Web Essentials 4 Business

New media isn’t just for entertainment companies.

As the new State Director of the New Media & Entertainment Initiative for the California Community Colleges – after a twenty year business career – part of my mission is to find ways to help people become trained and employed in new media and entertainment technologies.

Digital arts and information communication technologies have become much more accessible to small business and private consumers. What could once only be done at a Hollywood studio can now be done in a modestly equipped home office.  This ‘democratization of technology’ is driving the monumental changes in today’s media world.

Combine the power of rapidly emerging applications such as social media, GPS, remote-wireless devices with personal preferences and the intelligence based functionality of our interactive internet and we have entered into a new dimension of work and play.

For everyday business, this means more cost-effective and revenue-generating ways to market products, provide customer service, collaborate with other businesses and be productive. 
These technology trends suggest that small businesses would be eager to get the necessary training in new media to compete.

However, as I talk with small business owners I find a sense of caution and confusion.  I think of a patient contemplating surgery, calculating the impact of downtime, questioning the risk of failure, suspecting the Doctor’s true motives and ultimately being tempted to do nothing.

But by choosing to do nothing, small businesses are taking themselves out of the competition.

Large companies, when contemplating a major new media plan, hire a consultant, release a Request for Proposal (RFP) and distribute it to top vendors requesting ideas, responses and service level assurances for every aspect of a proposed project.  These proposals, once received, are then scored and legally reviewed before negotiations begin.  Micro- small- medium-sized businesses cannot mirror this process.

With WEB4 we plan to zero in on the need for a decision matrix that would help micro, small and medium businesses select the best new media solutions for them and how to negotiate for that solution.

This need when filled will result in increased jobs, training and business growth. By helping micro- small- and medium-sized business decide what is right and profitable for them and show how to get it; i.e., how to source it, hire for it or train their own people to do it that need will be met.

Once that need is addressed small business will do what it always does…lead the way for others to follow.