When Twitter started out, it asked people to answer the question “What are you doing?” in 140 characters or less. And so tweets were: “Eating a cheese sandwich” or “Stopping at Starbucks for morning coffee.”

Yawn.

But it didn’t take long for Twitter to evolve well beyond “What are you doing?” tweets. It quickly became a place where people shared information, made connections and where businesses began to engage with customers in an entirely new way. A kind of online water cooler, Twitter shapes conversations and interactions, giving people a way to comment on everything from breaking news and TV shows to the weather and sports.

Here are a couple of great stats from an article on SocialMediaToday.com that demonstrate the power of Twitter:

• It took three years, two months and one day for Twitter to hit the 1-billion tweets mark. Today, it takes just a week for Twitter to hit that same 1-billion mark.
• Twitter reports 572,000 accounts were created on March 12, 2011, and 460,000 new accounts were created each day on average in February 2011.

That’s a lot of tweets – and a lot of people. If your business isn’t on Twitter, you’re missing an opportunity to reach those potential customers. It’s also a way to engage with current customers by providing them valuable information, answering questions and giving them a vehicle to promote your product or service.

While many businesses create a Twitter account, not all of them keep it going. One of the keys is to maintain a regular presence on Twitter. That means tweeting regularly and engaging in conversations on Twitter. Don’t just spit out information or promotional tweets, be part of the Twitter community. By doing so, you’ll find current and potential customers turning to you as a reliable resource and a solid brand.

Is your business using Twitter? How does it help?

Be sure to follow Spirit Telecom on Twitter @NoStaticST.

• Pick a tone and a focus. It can funny, informational, high-tech, not tech, customer-service oriented – just pick one and stick with it.
• Keep it updated. Make sure your company blog is updated on a regular basis – at least once a week so you keep people coming back for more.
• Promote it. Make sure the blog is prominent on the homepage of your website and link to your posts on your Twitter and Facebook accounts as well as in any email newsletters you send.

Here’s a good article from SocialMediaToday.com that looks at the 10 best corporate blogs. Among the favorites are Caterpillar, Starbucks, Whole Foods, Marriott, Manpower and GE.  They have varying goals from customer engagement to brand awareness or simply to compliment an already strong company brand (Whole Foods, Patagonia and Southwest).

Yet one key component to a good company blog is to keep it simple. Don’t get caught up in industry jargon and don’t constantly be trying to sell your products so your blog becomes one large advertisement. Make it a resource people bookmark and return to time and again.

Do you have a company blog? What lessons have you learned from it? How has it benefited your business? 

Those are more simplistic examples, but do illustrate the concept of working in a web-based world whether accessing your holiday photos or running a sophisticated piece of software for your business.

Cloud computing has even gotten the attention of the U.S. government. According to a March 7 article in The Washington Post, the TechAmerica Foundation is leading the effort to create a commission that will “make recommendations to the federal chief information officer and the commerce secretary.”

The Obama administration is pushing government agencies to use cloud computing whenever it can as a way to reduce costs and increase efficiencies. According to the article, “The commission is expected to address the way the government should deploy cloud technologies and consider policies that could advance the cloud-first initiative.”

What are your thoughts on cloud computing? Are you using it in your business to save money? Do you have any concerns?

While the iPad is great for surfing the net from your couch while watching your favorite sitcom, the tablets are also finding a solid spot in the business world.

This article from Silicon.com reports that nine months after the iPad came on the scene, Apple found “80 percent of Fortune 100 companies had either deployed or were piloting the table device” with another 67 percent of CIOs planning to incorporate tables this year. Half of those CIOs are also planning to purchase tablets for their employees this year.

Tablets make sense for businesses. Compared to a laptop, they are less expensive but offer much of the same functionality. Compact and light, they’re great for business travelers. They also offer businesses a chance to become paperless – load documents, memos and reports on the tablet for easy reading and save on printing and paper costs while being kind to the environment.

Is your business using tablets or does it have plans to purchase iPads for employees? Let us know the benefits tablets offer your business.

Does your company pay for your phone or maybe half your phone bill? If so, does that mean you are literally on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week? If your company owns the phone, it’s highly likely your boss will be tracking your movements.

A recent article from McClatchy Newspapers points out how office-issued phones blur work and personal lives. Companies can monitor every personal phone call from your child’s school and every text from your husband.  Some more extreme situations may results in firings and litigation.

“As mobile phones become commonplace work tools, the legal and practical boundaries around the devices are becoming a hot issue,” the article notes. “Companies are grappling with policies and a growing number of lawsuits by employers and employees are cropping up over concerns ranging from privacy and liability to expectations and etiquette.”

But in this era of constant communication and obscurity of a true “day off,” companies need to be realistic and understand personal calls pop up during the day and, at the same time, employees may be responding to work-related e-mails on their BlackBerry from their living room.

The bottom line is that companies need to be clear on their expectations. Have a policy, establish some ground rules and work with employees to manage expectations and whether you want employees on call at all hours or can they turn the phone off on weekends.

Do you have an office-issued cell phone? Does your company have a policy? Share your experiences with us.

As we highlighted in a blog post on this topic last year, IPv6 will provide a much larger pool of numbers for use as IP addresses. Expressed mathematically, IPv4 provides addresses equal to 2 to the 32^nd power or about 4.2 billion. IPv6 provides addresses equal to 2 to the 128^th power. Two, times two, times two, etc. … 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses to be exact.

We’ve come a long way from 1969 when the Internet began as a research tool. Since then, we’ve exhausted more than 4 billion IP addresses.

Regarding these final IPv4 address, this blog post from The Wall Street Journal notes, “The batches of numbers were distributed to five regional addressing organizations around the globe, who will allocate the numbers to ‘service providers’ – a broad group that includes Internet operators, Web companies and others – over the coming months.”

Most likely consumers won’t feel any impact from the switch to IPv6 – which will happen over several years – but it’s certainly interesting to reflect on the fact we’ve reached a new level in our use of the Internet.

The announcement was part of Obama’s State of the Union address last month and calls for making “500 megahertz of wireless airwaves, or spectrum, available over the next decade to meet the growing demand for broadband services, including the widely popular Apple iPad and proliferation of smartphones,” according to this Reuters article.

The article also quotes Obama as saying, “This isn’t just about a faster Internet and fewer dropped calls. It’s about connecting every part of America to the digital age.”

A November 2010 report on home broadband Internet adoption in the United States used Census data to assess broadband access and usage. Findings included:

• 7 of 10 American households used the Internet in 2009.
• Income and education are strongly associated with broadband Internet use at home.
• Broadband Internet adoption was higher among white households than black or Hispanic households in 2009.
• Urban residents are more likely than rural ones to adopt broadband Internet access.
• Lack of need or interest, lack of affordability, lack of an adequate computer, and lack of availability were all stated as the main reason for not having home broadband Internet access.

So in reviewing these findings would you agree the government needs to make an investment in wider broadband access? Share your comments!

While most companies do their best to keep IT costs in check, a survey of more than 300 top IT execs reveal that 54 percent plan to grow their budgets this year – quite a jump from May 2009 when only 14 percent planned a budget bump.

According to this survey, mobile devices and applications will be the recipients of these funds, in large part as a way to improve employee productivity and efficiency.

Rick Peltz, CIO of brokerage firm Marcus and Millichap, says mobility is crucial to the work of his company’s 1,200 brokers. “Any type of mobile device is a big benefit to them and it leverages their ability to foster relationships away from the office.”

Are you planning to spend more on IT this year? How will you allocate the money? What’s the best value for your spending this year?

The survey was an initiative of Smart Brief, which publishes free e-mail newsletters that provide top stories and news for various industries.

The State of Social Media for Business 2010 report found that most companies surveyed have adopted the use of social media in the past 18 months, using primarily Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and blogs.

That’s the good news. The bad news is that 60 percent of respondents say that even though their companies are using social media, they have little confidence in their social media strategies. Our guess this stat may be tied to another finding in the report: While companies have a primary goal of using social media to build their brand, most are using the tools to push information out rather to engage customers and potential customers in a two-way conversation.

That engagement and conversation is the key to harnessing the power of social media. Consumers are bombarded with messages and sales pitches all day long. Businesses shoving information out via Twitter and Facebook are simply part of the noise. The trick it to engage with consumers so they develop a relationship with your brand that is more likely to lead to a real return on investment.

Share with us how you are using social media in your business. Or are you struggling to get started?

1. Password Overload: Seems we struck a cord with a common affliction. We’re torn between creating a cryptic password and actually remembering the password. This blog post offered some tips for both.
2. ‘I’ll Be Out of the Office …’: Who hasn’t gotten a vacation voicemail greeting that’s three weeks out of date? This post offers some good tips on recording a useful out-of-office voicemail greeting (such as providing the name and number of a colleague who can offer immediate assistance) along with a video poking fun at our favorite voicemail greeting pet peeves.
3. Using Video for Business: With easy-to-use tools like a Flip video camera and basic editing software, it’s not tough to create a video promoting your business. This post has tips on doing it right, such as not making the video too technical and filled with industry jargon.
4. Unsubscribing From Your Company E-Newsletter: This post took at look at ice cream giant Ben & Jerry’s decision to forego its e-mail marketing in favor of social media. Even though social media may be less costly for your business, should you completely eliminate the e-newsletter?
5. Even Volcanic Ash Isn’t an Excuse to Miss Work: Like it or not, technology has us so connected that sick days, snow days and even personal days are practically obsolete. We also found last April that even volcanic ash isn’t an excuse to miss work. As ash clouds floating over Europe put a halt to travel, businesses turned to conferencing to keep work flowing and meetings moving.

Were these posts among your favorites? What’s your top pick? What topics should we cover on the No Static Blog in 2011?

Yet, the lion’s share of businesses need – and have – Internet access. The report found 95 percent of U.S. businesses with five or more employees do have at least one broadband connection. Just more than half of businesses don’t know their connection speeds but are satisfied with their service.

If you were polled on your Internet, would you be satisfied? We all know good Internet access is as important to business these days as having a telephone so when the Internet goes down it can practically cripple your business. What would you change about your business Internet experience – faster speed, cheaper price or better customer service?

Tweet

First, Facebook announced its plans for a new messaging system designed to take the place of e-mail and streamline our conversations. Second, a study out in November from Gartner Inc., an information technology research and advisory company, suggests 20 percent of employees will use social networks as their business communication hub by 2014.

The idea is an erosion of e-mail vs. instant messaging or e-mail vs. Facebook message. In a few years, it will all blend together. Yet that means businesses have to come along for the ride. Currently many companies block social networking sites from company computers – will that change? It may have to.

Here’s a comment from Monica Basso, research vice president at Gartner: “In the past, organizations supported collaboration through e-mail and highly structured applications only. Today, social paradigms are converging with e-mail, instant messaging (IM) and presence, creating new collaboration styles. However, a truly collaborative, effective and efficient workplace will not arise until organizations make these capabilities widely available and users become more comfortable with them. Technology is only an enabler; culture is a must for success.”

Are you ready for the coming changes in the way we communicate?

You might think that’s a strange way to frame the issue of Internet Protocol addressing, but the truth of the matter is your staff must learn a new addressing scheme while maintaining the old one.

And they are going to have to do it soon. The world is running out of IPv4 addressing for the Internet, and IPv6 has been developed to meet the demand of an every growing Internet universe.

According to the American Registry of Internet Numbers (ARIN) and the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA), which oversees IP addresses worldwide, the old address will run out sometime in 2011 or 2012.

The Internet eventually will move to IPv6, a hexadecimal notation that will provide a much larger pool of numbers.

How much larger? Expressed mathematically, IPv4 provides addresses equal to 2 to the 32^nd power or about 4.2 billion. IPv6 provides addresses equal to 2 to the 128^th power. Two, times two, times two, etc. 340,282,366,920,938,463,463,374,607,431,768,211,456 addresses to be exact.

It’s hard to believe that since the Internet began as a research tool back in 1969 that we would have exhausted more than 4 billion addresses used to locate computers on the network.

But, that’s the way it is.

To prepare your staff for the impending change, Spirit Telecom has developed two courses on IPv6:  One to introduce the concept and another to become an expert at it.

Each course includes extensive hands-on training using Cisco equipment and multiple lessons over four days. The instructor for the course is Cisco certified and wrote the manual on IPv6 training.

Kevin Billings, an engineer who started working here in 1994, after successfully operating an ISP business, has taken online courses in IPv6 and has been through the hands-on training. “The practical application of the technology really helps you to understand it and learn it.”

Our next introduction course is Oct. 11-14. Our next advanced course is Nov.  8-11.

Learn more about the courses and how to sign up at: http://spirittelecom.com/courses.php

An article in the current issue of Fast Company magazine addresses this very issue, noting how Japan is ahead of the curve in terms of using your phone for purchases. But the United States is catching up fast, this article notes: “This year, eBay expects U.S. consumers to buy roughly $1.5 billion worth of goods using its smartphone apps.”

Is this convenient or creepy? Will people accept this as just another move toward a technologically driven society or will fears of identity theft leave some skeptical? Let us know what you think. Are you banking or buying with your phone?

Now, if we could just figure out a way for our phones to make the money…

This article from ComputerWorld highlights the low IT worker morale and sinking job satisfaction. A 2009 job satisfaction survey by advisory firm Corporate Executive Board found job satisfaction among all workers continues to decrease. And among the IT workers it surveyed, it’s just as bad.

From an article citing the survey:

The CEB’s latest survey found that the willingness of IT employees to “exert high levels of discretionary effort” – put in extra hours to solve a problem, make suggestions for improving processes, and generally seek to play a key role in an organization – has plummeted to its lowest levels since the survey was launched 10 years ago.

IT workers typically work way more than 40 hours and are on call to handle problems – even on days off or vacations. One of the best ways to improve morale is to reduce the hours. People are less productive when they’re maxed out, stressed out and tired, so pushing for 60- and 70-hour work weeks isn’t effective.

Look for ways to become more efficient by streamlining processes, automating reporting functions or offering more training so employees can do their jobs better.

Check out this article for some more tips on boosting morale and let us know what suggestions you have.

So, once a business decides to invest in video conferencing, the next step is weeding through the many options for the best solution. Your first reaction may be to go with the free service, but that might not be a good fit for your business and its unique needs.

Before you fire up the webcam, here are five things to look for in a video conferencing service:

1. 24-hour technical support. If you have an important call with a large perspective client scheduled for 6 p.m. and have a technical question, the last thing you want to see is that customer service closed at 5 p.m.
2. Similarly, find out if local support is available. You may need an actual person to come by your office and assist with setup or solve a problem.
3. Look for the ability to add multiple people to the video call – and confirm the quality of the call will be consistent whether you have three people or 30.
4. Can you share documents and computer screens? It’s great to see people face to face and it’s even better to see the website or strategy document they are referencing during the call.
5. Possibly the most important consideration is security. Can the provider guarantee a secure, encrypted connection or is your call floating on the public Internet for any hacker to see?

The bottom of the barrel is an aol.com e-mail address, which made us chuckle. (No offense to our readers with aol.com addresses, but you have to admit it’s a little funny).

We bet you know someone on this list. We’d love to hear about it (no names needed).

Because of the plethora of passwords we have to create, most of us tend to select just one or two so we can try to remember them. Or, we end up writing them down. Neither of those are probably good options. A simple password means asking someone to hack your Facebook account and send strange messages to all your friends. And if you write all your passwords down, you never know when that list might get lost or stolen.

So, how do you create a strong password – and how do you remember it?

• Make your password long. A short password, such as “Fido,” is easy to crack.
• Use a combination of letters, numbers and symbols.
• Create a system in which you replace letters with numbers. For example, use “3” in place of the letter “e” or use “0” in place of the letter “o.” You can use a system that works for you so it’s easier to remember.
• Avoid obvious passwords, such as your birth date, your child’s name or some variation of your name (your middle name or maiden name, for example).
• Don’t use the same password for every account.
• Change your passwords regularly.
• Be cautious of online password-keeper websites. Yes, this is a great way to manage your many passwords, but if someone hacks that site, that person has access to everything.
• If you do write your passwords down, make sure you keep them in a secure location. Avoid writing down passwords for particularly sensitive websites, such as your bank.

Check out this article from Microsoft for additional tips on generating passwords and password safety. Also, this article has tips on how to remember passwords as well as suggestions for password management systems.

Beginning Monday, May 17 and running through May 23, we’ll post a daily clue on our Facebook page. The answers to the clues will be somewhere on our Spirit website, blog, YouTube channel or maybe even on the Facebook page itself. The answers will be a number or series of numbers that will make up the winning combination that unlocks the grand prize.

The first person to post the winning combination on the Facebook page wall on May 23 will win an iPad. Players must be friends of the Spirit Telecom Facebook page to participate and be eligible to win.

Good luck!

Just last week on this blog we addressed the importance of using business quality video versus a free service like Skype. Even though, Skype (most likely followed by other similar services) is branching out into group chat, there are still good reasons for businesses to use a service that is truly geared toward business use.

1. We provide 24-hour technical support for our Spirit On Demand video and Web conference users.
2. We’re a local company based in the Carolinas working with Carolina businesses, so we understand your needs.
3. We have the ability to accommodate 50 participants in a single meeting.
4. Anyone on the video conferencing call can be given the opportunity to share documents or applications.

How are you using video conferencing for business? Have you tried free services? Let us know what you think.