The invention of paper did wonders for mankind’s organizational skills. With the invention of papyrus, a thousand things became possible for the Egyptians: hieroglyphic shopping lists (goats, bread, and charcoal eyeliner), ‘Things-to-Avoid’ lists (asps, crocodiles, and King Tut on a bad day) and even ‘Things-to-Be-Buried-With’ lists (gold, wives, and servants for the afterlife).

Thanks to the modern digital age, our old pen-and-paper ways have become a thing of the past. Technology has made everything quicker, simpler and more streamlined. From smartphones to iPads, software to apps, we humans have upgraded our antiquated Post-It and notepad ways and upgraded to digital solutions like Metrofax online faxing services google calendar. Here are some of the best digital evolutions that surpass pen-and-paper solutions.

Post-It Notes

The Old Way: 30 yellow sticky notes with scribbled reminders stuck to your wall…not to mention the additional 20 fallen sticky notes on the floor.

The Digital Way: StickyNote

Take those sticky notes from your physical desktop and put them on your virtual one. StickyNote lets you create 3D virtual stickies, perfect for quick notes or information you want to keep easily accessible. You can also attach files or links and send your stickies in emails. Attach a note to one particular window or give your notes expiration dates to prevent clutter.

Filing Cabinet

The Old Way: Messy files crammed in a cabinet that you really, truly, honestly plan to alphabetize. One of these days.

The Digital Way: Evernote

Here’s the perfect digital way to store all your information. Type notes directly into Evernote or clip web pages to save for later. Take a picture of your handwritten notes or a boardroom whiteboard. Evernote can search through any text – even the handwritten text from your pictures.

Leave a voice memo or snap a photo of your confirmation numbers and boarding information. Then sort all your saved info for easy searching and categorization, so you can take your digital filing cabinet anywhere you go.

The Bulletin Board

The Old Way: You’ve got too many clippings – wine labels, upcoming movies, delivery takeout menus – and not enough thumb tacks.

The Digital Way: Springpad

Like Evernote, Springpad provides a way to sort through your information, only Springpad acts like an active organizer for all the things you’re interested in. Save a movie you want to see and Springpad will let you add it to your Netflix queue, buy it on Amazon, see its page on IMBD or buy movie tickets.

Add a favorite wine or a brand you’d like to try and you can see nearby prices, based on the web and your location. Search for a recipe and instantly add the ingredients to your Springpad shopping list.

The Calendar

The Old Way: You need one calendar. You receive four calendars for Christmas. You use none.

The Digital Way: Google Calendar

It’s hard to beat Google’s calendar offering. It’s easy to use, it lets you send emailed or text reminders and it syncs with something you use every day: your email. Easily share your calendar with your family so you and your spouse are always on the same page – or so you always know about your teen’s upcoming practices or rehearsals.

To-Do List

The Old Way: A never-ending list of scattered chores, errands, tasks and obligations…and you keep having to add “Find To-Do List” to the list.

The Digital Way: Zadachi

Zadachi lets you categorize your obligations with three easy time lines: incomplete, complete and overdue. Separate your tasks by folders or labels; for example, you can organize your list by type (chores, errands, work tasks) or by grouping (home, work, school etc.).

Got a whole list of tasks associated with one project? No problem: Zadachi lets you group tasks by project, so you can see how close you are to completion. Best of all, this app lets your phone do some of the work for you.

If one of your to-do items is ‘call Jill’, Zadachi searches your contacts for people named Jill. If you’ve got something like ‘find an office supply store’ on your list, you can use Yelp to find a local store via Zadachi.

Faxing

The Old Way: Cover sheets, faxes gone missing and frustrating machines that seem to be eternally out of toner.

The Digital Way: Metrofax

Why do businesses still ask you to fax things? Does anyone even have a fax machine anymore? Well, with Metrofax, all you need is an email account and internet access. Just email your document to your intended fax number (with Metrofax’s @ extension) and you’re all set.

Bills

The Old Way: A bill box stuffed with bills you can’t remember if you’ve paid…until the late payment charge comes in.

The Digital Way: Mint.com

This multi-award winning application is widely regarded as the best financial app out there. Mint.com lets you access all of your accounts (both bank and loan) so you’ve got all your financial information in one place – no more trying to remember multiple login information.

Mint automatically updates and categorizes your spending history so you can see exactly what you’ve spent on things like fast food, clothes, coffee shop purchases or gas. Budgeting is a snap, since Mint averages your spending habits and breaks down how much you spend on each category. Easily track your spending and see how much you’ve got left in your budget – or how much you’ve gone over.

Digitized Productivity

It’s incredible how far we’ve come since the days of the hieroglyphics. The way technology’s moving, we’ll soon have an app for even menial tasks like organizing your underwear drawer. It’s too bad the digital age didn’t come sooner. Adam could’ve text Eve about that apple.

Image Sources:

1. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_sOwqhSLXo4g/TSJIXIfPygI/AAAAAAAAAcI/PfuF3DWerk8/s1600/to+do+list.jpg
2. http://www.flickr.com/photos/r-butler/5363022308/
3. http://www.flickr.com/photos/kheelcenter/5279251361/
4. http://www.flickr.com/photos/24oranges/2814122833/
5. http://www.flickr.com/photos/doctorow/5309672184/
6. http://www.flickr.com/photos/koalazymonkey/3596829214/
7. http://www.flickr.com/photos/reallynuts/3429125430/
8. http://www.flickr.com/photos/60881556@N05/5566653522/

However, major corporations and companies are also engaging in the open source development process. This process is known for its group collaboration efforts, with many different developers working on a single product or software. The end result is often much more successful than those with only a few developers working on a project.

Here is a look at some major corporations that have embraced this development philosophy with very successful results.

Procter & Gamble Co.

Imagine a world-renowned company changing the way it conducts its research and development processes. Procter & Gamble, one of the largest corporations in the world did just that. The company moved from a traditional research and development style to one that follows the open source strategy. Interestingly, Procter & Gamble calls this new strategy “connect and develop.” Following the lead of the open source initiative, the company is reaching out to the collective minds around the world. One of the goals of this new initiative is that 50 percent of the new products in development must come from sources outside of its own laboratories.

BMW

BMW Group embraces the open source development theory within its new car development projects. Team members, who can number in the hundreds, are gathered together from their home bases to work at BMW’s Research and Innovation Center. These team members include personnel from wide ranging departments including design, marketing, purchasing and others. These team members then collaborate, sometimes for as long as three years, to develop and create the new car’s prototype design. These sometimes disparate-thinking groups collaborate in an open source environment, trading and sharing ideas, all with the end goal of creating the very best new automobile design.

Southwest Airlines

Southwest Airlines recently gathered team members from across the company. These included employees in dispatch, operations, flight and crew members and others. This group was asked to come up with a set of changes that could be implemented to create changes in the airline’s operations.

Eventually the group came up with 109 ideas that were then presented to upper management. Tom Nealon, Southwest’s chief information officer stated that there was a diverse group of people working on this crucial project. He also indicated that because some group members asked questions that might seem rudimentary to others, the group actually had to do a much closer examination of their ideas and solutions. It made the group challenge themselves to look at the big picture from a different angle.

The idea of group collaboration has worked for many years with in the open source software community. Now more and more large and small corporations and companies are embracing this philosophy with some amazing results. By proof of these three examples, they are met with great success and acceptance.

After the hubbub with Steve Jobs and Flash earlier this year, SkyFire, the new Flash browser for iPhone, has proven that iPhone users were actually desperate for Flash. SkyFire raked in $1 million in the single week that it’s been out. VentureBeat has the story:

The mobile SkyFire browser for the iPhone sells itself: It lets you play Flash video on the iPhone. Who wouldn’t want that? So it’s no surprise to learn that the browser has already raked in $1 million since it hit the App Store last Thursday, TechCrunch reports.

SkyFire’s journey to success on the iPhone has been a storied one. The company submitted the app for Apple’s approval in early September, and at the time we argued that Apple would have very little reason not to accept the browser. SkyFire announced the app was approved earlier this month and that it would be hitting the App Store on Thursday, November 4. But due to popular demand, SkyFire pulled the app after its servers — which encode the Flash video into an iPhone-ready format — got overwhelmed. The company proceeded to accept purchases in batches as it strengthened its servers for the onslaught of iPhone users.

SkyFire doesn’t let you play games or animations, according to VentureBeat, but what it does offer has been good enough for the hundreds of thousands of users who downloaded it in the past week. Moral of the story: Temporary tech embargoes do pay–if you’re the company that can release the product soonest after they get lifted.

If you think that only bigwig companies like Google and Facebook have security problems, think again. Small businesses are also prone to hackers, phishers, sneaky employees, and others with designs to wreak havoc on company assets.

Safeguarding against these tricksters takes more than just a firewall. We caught up with Robert Gorby, the Global Head of Small Business Propositions for software security company AVG, to learn more about what small business owners need to do to stay safe.

BP: What’s the most common security threat that small businesses face?

Small business security used to be a more straightforward matter. Email was the primary channel used by external attackers and installing an anti-virus product and exercising caution when opening attachments mitigated the majority of threats.

The threat landscape has changed radically over recent years, and the Web has become the attack channel of choice for cybercriminals, who are stealthy, motivated by profit and highly skilled in web tricks and techniques. With 95% of online threats now web-based, relying on anti-virus software alone is no longer enough for businesses.

While attackers still use email, they have discovered that the Web in general provides them with a much broader range of options. Considering that the majority of small businesses are ‘internet-active’, meaning they rely on the internet to run their business (completing online transactions with suppliers & customers, storing information about customers, exchanging sensitive business information over email and IM), web based threats are fast becoming the most common security threat faced by small businesses.

These web-based threats are growing and exist in numerous areas, including:

Social Networking Sites
While many businesses have policies preventing employees from accessing social networking sites, there is a growing number of small businesses using social networks as a cost-effective marketing and recruitment tool. So blocking them is not always the answer.

Email & Spam
Although still a popular method of attack, e-mail is a far less effective way to fool people into opening things they shouldn’t than the world wide web.

Instant Messaging
As with email, viruses and other malware can be hidden in files sent via IM. Some staff may be unfamiliar with the IM which can increase the risk that infected attachments will be clicked on so training is a must

Compromised business web sites
Compounding the problem is the fact that no website can be considered safe. Even small business websites (it’s not just the big brands!) are targets for cybercriminals intent on compromising sites for short periods of time (often less than 24hrs) so that they can steal data from visitors (potential customers of the business).

Image: dunkv/Flickr

BP: Is this also the most dangerous threat? If not, could you tell me what the most dangerous threat is?

Whilst web based threats are most common (Figures cited by the World Economic Forum indicate that online theft alone in 2009 totaled around $1 trillion), small businesses should not overlook the so-called ‘insider threat’ (from disgruntled employees, contractors or business partners).

The increasingly fragmented nature of many companies means that staff, partners and even customers also present a viable concern for small businesses. Companies have become increasingly fragmented and rely increasingly on consultants and outside expertise. Other factors, such as increased mergers and acquisitions, have made some companies become increasingly volatile as they merged with competitors and adopted their staff.

Whilst they may not be as frequent, the impact of a security breach from an insider can sometimes be more dangerous for a business, given the level of access they have to the businesses information, passwords, systems and networks. So employees experiencing financial problems could use their standard business systems and resources to commit fraud.

It is important for businesses to consider the different tactics employed by either group (the cyber-criminal or insiders), however, the best overall approach is to have a robust and adaptive security strategy in place to keep pace with the fast-evolving nature of IT security, no matter where the threat originates.

BP: What can a business do about these threats?

Securing your small business from Internet malware does require some forethought and a small investment in money and time. By taking action now, however, the time and cost will be more than offset against the potential lost revenues and wasted management time in dealing with security issues that will likely otherwise occur later in your company’s lifetime. When thinking about online security for your business, consider the age-old medical adage: “prevention is better than cure”.

The essential steps to protecting your business from these threats can be broken down into three categories – Policy, Technology and Process.

Policy
1. Decide whether computers, laptops and software are to be supplied by your company, or by your staff – and reflect these decisions in your policies, purchasing and processes
2. Document a simple acceptable-use policy for any computer that is used for company business or media that is used to store or transport company data
3. Create an acceptable password-strength policy and ensure that all computers and other IT equipment are password protected
4. Require that all security incidents are promptly reported and managed to a business stakeholder

Technology
1. Ensure all operating systems and application software are updated with the latest security patches as they are developed – preferably using automatic update technology
2. Ensure all computers have an up-to-date security software suite on them
3. Every computer should have its own firewall software, in addition to any premises based network firewall you may be running
4. If managing your own file storage and email servers, ensure these are also running up-to-date security software

Process
1. Ensure all staff receive basic online security training and instruction in your policies
2. Ensure regular backups are taken of all company files, data, email and other systems
3. Change all passwords regularly, especially when an employee or contractor leaves the company, and in particular change administrator passwords or shared passwords to centralised networks or systems
4. Take security breaches seriously – isolate any compromised systems from the network and involve an IT security professional if necessary to ensure the malware is fully removed

Image: turtlemom4bacon/Flickr

BP: What’s one of the sneakiest social engineering tricks you’ve seen?

One of the sneakiest social engineering tricks I have seen relates to the terrible Haiti Earthquake in January this year and was uncovered by my colleague Nick Fitzgerald in our research labs. The earthquake was one of the biggest natural disasters the world has experienced in recent years and jolted many people into action to donate aid from the 4 corners of the world. Unfortunately, as happens with these events, many unsuspecting donors (both businesses and individuals) were conned by donations scams. This particular scam was one of the most sneaky and offensive scams I have come across as it not only robbed people of their donated money, but it also denied the stricken Haitians much needed cash to help survive and rebuild.

Distributed via email, it requested donations for a US charity ‘Haiti Helping Hand’. To the casual observer it looked genuine and also spoke of their work in responding to other disasters such as Hurricane Katrina. To the trained eye, it was strange that a charity that responded to Hurricane Katrina (2005) had a domain that was only registered two days after the Haiti earthquake (Jan 2010). In addition there was no ‘contact us’ section, meaning they wanted to remain anonymous. Finally, there were only two links on the page. One to the site’s privacy policy (questionable) and the other to a PayPal donation page. They clearly used PayPal as it is widely considered a trusted method for donating and paying and would encourage more people to donate.

Needless to say, donations to this site were not making their way to their intended targets in Haiti.
Translating this social engineering experience into learning for small businesses, I would recommend that businesses instil in their employees (particularly new starters) a healthy dose of ‘scepticism’ when it comes to sharing information with someone who is unknown or whose motives are suspect.

Note from Robert: To find out more about what small businesses like about AVG’s solutions, see our AVG At Work site.

Ahhhh WordPress. Home to numerous amounts of bloggers, moms, students…and also businesses. WordPress has become such an efficient and easy to use platform, that many companies big and small are utilizing it for their main CMS. The plethora of plugins available not only allows you to simplify your business in ways you didn’t know possible, but are also extremely easy to install and use. So what are some plugins that can be useful to your business while using this platform?

For the company blogs that may have press releases, you can get a Feed Burner account which has many options, including setting up special RSS feeds and giving your readers the ability to sign up to your feed and receive new posts via email. This is a great way to not only allow users to get your information delivered to them when they want it, but it also allows you to see who is subscribed to your email list.

Another great plugin that many small businesses are using now is the ‘Facebook Like’ feature. With Facebook Like for WordPress, you can have a small button on your website and/or posts so that users can share what they found useful with their friends. Because of open graph becoming an up and coming thing, making sure that you’re connected to Facebook as a business is extremely important. While we’re on that subject, you should also have a Facebook fan page. Just saying.

If you’re a business that is HIGHLY dependent on your contact form for lead generation, you may have noticed that you’re running into some problems. I, for one, tend to overlook the contact form information that gets sent to my email account. Sometimes it gets buried, and other times I click it, promise myself that I’ll put it into a CRM program and then leave it unread and never do it, and sometimes it just gets eaten by the spam folder. The average contact form will only gather the user’s email address, name and a message. If you have an advanced contact system they can also include their phone number etc. I’ve found a pretty amazing plugin for WordPress can easily fix this problem.

If you happen to be using the Salesforce CRM to manage your contacts, then this plugin will be perfect for you. WordPress-to-lead pulls the users information out of your contact form and puts it directly into the Salesforce CRM. Not only does it lets you skip doing the daunting task of finding your lead information from your email inbox, but can also completely eliminates any chance of error that might occur if you were copying and pasting these information manually. If you decide to use this plugin together with Salesforce CRM, you’d soon realize that this is both efficient and time saving. According to Yoast, a website who has tweaks and tips to optimize your website:

If you’re still stuck, like we were, getting leads through email and are having issues following up and taking care of those leads correctly, this could very well be the solution you need.

The beauty of this plugin is that it also:

* syncs effortlessly with Outlook, Gmail, Yahoo! and more
* tracks all your interactions and conversions
* keep all your information and tasks organized under one roof

If you’re interested in seeing this in action, you can see one here.

You can find many more plugins through the WordPress Plugin Directory.