DaveBirchall.com on Business Technology

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I’ve got one of those ‘new fangled’ plugins for this site that automagically helps you to upgrade to new versions of wordpress every time a new release comes out.

I’ve stated a few times before how important it is to keep your open source software up to date so when a new major release of the wordpress came out, I was keen to upgrade.

What normally takes a few simple clicks with WPAU turned out ot be a bit more complicated this time around when my site crashed. (doh!)  As always I take a back up which is one of the great things about this plugin. It gives you the easiest way to back up the database and files for your wordpress site.

So I’m not dead, just dead busy – too busy to FTP my site back together. Proved to be one extra hassle I could do with out and customers always come before I do.

If I’ve said it once, I’ll say it again. Before you do anything – Take a back up.

The guys at Google are constantly tweaking the way that its ranks and indexes it results and as such for professional SEO specialists an update to the algorythm is not such a big deal and just another thing to track.

That said, Google really put a cat in amongst the pigeons today with its latest update – Caffeine. Google didn’t just update its algorithm but released a total re-write to its indexing and crawling system – wow!

The re-write means that the performance of its indexing system will be greatly improved in an effort to favour freshness of content.

The user experience won’t be wildlly different from what you current do on Google however its bound to affect results and the real consqences may take a while to ripple through the SEO community and become understood.

My personal prediction is that the days of putting up  those predictably long, single page websites with far too much capitalisation red font and exclamation marks are over – thank goodness.

Instead some food for thought. If your business still doesn’t have a blog in 2010, get one.

Anthony from Noble Samurai has put together a really nice video which describes how page rank drives traffic. If you don’t understand this basic principle, you’ll forever be in the dark.

If you don’t use Market samurai, the slide are still useful. If you don;t know what Market Samuari is – then heres some further info.

http://www.davidbirchall.bircko.com/keyword-research

We had a brain storm and came up with a list of all the BPM technologies that are now on the market

With any luck if I have time for it, I might pad this out with some notes on what they’re all like.

• ActionBase
• ActiveVos
• Adobe
  Livecycle ES2 Suite
• Agilepoint
• Appian
• Appway
• AuraPortal
• BizAgi
• BOC
• Bonitasoft
• BP Logix
• Business Genetics
• BusinessPort
• Casewise
• Comarch SA
• Cordys
• Corporate Modelling
• Cryo Technologies
• eKuar
• EMC Documentum
• Exomin
• Flexite
• FlowCentric
• Fujitsu
  Interstage
• GBTEC AG
• GetIceberg
• Global 360
• HandySoft
• IBM
  Websphere Business Modeler, BlueWorks
• IDS-Scheer
  ARIS
• iGrafx
• Intalio
• Integrify
• Interfacing
• Interneer
• ISIS Papyrus
• jBPM
• Karomi
• K2
• Lombardi
• Mega
• Metastorm
• Method Park
• Microsoft
  Visio 2010 Beta
• NGC e-POWER
• Nimbus Partners
• Oracle
• Orbis Software
• Orbus
• Orchestra
• Outsystems
• Pallas Athena
• Panviva
• Pega
• Pnmsoft
• Polymita
• Process Maker
• Process Master
• proKosha
• QPR
• Questetra
• RunMyProcess
• Salamander
• Salesforce.com
  Visual Process Manager
• SAP
  Netweaver
• Savvion
• Serena
• Skelta
• Signavio
• Singularity
• Software AG
• Tibco
• Triaster
• uEngine
• Ultimus
• Vicon
• Vitria
• W4
• Workpoint
• XSOL

It started just two days ago when a friend updated her facebook page with concerns over the latest round of privacy settings.  Facebook is no stranger to critisism in this area so at the time I didn’t pay much attention to it.

Two news articles later in the Australian press as well as talk of an investigation by the Australian Privacy watch dog and I was ready to find out more. Following on from the tragic murder of a young women in Australia  by a facebook stalker, users have payed closer attention to their privacy settings. The problem is there are over 50 different settings in multiple dispersed locations over the site according to the telegraph.

Whilst its great to have this level of control, it just isn’t practically possible to administer this, especially when your privacy controls are modified so frequently.

The SMH here linked to several sites of interest. Most disturbing is ‘your open book’, a stalkers paradise to highlight the sort of information that people share about them selves. The ‘recently searched’ area is not for the faint hearted and is a real eye opener to hwat people are looking for online. On second thoughts perhaps that’s no great surprise.  I’ve chosen not to link to it.

Next are some sites with browser add ons to help you analyse your profile and how to get the most secure settings.

Pressure is mounting on the Facebook management through an organised group at http://www.quitfacebookday.com/

So what does it all mean? Will I be closing my account? No I don’t think so but I will be locking down my settings and monitoring the situation over the next few weeks, as well as looking out for an email from one Mark Zuckerberg.

Their PR department is most likely in overdrive.

Here’s a great offer for senior managers who are looking either to get started in process modelling or to take things up a notch.

Synoptic Consulting are offering Sydneysiders a 60 minute process modelling workshop to demonstrate how to optimise process design using some of the tricks and techniques that we use with our customers. They will use a process modelling tool with a process of your choice to make this as useful and practical as possible.

Attendees find this session both inspiring and practical to take away and start making significant improvements to process design. The session is free of charge to businesses in Sydney Metro until the end of June 2010.

To find out more and to check your eligibility, please contact davidb@synoptic.com.au

Here’s a quick share of an article by Redux, that I thought BPMer might find useful.

http://www.reduxonline.com/blog/2010/5/13/you-cannot-teach-bpm-you-have-to-experience-it-first-to-unde.html

From time to time, I’m approached by IT vendors and suppliers with offers and discounts that you can also benefit from. This one is from Dell and mainly for Small Business Owners, sole operators and productivity addicts like me.

I’m told that its a limited offer so if your looking for hardware for your home office or small business, check out some of what on offer at

http://www.davidbirchall.bircko.com/partners/small-bus-offer/

This page has been timed to self distruct

The more I do online the more understand and appreciate the relevance of email marketing. In the age of massive websites and communities such as facebook and twitter some would argue that these communities are more valuable but for me it really depends on the brand and the people you are trying to reach.

Email newsletters are still a great way to gently remind your user community of who you are and what your do. I’ve put together a collection of really solid articles which will give you some insights on how to build killer email campaigns, track your progress and improve automation.

Check them out. They’re in no particular order.

I know this is somewhat off topic for a business technology blog but its so strangely awesome that I had to share it with you so I hope you enjoy.

It’s not everyday that someone offers you one hundred trillion dollars so I took some photos to prove it.

My colleague has been tracking the decline of the Zimbabwean dollar from 2002 to 2009. The currency has been steadily and then very rapidly declining in value until it was finally abandoned in favour of the American dollar.

The photo is a timeline of bank notes between that period.

This wiki article tell how hyperinflation got so out of control in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar