The 21st century will probably go down in history as the century where technology took flight at a pace that left us all breathless. No longer limited to the world of geeks, technology has permeated every level of society and just about every human interactive experience.
The biggest problem for those of us caught up in this headlong flight is how to keep up. From a business point of view, every business, however small, needs to embrace technology, at least to a limited degree. For most of us that means email communication with customers and suppliers, online banking and ordering systems and, of course, a website. Mobile technology and social networking are the current top areas of development - Facebook have, for example, just announced a new product that is expected to rival the big online email and messaging systems like Hotmail and Googlemail. The new product will, apparently, bring all the user's email and instant messaging services into one service offered on the Facebook platform accessed either any one of your technological devices - phones, computers, tablets etc.
Checking out a potential supplier or customer online has become second nature to most of us. Controlling how we are seen online is not so easy. Your website may well come up first if someone Googles your name, as will your LinkedIn profile, if you have one. If you haven't secured your Facebook profile to be seen by your friends only, that might come up too. Beyond that there may appear any number of cases where you are mentioned online - press stories, club memberships etc. Check out your online profile by Googling both your name and the name of your business.
