Though we could not make it to the event, DeskAway was featured at the Proto.in event last week. We were one of the finalists to present at the January 2008 Proto.in event.Thank you Proto.in!!!

We have been using Google AdWords & Analytics for quite some time now (started with Analytics when it was released in end of 2005). These tools let you put up your ads on Google search, measure website traffic, who is doing what, demographics, conversion rates and more. It’s amazing that your campaigns are live in 15-20mins. After a day you can start to measure your efforts.

Within a week it’s easy to calculate ROI. If something requires tweaking, you go back to the site and improve one of your existing campaigns. You are done! Start measuring again….

Simply beautiful!

I don’t think any other offline media offers this kind of a real time, easy to change marketing initiative.

If this kind of a fanatic measure of results is possible in marketing (thanks to the web), then why not in our daily information-overloaded workplace. Keeping client projects aside, what if we could measure and track every small process in our company or group with our very own DeskAway account.

So, here is what we did:

1. Created a new project for HR to have all HR stuff in one place. Our assistant is the project lead:
   1. Ongoing creation of a HR Master Manual.
   2. Uploading of final candidates to interview with comments from the whole team (post the interview).
   3. Uploading of employee NDA and other files.
   4. Create Task Lists of what the assistant has to do.
2. Created a new project for Invoicing
   1. Have all invoices uploaded to the File section.
3. Created a new PR/Media Project
   1. Stores all information that the media houses might require – logos, snapshots of founders, description of service, screenshots etc.
   2. Luckily, we have 2 people from our PR Company also on the project so sharing things with them becomes very easy.
4. Monthly Planning project – this is my personal project where I keep a track of what I (as the founder) have to do to run this business smoothly.
   1. On the first of every month I load a template (using our new Templates functionality) that serves as a guide to me for the rest of the month. This template has task lists that are broken down into Project Management, Online Marketing, Daily, Sales, R&D, Features, and Legal etc. Each Task List has tasks associated with what I have to do, look at or just monitor (e.g. Google Analytics or AdWords).
5. Network Administration Project – this is our network guy’s space.
   1. We post issues related to our computers and network.
   2. Complex and hard to understand Unix commands, network procedures are documented within the Doc section of this project.
   3. Hours are added to the timesheet so we know how much time we are spending on network related issues.
6. Company Website project – this is where we plan and delegate the next set of changes that goes live on our corporate and product site.
   1. Each major page on our site has a Task List. Whenever there is change to that page, a new task is delegated out to the web designer.

With Personal Email Reminders, each and every team member is up to date with what he/she has to do. Just like how Analytics & AdWords help us measure our online marketing initiative, DeskAway helps us measure our daily workplace progress, set higher standards and make our employees feel on track!

Do you use DeskAway in any another way? We are eager to hear about it!

Deploying Your PS Service Delivery Infrastructure (From http://www.fmfieldguide.com)

You don’t have to break the bank in order to deploy and manage your Professional Services Delivery Infrastructure effectively. Here’s a listing of very good (and very reasonably priced) solutions that work together to help you effectively acquire, service, and collaborate with your customers.

Check out this list on the FM Field Guide Website

Templates are re-usable portions of a project that can be used in creating other similar types of projects. 

We will take an example of a Web Design project (a very very simplified version) which have multiple milestones, task lists and tasks. Since this process is followed for all design clients, it would make sense to create a template and then use this template is all our design projects! 

Below are 3 milestones having task lists and tasks for every design project.

• Initial Planning

1. Proposal
   • First Meeting
   • Send Proposal
   • Second Meeting
2. Agreement
   • Send Agreement
   • Sign Agreement
3. Kickoff
   • Get stuff from client

• Design

1. Layout
   • Complete webpage layout
   • Approve from client

• Take Live

1. Hosting
   • Approve hosting provider
   • Upload files and take live
   • Show to client

So, for every new project of this kind, we could load this template and start the project immediately! Save time anyone?

Read the Project Template FAQ’s 

In this article, Browser Security: IE vs. Safari vs. Firefox (SmallBusinessComputing.com), Kenneth van Wyk talks about the security issues between the Internet’s 3 most popular browsers. Our favorite here at DeskAway is hands-down FireFox!