Avalar San Diego knew that their old website was not going to cut it in today’s rapidly changing and highly competitive real estate industry.  Avalar San Diego turned to vOfficeware to provide them not only a new website, but an entirely new web strategy aimed at gaining customers through the internet.

vOfficeware recommended the following steps:

1. Get a new website design: vOfficeware chose WordPress’ AgentPress theme as the baseline for the website development.  This theme is a highly customizable real estate website solution.  Out of the box, however, AgentPress does not integrate with RETS or MLS data, which was a requirement for the next step.

2.  Gain qualified leads through the website: This means that SEO is a priority for the site so that when users type in “San Diego Real Estate”, they pop up first.  After weeks of searching for an existing solution using WordPress that integrates RETS data into a website without iframes, we stumbled upon a company called ListingPress.  ListingPress was (and still is) in the BETA version of their WordPress real estate listing module, but it very powerful.

3.  Engage potential clients: Being able to personally connect with a customer is critical for any business in these tough economic times.  vOfficeware advised Avalar San Diego to set up a twitter account for their firm in addition to a blog (of course, powered by WordPress).  vOfficeware encourages Avalar San Diego to blog 3 times a week and post these articles to Active Rain (a real estate social networking site).

So there you have it.  A complete Real Estate Solution based around WordPress’ incredible SEO features.

NPSolutions is a nonprofit consulting company that looked to vOfficeware when looking for a reliable vendor to assist in their web consulting / design segment of their business.  NPSolutions, being a nonprofit itself, saw the value of working with vOfficeware when it came to solving design related problems with nonprofits.

vOfficeware recommeded the CMS WordPress for all nonprofits looking to re-do their web presense.  WordPress is a highly customizable CMS with an endless sea of free plug-ins and add-ons, perfect for non profits looking to get a cost effective very very powerful website solution.

The relationship between NPSolutions continues to progress and develop, as vOfficeware is now facilitating in the web marketing aspects of their clients’ website redesigns.

Below are two recent sites developed for NPSolutions using WordPress.

In this article, I am asked a series of questions about my view on how the advent of social networking sites like twitter, facebook and blogging is changing the way mass media outlets operate.  My answers are below:

Q: Rank television among other mass mediums in order of importance from greatest to least.

I watch 30 minutes of TV per day – PTI on ESPN to get my daily sports updates.  For all other news I look for my friends on facebook, twitter and gchat to send me articles that they know would interest me.  I feel overwhelmed watching the News on TV.  Being able to view only new articles that interest me saves me time and the anxiety of watching programs that make me worried about the state of the nation.  I rank TV as a 2 on a scale of 5 in importance of getting the news.

Q: Does television need to find a revenue source outside of advertising to ensure its survival?

Advertising revenue in one form is the only way for television to survive. Online advertising and banners which are found all over websites are still under the category of ad revenue. It is either ad revenue or switch to the business model of premium channels (HBO) and charge a stiff price for their commercial free service. As you can see from Sirius and XM, this business model has varying success.

Q: What digital challenges does television face today?

People want the information they seek on demand. When I flip to FoxNews or CNN on TV, I am forced to watch 20 minutes other news before I get to information that interests me. Online news and social media outlets lets me search for this on the fly.

Q: What solutions can you offer for the television industry?

Keep moving in the direction of engaging your listeners. FoxNews, CNN and other media outlets are letting their listeners be heard on facebook, twitter and via email. Having on going conversations with your listeners, coupled with “expert” opinion interjections keeps people coming back and makes them feel like they are actually being listened to.

In part 3 of 3 of our “IT Essentials” tips I will discuss why disaster preparedness is important and how to give your firm a safety net by establishing a cost effective recovery plan.

Emergencies happen. Some firms are lucky enough to go years without a major disaster and others face major challenges almost on a daily basis. The term emergency implies a sense of surprise. While it is impossible to plan against every disaster, it is prudent to set up a baseline continuity plan.

With regards to technology there are two important rules to follow:

1. All hardware will fail at some point
2. Firms that cannot recover from a critical data loss will go out of business

Recognizing the first rule is the single-most important step in setting up a disaster recovery plan. Even if hardware was 100% reliable, theft, natural disaster, or human error could still wipe away years of knowledge in a single incident. To protect your firm against data loss you must set up a distributed and tiered approach to data backup. These tiers should include local real-time backups, routine backup replication on-site as well as off-site.

Local Real-Time Backups:

Where possible all employee work should be saved to robust network file servers. Employee PCs are generally inexpensive compared to company servers and as such are more prone to failure. IT personnel can lock these machines to force workers to only be able to save their data on the network.

The network servers should be configured with RAID Level 1 or greater. RAID technology allows multiple inexpensive hard disks to act as a single drive. When one physical disk fails it can be quickly replaced without any downtime or data loss. RAID stands for Redundant Array of Inexpensive Disks and should be your first level of backups.

Routine Backup Replication:

RAID will allow continuity through many normal causes of hard disk failure, however a power surge or power outage could zap all disks at once your destroying peace of mind along with it. At least once per day all data should be backed up to another medium and preferably taken off site.

Thanks to the Internet, many firms have provided solutions that can take both of these tasks and merge them into an automatic process. For as about 15 cents a Gigabyte, firms such as Rackspace USA and Iron Mountain will take your data and store it in multiple data centers around the world. Of course you should never totally rely on a third party with your valuable information, however in terms of cost effectiveness there are few better ways of mitigating risk. Using one of these providers you can be rest assured that your data is being stored in the same information processing facilities that power websites such as Amazon.com and Ebay.com. These centers have outages from time to time but have a history of zero data loss.

Many firms “set and forget” their backup solutions. Testing your ability to recover from your backup solution is paramount to ensuring successful recovery after an emergency. If possible you should initiate one full recovery every 6 months. A full recovery should involve recovering all critical data to a machine not normally used for day to day processing. These test sessions will point out any flaws in your backup processes while also providing real-life training for what steps to take should the unforeseen occur.

This tip was provided by Kunal Johar, President of vOfficeware, Inc. Kunal has advised numerous firms on their technology strategy and continues to embrace new trends with his affiliation at The George Washington University.

In part 2 of 3 of our “IT Essentials” tips I will discuss why a website is important and how to give your firm a competitive edge by moving beyond having a simple run of the mill website.

Having a website, even a basic website, for your business is a critical component to ensuring your company is perceived as professional and current.  Unless you offer a retail product or a low cost electronic service, it is unlikely that an unsolicited visitor will purchase something from you just by viewing your site.  Where a site will be useful however is to provide a wealth of information to existing prospects and customers.

As with all other marketing material both content and layout produce a greater impact compared to design and graphics.  Whether you have a website already established or are seeking to deploy a new one you must ensure that you make it easy for the visitor to:

a) Know what you do
b) Engage in business with you
c) Contact you for questions

As an exquisite example, take a look at one of the travel websites such as Expedia.com.  On the first page you have easy access to booking a flight without having to dig deep.  Expedia has a large development team and a large budget to get their website to meet customer expectations, however their lessons can be taken to firms of any size.

Women-owned, MDadmit.com has taken these same 3 ideals and applied them to her basic website.  Within the first 10 seconds of arriving at her page you know she is the person to go to for help with getting into medical school.  The website cleanly describes her services and offers mechanisms to enlist in consulting electronically or to simply contact her for a general inquiry.  The site has no fancy graphics or features yet has been successful in boosting her bottom line significantly.

A professional can develop basic website can run a few hundred dollars and host it for just a few bucks a month.  When possible, be sure to request that your developer uses a Content Management System (CMS).  CMS technology allows you as a candid user to make complex changes to your website without always requiring professional support.  CMS Technology will be discussed in a further tip.

To track the success of your web site be sure the professional installs the free Google Analytics tracker.  This tracker will produce detailed reports to show you how visitors are finding your website and what they are looking at.  Google Analytics too will be covered in a future tip.

This tip was provided by Kunal Johar, President of vOfficeware, Inc.  Kunal has advised numerous firms on their technology strategy and continues to embrace new trends with his affiliation at The George Washington University.

As technology is rapidly becoming more pervasive, it is becoming the critical enabler or critical bottle neck for firms of all sizes.  A prolonged email outage or a substantial data loss can quickly close the doors on a firm of 1 or of 1 million.  Having 24/7 secure access to data is no longer a luxury or a competitive edge, it is a mandate for any firm.

This article is the first in our three-part series of essential setup (Email, Web Presence, Data Security).  These tips are a good read for businesses of all sizes and of all ages.  If your firm lacks a technology strategy, these tips can provide a quick framework of adoption, however if your firm already has heavy investment in IT, these tips can be used to realign the enterprise in the coming years.

Email has now long surpassed the telephone as the primary means of business communication, however so many firms have failed to deploy a robust email solution.  Many small businesses have set up email using their local internet service provider’s “POP” mail server.  Larger enterprises have deployed Lotus Notes or Microsoft Exchange servers.  Each of these solutions has many cons and with the exception of Microsoft Exchange, few pros.

Before we dive into our recommended solution ask yourself the following question.
1) Can I securely get my email from anywhere and can I get access to ALL of my mail or only a part of it?
2) Am I paying too much to get the email on my mobile device?
3) Is my email synchronized between my computer, mobile device, and web access?
4) Am I in control of adding new mailboxes or am I reliant on my IT person?
5) Am I getting too much SPAM?
6) Am I getting good value for what I pay for my email setup?

Most likely your answer to a lot of these questions is a simple, “I don’t know.”  You may have previously treated email as a commodity service and may not have considered the importance a rigorous setup could have on your productivity.

On February 22, 2007, Google unveiled a hosted application service.  As part of this package Google has allowed firms to take control of their email addresses and shared calendars by hosting them with Google.  The service continues to expand and currently offers businesses with up to 50 employees hosting with exceptionally large 7 GB mail boxes for no cost whatsoever.  The emails are continuously backed up through multiple Google data centers.  Using an easy-to-configure IMAP service emails can be synchronized whether they are sent or received from any device including mobile devices and Microsoft Outlook all at no cost either.

Shortly after launching Google Apps, Google purchased and integrated Postini, extremely reliable spam and email security filters, into the email system.  Few systems have such large scale spam blocking solutions while letting you keep email addresses @yourCompany.com.

Google Apps allows a non-tech savvy President or CEO to have control over mailbox management with an intuitive interface.  Small firms may not have a robust IT department on call to quickly freeze an email account should personnel issues arise.  Similarly as a firm grows or as employees turn over, such control can allow for hassle free management of the corporation’s primary communication vehicle.

To get started, visit http://www.google.com/a and opt to use the Standard (Free) Edition.  Google itself has released dozens of how-to videos to help migrate from an old email provider, setup Google Apps on a Blackberry/iPhone, setup Google Apps on Microsoft Outlook, as well as a general overview tutorial of the system itself (http://services.google.com/apps/resources/overviews/welcome/topicWelcome/index.html).  The system can be setup within a few hours by a non-technical person or within less than an hour by a qualified technician.
For larger enterprises or those smaller enterprises requiring larger mailboxes, Google offers a premium service for $50/user/year.  At $50/year per seat, Google is undercutting Microsoft Exchange substantially while taking full responsibility to manage any email related IT issues.

For those firms using Microsoft Exchange + Outlook, you may have just cause for waiting to embrace Google’s hosted email solution.  As explained above, even with Google’s email solution your employees can continue to use Microsoft Outlook.  At the time of this writing however, Google cannot duplicate the synchronized Exchange Calendar.  If your employees are dependent on their “Outlook Calendar” and the ability to view other’s calendars through Outlook, Google’s solution may not be worth the cost savings.

This tip was provided by Kunal Johar, President of vOfficeware, Inc.  Kunal has advised numerous firms on their technology strategy and continues to embrace new trends with his affiliation at The George Washington University.