Creativity and Innovation in a Budget Meeting
by December 2nd, 2008 Patrick Greer
I’m going to continue the series on New Media Authority after this post but over the weekend we had an interesting meeting focusing on our companies budget thinking about things we could cut that were draining us but more importantly we made extensive list of the software, hardware and services we used. After we made the lists we asked an important question, “Is their anything listed that we are not using to it’s fullest potential?” Before I get to those I will share what we have cut;
We are dropping our online fax service - Rapidfax. We have nothing against the company, in fact we have been pleased with the service however even with offline faxing we have issues with supporting that old and inefficient technology. We also were not getting our money’s worth of service each month. We don’t even use close to the volume of 300 inbound or outbound fax pages. If we absolutely have to send or receive a fax we will look at “per use” options but you will not a see a fax number on future business cards. On a positive note we will be supporting PDF technology heavily in terms of training our clients and being experts in the area. If our “faxing” needs do increase we will look at the option of an “online fax service” but we will highly discourage the use of the traditional fax machine.
Another thing we are dropping is an ad/listing in the print edition of the Yellowbook telephone directory. I know that sounds crazy. Boo hoo, we won’t be listed next to our other local competitors. Guess what? We are paying a significant amount for our ads and we have not received a dime of revenue from it in the past year. Just like like faxing we don’t support the creation of bulky phone books either. The last time any “yellow page” phone book was delivered to our home or business I did not even place them on a shelf. They went directly to the recycle bin without being used. Imagine how much energy could be saved if these inefficient directories were not published in bulk like they were. It was bad enough when it was one “yellow page” directory now I know of at least three I throw in the recycle bin. If the business directory companies offer a “new media” only option we are open to that option.
Enough of the negative what did we discover when we looked at the software and hardware we were using? What did we have that could bring the greatest possible revenue and yet we were not using to the fullest?
In the area of hardware our photography equipment stuck out as something that brings us the best immediate revenue and yet we are not utilizing is like we should that will change big time. After that our sound equipment is going to be utilized more for podcasting.
In our software collection three applications or suites were revealed as tools were not taking advantage of as much as we should. One was a screen recording software called Screenflow. It creates video of tasks we do on our computers. We wil definitely be using this more for training. Also as much as we use the Adobe Suite of products (Photoshop, Acrobat, Illustrator and InDesign as well as Bridge) we are not taking it to the next level. In addition to our own use look for training options from us in the near future. Finally this past year we acquired the Concept Draw Office Suite which includes mindmapping, project management and organizational illustration software. We will not only be using this more for our own purposes but we will be providing some innovative services through it’s use.
It’s true, financial times are tough and challenging but you and your company may be richer than you think. What great technological tools and services have great potential but are going under utilized. What antiquated technologies are wasting you money or are just around to support others who refuse to take advantage of more efficient means of communication and working?
December 2nd, 2008 at 1:47 pm
This could be my most favorite post from you folks. Wow. I will be checking out everything you have laid out here. Thank you for your wisdom and your willingness to share it.
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:10 pm
Hey Patrick,
I came across your post and thought I’d mention Myfax as an alternative to Rapidfax. I don’t know how much Rapidfax charges, but MyFax is about $10 a month. Check it out at http://www.myfax.com. Good luck!
December 2nd, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Rapidfax is about the same but technically a better deal. Yes, I know it’s not “that” expensive but it more a matter of principle with us. Why pay $10 a month for something we only use 1 or 2 times a month at the most. If we had that kind of volume it would make perfect sense but even so as a new media company we want to do out part in contributing to people not relying on the older technology of the fax machine. I know online fax service that use PDF like technology are much better than fax machines. If we absolutely need to receive or send a fax they are better per use options out there.
We don’t wish to advertise a fax # on our business card as we feel we are better served using that space for more productive marketing connections.
December 10th, 2008 at 3:49 pm
I reached the same decision last year about fax technology that you did. We can still hook up our old machine when we need to but we did away with the dedicated line. For the rare incoming fax, we arranged a free account with http://www.k7.net and all we have to do is make sure we get at least one fax per month to keep our special number. If we don’t get one, we just send ourselves one. K7 is nice because it sends incoming faxes as email attachments and we get them that way.