10 WAYS TO SAVE ON TECHNOLOGY

By David R. Phillips, CEO,
Charlottesville Area Association of Realtors®

If you operate your association on a tight budget and can’t afford the latest technology, take heart. These 10 suggestions will help you accomplish what you need without breaking the bank.

1. Use the Internet as your network. If you can’t afford to network your office computers with an in-house server and hire staff to manage the system, use the Internet. For instance, if you have three employees with computers, hook each to a central high-speed cable or DSL connection. Through your computers’ built-in file sharing capabilities, your employees can communicate with the outside world and share files with each other. There are also online services that facilitate file sharing over the Internet, such as Bad Blue (http://www.badblue.com) or Tenix (http://www.thedatacorporation.com).

2. Use instant messaging to communicate with your president, board, or staff. America Online, Yahoo, and MSN offer free software that allows you to connect with others in real time over the Internet. You don’t have to subscribe to any of these e-mail services to download and use their IM software. Learn more about AOL’s IM service at http://aim.com, Yahoo’s at http://messenger.yahoo.com, and MSN’s at http://messenger.msn.com.

3. Buy the inexpensive PDA. Most association executives needn’t spend $500 on a color and Web-enabled PDA to take advantage of this popular technology’s main selling point: mobility. You can buy a Palm M100 for $99 or less, which stores thousands of names and phone numbers, lets you take your calendar on the road, beams your business card to other PDAs, and runs most of the cool PDA software. Prices are already coming down on PDAs. Watch for the next-generation of mobile devices, such as Hiptop (http://www.hiptop.com) from Danger Inc., combining cell phone, e-mail, and Internet.

4. Outsource tech work via the Internet. If you can’t afford expensive technology, you probably also can’t afford to hire graphic artists, computer technicians, or Web developers. Outsourcing is an inexpensive alternative to hiring staff. And using the Internet as your recruiter offers you a wealth of talent Web-wide. Put your project up for bid on such sites as www.Elance, www.brainpower.com, and www.rentageek.com. In a few hours, you’ll collect several unbelievably low bids to create your newsletter, fix your computer, or design your Web site.

5. Publish pictures online. Do you take pictures at membership meetings or the annual banquet that you’d like to share with members? If you can’t afford a digital camera, send your 35mm film to www.snapfish.com for developing, and the vendor will send you quality prints via e-mail for a reasonable price. Snapfish will post your photos to a secure Internet site where members can view them. (Film developing, prints, and an online album tally $2.99 a roll.)

6. Use autoresponders to distribute information. Many e-mail programs feature an autoresponder option that automatically sends a response to member e-mail inquiries. For example, whenever members need the latest sales statistics for your market, they can send an e-mail to salesinfo@yourassociation.com, which triggers an automatic response with that information.

7. Use Microsoft Excel for member records. There are numerous database programs on the market, but if you can’t afford to spend a lot of money, you may want to try using Excel to keep your member records straight. Excel can crunch your budget numbers, track member dues payments, and provide a host of other accounting and database functions. Although Excel is fairly easy to use and comes bundled with the Microsoft Office collection of applications, you will want to invest in some good training to take full advantage of this program.

8. Back up data on CD-ROM. Backing up data and storing it off-site is an important loss-prevention measure. Many new computers come with a CD writer that allows you to copy your files to a CD-ROM. Each CD holds 700 megabytes of data, which should be plenty of space to back up the data stored by most small associations. Just back up your data once a day, and take the CD-ROM home with you. You’ll never lose your data if your system fails.

If your computer didn’t come with a CD writer, you can purchase one separately for about $100 along with writing software, such as CD Creator 5 Platinum (http://www.roxio.com), for about $59. Alternatively, you can back up your data on your computer’s Zip drive. However, Zip disks are more expensive than CD-ROMs and hold about a third of the information.

9. Set up a free firewall. If you’re using a cable modem or DSL to connect to the Internet, your system may be wide open to hackers. Shore up your system’s security with free firewalls -- such as Zonealarm, Tiny Personal Firewall, Sygate Personal Firewall -- that will make hackers’ job much more difficult. Download these at http://download.cnet.com, search “firewall.”

10. Use your PC as a fax machine. Don’t replace that 10-year-old fax machine when it breaks down; just start using your computer as your fax. You may need to buy a scanner if you need to fax items that you don’t have in an electronic format, but a low-quality scanner (under $50) is as good as the quality of most fax machines. Windows comes with a fax program, but you’ll still have to buy a fax modem ($59). You can also buy computer-faxing software such at FaxWizard 2000 ($50, http://www.faxwizard.com) or Mighty Fax ($19.95, http://www.mightyfax.com). Your investment in the scanner, modem, and software is still less expensive than most fax machines, and there’s no toner to change. Also, try free fax software available online at http://download .cnet.com, such as ScreenPrint Gold and eFax Messenger Plus.

A note of caution on “free”
Chances are you can find a free downloadable program on the Web to solve almost any administrative need: share files over the Internet, create Web pages, block those annoying pop-up ads that plague your browsing experience, and touch up digital photos.

For example, countless technology and software development companies online offer free downloadable programs that can do everything from turn your PC into a file-sharing Web server to help you manage your budget.

Sound great? Well, your office could seamlessly use any of these free programs for a long time, save money, and be perfectly happy; on the other hand, these technology companies may close their operation next week. This is a real risk with dot.coms.

However, you can get the most out of the growing variety and sophistication of freeware if you’re willing and prepared to switch programs at a moment’s notice. To play it safe, always have secure backups of your data and keep your virus protection and firewall software up-to-date.

Several well-established Web sites function as directories for freeware; the best are http://VersionTracker.com and http://Download.cnet.com. They not only categorize the freeware but also offer valuable ratings and users’ reviews.