Logistical Problems

The first thing that you need to do with a fleet wide GPS is to figure out exactly how you’re going to utilize the service. You need GPS equipment first and foremost, which includes the GPS devices themselves along with computer equipment to monitor the information and display it in such a way that it makes sense. You may need to hire employees who specialize in GPS tracking to keep all of your logistics information accurate and analyzed. After all, if you don’t know what the data is supposed to mean, it’s not going to save you any time.

It does take a great deal of time to get a GPS fleet tracking system working. It may take some trial and error before all of your system’s components mesh together into a well-oiled machine. Once your employees become adjusted to the system, you’ll find that you will get useful information from the tracking system.

Using the Data

The next question is exactly how you’re going to use all of this data that’s being measured. The GPS trackers give you the speed and location of the employees or shipment, so you get an idea of what everything looks like when it’s out in the field. You identify weak transportation spots and problem areas through the GPS, especially if you have several employees or shipments out in the same location.

You don’t want to use a GPS tracking system as a way to effectively cut costs, as the upfront payments are enough to negate that benefit. However, you’ll find that having all of your employees and shipments tracked gives you a great idea of the process and the functionality of work in your supply line. If you find that you’re having issues with a particular segment, you may need to move them to another area while you figure out who is at fault from the GPS.

GPS fleet tracking may not be the most cost effective option for your business, but it does provide a great deal of information no matter whether you choose to add it in a large scale or not. If nothing else, you get a bird’s eye view of exactly what your business and employees are doing on a day-by-day basis. If you can’t optimize your shipment patterns using this piece of technology, you need to go back to the drawing board.

1. Aviary provides Photoshop-like photo editing features in this SaaS program. This hosted program provides a pretty wide range of photo editing options, from simple red eye removal to complex photo retouching. This application works via the Web and supports several mobile platforms, giving a great deal of flexibility in its usage.

2. Salesforce is one of the most well-known SaaS providers available, with one of the most widely used CRMs around. The cloud benefits Salesforce by providing a uniform server environment, whether the client’s business is large or small, along with making implementation as easy as creating accounts and learning the software. Salesforce has many related applications that work hand in hand with this service.

3. Microsoft Office 365 is similar to the same old Microsoft Office that has been installed on workstations and home computers for years. Instead of buying all of the licenses and going through the pain of installing it, however, the entire suite is accessed in the cloud. This makes it easier for IT departments to handle user access and upgrades as well as making users’ data available no matter what platform they’re using.

4. CoTweet is a third-party cloud hosted application that simplifies Twitter for marketing, support and more. This software is designed around making it simple for large and small businesses to keep up with multiple social media accounts. Social network marketing doesn’t need to be complicated, especially when there is a hosted application that does a lot of the work itself.

5. Box is a fairly simple SaaS product that provides easy file hosting. For any business that needs to share files among users and a quick and easy way to make this work, this is a solid option for a cloud hosted service. Cloud hosted files can be easily shared, negating the need to email multiple versions throughout the creation process. Plus, the provider takes care of backups and disaster recovery, keeping data secure.

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of SaaS providers around, many of whom have created novel, interesting concepts for cloud usage and are trying to leverage the full benefit of cloud computing to make it easier for businesses to focus on their core objectives. It’s easy to find a cloud service that will suit nearly any need.

In order to stay competitive in their markets, companies are having to rethink the way they design their site and make sure that their IT professionals are just as good at developing products with a specific focus on the customer. Many companies with large IT departments are trending towards this change. When asked about the issue, Vinay Mehta, chief information officer of Paycor, had this to say to:

“There is a trend toward developing more IT professionals who are not as deep into the bits and bytes of things as they are into whether the end user is going to appreciate the product that they build. I think that’s a good trend.”

(Source: Enterchange)

Strange words to hear from an online payroll company, but they, along with other companies with substantive IT departments, realize that in addition to giving clients a top-notch product that works well, they have to create an attractive interface and make the site easy to navigate in order to retain, and gain, customers.

In order to decide which techniques they should put to use, companies need to think about their target audience. Is the teenage crowd? Working moms? Wealthy senior citizens? By doing research about their end user, companies can better choose the colors, fonts, photos and overall style of their site in order to gather a wider audience. They need to know what their visitor wants, and then be able to give it to them.

Groupon is a prime example of a company that did excellent research in their beginning stages in order to propel it into a household name amongst the younger generations. They have a clean, simple page design and offer daily deals that are in line with the wants and needs of its target market. Even their blog fits their unique brand of humor. Other sites offer their information in fun ways, with flipbooks or rotating pictures with text to reach the same audience.

Asking visitors to subscribe via email or RSS feed helps ensure the company name stays fresh in the minds of the consumer on a daily or weekly basis. On-site forums and message boards allow users to interact with each other and bring the most dedicated users back quite frequently. Social media buttons, strategically placed and with a clear call to action, make it easy for website visitors to quickly and easily share the site with their social networks. The booming mobile market is also helping companies and individuals interact with their target audience as more and more sites create an interface for use on mobile devices.

It’s not just websites that are experiencing these changes. Software and online products also need to keep up with the times as it becomes easier, and cheaper, for new companies to join in the competition. No matter how great your product is or how long it’s been around, if it runs too slowly, looks outdated, contains bugs or just isn’t easy to navigate, customers will look elsewhere to fulfill their product needs.

Even with their pages of great content and updated site load times, many of the websites of the early 2000s are no longer good enough for today’s savvy Web users. They want a clean, simple design that just tells what they want to know, and then, what they should do next, whether that be to “like” the site on Facebook, Tweet something to their followers, buy a product or download a free eBook. Companies with sites or online products that aren’t already user friendly need to get them updated today to ensure that they keep an edge over their competitors.

It’s obvious that the world of mobile tech is on the fast track to major innovation and change. With the rise of 4G networks, and powerful peer to peer technology, we are entering a world where mobile users can share information regardless of operating system or service provider. In fact, in the very near future smart phone users will be able to share data over a secure network without the use of Bluetooth or Wi-Fi technology. This will all be done through powerful P2P technology that is currently being developed by mobile tech engineers all over the globe.

The Marriage of 4G and P2P: A Real-Time Problem Solver

Consumer-facing P2P technology has existed since you downloaded your first song off of Napster. The problem it has always faced is that there has never been powerful enough wireless architecture to support the use of P2P hardware on mobile phones. The rise of 4G technologies has not only made powerful peer-to-peer integration possible, but has provided a way for mobile integration to be fully realized.

The Changing Landscape of Mobile

Qualcomm has been involved in mobile connectivity research and development for a long time. Some of the most advanced mobile processing chips and network hardware have been conceptualized and developed by their talented staff of researchers, developers and engineers. As continuation of their already vast hardware development strategy, they are taking on the world of wireless networking with two new hardware products that signify a major advancement in data sharing.

• Flashlinq — Unveiled at February’s GSMA Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Flashlinq is expected to usher in the next phase of P2P networking. Flashlinq advances a technology known as proximal communication, which allows users to seamlessly connect, disconnect and transfer files to and from nearby users. Flashlinq will be beta tested in devices throughout South Korea in partnership with SK Telecom.
• AllJoyn — AllJoyn is an open-source project developed specifically for mobile networking developers. The technology is similar to Flashlinq in that it accommodates proximal communication technology – i.e. seamless data sharing among smart phone users — but due to its open-source framework, there are very few hosting requirements. This means that apps utilizing AllJoyn can share data without accessing virtual servers or cloud technology — and without mobile OS restrictions.

The Future of Mobile: Cross-Platform, Open-Source, P2P, Oh My…

Since Qualcomm leads the way in so many facets of mobile hardware development, it isn’t hard to imagine how this proprietary P2P technology will inform the future of mobile development. Closed platform app development, and other smart phone hardware and service provider restrictions will be a thing of the past. Lastly, it’s likely that open-source app development within the P2P environment will begin to shape mobile interactive gaming, and data sharing. In other words, mobile computing is about to become more social than ever.

Qualcomm

San Diego-based Qualcomm may be best known as a chip manufacturer, but the company basically creates everything from fleet maintenance software to cutting edge standards in video codecs. The latter made an appearance at MWC in the form of the H265 (High Efficiency Video Codec or HVEC) a sophisticated video encoding technology that is designed to reduce the size of a video by half.

Spectators got to see H265 at work in a side-by-side demonstration with H264, the current standard in video file compression. To show the difference between these two technologies, spectators saw two races on Android tablets, both of which were powered by Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 Dual-Core Processor that runs at 1.5 GHz. H265 played at a bit rate of 610 kilobits per second, while H264 played at a bit rate of 1,183 kilobits per second. Both videos had 800 x 480 pixel resolution. H265 was compressed to 3.10 MB, while H264 was only compressed to 6.01 MB. However, at the moment the slow speed of video compression to H265 is too sluggish to warrant lofty words about it becoming the next standard compression. Give it a year, though, and we’ll all be Handbraking DVDs to a newer, smaller file type made for transmission over 4G.

HTC

The HTC One X has a 4.7 inch screen, which is slightly larger than the larger smartphones that are currently on the market. The extra screen real-estate is warranted by the resolution, an eye-popping 1280 x 720 pixels — better than many low-end televisions. It also features an 8-megapixel camera, and it is one of few smartphones that feature Android’s latest operating system: Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0. All these are nice, but the real feat of the One X comes in its memory. Since the phone lacks expandable memory, HTC and Dropbox are partnering to offer phone owners access to 25 GB of storage online, making this the first smartphone (to my knowledge) that natively deploys cloud storage out of the box. People have been heralding the cloud age for years now, and if the One X catches on, it won’t be long until the lucid dream of the cloud becomes a glistening reality.

Asus

If there was ever a smartphone that has a conflicted identity, the Asus Padfone wins that distinction. Asus isn’t a name that people generally associate with smartphones, but the company has a reputation for making high quality laptop computers. The Padfone has a 4.3 inch screen – or so people will think when they first see it.

An optional accessory can turn the phone into a 10.1-inch tablet instantaneously. The accessory also functions as a charger for the phone. Another keyboard accessory has the ability to charge both the phone and tablet. The phone also has the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system. Like the HTC One X, the Asus Padfone features an 8-megapixel camera and will probably manage to produce O.K looking photos like every other integrated device. The phone also boasts a qHD Super AMOLED display, and a Snapdragon S4 1.5 GHz dual core processor.

If one was to identify a trend at MWC, it was doing more with less. Since the release of the iPad, tablets have been the functional middle ground between smartphone and personal computer. However, the smartphone is changing: it’s a little too large and much too powerful to only be considered a talking device. With the SnapDragon S4 processor supplying manufacturers with HD video capability, 5.1 audio support and a bevvy of other home-theater-like qualities in the palm of one’s hand, one wonders if the only thing a tablet will offer over a phone in the next year is screen size.

The core mission of most charter schools is to prepare their students for college, and these schools are using new devices and Internet applications to help get students ready to learn about the technology they’ll be using in higher education and beyond. How can these new technologies be used in schools—charter and otherwise? And how could these new concepts change the educational landscape?

Course management systems

Colleges and universities all over the world have developed online course management systems to help students and instructors keep track of classes, conduct class discussions and projects online, and provide a way for assignments and projects to be turned in for grading. As K-12 schools integrate online elements into education, course management systems can provide parents with a direct line to their children’s teachers and give students a way to study and receive tutoring online. Not every child can stay after school, and not every parent can travel to their children’s schools to participate in parent-teacher conferences. But a course management system could help bridge the gap that distance and other circumstances create for students and their families.

Online content

Higher education has used the Internet to provide content for their students, as well as for the general public: sites like TED and Academic Earth provide free, easy-to access educational opportunities to anyone with an internet connection. For younger students, online content can allow rural or inner-city children to visit far-away and historically significant locations, to communicate with other classes, and to see the world first-hand without leaving the classroom. And introducing online content and other learning tools to students will prepare them for the use of the Internet when they enter college.
Social networks and collaborative learning

One of the benefits of social networks is the ability to connect with groups of people regardless of distance. And social networks have become an effective tool of online education. Facebook provides resources for student engagement and collaboration, and other social networks being used in education as well.

The value of social networks to charter schools is two-fold: for students in low-income neighborhoods, access to the Internet can provide resources that might be out of reach financially. That access can in turn help prepare students for college by introducing them to other students they might not otherwise encounter. Socialization is an important part of the college experience, and giving students the opportunity to meet students from other locations and socioeconomic groups can facilitate both learning and awareness for every student involved.

As changes in higher education are guided by technology, K-12 schools must prepare their students for the reforms they’ll face in college. Some charter schools maintain that they’re meeting this challenge by integrating technology into their learning curricula—and it’s a trend that other schools may want to follow.

Hunch vs Let Simon Decide

Hunch’s most direct competitor is probably Let Simon Decide, which takes a more mathematical approach to decision-making (although Hunch does a lot of statistical analysis in the background).  What separates Hunch from Let Simon Decide, though, is the entertainment and social factor. You’re not leaving your decisions in the hands of just a computer, but have the input of thousands of people who’ve been in similar situations, which is actually quite comforting.

Let Simon Decide, another decision support system (DSS) that uses more complex algorithms as well as a personality test to help people make decisions, was mentioned twice in this article.  What is amazing about this article is two things.

First, Simon has only out of beta for slightly over a month and it is getting international recognition from one of the most popular and credible news organizations in the world.  Simon’s mention in CNN is acknowledgement that Simon is a major player in the field of decision science and decision support systems.

Second, this article reflects the development of an industry around helping people make  sound, smart and rational decisions.  With the recent collapse and turmoil in the financial markets, housing markets, credit markets and auto industry, it has become apparent that millions of people from Harvard educated CEOs to recent college grads have been making some pretty bad decisions. 

Please visit both Hunch.com and LetSimonDecide.com to compare how they support sound decision-making. Let us know your thoughts.

LOS ANGELES – 5 May 2009, my good friend, Ricardo Solar, had a lot more than cinco de Mayo to celebrate yesterday.  His site, Let Simon Decide®, that my team at inQbation™ worked so hard on for the last 6 months, was featured prominantly by Jason Kincaid in TechCrunch.  Jason’s article, “LetSimonDecide Takes on Life’s Tough Choices,” is an excellent description and tribute to what Ricardo has accomplished in the past two years.

For those of you who don’t know, TechCrunch is the world’s leading authority on Silicon Valley’s Internet startup, venture capital and mergers & acquisitions space.

TechCrunch was founded [by Michael Arrington] on June 11, 2005, as a weblog dedicated to obsessively profiling and reviewing new Internet products and companies. In addition to covering new companies, we profile existing companies that are making an impact (commercial and/or cultural) on the new web space.

An Internet startup getting profiled in TechCrunch nowadays is like an MBA getting featured in The Wall Street Journal in the old days.  Thanks to Michael Arrington, Jason Kincaid and TechCrunch and congratulations to Ricardo Solar, Let Simon Decide and my dedicated team of web developers at inQbation™.

Well done and wishing all involved the greatest success.