Today I am going to explain two principles about using technology in your business and then recommend one product you really need to use.
The first principle is that when it comes to using new technology in a business, your biggest challenge is not the technology, it is your people. Software like Mailroom can make the people in your business way more productive, but to get these advantages they must become less productive for a time while they learn how to use the new technology. Its hard to imagine productivity gains down the road when you feel the pressure to get work done now. If you don’t overcome this, people in your business simply will never adopt your new technology.
The key to solving this problem is to get fast results. Focus on adopting simple tools one at a time. Make sure people see productivity gains from each new tool within a day of effort or less and they’ll be much more likely to want to go along.
The second principle I want to talk about is documentation. If you have more than two or three people in your team, documenting some of the most common procedures and plans in your company is one of the best things you can do for your business. I can’t tell you how much time I have saved when hiring new people or bringing someone onto a project for the first time by simply being able to point them to some documentation and say “read this.” It saves both that person and me hours of back and forth, free us to spend our time on the meaty, more interesting parts of their job.
The perfect tool for this kind documentation is something called a Wiki. Wikis are tools that make it easy to build websites in a small team. If you’ve never used a wiki, you can go here for a little more information.
We use wikis at Sproutit to document everything from server deployment processes to marketing plans. People who get to know us often remark at how well organized we are. We are spread all over the world, yet everyone on our team generally has a good idea of what we are here for and where we are going next. All thanks to our wiki.
Anyway, the point is that wikis are obviously important, but in the past they’ve been pretty difficult to adopt. Most wikis have to be setup on your own server, which is both complicated and expensive. Hosted wiki services such as JotSpot don’t take any setup, but they come with so many features they are not easy enough to learn.
So, finally, my recommendation. Stikipad is a hosted wiki solution that appears to be built on the excellent open-source Instiki wiki package. The greatest strength of Instiki and Stikipad both is that they are both very easy to use and simple to learn. Stikipad goes beyond Instiki, adding better user management tools, a Word-like WYSIWYG writing environment, and it’s hosted so you can get up and running in no time flat. All the while remaining simple to learn and use.
Of course, Stikipad supports RSS feeds also that you can add to your feed reader for that sweet Management by Feeds love.
If you want to save time and keep your team in sync, use a wiki. If you ever hope to get your team to adopt wikis, use a service that is quick to setup, easy to learn, and delivers results fast.
In other words, go get a Stikipad account today. It’s good for you. (And it’s free too!)
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