every time an update is needed.

Any typical CMS consists of the following features - Provides an interface to Add/remove/edit pages. - Provides easy interface to update content of each page. - Capability to add or remove images where needed. - Interface to update contact information. - Display updated listings (ex: Mortgage and interest rates). - Facilitates addition of news on the industry everyday.

Inference

A web design organization should seriously consider offering CMS to their clients to prepare for the future. It is still at a nascent stage, so if a web design and development organization is considering developing a customised CMS and marketing it, they can still see success in the near future. More information and tips are available at http://www.cobbwebdesign.com.

About the author: None

Choosing A Web Site Content Management System

Author: Michael Park

As the saying goes on the web "Content is King." There is no argument that if you are going to have an effective Internet presence you must have current, dynamic content that gives your visitors reasons to come back time and again. While content may be king there seems to be little discussion about the optimal way to manage this content for small to medium sized businesses. Have you ever noticed that when your building the web site you have plenty of helping hands but once the site is launched and the daily grind of support kicks in it becomes harder and harder to find that help. This is why it is so important to evaluate your Content Management System (CMS) for you web site in the development stages. Every web site has some form of content management system in place, except for those that never change. The CMS can be as informal as an email to the web developer or a multi-million dollar computer program that warehouses data from several different databases. In focusing on small to medium sized businesses I have decided to eliminate the big dollar systems and concentrate on the three major types of CMS's available.

The first type of CMS is the default traditional and most widely used method I call the manual update system. This usually requires sending the information to the web developer. The web developer then utilizes their FTP program and HTML coding skills to make the requested changes. The changes are then reviewed and approved by the requester. The problem with this model is that the web developer is usually a high priced contractor and not an in-house resource. This means that you end paying a hefty price for web site changes. The cost of web site changes becomes a budget issue so you end up reducing the number of changes you make to your site in turn reducing its overall value.

The second type of CMS is the WYSIWYG system. This model allows the web site owner to use one of the graphical web development tools on the market today such as FrontPage or Net Objects Fusion. These are great programs that allow you to make changes to the web site in a graphical look. The changes are simple and if you configure the software correctly you can update your web site with a few clicks of the mouse. The problem with this model is that you become dependent on the WYSIWYG tool. If you can't get to FrontPage then you can't make your change unless you resort back to our first model. But now it gets a little trickier. These WYSIWYG tools create very convoluted HTML code so manual changes can become very time consuming. Another draw-back of the model is that if your company utilizes a tool like this to create their site they are limited to the graphical templates that come with the software. You end up getting a site that looks pretty much like everybody else's. Furthermore, I think it is important for any company planning on building or revamping their web site to meet with a web development company to at least review the best practices for web development.

The final type of CMS is what I like to refer to as an integrated CMS. This type of Content Management Systems is built directly into the site during development. In order to make changes the web owner simply enters in a secure URL, logins and makes changes to the site without having to know any HTML or FTP commands. Changes are instant and all the user needs is a web browser and access to the Internet. This has been a very successful model for our company because it allows us to build web sites that empower the web owners. Web owners can make changes to their sites as often as they like without the need for a high priced web developer. Of course the cost of a site with an integrated CMS will be a little higher but the overall cost of ownership of the site will be dramatically reduced over time.

Regardless of the model you choose web site owners must acknowledge that their web site does come with a Content Management System installed. An educated web site owner will ensure that their site has a CMS that allows them to get the most out their web site.

About the author: Michael Park, MBA MCP CEO/President DelOtto Systems Inc. Internet Development Solutions http://www.delottoinc.com mpark@delottoinc.com (607) 733-9966 Makers of WebHeadlines http://www.webheadlines.com FAX:(607) 271-9655

Content Management Systems Eyeball SEO's

Author: Kevin Kantola

Content Management Systems and search engine optimization (SEO) used to be mutually exclusive terms. But the SEO community has been driving the developers of Content Management Systems to integrate more SEO-friendly methodology within their systems.

Content Management Systems (CMS) are a hot topic right now with many corporate websites are turning to these systems to handle thousands of pages of dynamic data that they need to update regularly. Content Management Systems allow information to be added, edited or deleted automatically over the entire website. This can save hundreds of hours in manual updates. Pages of content are generated on the fly using a template driven system.

When Content Management Systems were first developed, most had little regard for the requirements of search engine optimization. For some Content Management Systems this still holds true. Most CMS's, however, now have workarounds to accommodate those wanting to perform search engine optimization on their websites. The workarounds in the Content Management Systems involve two areas: writing search engine friendly URL's and creating individualized title and meta tags per page.

Writing Search Engine Friendly URL's

Some search engines (SE's) and directories like Google and Yahoo! can now read dynamic URL's but there are still a fair amount which can't or can only partially read them. The SE's like to see pages that have unique content per page and may limit the number of variable strings (i.e. ?, =. &) in a URL to assure unique content.

By using a web server module called Mod_Rewrite it is possible to remove the stop characters from the URL string, thus making it more SE-friendly. To do this you will need to add a rule to the .htaccess file. For more information, see the following article on the Apache website: http://httpd.apache.org/docs-2.0/mod/mod_rewrite.html

Creating Individualized Title and Meta Tags

Some Content Management Systems such the latest release from Hot Banana Software boast full integration with SEO performance such as offering Conversion Tracking tool, Robots.txt and Meta Tag Management. Other CMS's such as PostNuke.com is struggling to catch up and offer workarounds to make their system more flexible and SE-friendly.

PostNuke.com says that their next version (.8 release at this writing) will be fully SEO compliant. Until then, they recommend the pnMeta module, which will give control over the title, keyword and description tags over an individual page. Dynamically generated meta tag information, however, is not recommended. For more information see: http://www.miragelab.com/News+article-sid-19.phtml

What Does CMS Mean For SEO's?

Search engine optimization experts and others using SEO techniques will need to work closely with Webmasters and developers who use Content Management Systems on their web properties. This collaborative effort is necessary to insure that URL's are SE-friendly and that unique title and meta tags are severed up for each optimized page. A large website with tons of valuable content, should rank well in the search engines according to the SE's guidelines and the CMS technology would do well not to inhibit this, but rather would do well to promote good search engine rankings for large websites.

About the author: Copyright © 2004 SEO Resource

SEO Marketing Company

Kevin Kantola is the CEO of SEO Resource, a California search engine optimization company, and has published many articles over the past 20 years.

When CMS Met SEO - Using the Power of Content Management Systems

Author: Gobala Krishnan

Search Engine Optimization revolves around providing useful, unique content on your website and making sure that search engines can find and understand it easily. 'Organic SEO' as it is called, puts emphasis on optimizing hundreds of keyword rich content pages as 'spider-bait' for search engines, with Google being the most popular target.

While organic SEO in itself boils down to a few simple techniques and a lot of hard work, the most tedious of those is always adding and managing content. If you're a webmaster lost in a world of dead links, missing pages, distorted images and a site structure that beats any maze, you're not alone. Such is the nightmare that many Dreamveawer-and-Notepad type of webmasters hide.

What is CMS?

CMS, or Content Management Systems, is a great alternative to using manual WYSIWYG HTML editors, website builders, and all the others kinds of expensive website tools in the market. CMS applied solely to the purpose of creating and managing websites are also knows as Web Management Systems. A short excerpt from StepTwo.com on the definitions of CMS:

"" A content management system (CMS) supports the creation, management, distribution, publishing, and discovery of corporate information. It covers the complete lifecycle of the pages on your site, from providing simple tools to create the content, through to publishing, and finally to archiving. It also provides the ability to manage the structure of the site, the appearance of the published pages, and the navigation provided to the users.""

Advantages Of Using CMS for Your Website

Here are a few often overlooked advantages of using CMS for your web project, from a search engine marketing point of view:

1) Easily Create, Publish and Manage Content

With page editors that resemble a word processor program, adding content with a CMS interface is simple and fun. Most CMS software also allows you to change the location of your content pages and links easily, while the back end processes takes care of updating the links throughout your site.

Done manually, reorganizing a website's content, particularly a large one, can cause a webmaster some pretty restless nights.

CMS also allows the website owner to outsource content remotely from willing contributors. With built in access level hierarchies, users can register as Authors and start submitting articles and news. This is then automatically sent to the next in line, the Manager, and on to the Editor and finally the Publisher or Administrator, and then it can be automatically published on the front page as new content.

And SEO specialists know that search engines love new content, above everything else.

2) Create a Solid Website Structure

While search engine spiders can maneuver your website like a human being can't, they too are fond of websites with good structures and easy-to-find content. Most CMS software can automatically create menus and navigation from categories that you set. Once you create a new category or subcategory, you can instantly publish it on all your pages, with the click of a button.

According to popular SEO wisdom, search engines spiders do not index pages more than 3-4 levels deep on your website structure. In response to this, some CMS software also allows you to put all your content on the first level, for example ""http://www.yoursite.com/article236.html'. However, using the CMS' control panel, you will still be able to see all content within their respective folders and subcategories.

3) Search Engine Friendly Capabilities

This is perhaps the most significant development in Content Management Systems. As more businesspeople and SEO begin to dig deep into CMS, the need for spider-friendly pages has taken center stage. Recent advancements have enabled CMS users to install modules (sometimes already built in) to make it appealing to search engines. The latest CMS software can create keyword rich pages, titles, meta tags and even anchor text.

That, coupled with advanced search engine spiders being able to go deep into databases to index pages, is set to turn Content Management Systems into the next big organic SEO tool. In fact, search engine friendly CMS even makes organic SEO specialists, sad to say, sort of 'obsolete'.

Make CMS Work for Your Web Business

Most content management systems are available for free, or at a minimum costs, under the GNU General Public License (http://www.gnu.org/). While there are literally hundreds of available CMS out in the market, these websites are a good guide for choosing a right one for your website or internet business:

Compare various CMS : http://www.cmsmatrix.org

Try a CMS: http://www.opensourcecms.com /

Search-engine Friendly CMS: http://pss.sfidreamteam.com

About the author: Gobala Krishnan is a writer, internet business entrepreneur and marketer. Visit http://www.home-business-association.com today for important and unique tips on building an Internet Business.

Presentation Pitfalls: Top 10 Content Management Mistakes

Author: Melissa Mayers Lewis

Top 10 Content Management Mistakes by Melissa Lewis

Here, David Letterman style, are what I consider to be the Top 10 most common mistakes presenters make when organizing and preparing their content:

10) Not setting the stage.

An introduction should be more than just ""Hello. Today we'll be discussing _____."" If you just jump into the content without setting up the presentation, it can get you off to a jumpy, disjointed start. An introduction should give the audience a sense of who you are, what you're there to do and what's in it for them to listen.

9) Using ineffective notes.

It's almost always wise to have some notes handy to make sure you don't forget anything important, but if your notes are hard to follow or are distracting for the audience, they defeat the purpose. Trying to read from a crowded page of word-for-word narrative is a killer because you look down and have trouble looking up for fear that you'll never find your place again. Disorganized papers or cards can be cumbersome and messy. Keep clear, concise key-word-or-key-phrase-only notes handy to simply to jog your memory, not serve as an unnecessary crutch.

8) Using jargon or acronyms that leave the audience bewildered.

When a listener hears a word or phrase he/she is not familiar with it causes what I call a ""cerebral derailment"". The listener's mind is chugging along happily with you until he/she hears an unfamiliar term and suddenly the mind jumps the tracks to wonder, ""What does that mean?"" Always define acronyms (even if you're sure they know what the letters stand for) and, when in doubt, define any terms that could possibly be unfamiliar.

7) Planning backwards.

Many people begin to prepare a presentation by thinking, ""What do I have that's cool?"" (meaning visual aids, support points, stories, examples, etc.) Then they ask themselves, ""How can I work it in?"" This is backwards. Decide on what you want to accomplish and then ask ""What do I have in the way of support that would help me meet that objective?"" If you plan backwards you may very well end up with a bunch of interesting information that is of no value to the listeners.

6) Not knowing your objective and/or not sharing it.

In addition to being clear on the point you want to make, you should also be clear on the objective you wish to achieve. Do you want the audience to make a decision? Show them the options and ask for a decision. If you need their cooperation, make sure you explain why you need them and how they can help you. If your goal is to familiarize them with a topic, make that clear so you don't get bogged down in excess detail. Both you and your audience should be clear on what you're there to accomplish.

5) Not providing ""signposts"".

Imagine that you can get a new set of information two ways: 1) you can read it in a report or 2) you can listen to it in a presentation. What advantages do you have when you're reading that you don't have when you're listening?

You can go at your own pace

You can re-read things that you found confusing

You can skip sections that don't interest you

You can see when a new topic begins (because of section titles or white space)

You can make notes

You can file it away for future reference.

None of these options are available to your listeners. To the audience, your ideas are just sounds in the ether, so to make up for the lack of these advantages, you need to provide signposts to let us know where you are. Visual aids can help, but remember to include phrases like ""Now, let's move on to point #2"", ""That's all for the background, now let's move on to the current status,"" or ""Let me just wrap up."" These little phrases take very little time but do wonders for helping your audience stay with you.

4) Having complex, hard-to-read visual aids.

Your visual aids should be just that--aids. They should HELP you get your message across. Complicated, crowded, hard-to-read visual aids compete with you for your audience's attention. Keep them simple enough that listeners have a reason to stick around and listen to YOU.

3) Not having an obvious, logical structure.

Meandering from point to point can be very frustrating to a listener. Have your information laid out in a logical structure and share that structure with the listeners up front so they know where you're headed.

2) Not making the POINT clear up front.

There's nothing more frustrating to a listener than to sit there thinking, ""OK, so what's your point?!"" Remember, you know your material cold. The listeners don't. Sometimes you have to smack them between the eyes with the point, as in, ""If you only remember one thing from my presentation, I want it to be __________________."" Don't wait until the end to present your point with a dramatic flourish. Make your point right up front and spend the rest of the time supporting that point.

And the #1 content management mistake. . .

1) Including too much information.

It's tempting to want to cram all the information possible into the heads of your listeners, but ironically, it's possible that the more information you include, the less they learn. Think of a rainstorm. When rain is pouring down, much of it runs off before it can soak into the soil. The water is wasted because there was simply too much of it to take in. Whereas, a slow, steady rain has a chance to soak in thoroughly. It's far better to include half as much information and have them retain most of it, than to squeeze in every imaginable tidbit and have 90% of the information wind up as runoff.

All of these problems are common. Luckily, with awareness and a few simple adjustments, they are easily overcome.

About the author: Melissa Lewis turns traditional thinking about public speaking upside down to give people more comfort, confidence and charisma in front of groups. She is a former comic actress, a certified facilitator of SPEAKING CIRCLES(R), president-elect of the National Speakers Association Kansas City Chapter and author of the soon-to-be-released book, Upside Down Speaking. For more information call (913) 341-1241 or visit www.upsidedownspeaking.com.

What is a content management system and Why do i need one?

Author: Polly Nelson

This article introduces content management systems and gives an overview of their features and benefits. It should be read by anyone unsure of quite what a CMS can do for them.

What is a CMS? A content management system is a piece of software that allows you to edit the content on your website without having any web design skills.

In the first instance, a web designer creates a series of CMS templates which your pages are dropped into. You then use a simple interface to add, edit or delete the content on your pages. You can also quickly and easily create new pages yourself.

Why do I need one? There are obvious benefits to installing a CMS. Your website need not change in style at all: it can simply be re-created in the CMS. You can then update it yourself as often as you like, without the need to call a web design company and pay for the changes each time.

If you update your website on a regular basis, and do not currently use a CMS, you could save a lot of time and money by implementing one. If you do not yet have a website and are about to have one developed, you should think very carefully about what you will be using it for. To stay competitive in this day and age, websites need to be far more than a static brochure. If you think you will be updating your content more than a couple of times each month, creating your website using a CMS is highly recommended.

If you do not update your website at all, you should be asking yourself whether you ought to start. If your customers see the same thing each time they visit your website, they will quickly stop visiting. A CMS will allow you to quickly and easily transform your website into an interesting and dynamic marketing tool.

What features do they offer? A huge variety. Most CMS' are available in a few different versions with differing levels of functionality. Obviously the ability to update content is shared by all systems, but some other features that CMS' can offer are: access rights management and content approval; dual or multi-lingual functionality; dynamic site maps; e-commerce; email alerts; form creation and management; image optimisation and processing; meta-tag updating; search functionality; site security; standards and accessibility compliance; statistical reports; versioning...

This is not an exhaustive list and not all CMS' will offer the above features. However with such a wide variety of systems available, you should ensure you take some time to find the one that is right for your business.

What about pricing? This will largely depend on the size of your website, the number of users that will be updating it through the CMS and the amount of functionality you require.

As a (very) rough pricing guide; CMS' suitable for SME's range from as little as £350 per user to as much as £30,000. For larger businesses, enterprise level CMS' start at around £30,000 and go right up to around £250,000.

With such a huge variety of systems and pricing; it is highly recommended that you look around and get some advice before purchasing one.

Where can I get one? You can get in touch with the CMS supplier if you know which is right for you. Alternatively, you can get in touch with a software company or consultant such as us - we'll be happy to advise you on the best way forward. Happy updating...

This article is copyright Fire Without Smoke Software 2003. Permission must be sought from www.fwoss.com or info@fwoss.com for any reproduction.

About the author: Polly is the research director for Fire Without Smoke Software Ltd (FWOSS).

Selecting a Content Management System

Author: Ric Shreves

There's recently been a lot of discussion and considerable interest in content management systems. Buyers are starting to ask for these solutions from vendors with greater regularity and the buyers are clearly better informed than in the past. Still the issue that comes up again and again is, how do you know which content management system (CMS) is right for you?

Begin with a needs analysis. Define your business goals, prioritise them, and then assess what features or tools are needed to help you reach those goals. At a later point, once pricing research is under way, you can then assess the price of features relative to the priorities of the goals and come up with the basis of an intelligible cost-benefit analysis.

Start by examining the nature of your site. Is it a portal? A marketing exercise? An e-commerce site? These questions will set the outer boundaries for defining the type of system you need. A marketing site will demand far less from a system than a portal. Moreover, security, support, and data integrity issues will be dominant concerns for any firm involved in e-commerce.

Consider not only your short term needs but also your long term goals. Many of the systems that are in the market today are modular. This allows you the flexibility to start with only the features you need to meet your short term goals, then to expand the system as justification (or necessity) develops.

Accordingly, look at the modules offered by the vendor and make an assessment of whether the system will suit your planned future expansion. It is foolish to try to build it all at once as the cost will be high and the time line extended. It is better to start conservatively with a modular system that you can grow into.

When shopping for systems, it is best to approach the vendor with a shopping list of features that you require/desire. Mature systems will offer more modules, but make sure you demo the modules you are interested in, as implementations of similar functionalities tend to vary more than you might expect.

While many systems support basic modules, like membership tracking or online polls and surveys, there are other features which are harder to find and which may narrow your choices significantly if required. Key features you should be aware of include: multi-lingual support, archiving and roll back, and syndication. If your site requires one or more of these more advanced functions, you will find the number of choices left for your review has dwindled (and prices have crept up, too).

Another factor to consider is dependencies on other software packages. Some systems, like the Microsoft CMS, require you to license not only the CMS product, but a number of other related products which are required for the CMS to work properly. Make sure you check database requirements, server and OS requirements, and whether third party components are needed to create templates or maintain the site in the future. And of course, never forget those frequently shocking consulting fees that are often part and parcel of any major implementation. Add it all up and you will find that some systems which may initially appear to be attractively priced are, in fact, quite expensive.

One issue many companies fail to consider is how well the CMS can be tailored to fit the firm's existing work flow. Most systems will give you some flexibility in assigning roles and permissions. Systems vary in complexity from offering only a set of pre-defined roles to completely customisable user systems. Permissions, editorial review, and scheduling are related concepts: Does your firm need to put content through a review and permissions phase and does your firm need to schedule start/stop days or pre-schedule content (load the content before the start date)? Look for a system that matches, or can be tailored to match, your existing structure and work flows, otherwise you will face challenges in modifying offline processes and training staff.

There's no magic formula for finding the right CMS. The market is very fragmented and many systems use similar labels to provide widely disparate levels of functionality. It is essential that you be proactive about approaching vendors and go in the door knowing what you need _ put the burden on them to show that they can meet your needs. Have clear requirements and research best practices so that you are equipped to deal with this sometimes and often expensive buying decision.

written by: Ric Shreves, http://www.waterandstone.com

About the author: Ric Shreves is an Internet consultant and author specializing in web technologies. He is a partner in Water & Stone, a web design agency focused on Mambo, osCommerce, and other open source tools. Read more of his work online at: http://www.waterandstone.com.

Choosing A Web Site Content Management System

Author: Michael Park

As the saying goes on the web ""Content is King."" There is no argument that if you are going to have an effective Internet presence you must have current, dynamic content that gives your visitors reasons to come back time and again. While content may be king there seems to be little discussion about the optimal way to manage this content for small to medium sized businesses. Have you ever noticed that when your building the web site you have plenty of helping hands but once the site is launched and the daily grind of support kicks in it becomes harder and harder to find that help. This is why it is so important to evaluate your Content Management System (CMS) for you web site in the development stages. Every web site has some form of content management system in place, except for those that never change. The CMS can be as informal as an email to the web developer or a multi-million dollar computer program that warehouses data from several different databases. In focusing on small to medium sized businesses I have decided to eliminate the big dollar systems and concentrate on the three major types of CMS's available.

The first type of CMS is the default traditional and most widely used method I call the manual update system. This usually requires sending the information to the web developer. The web developer then utilizes their FTP program and HTML coding skills to make the requested changes. The changes are then reviewed and approved by the requester. The problem with this model is that the web developer is usually a high priced contractor and not an in-house resource. This means that you end paying a hefty price for web site changes. The cost of web site changes becomes a budget issue so you end up reducing the number of changes you make to your site in turn reducing its overall value.

The second type of CMS is the WYSIWYG system. This model allows the web site owner to use one of the graphical web development tools on the market today such as FrontPage or Net Objects Fusion. These are great programs that allow you to make changes to the web site in a graphical look. The changes are simple and if you configure the software correctly you can update your web site with a few clicks of the mouse. The problem with this model is that you become dependent on the WYSIWYG tool. If you can't get to FrontPage then you can't make your change unless you resort back to our first model. But now it gets a little trickier. These WYSIWYG tools create very convoluted HTML code so manual changes can become very time consuming. Another draw-back of the model is that if your company utilizes a tool like this to create their site they may limit themselves to the graphical templates that come with the software. You end up getting a site that looks pretty much like everybody else's. Furthermore, I think it is important for any company planning on building or revamping their web site to meet with a web development company to at least review the best practices for web development.

The final type of CMS is what I like to refer to as an integrated CMS. This type of Content Management Systems is built directly into the site during development. In order to make changes the web owner simply enters in a secure URL, logins and makes changes to the site without having to know any HTML or FTP commands. Changes are instant and all the user needs is a web browser and access to the Internet. This has been a very successful model for our company because it allows us to build web sites that empower the web owners. Web owners can make changes to their sites as often as they like without the need for a high priced web developer. Of course the cost of a site with an integrated CMS will be a little higher but the overall cost of ownership of the site will be dramatically reduced over time.

Regardless of the model they choose, web site owners must acknowledge that their web site does come with a Content Management System installed. An educated web site owner will ensure that their site has a CMS that allows them to get the most out their web site.

About the author: Michael Park, MBA MCP Chief Technical Officer 4net Software, Inc. Internet Development Solutions http://www.4netsoftware.com mpark@4netsoftware.com

Content Management Systems (CMS)

Author: Viraj Weerawardena

Content Management? What's that you may ask - especially when you are already saturated with HTML, DHTML, PHP, ASP and the lot.

Content Management is basically a system that automates most of what you do manually on-line without ever opening up your HTML editor !

Once you have a Content Management System in place, you can publish articles, delete or edit content, manage passwords, give administrative access, put up links, photos and manage a complete website without ever knowing the meaning of HTML. Basically, if you can click a mouse you can manage even a site like Amazon. Practically all e-commerce enabled websites with shopping carts etc., have Content Management Systems in place. Access to Content Management is by a password protected administrative panel.

The biggest advantage of a Content Management System is that you can operate it from a remote location. Its just like checking your email on Yahoo or Hotmail with the only requirement being access to the Internet. For instance, say you are based in the US, you can actually edit your website while at a coffee bar in New Zealand. So if you have a successful affiliate website, you can be literally touring the world, and occasionally peeping into your webiste just to see how many sales you've made.

The disadvantage of having a Content Management System is that it allows very little structural modifications once the website is up and running. This is fine if you are a web-design expert but if you have got your website designed professionally that entails major revisions to the website which will cost you a lot. Web design companies generally fleece their clients on modifications and that's why major companies have their own IT departments manage their corporate websites.

You now have a broader perspective on what options you have in managing your website should you decide to migrate to a higher level of web management.

*** You may republish this article in any format by crediting the author and the website - http://www.ebookswebmart.com

About the author: The author is an affiliate marketeer and owner of http://www.ebookswebmart.com - a website that provides information and resources on ebook publishing in addition to over 10,000 ebooks on offer.

CRM AND SMALL BUSINESSES

Author: Bob McElwain

CRM (Customer Relationships Management) appears to mean different things to different people. I haven't seen two definitions that really agree. The giant companies have many goals when they speak of CRM. One that annoys me, that continues to crop up, is the notion of immediate software response to customer requests. Sounds great. But when you read the fine print, it also means less one-to-one company to customer interaction. This is not a direction in which a small business wants to move.

In the end, what these million dollar CRM systems do or do not do, matters little to small businesses. The price tag is too high for most.

Is ""Personalization"" The Useful Part?

The better approach may be to look at some aspects of CRM to see what can be done with software on our website to provide our visitors and customers with a more pleasant and enjoyable experience. It may help to exit the CRM derby, stroll down a related path, and think of only part of it: personalization.

Neat things flow forth from this orientation. For example, maybe invite visitors to check on things new since their last visit. Or on specials for the day, specifically tailored to this visitor in some way. Or when a customer clicks a form to reorder, fill the entry fields with data provided earlier. A great time saver for the customer, something they will appreciate. Simple, effective things such as these can be abstracted from CRM models at modest cost.

Large Scale Models

Large firms with bucks to burn can make personalization central to a new kind of website. At a minimum, each page can address the visitor by name. At the extreme, the entire site can be presented according to previous information collected about this visitor. For example, if the visitor has kids, and a appropriate new product is available, it can be offered. And not offered to another visitor without children.

Building a website on the fly is a bit heavy for a small business. The coding challenge alone is heavy. The price tag for software is high.

Still, a small business can implement simple ideas as suggested above. And more will spring from these.

For Starters

As a fellow into site performance and promotion, I'm always leery of anything that may annoy a visitor. Hits are so hard to get, there's just no point in inviting anybody to leave. So I'm very concerned about any technology that risks turning visitors away.

I used a Pentium II PC for almost two years. Beginning about a year back, some sites would not allow me to visit because I didn't have the latest and greatest. Maybe the giants can get away with this, but a small business can not afford to lose even one visitor.

In most cases, the reason I could not visit was that my browsers could not handle the trick JavaScript in place. I've a new system now, just 4 months old. A couple of days back I ran into a site that told me my software is out of date.

I have the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Netscape running. That is, the latest what work. (I couldn't get IE 5.5 to stop locking up my new system. And I don't know of anyone who has Netscape 6.1 running yet; I couldn't make it work.)

To exclude any visitor because of the way a site is put together or the technology used, makes no sense to me at all. A small business can not afford this risk.

Let's Keep It Super Simple

Your site must seek to embrace all visitors, regardless of their software or hardware. So what is needed to make such systems work is a very simple recognition procedure. It might go like this.

When a visitor arrives, put up a page in straight HTML, without any bells and whistles that would break even older browsers. (My wife still uses Win 3.1 on a 486, and won't even talk of upgrading.)

Once the page is loaded, try running a brief JavaScript to check for a cookie. If the script fails, fall back and display only HTML pages. If the script runs, but does not find a cookie, ask the visitor if they would like a personalized visit about the site. If no, forget it. If yes, get the information, save it, and use it. And finally, given a read of a cookie, personalize as possible.

Will Bontrager , a top flight programmer, sees no problem in accomplishing the above. Further, he has a plan for holding costs down. Use a standard database with all possible fields, all of which will not be needed by a given site. By holding to a standard format, the great expense of a customized database installation is avoided. While Will did not put a price on it, a few hundred dollars might be ample.

With the database in place, JavaScript can handle a vast array of personalization functions. If you don't want to get into writing this kind of code, libraries and code generators will provide you with workable code that can be cut and pasted into your pages. And, of course, there are people like Will, who will produce precisely what you need.

It's Past Time To Be Thinking

I ignored early announcements of CRM because there did not seem to be much of value to a small business. Which is the area in which I and my clients work.

I see now, though, that there are some things that can be done in a simple, straightforward way. So long as we do not reject any visitor for lack of the latest tools, we can make the visit to our site more personal and more enjoyable for many.

About the author: Bob McElwain Want to build a winning site? Improve one you already have? Fix one that's busted? Get ANSWERS. Subscribe to ""STAT News"" now! mailto:join-stat@lyris.dundee.net Web marketing and consulting since 1993 Site: Phone: 209-742-6349

CRM...And The Real World - Part 1.

Author: Roger J. Burke

Here is my latest article. It may be freely used in ezines, on websites or in e-books, as long as the Resource Box is left intact.

I would appreciate notification of where it was used, and if possible, a copy of the ezine or newsletter that it was used in. Please send notification mailto:webmaster@online-wealth.com

I hate computers.

Now, coming from a person who's been involved with them since 1967, you might think that's a bit over the top.

Well...it's not *actually* the computers that's the problem, of course, it's the software - the programs that run in them, that I *really* hate.

I also hate ATMs. Now, that's a double whammy for the poor, dumb machines!

But, like computers on the desk, ATMs are everywhere, and by golly, there're *so* convenient, aren't they? However, now that we have ATMs and computers in an unholy alliance, specifically designed to ruin your day at any nanosecond, I was happy - *well, almost* - when I had to turn to the customer service desk at my local bank for help.

Y'see, the ATM had just swallowed my cash card and had issued this terse message: ""Invalid transaction - card retained"", to be immediately followed by another: ""Please use another card and try again."" Huh? I didn't *have* another card on me right now, did I! And, I knew that there was sufficient money in the account...

Naturally I was annoyed but, resisting the urge to give it a Coke machine kick, I went instead to the customer service desk to sort the problem out. Here, I thought, I'd get the attention I deserve as a good customer, you know, talk to a *real* person, blah, blah, blah...

Ever been to la-la land? Well, we all get there, once in a while I guess, but...at 9.30 in the morning? Bear with me, for a few moments, while I relate the nadir of Customer Relationship Management - aka CRM for all internet aficionados - a la local bank style...

ME: ""Look...er...my son, Danny Burke, asked me to get some money from the machine, and that one"" - me pointing accusingly -""just upped and took it. Would you be able to help, please?"" I smile helpfully (I tried to look a bit sheepish also - that sometimes helps).

SHE: ""You shouldn't have done that!"" Slightly frowning, and a bit of a sharp note to her voice.

ME (nonplussed, eyebrows raised): ""Huh...what...oh, yes, well, he gave me his PIN...he's in school now"" - glancing at my watch - ""so, he can't be...""

SHE (cutting in): ""You're not supposed to use his PIN - unless of course you're AUTHORIZED."" Voice definitely rising now, but not yet shrill. Glares at me, accusingly.

ME (defensively and now, a bit angry): ""Hey...I know about PINs and their use...and I don't need a lecture from you!"" (glaring back now). I had been part of the online systems development team, at one of the major Canadian banks, in the mid 70s...so, I knew whereof I spoke.

SHE (slightly retreating now): ""Well!"" A pause. ""Well, where is the card, you say?"" I point to the machine again. ""Well, I suppose I'll go and get it...one moment...please"" (almost an afterthought, by the sound of it).

She stalks off. Idly, I contemplate darkly how hard I can jam some old receipts down an ATM slot when I leave...if I ever get outta here, as the band said, yeah, if I *ever* get outta here...where are *my* wings, I wonder?

Her shrill voice breaks my vengeful reverie.

SHE: ""Well, here it is,"" waving it about triumphantly, ""but you can't have the card back. It's *not* yours, you know...you'll have to get authorization from your son...a letter...to pick it up."" Emphatically, she puts the card in a drawer, slams it shut. Thud! Smiling now, full set of ivories, dripping insincerity.

ME: ""Huh...what?"" (I know, I know...I tend to repeat myself!) But, before I could go on...

SHE: ""Anyway, what happened? Why did the ATM take the card? Did you enter something incorrectly?"" I couldn't believe her accusing tone. At any moment, I expected her to start shaking her finger at me.

I look at her blankly, but I'm thinking. Now that was the funny thing about this whole mess - I'd followed everything to the letter...er, number: key in PIN, hit WITHDRAW CASH, select correct account...hmmm, must be SAVINGS, Danny has no CHEQUE account, but just after I key-entered 140, the ATM issued the above messages and ate the card. That's it...kaput! I felt that I'd just been executed. Maybe it was some kind of read error on the unit? Most unlikely...the card had already been accepted - PIN, account, the lot! But, what then?

ME (finally shrugging, shaking my head): ""Hmmm...well, no...there's no obvious reason...that I can think of..."" Brow furrows, bites lip pensively.

SHE (primly): ""Never mind, never MIND, either fill this form out for a new card"", handing me another bank form, as if I didn't have enough already, ""or get your son to bring a letter back...and then you can get the card back!"" She said the last with more false bonhomie, teeth glittering.

As I walked away muttering, I glanced back at the large sign above the area: ""Customer Service Desk"". Some service, I thought; more like ""Customer Punishment Area - SFA (that's Self Flagellation Acceptable)""! My only option now was to return with some sort of letter to satisfy these goons and their procedures...so much for *this* bank's customer relationship management program.

That woman on the service desk failed miserably at CRM: the cardinal rule is that the customer is always right, even when s/he's wrong. She didn't *have* to tell me that using another's PIN is not recommended; from Spitzbergen to Tierra del Fuego, everybody knows *that*, already! Additionally, she didn't even have the courtesy to address me by my name...

And, to cap it all, instead of apologizing to *me* for the inconvenience, she made me feel as though I had been the one to inconvenience *her*. Some service, huh?

Y'see, she was intent *only* on enforcing procedure, even to my detriment, instead of trying to get to the root cause of the problem...which, by the way, may also be happening to other customers. Even as I speak...

I was thinking about *that* as I drove back home, but put it aside, while I enlisted the aid of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. First things first, after all: get the card back, then worry about why I was card-swiped! This was going to be interesting, I thought, as I knew that Sherry had already had a run-in with the personnel in *that* particular branch some months ago...

Oh, the joys of online banking! ;-)

P.S. Part 2 will complete this sorry saga...

About the author: Roger Burke has been involved with computers since 1967, and has managed to break quite a few, over the years. He, and his wife Sherry, are now actively engaged in online self-publishing and promoting specific affiliate programs at http://online-wealth.com . If you have any comments or questions about this article, please send emails to mailto:webmaster@online-wealth.com . Copyright 2001, Online-Wealth. All rights reserved.

YOU AND CRM

Author: Bob McElwain

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is on the tip of a lot of tongues these days, of those hoping to break through into a new and better way of doing business. But the real strength of this idea isn't new at all. In plain English it simply means putting your customers first. Many successful merchants have utilized this approach for years. They even know it's far better to refer a customer to a competitor who can provide what they need, than to seek to sell something in stock that isn't going to make it in the long run. This is not fancy theory. It works. Likely the best hardware store in your neighborhood is run with customer support as a primary, interwoven throughout all aspects of the business.

Who Will Run The Show? Systems Or People?

What is new about CRM as the term is being used today is the hope of implementing a technology on a website that emulates the interactivity a visitor feels in an offline shop. I'm a bit skeptical about the outcome of current efforts. As a professional programmer for many years, I've seen first hand how seldom usability is considered in developing software. Anything the theorist or techie types get a hold of tends to be system driven, as opposed to people directed.

To catch a glimpse of what I mean, think of a computer program you use often. Chances are there are some things it does not do in the way you want it done. For example, one of my programs uses a spell checker. But every time I start it up, it jumps into the middle of the text window. This means I can't see the misspelled word or the context within which it is used. So I have to move the window. Every time I run the program.

This is nonsense, for the consensus is windows moved or adjusted should reopen as they were left. Or at least there should be an option to request this behavior. What do you suppose my chances are of getting a change in this program? Zip. And that's fact. We are all invited to accept what is offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

Will CRM Work?

This is my concern with increased interest in the technological side of CRM. My hunch is much of it will be implemented with a similar attitude: We hope you like it because that's it, if you want to play in our sandbox.

To the extent technology is implemented in such fashion, it is doomed to fail. How many sites have you abandoned because you couldn't remember some password? Or even worse, how many sites have you encountered that won't let you set up a new one so you can get on with business? Nuts.

Can We Afford It?

Even if all works out nicely, this technology won't be cheap. The underlying structure depends upon a comprehensive database, and nobody is giving this kind of software away. My hunch is that prices will be out of reach for small one-person businesses, at least until they are able to produce strong profits. For those just getting started, forget it. We're talking of dollars in the thousands at least.

So What's One To Do?

You don't have to wait on technology to implement CRM. As suggested earlier, it's a way of doing business that works. Simply be sure customer support and satisfaction is the fundamental goal of your company. Sure you want to sell, but not at the expense of this core aspect of your business.

Here's a partial list of things you can do right now to demonstrate that for your company, your customer comes first.

> Be sure site content is complete and easy to read.

> Make certain navigation is a dead cinch.

> Keep order forms as simple as possible.

> Throughout your site, encourage feedback in every possible way.

> Respond quickly to email. Be sure you have answered the question completely. And as possible, anticipate and respond to other possible concerns as related to the question.

> Provide complete contact info at the bottom of every page on your site. And yes, you must include a street address and a phone number, preferably an 800 number that is answered 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, by someone who knows what they are about.

> Provide a fax number as well; some people love paper.

> Follow up on all queries and sales. Make certain a high level of satisfaction has been generated.

> Be sure your product or service delivers more than expected.

> Offer an unbeatable guarantee. 12 months has merit in that customers will not feel hurried into making a decision. And later they may not feel comfortable making a request.

CRM Technology

I'm looking forward to seeing such systems in action. And I hope they are as effective as those designing them claim they will be. To achieve this goal, designs must be customer directed and controlled.

But with or without such tools, there is a lot we can do right now to demonstrate our concern for our customers. Our bottom line reflects how well we are doing in this matter.

About the author: Bob McElwain Want to build a winning site? Improve one you already have? Fix one that's busted? Get ANSWERS. Subscribe to ""STAT News"" now! mailto:join-stat@lyris.dundee.net Web marketing and consulting since 1993 Site: Phone: 209-742-6349

CRM in SmallBiz: Disappointing Misconceptions

Author: Dinko Bacun

In the last few months there has been quite a lot of discussion on CRM (customer relationship management) solutions in the forums and ezines. Although it is extremely positive that people finally started to talk about the one concept that will make the future of a business successful or unsuccessful, there are quite a few misconceptions about the term. Those misconceptions make people lose time and energy finding solutions in areas they should not be even searching, instead in concentrating on the really important things. First, the simplest and the least obvious: Customer Relationship Management is about RELATIONS between people (yes, business is done by people, not companies). It is NOT technology. Business did exist before computers, so relations between business people existed before computers, i.e. CRM was not invented with the invention of computers (just the name CRM was). The good practices of relating with your customer did not become obsolete with the introduction of computers, though the TOOLS changed. So we use the same practices, but we take advantage of the possibilities that technology gives. It certainly is a different experience for the buyer if he is met on the web site by a human voice or keyboard chat (LivePerson, FireTalk, HumanClick) which is what technology now makes possible. The technology enables us to see how the customer is navigating through the site, and, if we want to, interrupt him and offer assistance. But I wonder whether the customer will welcome that. If you are a salesman in a brick and mortar store, you would watch the expression of the customer and, based on that, decide to approach him or not. On the net you cannot see his face (it's questionable if he'll let you even if possible). In any case, CRM is NOT technology, so you will not find your CRM solution among SW vendors. Which brings us to the misconception number two. Business people tend to search for a CRM solution among SW developers and vendors. ""They know the technology, which I (the business manager) don't know, so they will know my needs and how to implement it"". If a business manager would object to such a suggestion he would be labeled ""old"" and ""overdue"". In today fast business lane, fortunes are made fast, and young managers tend to ""buy"" a CRM software solution. CRM should already be in place, functioning, BEFORE starting IT implementation (who has to forward which info to whom to be ready for who, when? Who has to respond to what in how much time?). CRM Software solution is only a TOOL for procedures already in place. Let me draw a parallel. With the invention of cars, the way we conduct business changed. We could do much more business and do it better. But never once, it occurred to us to let auto designers lead and ENFORCE the way we are building relations with our customers. So why does everybody think that software designers are capable of that? They might be brilliant SW developers, but still they wouldn't know how to better customer retention in a company manufacturing furniture. So why do we try to do that? Because it is easier not to lose time over enforcement of customer retention rules in our own company, when we can pay someone to do it. Because we have the money, but we don't have TIME. Well, we can't do that. We cannot avoid our involvement in the process (and our hours, of course), although I know most of you didn't want to hear this. Which brings us to the misconception number three. You search for an SW solution for your CRM, buy it, and let those people do their job. As good manager, you organize weekly meetings to have your finger on things. Because you selected a SW vendor which is a respectable company, the first thing those people do, is to organize internal audit. They pass out forms to people in different departments, to find out exactly what are the needs of different parts of your company. Alternatively, they conduct interviews. And that is good. That is much better then them trying to force their ""proven"" flow of documentation upon your company. But what they are actually doing is LEARNING the way your company functions. And the teaching is done by people who work in each department, that most probably, don't have the whole picture. So the integration of the whole picture is done by the SW vendor. Can they learn in a fortnight or a month? I would suggest another approach. Find an ""oldie"" within your company, preferably one year from retirement. The one that does know how your company lives, who preferably worked a bit in sales, a bit in procurement and a bit in support or reclamation. If he doesn't like computers, all the better. If he later likes the results, you can be sure everyone else will. Assign him full time as a liaison, and let him guide the implementation. Have everyone know all the doors must be kept open for him. Remember, CRM implementation is about KNOWLEDGE of how your company functions. It is about how EXISTING customer care procedures (remember misconception number one?) are automated (complemented, modified) by computers. And if there is no such person(s) within your company? Well, that leaves YOU. I bet you didn't want to hear this, but remember that everyday customer relation procedures will be done by your people, not the SW vendor. Which brings us to misconception number four. CRM is sales automation. No, no, no, it is customer support. No, no, no, it's the lady who says hello answering the phone on the helpdesk. No, no, no, it's the operator who chats with the potential customer on the web site. Actually, it is all of the above. In a company, sales people seldom talk with the support people. And vice versa. As if those were two different non competing companies so they have little to talk about. Last few months everybody talks about customer retention. Which is normal as it is much easier and cheaper to sell again to an existing customer, than to get a new one. But only if he received good customer support and service, that is. So a good CRM SW solution would have some data common to everybody (name, address, phone, etc), but also data needed by sales, procurement, helpdesk and support. This does not mean you have to have an ERP system, it just means that you need some extra fields which are specific to each department. Ideally, you yourself would be able to add some extra fields as needed, without becoming a programmer. Which brings us to misconception number five. After the first year of coughing and hiccuping, your CRM solution is finally in place and humming nicely. You are getting all that nice data you needed, and you are finally able to watch and build your customer relations. So you are home and free. If you need an extra report, or an extra field, you'll call the SW vendor and he will make the necessary changes. Well, that's not entirely true. The life of your company is not static. It changes daily. The same way, your CRM solution cannot be static. If your sales person needs to call an IT liaison, explain to him the change he needs, then to the SW developer, then wait for implementation, you can be sure that he will not do it. He will rather scribble it into his note book or the Excel sheet on his notebook. He should be able to do just that in your CRM solution. Which means you should have a modifiable solution, one in which you can add fields and tell the system how to handle them. But that means you will have to invest time to learn how to do it. Or leave it for later when you will have more time. Which is misconception number six. People tend to search for a CRM software solution when they cannot cope any more with the traffic. By then, it is too late. It is late in the sense that you have to implement a solution in which you have to invests time, and time you don't have. That means that the implementation will be much longer, it will cost much more in hours, lost business, poor customer service, which means you will spend more hours dealing with a customer, you will have less hours in sales, you will have to hire more people... There is no nice way to tell you, so I will say it straight out: You should start implementing a CRM system, the moment you start using PC in promotion and sales. And that is now, isn't it? So what really is the difference between a CRM software system and old, traditional relations with your customers? Documentation and analysis. With a CRM software system you have historical data which you can analyze. Analyzing our customer support data we found out that about 60% of our helpdesk activity was done with new customers (within 2 months of purchase) which is normal, but about 90% of those incidents were trivial questions about simple use of functions. Although we were issuing three manuals and giving a six day course to our customers, we decided to issue a special cookbook for novices, based on the most common questions. The style was light, simple and straightforward, one page max per function. It was a double jeopardy. Novice interventions dropped to about 30% and the customers had a feeling they were driving the system, not the other way around. So we were both happy. And that's called customer satisfaction, right?

About the author: Dinko Bacun CEO of Tendriks dinko@tendrix.com http://www.CarpioHelpdesk.com

CRM...And The Real World - Part 2.

Author: Roger J. Burke

Here is my latest article. It may be freely used in ezines, on websites or in e-books, as long as the Resource Box is left intact.

I would appreciate notification of where it was used, and if possible, a copy of the ezine or newsletter that it was used in. Please send notification mailto:webmaster@online-wealth.com

""WHAAAAT!"" Sherry looked at me in disbelief. ""That machine took my card...and that bi...bit...*person* refused to give it back!"" Her face was quickly going brick red with mounting rage.

Hmmm, wait a minute, *Sherry's* card?

I said, ""I *thought* it was Danny's?"" It had his name on it, in fact. ""Yes,"" Sherry said impatiently, ""it's his, but it's a *joint* account - Danny *and* me."" She pauses. ""That...that...person should've given it BACK..."" She's really fuming now...I wondered if her Kirlian aura was gonna turn purple, or maybe red. I look at her, ""Well, now...I didn't know that, did I now?"" Sherry glares at me - but not *at* me - then relaxes to a sheepish smile, ""Sorry, dear heart...I thought you knew."" I shrug, ""No matter...we gotta get the card back, OK?"" *And*, figure out why the machine ate it too, just quietly...but, one thing at a time!

So, thirty minutes later, we're both at the branch, fronting up to *that* Customer Service Desk...ho, ho, HO, ho, ho! The woman who had served me is nowhere in sight, but another clone steps up, vacant smile glowing, 'Colgate' white...

SHE: ""And how may we help you today, hmmm?"" (The royal 'we', no less, thinks I).

ME: ""Ah, look, about half hour ago, one of your machines took the card...it's in the drawer there"", me pointing, ""and, I went to get autho..."" Sherry elbows me to the side.

SHERRY: ""Listen, and listen good!"" She transfixes the hapless woman with her fury. ""You have a card of MINE, in that drawer...get it out and give it BACK. Now!"" She glares magnificently. ""It's in the name of Danny Burke...and I'm the *other* joint owner of the account, his MOTHER."" Sherry made the last word sound like 'HITMAN'. The woman visibly wilts...truly, she cringes.

SHE: ""Er...oh...um, but, but...you...you...must have a l..letter that author..."" Sherry raises her hand, like a cop stopping traffic.

SHERRY: ""Stop...go to your fax machine, and there you will find the letter waiting for you."" She smiles benignly now, soothingly, waving her away. (Just to let *you* know, we went to Sherry's other branch first and got them to draft and fax the necessary letter. We *knew* it would be waiting by the time we got to *this* branch.)

A few minutes later, the woman came back and, after satisfying procedure, Sherry got the card back. Twirling the card in her fingers, Sherry looks at the woman...

SHERRY (softly, sweetly...but with an edge): ""Now, I'm going to put this card in again and if *that* machine gives any trouble, I'll be back to get the money from YOU."" She made it sound like big Arnie talking to the cop at that desk, remember...just before he came back with a truck and an M16! ""And, I don't want to be hit with any extra fees, if I do...right?"" I *almost* began to feel sorry for the woman.

SHE: ""Ah...mmmmm...tha...hmmmm....well, yes...alright."" Sherry gives her a final glare and we go to the machine.

Sherry goes through the same procedure that I used. And, I watch closely as she keys in the PIN, hits WITHDRAW CASH, selects the account, and punches in 140.00, and lo, the money runneth over! And immediately, I know why the machine ate the card when I did it, and I know also that there probably is a program bug in the software or firmware. A bug so simple, a novice programmer would be able to fix it...or maybe an ATM service techy.

""Ya gotta be kidding,"" says Sherry looking at the machine, shaking her head, when I tell her. I nod my head, grinning like an idiot. ""Well,"" says Sherry, ""what are yer gonna do about it?""

_________________

What I Thought Of Doing: ""Now, *I'm* gonna have some fun..."" Leaving Sherry to count the money, I go back to the Service Desk.

'Colgate' is still there, smiling but obviously a bit uncomfortable to see me back. ""Good news...it worked OK."" The relief on her face was palpable. I paused. ""And, guess what?"" She leaned forward slightly, expectantly. ""I know why the machine failed the first time I did it..."" And smiled. She looked a bit confused, but then even more expectant.

With a wave, I said, ""Have a day!"" and walked out. __________________

What I Did Instead: ""Now, *I'm* gonna have some fun..."" Leaving Sherry to count the money, I go back to the Service Desk.

'Colgate' is still there, smiling but obviously a bit uncomfortable to see me back. ""Good news...it worked OK."" The relief on her face was palpable. I paused. ""And, guess what?"" She leaned forward slightly, expectantly. ""I know why the machine failed the first time I did it..."" And proceeded to give her a very detailed and complicated explanation, very quickly. I really wasn't too concerned about her comprehension; she looked a bit confused as I finished...which was understandable, given the jargon I used.

With a wave, I said, ""Well, there you are...better get it done quickly!"" and walked out.

CRM? Cruddy Response Management, is what I say. ;-)

P.S. OK, if you want to know why the ATM ate Danny's card the first time (in Part 1), click this link and fill in the form: http://online-wealth.com/crm_solution.htm .

About the author: Roger Burke has been involved with computers since 1967, and has managed to break quite a few, over the years. He, and his wife Sherry, are now actively engaged in online self-publishing and promoting specific affiliate programs at http://online-wealth.com . If you have any comments or questions about this article, please send emails to mailto:webmaster@online-wealth.com . Copyright 2001, Online-Wealth. All rights reserved.

Is CRM Technology Living Up To the Hype?

Author: Mark Levit

Over the last few years the buzz about CRM (Customer Relationship Management) has grown extensively. It seems that every Sales & Marketing executive is talking about it. A study conducted by Jupiter Media Metrix found that U.S. businesses spent more than $5.2 billion in CRM technology software in 2001, a number that is expected to rise to $8.7 billion by 2006. CRM spending has been growing considerably, especially in financial services, retail, and telecommunications.

Many companies have invested in CRM systems to retain customers who demand more and better services by the day, but why? Due to recent trends, consumer behavior has changed dramatically in the last couple of years, and even more with current market conditions. According to a study made by The Center for Customer Strategy, consumers are less concerned with minor price differences, but choose companies based on their value-added services. They want to be able to get what they need, quickly. With tools like the Internet, it's now a lot easier for both consumers and businesses to compare offers, and switch over if their needs aren't met. This is especially true of high-value customers that produce the most profit for the business.

Businesses are scrambling for ways to retain these customers, and attract new ones in the process. So how is CRM an answer to keeping up with these trends? CRM is a strategy (no, not software) to transform your business to be customer, not product, focused. The CRM software is just a tool that helps the company carry out this strategy. Depending on its implementation, it can help your business identify who your customers are, what they need and anticipate what could want. It allows businesses to tailor offers to their current customers, building closer relationships that make them feel valuable. It can help eliminate contact and data overlap between departments and improve consumer service. For example, Leah Holzman, Marketing Manager of TradeCard Inc, explained how the marketing and sales departments in her company had problems tacking each others' progress and customer data. They spent "hundreds of hours managing disparate data across multiple systems. That is, until they implemented a CRM initiative with the help of Salesforce.com. Overall, CRM can make your company more efficient and customer-friendly to capture greater market share, increase customer loyalty, and attract more customers.

So far, CRM sounds like a dream come true. Yet studies show that more than half of CRM initiatives fail. Despite rising spending in CRM, a survey of 1,200 businesses executives conducted by the Data Warehousing Institute showed that 41% considered their CRM project "a potential flop." Only 16% were satisfied with their CRM software implementation. As one senior marketing executive claimed, "We turned a manual mess into an automated mess, and as a result we just made the same mistakes faster and more efficiently."

The problem with these companies is not that CRM automation fails to meet expectations. There are several reasons why these systems don't always generate the desired results. And most times, it has nothing to do with the software. The biggest mistake that a manager can make is think that once the software is installed, all problems will be solved. To be successful, a CRM initiative must be a company-wide strategic culture change and process design. It entails getting all your employees (not only customer service) to change the way they perform their every day tasks so that the appropriate information is collected and used in a productive way. The software is just a tool that keeps things organized so that a successful CRM is easier to accomplish. As any change in a corporate culture, this project requires complete support from senior management.

One of the most common problems is that data collected isn't used. Great sums of money are invested in collecting all different kinds of information on clients, yet many times this information is never analyzed, never used to understand the customer or provide all the benefits that CRM can deliver.

For better results, a company investing in CRM must first evaluate their current situation. They should determine what problems need to be solved, and what type of data are needed. Since implementation is often a complicated process (especially in large companies), it is vital to get input from all departments. It is also a good idea to include your customer in the process to get a better idea of what changes will be embraced. Often when a CRM initiative is left up to the IT department, it is harder for other areas of the company to accept any changes in processes (which are usually substantial). To be successful, the initiative must take place throughout the entire company. Employees must be trained to function with the new technology and processes.

When considering a vendor and/or product, it's imperative that any software, system or processes implemented are flexible. They can then adapt, along with a company, to changing times and trends. This is especially useful in growing businesses, where needs might change as client bases grow and business expands.

No matter what precautions you may take when planning and implementing a CRM initiative, the only thing that can assure its success for the company are your people. After all, the whole concept of CRM is based on relationships. And those can't be completely automated. There is no technological substitute for a friendly voice or face that understands a customer's troubles and is willing to go above and beyond to provide the best service. CRM can only help a company manage these relationships to provide a more personalized service to loyal customers.

About the author: Mark Levit is managing partner of Partners & Levit Advertising and a professor of marketing at New York University. For more information visit http://www.partnerslevit.com or call 212.696.1200.

Is Your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) System Doomed To Fail?

Author: Perry Norgarb

""Right, People. Let's blast out that mail campaign we've been planning for so long.""

It's time to put your trusty CRM software to work; to let it earn its keep. You run a search of people and companies you want to target.

You soon realize something's wrong when your list is far smaller than anticipated. A quick check reveals many profiles/categories have not been filled in, impacting your search results. Further inspection shows numerous records are incorrect; others are riddled with typos. And that's just for starters.

With a sinking feeling, you realize that last push isn't going to happen in a hurry.

Time for some Damage Control or Preventative Maintenance.

Fortunately one of the most common reasons cited for the high failure rate of CRM systems - poor data quality - is also one of the easiest to avoid.

Your CRM software is only as good as the information it contains. As the old programmers motto goes 'garbage in, garbage out'.

So how can you avoid incomplete, incorrect, irrelevant or out-of-date and generally unfit-for-use data from permeating your CRM software?

You need to gather your key CRM users together and thrash out a DATA CAPTURE PROCEDURE document, defining the rules of use.

Spell out: *Who has what rights to the system; who can Create, Insert, Modify or Delete records, assuming your software supports all these functions? Forward this information to your system administrator to action. *Decide on a procedure to check for any duplicates before creating a record. Depending on what 'de-duping' or 'data scrubbing' features your system has, this might require some simple searches before starting a new record. *Do you allow abbreviations or acronyms? For example: IBM, or I.B.M, or International Business Machines Inc. or Incorporated and so on. A policy on ensuring consistency of input will help to avoid duplications in future. *Are records going to be created in Upper and Lower case and when are CAPS acceptable? *By when do you expect records, notes and so on to be created or updated? Same day, on return to the office? *Check to see whether your Postal Services have specific requirements. Ensure your data meets these criteria. *Is the primary address of clients to be created as a postal or a physical address? *Make sure everyone checks spellings if they are unsure and do not trust spellchecker! When in doubt, ask the client - they'll respect that. Is it Clark with an 'e'; Shawn, Sean or Shaun? One certain way to get your mail binned is to spell someone's name incorrectly. *Also confirm the kind of corporation e.g. LLC, Inc, PTY Ltd. and so on. *Make rules for creating new profiles or User Definable Fields (UDF) (or whatever your specific CRM software calls them.) Place a lot of emphasis on this. Every time a new UDF is needed, it should first be approved. Otherwise duplicates will permeate your database e.g. Lead Source: Yellow Pages, YP, yelo pages. *Ensure that email addresses are put in correctly. Basic but common mistake! *Set up procedures, if not supported by your software, of how to create records from inbound emails. *If applicable, are you going to use Mandatory/Forced fields?

You might as well address the issue of Backups while you are about it. *Who is the responsible person for backing up your databases/s? Who covers for them when they are absent or unavailable? *How frequently are backups to be done? Diarise! *How are backups done e.g. by the Grandfather, Father, Son method. *Ensure backups are made on good quality CD's or whatever format you are using. It's no good doing a backup, then finding on attempting a Restore that it doesn't work! It is also a good idea to copy backups onto more than one data format. *Where are the backups to be stored? *Are the backups secure? This is important for both security and practical reasons.

Once your Data Capture Procedure Document is finished, get everyone to sign it off as READ!

As standard practice, ensure that document is handed to all new employees at your company.

Refer back to this document for possible revision every three months or so.

Try this: select a couple of records - both good and bad - every week, to put on the overhead at staff meetings. Make sure you don't unduly embarrass anybody but watch this become the light-relief highlight of your meetings! People learn best when having fun!

What if your database is in one unholy mess? Has the rot set in so deeply that your database needs a complete overhaul? Turn this seemingly insurmountable task into an opportunity to you. This is an excellent excuse to re-establish contact with your clients and let them know you care. You can always put lapses down to data crashes but tell them you have fixed the problem!

Importantly, help your staff understand what you need from the data to facilitate more accurate marketing and reporting and hence the success of your business and their careers.

By creating a sense of pride and ownership in the company database, you are nurturing the essential process of buy-in, necessary for the success of your CRM initiative. Don't compromise this critical tool by allowing your CRM software to be infected by inferior data.

About the author: Perry Norgarb has specialized in Small Business CRM software solutions over the last 15 years. Contact him or find out more about CRM, Contact Management and other Sales Tracking software tips and solutions for small businesses at: http://www.smallbizcrm.com. You are free to re-publish this article as long as this bio box and copyright remain intact and the links 'live'. © 10 October, 2005.