An Enrique Dans blog style!

Do you want to have a blog with your own domain name? 

How to migrate your wordpress blog to a personal domain?  

You may wonder why you would wanna do this in the first place...


Wordpress.com is free to use, but it gives you very limited functionality. For example, if you want to have your facebook page on your blog, or simply a countdown plugin or any other plugin for that matter, it is simply not possible!

So if you are planning to become a serious blogger, you may wanna consider to first move from wordpress.com to wordpress.org. (step by step guidance will follow)


But hey...please bare in mind that this will not guarantee that you will become a successful blogger with 37000 readers!! That would depend on your own blogging charisma...

But you have to start somewhere....so here it goes:


1. Purchase a web hosting service with a domain name of your choice.There are many different hosting companies, and you would have to choose the right one for you.

2. The next step would be to transfer all you previous posts from wordpress.com to wordpress.org: You do this by: Installing the 'wordpress software' through your control panel that is provided with your website.

3. Go to your old wordpress.com dashboard, click tools > Export > save the XML file into you local hard drive.

4. Go to your new website admin panel,  click tools > import > choose the XML file you downloaded and click submit.


5. Once you have submitted, you will be directed to a new page. On this page click > authors and check the box called import attachments. This option will automatically import all your posts incl images etc to your new website.


6. If you already have managed to establish some relationship with readers, you want to ensure that your followers are redirected to your new website, even if they are still typing the your old wordpress.com URL.


7. To redirect the traffic: Ask your hosting company to change your domain's DNS settings to:

 - NS1.wordpress.com
 - NS2.wordpress.com
 - NS3.worrdpress.com

(this will be provided to you with no additional cost)


8. Once the setting has been changed, go to your wordpress.com (the old blog) dashboard, select 'upgrades' > domains > enter the URL of your new website and a window will open. Here you confirm that you wish to add the new domain. This confirmation will cost you $10.00. Hey... I didn't say it was free!!


9. Once the payment process has been completed, two domains will be shown. the old and the new one. Select the new domain and click on 'update primary domain'


10. After 24 hours of impatient waiting........ now ask your hosting company to reverse your DNS setting. (This will not cost you a penny and they will do this for you with no questions asked)


... DONE!


This was the easy part... now you can go and explore the world of blogging and become the next most followed blogger!

Good luck!


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Deadly transmission!

A dentist was examining a patient with a highly contagious deadly
disease....
As soon he opens the patients mouth the disease gets transferred to the
doctor... how??
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
 ...The patient had a bluetooth!!

TescoNology!

Despite the heated debate Tesco has generated with regards to their 'unethical' expansion strategies, one cannot deny that they have been extremely efficient using technology to their advantage and how this fact has helped them to expand and penetrate a very large market and increase their competitive advantage.

Club Cards;

Their move from Green Shield stamps to club cards and NCR Teradata is a perfect example of this fact. Instead of just being another supermarket, Tesco entered into people's life. This technology allowed Tesco to get to know its customers more 'personally'. It is needless to say what opportunities such knowledge would provide Tesco, and Tesco has been befitting by this move to the full capacity.

 
Tesco Club card App:

The new Tesco club card App allows the user to follow the progress on a smart phone and it is a good example of Tesco's adaptation to new technology.


"The role-out of high speed broadband internet, a social networking frenzy and high tech mobile devices have all served to bloster online fashion retailing in recent years."


Tesco's reaction? The launch of Tesco online fashion store with its flagship F&F and Chleokee. 


Online Fashion at Tesco:

Ok, this may not seem so impressive to many but the infrastructure of an online fashion store is more complex than it looks to the naked eye. (Talking of own personal experience)

Perhaps it would be more impressive if it could create a 'visualization' where the buyer could choose the outfit and visually see how it would look like on in 'real'. The technology is already available (Cisco Telepresence)  and is used for global meetings.

What else do they use? 

• Club Card plus Telephone Account that allows members to make monthly direct debit payments to Tesco for groceries

• Tesco uses heat sensors to control the flow of customers in their store. 

• Using Adwords to generate traffic into their site.

• The use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology to track goods leaving the store.  

RFID has created concerns about privacy issues but the potential of its use is beyond limits. (Unethical to some, but I actually had my dog chipped with RFID)

Extensive use of technology in the future will be a common practice and technology will continue to be one of the most important elements of a business. An examples of future use of technology for example is the 'smart dressing room' where you no longer need to change to see how your chosen clothes would look on you.

Or the sixth sense way of  smart shopping?

As futuristic as the above video may seem and the technologies in the movie 'The minority report' is nothing but real. So instead of running away from new technology, we might be better off by keeping our eyes and ears open and see how we can benefit by it.

Are computers male or females?

I laughed so much about this that I need to share and since this blog is all about technology, I thought it would be appropriate to share the underlying fact about computers ;-)

"A SPANISH LESSON


Teacher was explaining to her class that in Spanish, unlike English, nouns are designated as either masculine or feminine.

 'House' for instance, is feminine: 'la casa.' 
'Pencil,' however, is masculine: 'el lapiz.' 

A student asked, 'What gender is 'computer'?' 

Instead of giving the answer, the teacher split the class into two 
groups, male and female, and asked them to decide for themselves whether computer' should be a masculine or a feminine noun. Each group was asked to give four reasons for its recommendation.

The men's group decided that 'computer' should definitely be of the feminine gender ('la computadora'), because: 

1. No one but their creator understands their internal logic; 

2. The native language they use to communicate with other computers is incomprehensible to everyone else; 

3. Even the smallest mistakes are stored in long term memory for possible later retrieval; and 

4. As soon as you make a commitment to one, you find yourself spending half your paycheck on accessories for it. 

(THIS GETS BETTER!) 

The women's group, however, concluded that computers should be Masculine ('el computador'), because: 

1. In order to do anything with them, you have to turn them on; 

2. They have a lot of data but still can't think for themselves; 

3. They are supposed to help you solve problems, but half the time they ARE the problem; and 

4. As soon as you commit to one, you realize that if you had waited a little longer, you could have gotten a better model. " (by Sergey Gorbatov)

Summing up on ERP

Just a few more words on ERP...

I like to emphasize that despite the major initial investment,  ERPs are not just for big corporates. Small businesses and start ups can benefit more than they realize.

ERPs have been developed acording to the needs of different companies with same needs and possibly within the same industry.

For startups for example, in particular where experience is limited, some of the features of the system can actually make the entrepreneur realize some opportunities or 'know hows' which otherwise could remain unknown. Or even worse, could become known after making a big mistake.

On the other hand, there will be more transparency of business processes within the same industry which in some case could be viewed as decreasing a competitive advantage if it relates to a particular feature of the system. 

However, the main problems in many cases arise, when copmanies do not carry out sufficient research  before implementing ERP and this is when businesses would be forced to adapt to ERP more than they would desire.

ERP for SMEs

After the class discussions about ERP, I have realized that I am not that unfamiliar with ERP. In fact I am very much familiar with it as I actually implemented an ERP system myself without knowing that it was called 'ERP'. This was in a health providing enterprise 6years ago.

A process of hell which will never ever be forgotten...but happy ending 100%!

Being too ambitious (my own interpretation) or too crazy (as I often have been called by my friends who have married wealthy guys and are enjoying a stress free life (so they think) I had just entered an industry very different to the one I was working in.

I was previously working in a fashion company and I had recently been offered a great position in Hong Kong. At the same time, I had the opportunity to build a dental practice from the ground and this is what I chose to do. 
Perhaps if I had moved to Hong Kong, I would have learned about the name ERP by being just another part of the system, but I may not have had the 'pleasure' of going through each and every step of sourcing, choosing and implementing it myself.

Long story short... The business I am referring to was an unsuccessful dental practice which was hardly making any profit. Patients had moved to other practices and the remaining staff were all very demotivated.
Beside the initial investment in the 'appearance' of the practice a great investment was necessary to get the practice back on its feet!  ERP!

I had to find a way to get the old patients back to the practice as well as acquiring new ones. For this, I needed to know more about the 'lost' patients and how to improve efficiently in the practice. I NEEDED to have the information on my screen and not on outdated paper lying here and there.

I will not get into the detail of the marketing strategies in this blog but will instead briefly illustrate how the implementation of the ERP can benefit (or is a MUST HAVE tool) even in a small business.

The implementation of the ERP system in the practice was to improve inefficiencies within several areas in the business. The most important one being patient records:

Patient records:
Everyday the receptionists had to find all the paper based patient cards for each individual dentist and hygienists in the practice for the following day's appointments. (Often, these records were misplaced and impossible to find) Also, if any patient information was needed for referral etc, the handwritten paper record had to be examined for previous treatment etc.

(This was too often impossible as health professionals forgo a course in bad handwriting skills as part of their degree!!!)

ERP solution: All records were moved to the system and we we never lost a record ever again. Everything was also typed so no more nightmare to read the records.

X-rays;
Sometimes special notes, x-rays etc would be misplaced in the file of a wrong patient. Meaning that you could see a 14 year old patient and looking at an xray of a teethless mouth which possibly belonged to her 80 year old granny.
ERP solution: All x-rays were taken digitally and would only be taken if the patient's record was open on the screen. Also all related letters/referrals would be made from the patients record directly.

Inventory control:
Often drugs and other important tools was being ordered when it was completely out of stock as it was a very time consuming process. (Big problem in a dental practice)
ERP solution: This was controlled and ordered automatically by our system which was linked to our main supplier who used a system that worked with ours.

Payment from the Dental Board;
A paper form for every single patient had to be filled out and sent to the Dental Board for payment. Papers were often lost, payments were delayed and many mistakes would be made.
ERP solution: The patient database of the practices was all connected to the Dental Board and as soon as a treatment was 'clicked' completed it would go under a list and would be waiting for 'send and receive' click.

Lab work:
Lab works necessary for a treatment would not be ready wehn needed and patient had to be re-booked.
ERP Solution:  A reminder would pop up to change appointment if labwork was not ready a day before.

Booking: 
Sometimes patiet would be double booked by mistake, or long time on the phone was wasted to book the patient in a partner practice.
ERP solution: Double booking was not possible. (Had to be authorized) Also , the system would allow any practice to book patient in a partner practice.

Employees:
Very time consuming to coordinate dentist work load with dental nurses and hygienist.
ERP solution: This was almost done outomatically

Communication;
A manual 'paper based system' was keeping a record of the patients that were due to come in for a check up and letters were being sent every day to remind these patients. However, no checks could be made as to whether the patient came or not and since patients record was only taken out when patient actually booked an appointment. As a result, the patient could be forgotten for years or completely and for ever.
ERP solution: Patients were booked in advance and letters were sent out automatically. The system would remind the administer if a patient had not responded.
(A step ahead would be to implement SMS reminder which would work more efficiently and save paper and postage)

Marketing:
Patient preference/treatment was not seen as a marketing opportunity before.
ERP solution: By the data which could be extracted from the system, patients could be analyzed according to their geographical location/age/income/family.

This knowledge and information could then be used to implement more sophisticated marketing and to target existing patients as well as new clients with similar patterns. 

The result was amazing and the practice grew much greater than initially anticipated. Despite the absolute HELL and sleepless nights I went through in first 6 months, and the occasional technical problems which would result in canceling all patients until the technical problem was solved, it was truly worth it. I cannot even begin to imagine how a similar business can function without a system in place.

ER what?

Should companies adapt to ERP or the other way around?

Before even considering who needs to adapt to who, I need to find out what ERP actually is?!

Electron Paramagnetic Resonance? Well perhaps that too, oh no...but wait a minute... that's EPR...

Ok... 'Enterprise Resource Planning' on track again...

The following image helps to understand what ERP is about!

'Enterprise Resource Planning'

TPCmag.com defines it as:  

"An integrated information system that serves all departments within an enterprise" 

 As the image above illustrates, ERP is a central system which provides flow of information within the differnt part of the company internally, as well as customers and other external stakeholder such as suppliers externally.

What are the benefits of ERP?

Is simple words, it increases efficiencies within each department of the organization. "It improves the coordination of the company’s process into one streamlined process where everything can be accessed through one enterprise wide information network."

As an example; supplier>inventory>customer. By linking these, the system identifies what products are selling well, when stocks are low and an order will be placed accordingly.

"In order to have a successful implementation of your ERP system, you need to make sure you have your information in line to help make the process swift.  It doesn’t matter whether or not your company deals with paper or plastics, ERP provides your company with the right system and performance needed."

According to the above statement, both ERP and the company need to be adapted to one another. 

I would however argue the company's need to adapt to the ERP would very much depend on how much the given ERP would increase the company's efficiency and if the cost of this adaptation outweigh the benefits. 

Implementation of an ERP system and the integration of the enterprise in itself is a complex procedure and great care should be taken when choosing such system. If in addition to that, the company is required to make major changes to be able to utilize such system, it is most necessary to carry out a cost analysis and estimate the time in which the benefits would be appreciated.

Facebook beats google

The power of social networking sites should not be underestimated as the trend clearly illustrates the popularity of social networking is not on decline. It is only a beginning of a revolutionary change in the way people socialize, communicate and make decisions. 
 According to Hitwise, (a web analytics firm) in the UK, social networks receives more hits than google.

"during May 2010, social networks accounted for 11.88% of UK Internet visits and search engines accounted for 11.33%, representing the first ever month that social networks have been more popular than search engines in the UK.

Should google be worried? They claim that this is of no concern to them. Google also admits that more time is being spent on social networks, but claims that their interest is quite the opposite. They want people to search on google and find what they are looking for in as little time as possible.

While this might have some logic in it, I am not convinced. How would advertisers react knowing that their add may not have a chance of even being seen... and what if people could actually start searching on facebook? Now that would be an interesting shift!

Facebook II

I recently had the pleasure of having an insight to facebook that was provided by an actual insider!

It was a great session but very short. I had so many questions in relation to how get the most out of facebook which remained unanswered so I guess I just need to continue my experimentation on facebook.

Overall the discussion were mainly about what facebook is about and what their plans are. As can be expected, there were also many questions about privacy issues etc. Nonetheless, we didn't discuss the issue of facebook ban in China and whether facebook expects any changes in this market.

What I got out of the session...

What I did eventually get an answer for at the end of the class was how their 'bidding' advertising works? You basically decide your own price and the chance for your add to appear based on that price, depends on the amount of other bidders with similar add! This is something I will experiment with and I will write about the result in due course.

An interesting notion about advertising opportunities on facebook was their interactive adds which are the most successful on their site. In fact, these are often shared with friends if the advertiser can satisfy the targeted customer.

While these are not bidding adds and a quotation would be necessary to obtain the price, it is an amazing way to communicate a message without being intrusive. Something that companies should really be careful with if they want to advertise successfully.

But how do they customize the adds on each person's profile?

Do they use analytical tools on profile behavior? When you click on different profiles, you can see that the advertisements differ according to the interest of the particular profile. I have seen this change on my own profile. For a while I was searching for pages related to IT and at the same time, the advertising on my profile was mainly IT related.

Equally, when I joined sited related to nutrition, calorie count etc, I kept receiving advertising which related to diet.

Other opportunities are games, quizzes and different applications. For example a health/fitness company could post quizzes where vitamins/calories could be guessed. Also applications such as calorie counts and tracks. There are many other games, applications and quizzes I could think of which could increase the traffic to a given page. Another option would be to use these tools to direct the traffic to the actual website.

Facebook

Needless to mention the revolutionary success of facebook but interesting to explore this 'simple' online platform which is used by my friend's 83 year old grad father among 400 million other active users of different age groups and backgrounds and in different languages spread around the globe.

According to facebook 50% of their active users log on to Facebook in any given day and have (on average) as many as 130 friends! Not to mention the ones who exceed 5000 friends and have to switch to a public profile!

It is no longer a question of being 'cool' or a geek to have a presence on facebook. It is almost becoming part of an everyday life for most users. People no longer ask for your number or email address.

The question is:

Sounds amazing right? How does facebook do this? How does it engage this large crowd who are so different from one another with such a standard product?

What is facebook anyway?

Is it a the site where you find your old school mates? hmmm that was orkut right?

So...is it the site where you meet the love of your life? Naaaa... cos there is no such thing! or was is match.com who promise that there is?

So...is it where you share your thoughts?...no wait... that is twitter, right?

A political site where political views are shared?? Up for a discussion...

A site where you can make free phone calls or send free texts? hmmm that would be skype right?

A tool where you can chat to your friends regardless of where the are located? hmmm No that would be Fringe I guess...

So is it an advertising site?

A technology site?

A gaming site?

A platform where you can download applications?

Event site?

Ecommerce?

A political site?

...Or

...is it all of the above in one simple platform????

If anyone thinks that facebook is simply a social networking site where you can go and read gossips on your 'home' page or tag the picture of your 'best friend' drunk in a bar, then they must think again!

Facebook have received a lot of criticism for privacy issues with regards to photo sharing among others. However, one would truly be underestimating the power of facebook if they don't see beyond their privacy issues and instead tries to see the actual potentials in facebook.


To be continued on the next blog...



...but for now some basic statistics from facebook:

• There are over 160 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups and events)

• Average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events

• Average user creates 70 pieces of content each month

• More than 25 billion pieces of content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month.

• More than 70 translations available on the site

• About 70% of Facebook users are outside the United States

• Over 300,000 users helped translate the site through the translations application

• More than one million developers and entrepreneurs from more than 180 countries

• Every month, more than 70% of Facebook users engage with Platform applications

• More than 550,000 active applications currently on Facebook Platform

• More than 250,000 websites have integrated with Facebook Platform

• More than 100 million Facebook users engage with Facebook on external websites every month

• Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook

• There are more than 100 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices.

• People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice more active on Facebook than non-mobile users.

• There are more than 200 mobile operators in 60 countries working to deploy and promote Facebook mobile products

Warm wishes from The Matrix !!!

Fringe

I recently downloaded fring application on my iphone. Fring allows free voice/chat/and video calls to your 'fring buddies'.

Although I was wishfully hoping that I would be able to make calls to a normal number and not necessary a 'fring friend', I found it quite interesting as it actually allows add-ons such as Twitter  skype, MSN, etc.

This means that you can communicate with your friends from different services.
It is specially useful if you have friends in different countries who each use a different messenger service. Fring allows me to stay in touch with all of them by only logging in on fring.

What I would like to find out is whether it is possible to use this on a website and allow people who are logged in to contact each other without leaving the site.

1:12 am... perhaps I will sleep on this and explore it more after the accounting test tomorrow!

Foursquare

Following my recent experimentation with the new online ‘gadgets’ (hyper-linked in my first blog post), I must say that my interest in the ‘Matrix’ world has really amplified!

Being a business opportunity seeking by default, a new concept triggers my brain waves to automatically search for the ‘business benefits’ of it and the most recent one being the ‘FourSquare’.

What is FourSqaure? Who uses Foursquare? Why is Foursqaure used? .... And my ‘preset’ thoughts: Where is the ‘benefit’?

To my great joy, today we were actually assigned by our dear professor Enrique Dans to look into the FourSquare business model.

...in brief: Foursaqure is an application which allows users to collect points by checking in at different locations.

The user who collects most points at a certain location becomes the mayor of that place. This simple concept encourages the user to check in and it often results in 'competition' among friends to become the mayor!

It is free for users and it allows them to comment/recommend a location on Foursqaure. It also allows users to add friends on Foursqaure and connect to facebook and twitter.

So...where is the business opportunity in this? Different thoughts go to my mind...

As I am looking at the different ‘checked in’ locations of my few FourSqaure friends, I think...aha!!! If I had a business...then the more ‘check ins’ the better...I am thinking, this is genius!!!

We are all sick and tired of being targeted by advertising here and there and yet on FourSquare...WE ARE ADVERTISING FOR BUSINESSES with great pleasure!! ...on top of that, we are informing them how and where we spend our money!

Ok..so far so good...now, what’s in it for FourSquare? Does this new ‘marketing tool’ generate any revenue from the ‘checked in’ locations? Not sure...this requires further research...

...I start off by google and I come across the following sites:

Wikipedia...
Foursquare ...
Business Insider...
Cruchbase ...
TechieBuzz...

Will not bore you with details (although very interesting, hence I have provided the links) but here are the basic facts:

• So far 300.000 users (Feb 2010)

• Business has been valued at $100 million with acquisition interest from yahoo and Microsoft and a strategic partnership offer by facebook.

• Currently, still in the ‘testing face’ and free for most ‘customers’ (customers being businesses). Some businesses are offering ‘specials nearby’ goodies to users (for example a free cocktail) towards the points the user has been awarded.

The planned business model:

Foursquare will be adjusting its strategies for three types of organizations for paid services:

1. Small, privately owned stores and restaurants
2. Brands with retail chains
3. Huge multinationals marketers

Foursquare is also creating analytic dashboard (for bigger brands) to enable businesses to track their stay visitors.
Other opportunities are within deals against impressions such as web ads, clicks such as search ads, or even cost per check-in.

The interesting question is however, whether the popularity of FourSquare will grow in the same speed once it becomes an official ‘marketing tool’ where users are being ‘targeted’.

How can it avoid having the same dilemma as twitter where 5% of its user generate 75% of its overall activities?

When I was examining how I could promote ‘my online business’, I also wondered why FourSquare model has not considered online businesses। Perhaps a new opportunity... ?
In any case, it is interesting to follow the progress of the FourSquare business model and to see how it will progress in the near future.

"Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself."


What is "real"? How do you define "real"?"



"This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. You take the blue pill the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill…” well, I guess you end up here!

Yes…I have finally decided to take the red pill and totally explore the new “real” world…to blog, to be followed by god knows who on twitter, to create my own little space on myspace, to check in and out on Foursquare once I have synchronized my iphone so I can start using the Foursquare application, to register my very own delicious bookmark which apparently connects me to my yahoo account, to registerstumbleUpon, to update my page AND my group onfacebook…and hopefully to find out what the heck is the difference between the two...

...3.07am...

...after hours on the net exploring sites I had never heard about before only to find out that I have a true potential for becoming an internet 'geek' I just realised that I totally missed my quantitative analysis 'home work'.

The red pill is dangerously addictive. Once you have entered the 'real' world... that is it! There is no turning back! The more you explore, the more you want to know. Perhaps this is why we use the term 'searching the net'. You will always 'search' for more and often you can even forget what you were 'searching' for.

You will never really find what you are looking for because you never know what you are about to find...