I gave a talk on Tuesday for the attendees of the Gartner Small Business Vision event. My topic: Emerging technologies for small businesses. To prepare for the talk I wrote a column, which recently ran on CNET.
After I wrote the column, I continued to work on the talk, and it ended up going in a different direction. As I was preparing my notes, I realized that I had collected a list of hardware and software product categories that I consider important for businesses to adopt, but that none of these products could truly move a business forward. These tools- - smart phones, laptops, etc. -- are productivity enhancers. They're important. But from a business perspective, not exciting.
On the other hand, emerging online trends and technologies are business enhancers. Blogs, video, community, search engine optimization -- these are technologies that, if employed wisely, can really improve a business by opening new avenues of marketing, sales, and most importantly, communication between a business and its customers.
It all reminds me of what I learned way back in 1992, when I edited Corporate Computing magazine: There is no fundamental business problem that new hardware can solve. But it's equally clear to me that most small businesses barely have a pulse when it comes to using the Internet to improve their prospects.
