Holliman Column
The holidays are a time for being with one’s family, giving thanks and reflecting on all things that are truly important in our lives. This is also a time where we vacate our diets and prior year’s resolutions resulting in gains of a nonmonetary nature, the regrettable holiday love handles. With the upcoming year the process starts all over again, deals are made to make up for previous years broken resolutions to shed some pounds and make a few extra dollars. As we focus on the New Year we should include one more item on our promissory list of goals and that’s to get our businesses into shape. Just as we prepare to hit the gym in the New Year to atone for our dietary sins we should also focus on shedding unnecessary costs and inefficiencies in our real estate programs. The following are several tips that can be used in 2011 to leverage technology and add more efficiency in your business:
- Don’t be location specific. In the good ole days (pre-recession) we lived in a business society that was office centric and everything revolved around the main office. The very moment the day began we would start by saying things like, “I have to hurry up and get to the office” or “I have to open up” we were literally in a state of servitude to the workplace. Fast forward a few years and the trend favors the advantage of wireless, as portable electronic devices mechanize the office allowing you take it with you on the go. This mobile strategy provides more freedom and gives you more access to the most valuable commodity of all; your time.
- Let technology do the heavy lifting. Currently there is more processing power in your mobile phone today than the entire US Defense Department had just 30 years earlier. Mobile phones are a technology with limitless function and application. The cell phone is definitely a tool that you should focus on maximizing in 2011. Every real estate practitioner should take advantage of the mobile phone functionality and use it as a calculator, text messaging device, e-mail, internet browser, rolodex, file storage, digital camera, conference caller and let’s not forget to mention it can also be used as a telephone. In addition the sidekick to the mobile phone is the trusty notebook computer that can leverage broadband Wi-Fi connections and mobile air cards allowing for a truly portable business.
- Conduct your business in the clouds. Let me ask you a question; do you still use Outlook to check your e-mail? If so why? Programs like these handcuff you to your office computer causing you to miss timely opportunities as important information is being sent that you can’t receive. The solution to this problem is very simple; conduct your business in the clouds. This process means using remote server-based technology via the Internet. Companies like Yahoo and Google offer business solutions that include high-capacity e-mail (you can literally use your e-mail account as a digital document storage), spreadsheets, word processors and PDF applications. These value added business applications are absolutely free. Search online at Google.com and click on the link titled “business solutions” were you can access all the business applications and set up a free email account.
We currently live in exponential times where the business trend is primarily technology driven. What’s more interesting is how far and how fast we’ve come in a short period of time. The first commercial text message was sent on December of 1992, today the total number of text messages sent and received daily exceeds the total population of our planet. There are about 540,000 words in the English language five times as many as during Shakespeare’s time and it is estimated that a week’s worth of the New York Times contains more information than a person was likely to come across in a lifetime in the 18th century. It is estimated that 4 exabytes (4.0×10^19) unique information will be generated this year which is more than the previous 5,000 years combined. NTT Japan has successfully tested a fiber optic cable that pushes 14 trillion bits per second down a single strand of fiber optic that’s enough data to process 2,660 DVDs or 210 million phone calls every second. This technology is tripling every six months and is expected to do so for the next 20 years. During the five minutes it took you to read this article 67 babies were born in the US, 274 babies were born in China, 395 babies in India and 694,000 songs were downloaded illegally.
So don’t delay time is of the essence embrace technology and remember, not only is it important for us to lose the weight around our waistline it is equally important to shed a few unproductive inefficiencies in our businesses as well.
I rckeon you are quite dead on with that.