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  • Sharebar

Inspired by a quick Skype for Business presentation I just did with three customers assisting them share their calendars I decided to write this short training tool. Outlook is the primary email management tool for most business people worldwide. It is also an extremely feature rich time management tool with many capabilities that a lot of people have no idea it can do.

clip_image002Here’s a short list of some of the amazing things you can do in Outlook, and particularly in Calendars.

  • Out of Office messages (technically not in the calendar) - utilising dates and time to send out of messages to either or both internal and external email recipients.
  • Delegate permissions – sharing your calendar with others in your organisation to see or edit calendar items on your behalf.
  • View multiple calendars – see multiple people’s calendars stacked side by side, on top or even overlaid to see calendars and find joint free time.
  • View and subscribe to external calendars – see others calendars or appointments.
  • Share your calendar externally – free busy time, free busy with subject and location, or all calendar information.
  • Use categories and colours for quick visual calendar – see the image.
  • Plugins (Tools from the Office Store) Find time is possibly the best tool ever – and its free! https://findtime.microsoft.com/
  • Create Skype for Business meeting requests right inside Outlook Calendar items by clicking the Skype icon on the toolbar.

Contact us today to find out how to utilise these tools

Improve Your Marketing with the Right Corporate Image

Your sales begin with you. Your corporate profile on your website and LinkedIn either attracts people to do business with you or drives them away. Even worse is having a grey shadow head.

We have this great offer for March 2017 with a discounted headshot price for up to 5 staff.

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Contact us today to book your photoshoot

Follow Us On Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces, then connect with me:

All content © Tim Miller. Feel free to share or send these emails on. If you want to unsubscribe just reply with Unsubscribe in the subject.

Jethro-Newsletter-SSL-Cert

If you use internet banking, you use SSL. It’s the little lock icon in the address bar. Sometimes the address turns green. That is telling you that this site is secure and any information you share with the website is encrypted and sent in a secure transmission layer.

Without it your information is not encrypted.

Welcome to this 40th Edition Newsletter. It’s the last month of 2016 – phew! I expect we will have one more newsletter before Christmas, but just in case I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year holiday.

 

Social Media Optimisation Workshops

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Social Media Optimisation is critical to succeeding in your business in 2017. How good are you at navigating the Social Media Puzzle. (puzzle image credit to greyweed)

    • Facebook has 1.79 billion active users, 1.18 billion daily users and 1.66 billion mobile active users [Facebook stats September 30th 2016]

    • Twitter has 1.3 billion users with 500 million using it to follow - not tweeting [Source].

    • LinkedIn has 467 million users. Adding a professional photo to your profile makes you 14 times more likely to be found [Source].

    • Short videos attract a 5 billion views a day on YouTube and 8 billion views s day on Facebook

    • Instagram and Pinterest already have an audience of 500 million users and 75 Million users respectively. [Source]

That’s well over a billion people who are your potential marketplace.

Do you have an Australian Only Business?

 

Maybe you are worried the connected world is too big a market. That’s ok. There are 14.1 million Australians over the age of 18 with Facebook accounts plus many millions more with Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest and Google+ accounts and many millions more who access YouTube videos from mobiles devices and computers each day.

When you just target Australia you access a market in the millions.

A note of caution: The rules for Social Media are different to the Web: You need to be Social Media Optimised!

You must be proactive and get on board now – before your competitors do and start taking all your customers right out from under you. Only the early adopters gain the advantage. Once everyone is doing it the margins are always smaller.

Social Media Optimisation is the coolest marketing tool that throws open the doors to interacting directly with new customers. Results for correctly implemented Social Media Marketing by far exceed the reach and results of traditional media and marketing techniques.

What is Social Media Optimisation comprised of? Well there used to be just Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube. But 2013 saw the emergence of Instagram, Google + and Pinterest which have a combined audience exceeding 1 billion affluent consumers. In 2015 we got Snapchat, Periscope, Meerkat and Vine - all video driven. In 2016 the big trends were not so much new platforms but usage patterns changing to mobile and apps. Messenger, WeChat and WhatsApp as messaging channels grew wildly. Instagram added stories. Streaming Radio channels and applications like Skype began making good use of “in-product” advertising.

This rapid and permanent shift in Internet usage is slowly but surely relegating other forms of advertising. Print ads and traditional media outlets are last century thinking! Get the jump on your competitors and act now!

Social Media Optimisation is the easiest, faster and most cost effective way to advertise to your target market. You need to learn disruptive marketing techniques that understand the traditional sales cycle is completely broken in both B2B and B2C markets.

So, take time to learn about the opportunities available with Social Media Marketing and ask us teach you how to benefit from Social Media Optimisation with our workshops.

 

It is a lot to take in. So we have a number of options for you.

Basic Social Media Optimisation 101: 2-hour course

How to use each of the major Social Media media, and then how to combine them to gain massive coverage in your target area or industry.

 

If that isn't enough to make your head hurt, we will show you how all these changes will impact everything you do in your business and how to be on the right side of this marketing revolution.

 

It all started with Facebook... And now there is Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Instagram and maybe the ultimate game changer Google +. How does this jigsaw fit together? That’s where Social Media Optimisation 2017 comes in.

 

Enjoy networking during an interactive hands-on workshop. Bring your Laptop, tablet and smartphone and join in as we teach basic to advanced techniques for Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Even a novice can leave a Twitter expert. This will also be your coolest networking experience in 2016!

 

Business Social Media optimisation 201: 4-hour course

Prerequisite 101 or demonstrated understanding of those techniques.

 

Many businesses conduct their whole business using Facebook business pages.

Google + is not just a social network it is Google’s answer to making search results current and relevant. Because the “traditional” way to rank websites has been replaced by social media activities there needed to be a way to create AUTHORITY. That is why Google + had 300 million users join in the first 24 months!

 

The preferred learning medium for people younger than 30, which is half the world's population, is video. YouTube serves up 1 billion short videos every day! When people want to know about something, they search YouTube for the answer. YouTube is the world's second most popular search engine. You probably need a YouTube channel... We will show you why.

 

Twitter is the most misunderstood of the Social Media platforms. Every major TRADITIONAL media outlet has a Twitter presence... what do they know you don't? After this session you will look again at how Twitter is such a valuable addition to your marketing mix.

 

Instagram launched in Oct 2010 and now has 500 million users who have uploaded 20 billion photos, becoming a social-media phenomenon with an average of 60 million being uploaded per day. Top brands using Instagram include Starbucks, Red Bull and Burberry. Here in Australia, Lorna Jane, Cotton On, Quicksilver, Big W and many more are using Instagram heavily. Brands are using Instagram to communicate with their customers on yet another social media level, as it turns out the platform is more effective than Facebook or Twitter.

 

Pinterest is a relatively new social networking site that is fun, easy, and catching on the hype right now. It allows users to create online image collages, then quickly and easily share those collages – called “pin boards” – with other Pinterest users. Pinterest is great for pinning up the items from your store and letting users see what you have available in the catalogue.

 

Klout measures how popular someone is on social media on a scale of 1 to 100 Its scoring algorithm measures some 400 different factors are taken into account along with 12 social metrics. The higher your Klout the more influence you have when you post to applications like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and more...

 

Learn how to improve your Klout and learn about these platforms and tools and many more

  • TweetDeck
  • HootSuite
  • Bufferapp
  • Tripadvisor
  • Cloudbooster
  • Triberr
  • Kred
  • Meerkat
  • Quora
  • Empire Avenue
  • Scoop.it
  • Periscope
  • Foursquare and Swarm
  • Flickr

You will learn:

facebook_logo-200Facebook Tips and Tricks including:

  • What are the advantages and disadvantages of individual profiles, fan pages and groups as they relate to your business?
  • Business apps will increase your chances of sales
  • How to integrate your web site with your Facebook account
  • What marketing strategy should you use for your Facebook presence
  • How to automate some of the activities and the best way to do that
  • How to schedule using Facebook and Bufferapp

social media icons googleGoogle+ Basics

  • How search engine relevance will depend on your Google + rating
  • How to use Google + to build your brand and personal authority
  • With 1 billion Gmail accounts, you can’t ignore Google + because it will be everywhere

youtube-logo-square-png-i6Video Strategies and Audience Involvement for YouTube and Facebook

  • Instructional videos are a front door to your business
  • Your OWN YouTube channel will encourage people to trust and buy from you
  • Video is easily produced and cameras have been below $100 for some time
  • More YouTube videos are better than a few Quality ones
  • Relying on SEO?? Google favours video over text that should be reason enough.

PrintTwitter Insider Advantages

  • Twitter has changed the way traditional media reports the news
  • Cool Twitter tools

instagram-logo-vector-download-400x400Instagram tips

  • How to create a business account and link it to Facebook
  • Posting pictures
  • Followers and Following – the basics
  • How to use hashtags
  • How to view insights and statistics

Contact us today if you want to come to a Workshop in your City and begin to dominate your industry with your Social Media Presence.

Follow Us On Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces, then connect with me:

Advisory Funding from Government

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The Queensland Government is providing up to $10k in funding to established Queensland-based small businesses to engage business mentors, coaches, or an advisory board, for 6 to 12 months.

The Accelerate Small Business Grants Program provides targeted assistance to small businesses that demonstrate high-growth and employment aspirations, to engage high-level expertise for their business.

Already many people who have wanted to work with us have requested an estimate from us which meets the criteria outlined, so they can put in an application for this grant.

Matching funding of up to $10,000 (excluding GST) may be provided to eligible businesses to engage business mentors, coaches, or an advisory board, for 6 to 12 months. The funding must be matched by a cash contribution from the participating business.

Eligibility criteria

To be eligible for this grant, the business must:

  • have a minimum trading history of 4 years
  • have a minimum turnover of $750,000
  • have a maximum headcount of 20 employees at the time of application
  • have an Australian Business Number (ABN)
  • have Queensland headquarters or significant Queensland operations
  • have competitive opportunities in domestic or international markets
  • be experiencing growth and have clearly defined high-growth opportunities
  • declare if any owners or directors of the business are, or have previously been, bankrupt or insolvent.

This grant is targeted at established Queensland-based small businesses that are financially sound and have the potential for high-growth over the next 1 to 2 years. High-growth is generally considered to be a 20% increase in turnover or employment. The participant must have a business plan in place, and the capacity to access finance to fund the growth of their business.

Participating businesses will need to have a clearly defined opportunity and plan for growth, and demonstrate how engaging external advice will allow the business to achieve these goals.

Only 1 application per year will be accepted from an individual ABN or business address.

Important dates

Applications opened on 25 October 2016 and may be lodged until the annual budget is fully allocated. At this time, the round will close and a new round will open at the beginning of the next financial year.

The participating business must provide a progress report after 3 months and a final report on completion of the project outlining:

  • the advice received
  • how the advice has been implemented
  • the impact on the business
  • the results and outcomes achieved.
  • Businesses will be surveyed 12 months after the completion of the project.

Who should apply

It is expected that participating businesses will be seeking support to manage and finance their business expansion which may include, but is not limited to:

  • increasing employment
  • improving management processes and systems to increase productivity and efficiency
  • introducing product process or systems innovations
  • entering new markets
  • increasing turnover/sales.

To review the eligibility criteria, see the Queensland Government web page.

Contact us today if you want to improve your website and social media presence and establish your expertise in your marketplace.

Office 365 Updates

Lots and lots of changes and updates in Office 365 since my last newsletter. Here are just a few:

Mobile Push Notifications for One Drive for Business and SharePoint

Mobile Push Notifications for OneDrive for Business and SharePoint is a new Office 365 feature. We are currently rolling this out to all customers and we expect to have this rollout completed by December 31, 2016

This new feature will allow end users to receive mobile push notifications when other people share files and folders with them from OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online. Because there will be some data, including the user and file name, passed through Google Cloud Messaging and Apple Push Notification Service, we have also enabled an admin toggle to disable any mobile notifications about content changes in your tenant.

New feature: Copy files and folders from OneDrive to SharePoint

We’re adding the ability to copy files and folders from OneDrive for Business to SharePoint team sites and Office 365 groups.

Users will see this new feature when they select a file in OneDrive for Business and click Copy to. In the Choose destination pane, users will see their SharePoint sites and Office 365 groups in the Recent, Frequent, and Followed lists. Currently, this feature has a 50-MB file size limit. Support for copying larger files is in the works and expected to be fully rolled out by early next year.

New Feature: Focused Inbox – Replacing Clutter

Focused Inbox is a new feature coming to Office 365. Focused Inbox helps you take control of your inbox and focus on the emails that matter most. This is coming to all versions of Outlook that receive updates, to give you one consistent view of the important items in your inbox.

Focused Inbox provides two filtered views of your inbox; Focused and Other. Emails that matter most to you are viewed in the Focused tab while the rest remain easily accessible, but out of the way, in the Other tab. You’ll be informed about new emails appearing in the “Other” tab filtered view, and you can switch between tabs (views) at any time to take a quick look. However, all emails remain in your inbox; no emails are moved. Focused Inbox is a refinement and improvement of a previous feature called Clutter. Active Clutter users will have to opt-in to Focused Inbox, and will be able to do so from an in-app prompt in Outlook.
More info about the removal of Clutter here

There are so many parts to Office 365 it can sometimes be confusing where to start. We often get asked by clients if they should be using SharePoint or OneDrive for Business for example.

Today we are discussing data sharing.

Sharing Data in the Cloud

Storing data in the cloud is an obvious thing to do now, and almost a given for most businesses. If you are yet to decide to store data in the cloud, then maybe review some of our past articles explaining why. The rest of this section assumes you either already are or are or are looking for use cases around collaboration and sharing.

Common locations for sharing data

Scenario

Location

Explanation

The Old Way - email

Email – attached file

Everyone does it – but it needs to stop. Sending an attached file is only ever any good if that file is un editable and for end user only. E.g. a photo, PDF file (sales flyer or document) etc.

Small quantities of personal data, pictures and videos

Dropbox free account (2GB)

Dropbox has a free 2GB account. This is also a great space for iPhone or Android photo backup with the Dropbox App having the ability to automatically upload your photos.

You can create folders and share them with people. All folders are created with read/write or read only access and you have no capacility for any granular permissions. Sub folders and items get the same permissions as their parents. Anyone with the access link can access this data. Its not a very secure way of doing it and shouldn’t be used for business documents or confidential information.

Large quantities of personal data, pictures and videos

OneDrive for Business (1TB)

Your Office365 subscription account has 1TB of space in it for personal storage. Note if you leave the firm or cancel your subscription this space will disappear.

You can share with individuals via email address any file or folder with read or read/write access. Permission is granted at a file or folder level and can be easily removed. Access is via the email link and can be required to be signed in with an account.
Office 365 administrators can audit this for a business.
This shouldn’t really be used for business documents (SharePoint is the right place for that)

A team, subcommittee or small group is created to manage a task or small project.

Data needs to be shared with the entire group and available to all.

Office 365 Group

An Office 365 group includes a distribution list but also includes a shared:

· Inbox for group email communication

· Calendar for scheduling group meetings and events

· Library for storing and working on group files and folders. Use this library to share team documents for collaborative editing

· OneNote notebook for taking project and meeting notes

· Planning tool for organizing and assigning tasks and getting updates on project progress

Files store here are accessible to all users in the group, and online simultaneous collaborative editing is possible.

Internal company information needs to be stored and accessed by all or many (security groups can be used to limit or control access)

SharePoint

SharePoint in Office 365 gives you the ability to create multiple:

· sites (with different security levels)

· document libraries for different functional reasons

· folders for naming similar to your PC

· files for data storage – e.g. Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.

Google Drive documents

Google Drive

The main features of Google drive are:

Browser only access to editing the documents unless you have a compatible program installed on the PC.

Offline access if you sync Google Drive to your PC or Mac

Mobile access

Collaborative editing

Sharing with other Google users

Notes, policy and procedure documents, notes about customers, products, screenshots, web clip items, emails and lots more

Evernote for Business (not free)

Fantastic collaborative tool that can be used by individuals or by business to centrally consolidate large amounts of company data and make it accessible to internal and external users.

Notes, policy and procedure documents, notes about customers, products, screenshots, web clip items, emails and lots more

One Note (free) inside Office 365

Fantastic collaborative tool that can be used by individuals or by business to centrally consolidate large amounts of company data and make it accessible to internal and external users.

Sharing Data is a complex process to define as there are so many ways to do it and so many use cases: Here is one common one for businesses:

A business or team needs to keep track of information and content for multiple people or groups of people and all the projects that they are working on on behalf of the company. Additionally, when information is collected for business, members of the team can save time and gain extra insight when they can easily discover what their co-workers are working on. Finally, businesses have a challenge that individuals don’t - that is, people move on and leave businesses, and the information they’ve collected on behalf of the team should not leave with them. Instead, knowledge collected for the business should be left behind, while information collected for personal use should stay with the individual.

When advising a company with these needs we would analyse all the needs of the business around the following important points before recommending and implementing a solution:

Access – who needs to access what and with what level – e.g. read or read/write

Visibility – should people even see things exist they don’t have access to? (e.g. folders / files)

Online / Offline – do they need online or offline access to items – e.g. when out of internet coverage

Storage – space and storage requirements cost different amounts at different places

Sharing granularity – do we need different level permissions on files and folders?

Contact us if you need help Understanding, Configuring or Using any of these Cloud Data Storage and Sharing options

Office 365 updates

There are so many new things happening on Office 365 – here is a brief summary from Microsoft on some of the latest things – maybe you want to try these, or ask use how you could utilise these in your business.

Office Extra | The latest innovations for Office 365 subscribers New from Office 365 See all the new updates from Office 365clip_image001

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Office Extra | The latest innovations for Office 365 subscribers

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New from Office 365

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Microsoft Planner ready for showtime

Planner introduces a new and improved way for businesses to structure teamwork easily and get more done. Read more

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New Starbucks® for Outlook Add‑in

With the Starbucks for Outlook Add-in, you can easily send Starbucks eGift Cards and schedule meetings at Starbucks stores, directly from your email. Read more

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Office 365 admin app update

This design update for the Office 365 admin app will make it easier and more efficient for you to manage your service using the app. Read more

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June security and compliance update

Announcing a new set of capabilities powered by Microsoft Cloud App Security that gives you greater visibility and control over your Office 365 environment. Read more

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SharePoint mobile app for iOS

Stay connected to important content, sites, portals and people from across your intranet while on the go. Read more

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Three new Sway capabilities for subscribers

Users can now password-protect Sways to limit sharing, enjoy added content limits and remove the default footer at the end of every Sway. Read more

See all the new updates from Office 365

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Contact us today if you want to know how to use any of these new features in Office 365.

 

Follow Us On Social Media

As always Jethro is your web, cloud and technology specialists. I am constantly learning new things and spending time researching, playing and testing new systems and reading about other people in the IT world doing the same thing. If you want to follow along with what I share in various spaces, then connect with me:

• Twitter https://twitter.com/spyjournal technology, cycling, social media, management, business, and web

• Instagram https://www.instagram.com/spyjournal - photos

• LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/jethromanagement

• Delicious https://delicious.com/jethrocon saved links

• Blog http://spyjournal.biz all sorts of stuff including personal and family updates

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What people say..

I learnt some points that enable me to look at my business in the (way) that will improve my bottom line. Thanks Tim and Ian.

Free Business Seminar Feedback Nov 2012

— Roland - Financial Advisor

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