.FLYINGHEAD THE FLEXIBLE ENTERPRISE
.TITLE Five tech ways to recession-proof your life
.AUTHOR Adrienne Gonzalez
.SUMMARY Here are five very simple and nearly hands-off ways to recession-proof your life. Lucky for you, between social media and your inbox, you can tweak your incoming doom-and-gloom filter and skip the rest. Anyway you shouldn’t be watching so much TV, it’s bad for you!
.OTHER
You can’t turn on a television set or open a newspaper these days without hearing about the economy. Yes, everyone knows things are rough. Yes, everyone is a little on edge. Yes, most of us, except for the 3% of the world comprised of finance professionals, accountants, bankers and money bloggers could live the rest of our lives without ever speaking of or hearing about the state of the economy again.
But the reality is that regardless of where things are headed, it’s good to have a plan.
Lucky for you, between social media and your inbox, you can tweak your incoming doom-and-gloom filter and skip the rest. Anyway you shouldn’t be watching so much TV, it’s bad for you!
Here are five very simple and nearly hands-off ways to recession-proof your life.
.TEASER Tap here and make things better.
.H1 #1: Google Alerts
For business owners, especially small to mid-size businesses, it’s critical to understand right now that you never know if a supplier, key contact, or even bank your company counts on is in trouble. Keeping an eye on your go-to team is as easy as a detailed set of Google Alerts sent to you every day.
I highly recommend going with the "once a day" option for each alert as opposed to getting hundreds of alerts a day as they roll in. A quick scan through them can offer a quick glance at what the Internet has to say. Although you can’t believe everything you read on the Internet, if 177 different Web sites are saying "xxx bank is in trouble," you can safely postulate that now might be time to reevaluate your options and make a move.
You can also look at the bright side as well. Create Google Alerts for yourself, your company, and your brands. It’s really nice to see when you’re getting press and if you’re following the instructions in this article, hopefully all the press yo get will be positive.
.H1 #2: Twitter
When use correctly, Twitter can be an incredible source of information on competitors, suppliers, associates, and other assorted organizations you rely on. It is also a great way to connect with your own industry; an absolute essential asset in these uncertain times.
In conjunction with using Twitter’s search capability, you can even track who is talking about your company, converse with your cable provider, keep an eye on competitors, and get advice on everything from the cheapest local steak place to how to secure a job after being laid off.
Above all else, you can throw in a bit of celebrity gossip, random joke feeds, and even keep an eye on the stocks in your portfolio. Of all recession-proofing strategies in this article, this is my highest recommended and most utilized.
Relationships made on Twitter can easily be transferred to other social networking sites like Facebook for easier network management once you have amassed a collection of useful contacts. Information is free-flowing, helpful, and unbelievably useful.
You would do yourself a huge disservice not to take advantage of this unique avenue. Many third-party applications exist to make the most out of Twitter and of the community, most are more than willing to help a newbie navigate the system and introduce you around to like-minded individuals.
.H1 #3: Financial blog feeds via RSS or email
A tech friend of mine insists that email is not meant for newsletters, or alerts, or blog subscriptions, but I absolutely disagree. When sorted in your inbox correctly, a few well-written quality posts can not only keep you informed but keep you out of the endless noise of media sites and blogs jam-packed with misinformation. If you’re at all like me, you enjoy the daily random injection of posts from blogs you follow between business meeting requests, supply orders, and endless marketing chains.
Find a few trusted writers whose message you enjoy, check out their story and make sure they are qualified to offer their opinion, and subscribe! That’s it! You don’t have to comb through an endless amount of depressing and possibly incorrect information to get the real scoop on where the economy is headed. Just line up a reliable set of sources and check them as often as you care to via RSS or get every new post hand-delivered to your inbox.
.H1 #4: FDIC Friday bank failure alerts
Maybe you’re like me and you actually enjoy keeping a close eye on the economic happenings. The FDIC website (at http://www.fdic.gov) allows you to sign up for alerts on everything from fake cashier check schemes to the latest bank failures.
While some of us keep tabs on overall economic malaise either because of our job description or as a hobby, it might also be important to point out that many of us are also the go-to source of information for our not-as-technologically-inclined parents and grandparents.
If my grandmother’s bank in Milwaukee is in trouble, I want to be able to give her a warning before the FDIC takes over. We have the tools, it is up to us to use them.
.H1 #5: Don’t worry so much
While this suggestion sounds like a joke, I’m being absolutely serious. We can still email each other funny pictures, tacky joke email chains, and even guiltily browse the LOLcats every now and then. [Editor’s note: Not everyone likes getting joke emails and many of them now contain phishing messages and security problems. Before sending jokes to your friends, we recommend you read [[http://www.outlookpower.com/issues/issue200509/00001640001.html|"When it comes to email forwarding, sharing isn’t always caring"]].]
In fact, laughter is absolutely essential at an unprecedented time like this. Projections are that a bottom is close on Wall Street and it just isn’t the American way to throw in the towel. We’ve faced adversity before and we’ve came out stronger than we went in every time. Our own Editor-in-Chief David Gewirtz recently wrote an article for CNN called [[http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/02/stay-calm-make-it-a-priority/|"Stay calm. Make it a priority"]]. It’s also a worthwhile read.
No one knows exactly where things are headed for 2009 and no "expert" can truly tell you what comes afterwards. The best thing you can do for yourself (and your business) is make sure that you are getting the most out of available technology to stay on top of any shifts in the economic framework.
If things get rockier down the road, it’s best to position yourself where you’ll spot trouble from a mile (or a megabyte!) away. And if things look up and we get back to financial sanity like we’re supposed to, well consider yourself all that much more connected and well-informed.
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.H1 Product availability and resources
Sign up for [[http://www.fdic.gov|FDIC alerts]].
Read [[http://www.outlookpower.com/issues/issue200509/00001640001.html|"When it comes to email forwarding, sharing isn’t always caring"]].
Read [[http://ac360.blogs.cnn.com/2009/03/02/stay-calm-make-it-a-priority/|"Stay calm. Make it a priority"]].
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