Assignment: Internet Tools at Dirt Bikes By: Juan C.

Williams

University of Phoenix- IT 205 Jay Latona 06/13/2010

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The most cost effective and efficient way for Dirt Bikes employees to communicate with each other is the use of a good intranet. An intranet is the perfect place to post weekly reports, memos and goals. This way, everyone is on the same page. Toby Ward, president of the intranet consulting firm Prescient Digital Media, notes that even a company with few employees benefits from an intranet. Even if you don't have people working remotely, your sales staffers or consultants aren't always in the office. Building an intranet can enhance communication through message boards, instant messaging and moderated chats. Let's take a typical business scenario. The sales staff of five has to come up with a presentation to the president on increasing sales in the next fiscal year. You can save time (and trees) with interactive forms. Vacation requests, supply orders, changes to benefits and more can be handled quickly and efficiently. But make sure your intranet follows good design principles. You can't just throw stuff up there and hope people will find it. Organize your intranet to make it as user-friendly as possible. We're trying to save time here, not frustrate people. By using an intranet, people can work on a shared file and have a central location for the most recent file. This will also help save space on your server. It may sound like a tiny thing, but having versions of various files on everybody's computer takes up valuable space. Before you set up an intranet, make sure you understand what you want it to do. Understand how employees will use it. Finally, adhere to good design principles. If it takes five or six clicks to find a vacation request form, it's too complex. You'll also have to decide if you want to build your own solution. A consultant can build an intranet to your specifications. It will have the look and feel and design principles you specify. This route will cost you U.S. $10 to $500 per person per month. There also are software

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packages such as Windows SharePoint Services that allow you to customize and design most everything yourself, using someone else's template. SharePoint runs U.S. $39.95 a month or $399 a year, no matter how many users.

Not only can the Internet be a global storefront for your small business, Internet technology can actually make your company more efficient. In the form of a private intranet site, Internet technology can enhance team productivity, save you money, foster communication, keep employees up-to-date, and enable one-stop access to important documents. But first you need to understand the tools and technologies e-mail, instant messaging, virtual conferencing, and more. E-mail offers an electronic way to converse with employees without time-consuming meetings. You can also transfer documents across the Internet, saving money on printing and saving time by distributing the data to multiple recipients at once. Sometimes employees can rely on e-mail so much that it begins to drag down productivity. It doesn't have to. Depending on your e-mail program, you should be able to filter incoming messages into mailboxes other than your inbox, helping you to avoid wasting time on non-work-related messages. It's also a good idea to invest in anti-spam software and to use a non-work e-mail address when posting on the Internet.

Small teams can use instant messaging to increase productivity. Instead of waiting for email to download, employees can use programs like AOL Instant Messenger, Google Talk, ICQ, and Trillian to chat in real time with other employees around the world. This is extremely effective if employees need to be in constant communication but don't want to wait for e-mail to download. be admitted into prestigious Universities that they would have be excluded from

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without it.

Like e-mail and instant messaging, bulletin boards foster communication. But message boards can be even less intrusive than either of the other two options, allowing employees to read and respond at their will. Bulletin boards can also keep the entire company up-to-date about new developments and important information without having to suck up e-mail channels used for client communication. By using online shared calendars and to-do lists, you can schedule meetings and tasks without having to rearrange schedules via e-mail or phone. Furthermore, employees can easily check what times coworkers have open in one easy-to-reach place. You can have real-time interaction with employees around the world with conferencing software. Holding online conferences can help minimize costly and time-consuming meetings, phone calls, and plane flights. You can manage documents online, and host the hundreds of documents you may otherwise have to print and distribute. Instead of spending hundreds of dollars printing internal documents and repeating the process every time there's an update you can publish important documents and forms on an intranet for employees to access as needed.

With the Internet and an intranet, you can enhance team productivity by allowing instant access to documents of all kinds. By letting teams collaborate in real time electronically, they'll get more work done. You can even save thousands of dollars in printing and reproduction costs if you distribute or publish documents electronically. You can save time and travel expenses by holding virtual conferences in lieu of face-to-face meetings. Use e-mail, online bulletin boards, and document management to avoid expensive overnight mailing and couriers.

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http://www.allbusiness.com/technology/computer-networking/636-1.html

Kim Komando, http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/technology/communications/whyyour-small-business-needs-an-intranet.aspx#Whyyoursmallbusinessneedsanintranet