Looking to make your work life just a little bit easier? Well, the good news is that tens of thousands of niche cloud business are also out there spending millions of fevered hours to solve problems just like (and including) yours. The bad news is that having so many options may be a bit overwhelming. Overwhelmed by possibilities, many of us choose to pick none of them. Some people call this “paralysis by analysis.” There are easy ways to get the web to work for you though. But the first step is to decide where you need help.
I have always been a big fan of the 80/20 rule. In a nutshell it says that 80% of your time is spent on 20% of your tasks. If you spend 80% on the good stuff and only 20% on the rest, then you are very fortunate indeed. Most of us have the exact opposite ratio. Wasting 80% of our time on those “little things,” instead of focusing our energy on what we do best.
I’m going to make the assumption that 80% of your time is spent on those mundane tasks. This being the case, your first task is to identify what those mundane tasks are and which ones can be helped via cloud technologies. The first place to look for help is on any activity which involves a piece of paper and a pencil. If you have a task which involves filling out a form or jotting down notes on a piece of paper, the odds are that someone has created a web solution for it. For example, do you currently keep track of inbound packages by logging them by hand? Surely a company has created a package management software to better solve your problem. But how will you find it?
Finding the right piece of package tracking software for your problem involves a little bit of backwards thinking. Imagine that you have just written the piece of software that would solve the problem you’re having right now. What would you call it? What would someone else call that system?
With that name and description in mind, start your Internet search. Most cloud computing software solutions tend to be subscription-based. This means that you pay X dollars a month for use of their system. These software companies have an innate understanding of your problem and how much it tends to be worth. Because of this, they tend to price their products in a way that allows them to be cost-effective for you.
For instance, my company, EZTrackIt is a package logging software solution. We base our pricing on the number of people to whom you deliver packages. This allows for cost-effective pricing, regardless of the size of your institution. Other web-based companies will likely have a similar “pay for what you use” policy.
Since I don’t know what you’re “non-package related” problems are, I cannot help you skip the research. I can however give you a list of my favorite online companies that we use every day:
- Billing- freshbooks.com
- Internal and sharing documents- Google docs
- Finding outside help on projects- Elance.com
- Website/blog creation- WordPress.com
Have specific questions about our package tracking software and cloud technology? Contact us, we’d love to hear from you!
-Patrick
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