Stuart R. Crawford

2009 – A Year In Review

Another year has come and gone.  Are you happy to see the backside of what many are calling a challenging year? I believe many of my colleagues, peers and friends are excited about what 2010 has to offer and glad the backend of 2009 is here.  For me, New Years is just another day, really it simply is.  There is nothing really exciting about it for me at least.  I can guarantee this, I will be in bed well before the clock strikes midnight here in the Mountain Time zone and after I have my fill of our traditional New Year’s Eve meal of Toi Chan Chinese food.  It just isn’t that big of a deal for my family.

2009 was a great year for me personally.   I was so blessed to have learned a lot about who I am, what I am here on this earth to do, who I am meant to serve (I can see it in people’s eyes, that is why I know) and most importantly what I want to do when I grow up.  You think at 40 I would have known this already, but boys mature later in life.

I have been looking forward to December 31st for over a year just for one particular reason. Today I finally get to close the closing chapter with my departure from a previous IT firm I worked for in the past.  This now allows me to focus now on what I need to do in 2010.

One of my key learnings from the past 365 days was to lessen my dependency on technology (Remember: I switch to a paper based daily planner).  What do I mean lessen our dependency on technology?  Many of us use IT and computer systems every day inside and outside of business.  I believe many of us have lost the fine art of communication.  I have seen people hide behind email at lost the art of  picking up the phone and speak with a person.  Long winded and pointless emails are frustrating for me, pick up the phone and call me if you have something to say.  We have this love affair and attachment to our Microsoft Outlook calendar and Outlook tasks which I have seen people miss meetings/appointments, causing challenges and upset.  Technology as I mentioned a few days ago is not the “be all, end all” to any business, people are, sales are more important and having a healthy balance sheet is how we are judged.  Not on how well we do email!

Over the past few days I have been doing some thinking around the IT industry in general, it is a business in total confusion and very unsettled.  Our world is rapidly adopting a free model or nearly free and many smaller businesses are beginning to finally realize what is available for their business online.  Google Mail is a leader in the free world, for example Google’s mail, calendar, and many other of their tools offers small business the opportunity to host their own email, share calendars, engage in voice calls and collaborate with others all for free and you have up to 8 GB of email storage.  If you want to pay $50.00 per year you can get 25GB of storage and some additional features.

I was introduced to an online calendar service called Tungle.me the other day, now you can see my availability online for free. Tuggle syncs easily with Google’s Calendar (free) and your Microsoft Outlook (free tool).  Check out my availability and you can even request a meeting with me through my Tungle site.  Tuggle is a Canadian firm out of the Montreal area.

And the list goes on and on….

So what is happening to our beloved industry?

Is it time to change the way we look at stuff before we are made redundant?

All of these questions to these disturbing new free technologies is what gets me up in the morning and ready to figure this all out, even when I would just rather pull the sheets over my head and go back to sleep.  I question myself each day on what I need to do right now to help my clients tomorrow.

Frankly, I am pumped about what 2010 has in store, there will be changes and there will be many opportunities for those who see them.  I know we can not rest of simply offering businesses computer support.  All IT firms who focus on small business must change and the ones who will really hit a home run have already made the move to figure out everything.  Blending in the best of the free services, Social Media, teaching instead of supporting and consulting instead of fixing.

What are you going to do differently in 2010?

PS:  Tungle gets customer service as well.  When you sign up with an account the CEO emails you.  Pretty impressive!