6 Awesome (free) Tools to Manage a Project

In managing a group, maintaining frequent communication while keeping group information organized is essential for a successful project. While you can spend hundreds of dollars on tools that are excessive, not applicable and just a hassle altogether, you can do what I do and go cheap and easy with the following free tools.

Google Docs- With the ability to share any Word, Excel, or Power Point (technically those are Microsoft's but you get the point) document online with multiple users able to view and modify the documents updated in real time is simply cool. Gdocs provides a solution to those annoying meet up times where half the members are late, and the other half contribute nothing. With the Gdocs you can view who and when other users are making edits, have viewed, or done nothing to the document- no more free loaders.

Google Calendar- Do not worry. I am not going to keep explaining how awesome Google is, but this tool is important so show patience. Google Calendar has a similar interface as an Outlook, or any other calendar you use, but now you can separate your schedule to view different categories such as work, home, or fun (or whatever you want to name it) so you can view schedules specific to your categories. Additionally, you have the ability to share your calendar with others making it that much easier dismiss how busy they are.

Dropbox- Giving 2G of free space to new users, Dropbox allows you to access and share files with multiple users on the web across any device synced to your computer, allowing for on/offline access.

Sign Up Genius- Whether your scheduling an event, or finding meeting times for your group members, signupgenius.com allows a user to create an event which members can easily enroll in based on their availability. Plus the site can manage your contacts for future sign ups, and export your sign up list to a spreadsheet offline.

Gantter- Gives you the full capabilities of having detailed Gannt diagram, online, and for free. Taking project management to the next level.

Passpack- Getting locked out of online group projects for forgetting passwords won't happen anymore. Easy way to share secured passwords with a group.

About Me

And So It Begins

Currently

My name is Norman Dover and I am a Senior pursuing my undergraduates degrees in Marketing and Business Information Systems at Illinois State University. With a degree specialized towards sales and  BIS, I am planning on initiating my career within the sales field  of either packaged or custom software solutions. My ultimate goal is to move up the ranks to become a systems analyst, and then ultimately start up a software consulting firm further down the line.

Experience

Despite being a student, I have sales exposure  through my internship with a custom software development company in which I was an account representative. For two summers, I was engaged in every aspect of sales and learned the value of needs based selling, and emphasizing the sale of solutions and not just software. My more technical exposure to software development came from my other experience as an intern Fortune 1000 insurance company where I worked in the Events & Projects drafting test/use cases for a custom built system.

The Value

This blog is intended to provide insight to business minded students and professionals looking to gain more knowledge on a variety of business-technology related topics from new technologies to different takes on technology applications. I will be fueling this blog from a combination of past intern experiences, classroom exposure, and interesting articles I have discovered. So whether you consider yourself oblivious or engaged in business and technology there will be something to gain.

Contact

Should you have any questions, or topics you would like me to write on, you can email me at 0BullBizz@gmail.com

The Technology is Nice, but what about the Business?

Start Thinking About Technology

I am going to start this blog off with a visualization exercise. If your immediate response to that sentence is "Hell no" then we are on the same page. But for purposes of my point just do what I say.

Think back... to the last time you were exposed to something new, innovative, and you just felt you needed to have. Maybe it was that sleek looking iPad with the massive touch screen and the 'unlimited capabilities' it had for you to explore. Or that universal remote that seemed so convenient and easy to use, with a touch of a button everything you wanted turned on like a little entertainment butler servicing to your wants. Maybe even that new PC where a swipe of a finger can log you in- because everyone needs finger print scanner security these days to prevent their family from logging onto their Facebook accounts.

What happened to the device? Chances are if you are like most people, the PC has been thrown to the side of the room with a chocolate smudge on the 'print' reader, the iPad is dying faster by the day from the excessive playing of Angry Birds and YouTube Videos, and the universal remote butler is more of a demented child who keeps disobeying orders and turning on and off your stereo, TV, and DVR simultaneously (note child as potential chocolate fingerprint suspect).

The Issue It is in the human nature to be drawn to technology and want things that we don't quite understand. The problem is when we impulsively satisfy these immediate wants, without realizing what the product is, the short lived feelings of content from the purchase are quickly met with frustration, dissatisfaction, and lets be honest-anger, due to the failure of the experience satisfying our expectations.

Applying this to Business When an organization incorporates hardware, software, or any technology impulsively this same reaction occurs, except on a much larger level (depending on the IT staff size). As cool as it may be for Doug the manager to want to use an iPad at work, that coolness exists nowhere near Randall the IT manager who needs to find a way to join together tools with completely different systems.

The Point Impulsive purchases of a candy bar is bad, for hardware it is much worse. The technology needs to support the business, not the other way around. 

While your at it, get yourself another universal remote