I’ve recently opened a Slideshare account and uploaded my first Powerpoint presentation.  Like YouTube, Slideshare allows you to syndicate your presentations – presentations can easily be embedded into a website or blog with the nifty Slideshare viewer.

My first presentation ‘The Future of Recruitment and the Web‘ has already been viewed over 260 times in 7 days, so it looks like Slideshare provides a good mechanism for attracting attention to your business.  Importantly, it also figures highly in search engine results.

Most small businesses have presentations that they have created for various conferences or training courses – if they contain publicly-releaseable information, why not put these on Slideshare for the benefit of others?  When dealing with new clients, it’s great to point them to a Slideshare URL to give them an understanding of your expertise.

Other benefits of Slideshare include the ability to integrate it with Facebook and LinkedIn, the ability to add sound to your slides and run webinars, and the ability to view Slideshare presentations on your mobile device.

Here’s the official spiel from the website:

Slideshare is the world’s largest community for sharing presentations.

- Individuals & organizations upload presentations to share their ideas, connect with others, and generate leads for their businesses.
- Anyone can find presentations on topics that interest them. They can tag, download, or embed presentations into their own blogs & websites.

SlideShare is the best way to get your slides out there on the web, so your ideas can be found and shared by a wide audience. Do you want to get the word out about your product or service? Do you want your slides to reach people who could not make it to your talk? Are you a teacher looking to share your lesson plans? It only takes a moment – start uploading now, and let your slides do the talking!

Some of the things you can do on SlideShare

- Embed slideshows into your own blog or website.
- Share slideshows publicly or privately. There are several ways to share privately.
- Synch audio to your slides.
- Market your own event on slideshare.
- Join groups to connect with SlideShare members who share your interests
- Download the original file

Take ten minutes of your time right now to critically assess the tasks that you undertake on a daily basis and ask yourself the following questions:

• Are these tasks critical to the running of my business?
• Could somebody else do these tasks on my behalf?
• Could my time be better spent on something else?

And now ask yourself some questions about things that you want to do with your business, but haven’t got around to doing…

• What activities do I need to do / functionality do I need to implement to grow my business for the long haul?
• Can I realistically do the work myself?
• Would it be more time efficient and effective for a specialist to undertake this work for me?

Outsourcing is the answer!  Just ask Timothy Ferriss, whose bestselling book The Four Hour Workweek is based around the concept of outsourcing.

Over the past year or so, I have really got into outsourcing and it has really changed the way I do business.  My business is currently being assisted by a data-entry service and a web development company in India, a design firm in Singapore and numerous content developers and bloggers in Australia.   These services allow me to concentrate on more important elements of my business, rather than getting bogged down on tasks that can be performed by others.

All I need now is to find a good, cost-effective MYOB bookkeeper in Adelaide…can anyone help?

Thankfully, the web makes it quite easy to source people to help you with your business.  The following sites allow you to post your specification online and receive quotes and responses via the web:

• elance – this is the site that I have used routinely to source the specialists that now assist me with my business.  Write your spec, post it online and wait for the quotes to come rolling in.
• Rent-a-coder – How software gets done!  This site is for outsourcing your web development projects.  Receive bids from
  a pool of over 230,000 registered coders. Review work histories and resumes online, and then conduct business stress-free using the escrow service.
• Guru.com - Find freelancers, get free quotes, and get your project done.
• oDesk - Hire, Manage, and Pay remote contractors as if they were in your office.
• 99designs – Need design work done?  This Australian site uses ‘crowdsourcing’  to have logos and website design templates produced in a short period of time.  Simply post your requirements, offer a ‘prize’ and you will receive a bunch of concepts from designers around the world vying for your prize money.  Pick the best one and the design is yours.
• ServiceSeeking.com.au - An Australian website which is not limited to just web-based work – you can even find a cleaner or a handyman to help you around the house.

Some quick tips for outsourcing:

• Write a good specification – don’t expect your contractor to read your mind!  If the spec is detailed and there is no room for confusion, then there shouldn’t be any disagreements about what is ‘in scope’ and what is ‘out of scope’ at a later stage – this is a common problem and often results in the premature death of projects.
• Pay a deposit with remainder payable on completion – this ensures that the contractor is motivated towards the work and has a goal to work towards.  A full payment up front could mean that the contractor slackens off and doesn’t deliver (particularly if the project is protracted and extends longer than expected); a zero payment up front may not gain the necessary ‘buy in’ from the contractor.  I routinely pay 50-50.
• Apply a project management approach to the work – agree to milestones, a timeline and reporting requirements.  It’s important that this is documented and that both parties understand the other’s expectations.  If this is not agreed, then timelines will blow out and the work will be unstructured.  Make sure that you question the contractor when deadlines or milestones are not met.  For my Getaroom web development project, I have a documented ‘fix list’ that is submitted to me on a weekly basis by the contractor and we converse via Skype on a daily basis.
• Ensure you get ownership of IP – prior to commencing work, you should have the contractor agree expressly to a transfer of ownership (from them to you) of all IP created during the work.  If you don’t own the IP, then it could get messy later on if you want to sell the business.  You’re paying for the work to be done, so it is important that you have full freedom in relation to the concepts, images, code, etc. that is being developed on your behalf.
• Communicate regularly – keep in contact with the contractor – contact them every day if need be.  Answer their questions and make sure that you keep them on track.

Previously I was a sporadic Skype user and was often frustrated by crackly and intermittent voice connections.  From my early experiences with version 4, this seems to have been completely fixed.  I have now had about half a dozen conversations with people locally and interstate (not international yet) and the sound quality has rivalled a normal telephone connection.

Video is markedly better too.  I rarely used this Skype capability before because it had poor refresh rates and often slowed down or stopped due to a lack of bandwidth.  The video capability of version 4 is much smoother, has little or no delay and can operate on the lowest of bandwidths.

I am hoping that Skype 4 will give me a reason not to use my fixed phone or mobile phone for business from now on, thus saving me hundreds of dollars in phone charges.

You can download the latest version of Skype here…

Talking to 'Barrel' in Canberra on the new version of Skype

• WebEquity – a community site bringing together entrepreneurs with business ideas and anyone willing to work on an equity and/or revenue share basis to make them a reality.
• Templates and examples for planning, analysing, designing and testing a website
• How Twitter can help at work
• Copyscape – a tool for finding plagiarism of your content on the web
• A list of niche social networking sites
• And another list of social networking sites on Wikipedia
• How to write for the web by Jakob Nielsen and John Morkes – written over 10 years ago but still pertinent
• Mofuse – create a mobile version of your website or blog
• Google gears down for tough times - For much of its 10-year history, Google spent money at a pace that was the marvel of Silicon Valley. It hired by the thousands and dished out generous perks, including three free meals a day, free doctors, ski trips and laundry facilities, and subsidized personal trainers.  But now the GFC is taking its toll.
• Tubemogul.com - distribute online video to multiple websites
• How to Friend Mum, Dad and the Boss on Facebook - Oh no! Your mom just joined Facebook and what’s even worse, she wants to be your friend. More and more people are finding themselves in this situation today and unsure of what to do. Friending mom and dad, the boss, or other work colleagues opens up the details of your private life for the whole world to see – and you might not be entirely comfortable with that. What’s to be done?
• AddThis explanatory video
• 20 great online image editors
• Mypunchbowl – free e-cards for Christmas, Valentines, etc.
• Kiva – Loans that change lives. Loan money to African entrepreneurs.

I’m a big fan of Sitepoint and their excellent range of books.  They are a real Australian success story – from their office in Collingwood in Melbourne, Sitepoint have become one of the world’s foremost websites and online forums for web development and marketing.

Sitepoint have come up with a plan to help the victims of the Victorian bushfires, which have now claimed the lives of more than 180 people (a figure which is likely to go much higher with at least 80 people still missing). 

You can buy any 5 PDF versions from their book range for $29.95, and the full proceeds will go to the Victorian Bushfire Appeal.  The offer closes on Friday, so head over to http://sale.sitepoint.com to make your purchase now.

Also, I am happy to announce that my own online bookstore, Boomerang Books, will give 10% of our proft for the entire month of February to the Bushfire Appeal.  We have our monthly Discount Day this Friday (20% off the vast majority of books), so I hope that you can visit our site, make a purchase and indirectly contribute to the bushfire victims.

• 30+ Apps for Doing Business on Facebook
• Starting your own Blog? 29 Tips, Tutorials and Resources for New Bloggers
• Twitterholic.com – the Twitter users with the most followers
• Australia’s Top 50 Twitter Influencers
• Where should I place (Google) Ads on my Pages?
• OpenX – open source advertisement serving software
• Email campaign case studies (one good, one bad) from Seth Godin
• Getting ‘fast’ traffic to your Blog

If you have your own web hosting, then you should run a standalone Wordpress installation for your blog – this is fast becoming the standard blogging platform. If you are just starting out, then use the free hosted platform, Wordpress.com. This will enable you to easily port over to a domain-based Wordpress installation at a later time.

Here’s an article that will help you start your first blog:

http://www.problogger.net/archives/2009/01/25/crawl-before-you-walk-6-step-by-step-instructions-for-starting-your-first-blog/

You can get your own counter, in various colours, here:

http://twittercounter.com/?inc=buttons&username=bluetrain

Here’s the article that features the Twitter Counter – there are some other great tips here too:

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/01/25/kevin-rose-10-ways-to-increase-your-twitter-followers/