In The Indo

There’s a piece in today’s Irish Independent about using online applications for business featuring Annette Clancy, Krishna De, Jason Fried and me! When Marie Boran, the journalist who wrote the piece, got in touch with me I had to sit for a minute and think about whether I use many applications at all. I suppose I never made a conscious decision to conduct my business this way, it came along gradually. As problems presented themselves I went looking for solutions. As Annette says in the piece, I have to see an obvious use for something or else I won’t take it on either. I think Marie did a really good job of summarising some of the applications that are out there for small businesses but there were a few others specific to me that weren’t mentioned but that someone might find useful:

Flickr was the first obvious solution to the problem of hosting and showing photographs. I was already using it to show personal shots so it was a natural progression to set up different accounts to upload photographs for large events. If I am hired to photograph a seminar or workshop where many people need to see the photographs and download them I set up a dedicated Flickr account. To upload four days worth of photographs to my own site would soon eat up my bandwidth so Flickr is great for this. It’s not perfect…I can’t password protect it…it’s either public or can just be seen by those who join and become my “friends” which isn’t practical. However, while I’m on the lookout for other options, Flickr is a godsend.

Blueface solved the problems we had when Eircom didn’t seem to want us to have a landline. In the article it says that I use Skype which I do, but for most of my business these days I have Blueface. The reasons I don’t really use Skype for this is that we wanted an Irish landline number which Blueface gives us. Also for a flat fee of about €15 a month I get free UK and Ireland phonecalls and don’t have to pay any line rental! Our mobile phone bill is about half what it used to be.

And then of course there’s blogging. I was surprised to see no mention of it in the article although perhaps it might not be seen as an application in the same way as the other tools are. However the free WordPress software has given me a website where before I wouldn’t have had a clue how to get myself online, all I’ve had to pay for is the hosting cost and the domain name. I’m also experimenting with using blogging software to run my photography site, this means I can run a hacked photoblog template while I teach myself CSS.

So, I guess I do use quite a few online applications and I’m always on the lookout for others. As long as they help me to save time rather than waste it!