Both last year and this year I took (and passed) a Microsoft exam (which is I suppose the Microsoft equivalent of CPD – Continuing Professional Development).
Last year it was Programming in C# (certification: here), and this year it was Microsoft Certified: Azure Developer Associate (certification: here).
Are you an entrepreneur wanting to move a new or existing business online? We can help! Here are some key tips to get started:
If you are confident with using computers and technology, then we recommend using WordPress: they claim to power about 30% of the web and provide a very comprehensive service, including a custom domain (your very own address on the web), encryption (making your site safe for your customers), a built in blog, and the ability to add ecommerce and custom themes. (If you don’t want to use WordPress, there are similar competitor websites out there too!).
If you need help setting up your website in WordPress (or similar) we can help you do that. Similarly, if you need help in editing a site after it has been set up, or adding extra functionality.
If you need a more complex website (e.g. because it needs to perform calculations, or manipulate data) then we can help you do that, via building a bespoke website for you in the cloud (Microsoft Azure). It will use a responsive design, meaning that the layout will automatically adapt to the device that your site visitors are using (e.g. a mobile phone, a tablet or a computer).
Make sure you have chosen some good marketing collateral (that is to say images and text which conveys your message clearly and attractively). Again, we can help you choose some suitable materials from your existing documents, or help you create new ones.
After that, we recommend you set up suitable social media channels (including Twitter and Facebook) so that you can reach a wider audience and to keep your content fresh and engaging!
We wish you the very best of luck in your exciting online journey. If you need any help in making this important first step in putting your products and services online, please contact us!
If you are new to social media marketing, this post is for you!
Social media via channels such as Facebook, Twitter, Linked In, Instagram and blogs, can be a very powerful addition to more traditional forms of marketing. We can help you with this. Here are some key pointers:
add impact to your posts with well chosen images. Visitors to your posts/tweets/blogs are far more likely to read, engage with and remember your content if it has a suitable image!
post regularly but make sure your content remains relevant to your customers
initially, you can just dip a toe in the water by merely pushing content out to your target audience to excite their interest, without engaging in dialogue. (But do respond to any criticism or praise from your site visitors!)
however, for maximum impact, engage with those who visit your social media platforms, e.g. by taking part in discussions with relevant hashtags. Be aware that this is a more demanding strategy which will require you to spend more time, but if you engage well with customers and prospects, this can lead to significant new interest in your business or organisation!
a major strength of social media over traditional advertising is that it can help you reach target audiences in a much more effective way (e.g. by filtering audiences by age, location and interests).
Good luck with your social media journey – please contact us if you would like us to help you, or with any other aspects of enhancing your presence online!
I am delighted to have passed the above course with a mark of 100%. This was the 8th course on the Microsoft Professional Program for Big Data, and means that I am on track to complete the entire program by the end of April 2019.
One example of how #AI can make it easier for your staff, customers or suppliers to interact with your software tools is to add a combined”Next Step / Tell me what you want to do” facility.
This uses natural language processing (NLP) combined with knowledge of who the user is (and what their role is, e.g. whether they are a member of staff, a customer, or a supplier, or a user with admin rights for example) and the context (which page or part of the app they are on, and what data they have stored in the system), to add two powerful new ways for the user to interact (with minimal training) with the app:
What’s my next step?
On any page, simply clicking the Go button asks the system “What’s my next step?”. The system then look intelligently at the user’s identity, role, data and location within the app and makes one or more suggestions as to what the user could usefully do next to make the most of the app.
Example 1: a new user has just registered and wonders what they should do. They could consult the online help file which will tell them that they need to register their family within the system. But far more simply, then can just ask “What’s my next step?” by clicking the Go button. The system guides them step by step, telling them initially that they need to create one or more families in the system:
Within a few short years, some companies and organisations will have adopted Artificial Intelligence (AI) in at least one part of their work: interfacing with their customers. (I’m using customers in the widest sense of the word: it could be students in education, or patients in healthcare for example).
Imagine the following:
Instead of having to log in to a website or an application, the application simply recognises the user’s face or voice
Instead of having to click on a menu to navigate the app, the user can just talk to it, either by speaking or using a chatbot type interface.
Instead of calling customer service (and being told “you are currently number two in a queue” or “Our business hours are 0900 to 1700 Monday to Friday, please call back during those times” ), they can get an immediate response (24 hours a day, 365 days a year) from a chatbot.
If customers have a choice between interacting with one organisation in that way, or another in the more traditional way, I think they will vote with their feet.
Adding a chatbot to your organisation’s website can provide a more interactive experience for your users while at the same time reducing demands on your staff’s time. Chatbots can help to:
free your team to deal with more complex enquiries or tasks
speed up employee training by providing a very accessible and intuitive source for staff to obtain information internally
automate complex workflows (such as providing quotes or booking services)
provide availability 24/7, 365 days a year
provide an alternative user interface for your apps than the traditional point and click menu/button system
Once written, your chatbots can be made widely accessible to your staff via various channels, e.g. Microsoft Teams in Office 365, Skype for Business, Facebook and email. This means that when your staff or customers need information, they can obtain it very quickly via the most convenient route for them.
Further to my previous post about this, we have managed to get this working successfully now with a variety of guest users (with email addresses which are outlook.com, or associated with Azure Active Directory or Azure ADB2C accounts).
Why is this so useful? Because it means that in order to collaborate with users outside your organisation (including being able to share files, hold online conversations, video chats, do online voting within your team), all you need is one of the following Office 365 subscriptions (see this Microsoft link)
Guest access is included with all Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 Enterprise, and Office 365 Education subscriptions. No additional Office 365 license is necessary. Guest access is a tenant-level setting in Microsoft Teams and is turned off by default.
This should not only be much cheaper than alternative collaboration software (e.g. box.com) but also allows your staff and guest users to use tools that they will increasingly become familiar with (Office 365).
As well as providing support for our products, we have extensive experience of developing for the web and in particular for Microsoft’s Azure cloud offering. In particular we can help you with the following:
I am delighted to have completed my latest course on the Microsoft Professional Program for Big Data with 100%: Orchestrating Big Data using Azure Data Factory. I have one more course left on the program, which I aim to complete…
(Written on a personal basis – no endorsement or approval is implied by any organisation that I am associated with.) Over the past couple of months I have been reading and thinking quite a lot about ethics in data analytics…
We are currently using a customized software by INQA which enables us to carry out our actuarial valuation of employee benefit plans outside the UK. The software is accurate and efficient and more importantly has an interface which is easy to understand.
We have been working with Patrick Lee of InQA over the past 18 years. He has been professional, helpful and proactive in supporting us to update the software regularly to meet our requirements. Overall, it is software that has helped us immensely over the past few years, and we look forward to our continued association with Patrick.