This freebie may be a big deal or just a splash in a large pond.  The real question is will you consider using iWork on your iPad?  What about for kids, will this be a suitable resource for their school work?

I for one have used SkyDrive which is the free version of Office (in the cloud), Google Docs and iWorks Pages (on iOS), the first two are competent word processors but unless Apple updates Pages and more than likely all of iWork I don’t think it will come even close to being able to play in the big leagues of the other two cloud services.  iWork looks very basic and unpolished at this point.  Granted it is a cloud version still in beta but the iOS app is not though still lacks a great deal of functionality and modern necessities.  Unlike Google Docs you can’t collaborate with others to input data into a spreadsheet or document.  This is 2013 soon to be 2014 and that’s a basic feature and necessity, at least it is to me.

My personal pet peeve in Pages on iOS and in the cloud is not being able to easily add and edit hyperlinks.  I’m writing this post in iWork (beta) on a computer browser and I’m unable to add a hyperlink to an old Phone.com blog post and on my iPad it’s a ridiculous experience to try to create hyperlinks.  I will have to complete writing this blog post by copying and pasting it into Google Docs add the hyperlinks to the post I’ve already written.  This is an injustice to the user and a sad state of affairs IF this is what’s going to be presented to the public this week.

I for one will stick to composing all of my documents in Google Drive and on the rare occurrence I’m not able to edit or email the document to a Microsoft Word user I’ll use my MS Office suite on my computer for this purpose.  I hope Apple will fix Pages because at this point I wasted the $10 I spent buying it on the iPad.  Maybe that will change this week, we will just have to wait and see.  

On Friday, September 13 at 1pm Eastern, Jenny Dempsey (@jennysuedempsey) and Jeremy Watkin (@jtwatkin) will be hosting a Coffee And Customer Service Hangout with a couple of our awesome customer service representatives to discuss this topic from the perspective of a customer service professional.  You can tune into the hangout live on YouTube or go to CommunicateBetterBlog.com to see it in its entirety.  They will tweet a link to the hangout from @commbetterblog prior to the event.  We hope you can join us!

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… and if you missed it live… here is the video: 

Younger workers may be fluent in technologies that their older counterparts may have never heard of.  On the other hand according to Mary Jane Copps a phone-use consultant: “For many people, it’s a lack of confidence that they’ll be able to say the right words in the right order in the right amount of time,”.  Those “older” employees are typically more comfortable on the phone. They may be faster on their “feet” in terms of answering questions because they didn’t grow up taking their time to respond to a text message, when someone called they had to talk to them at that moment.

Some small business owners have seen a decline in sales due to their younger Millennial employees sending sales pitches to potential customers instead of making a call.  It’s much harder to build a relationship and rapport with a client via email then it is by phone.  In a Wall Street Journal article last week “Jason Nazar, a 34-year-old Santa Monica, Calif.-based technology entrepreneur, says his company has missed out on potential hires because his 20-something employees schedule interviews by email, rather than phoning applicants” Jason was quoted saying “If you can do something more quickly and more efficiently by using older technology, then do it,”

Dana Brownlee a Corporate trainer explained in the WSJ article that one of her clients “recently had to teach his young employee what a dial tone was and explain that desktop phones don’t require you to press “Send.”  So pick up a phone next time it is beneficial to talk to the recipient.

The event will be sold out and will take place at the Howe Center – Stevens Institute of Technology. For More information click here.

With over 360 attendees TEDxNavesink will host dozens of talks by industry experts in addition to hosting several live cast performances from the TEDxCity2.0 conference taking place at the Times Center in NYC.

Talk highlights include presentations by Bagriella Levine, COO of the robotics company Protei – Cindy Zipf, Executive Director at Clean Ocean Action – Erika Casriel, an investigative jounallist having worked for publications such as Rolling Stone & Vanity Fair – Tereza Nemessanyi who leads Microsoft’s presence with Startups in the East – Avi Karnani CEO and co-founder of Thrive which was acquired by Lending Tree.

For more invormation about TEDxNavesink, schedule, and tickets visit: http://www.tedxnavesink.com/

About TEDx – In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, live speakers combine with TEDTalks video to spark deep discussion and connection. These local events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event.

For the past eight years, the New York Enterprise Report (NYER) has recognized the Tri-state areas top companies for their business practices. This year, Phone.com is proud to announce that we are among the 30 companies that were selected as Best Practice Award and Best of the Year Award finalists out of dozens of qualified applicants.

From the NYER site:
“The newly revamped awards event will take place on October 9, 2013 at the Hilton New York. Finalists and winners will have the opportunity to network at the newly revamped awards ceremony showcasing the best small businesses in the NY metro area. Winners will be announced in front of the “who’s who” business community. We hope you celebrate with us by purchasing a journal ad or ticket. Visit http://nyreport.com/awards for more information.”

Congratulations to our entire Phone.com team and in particular our customer service department.

All the time I hear these excuses and they’ve been valid but are losing their importance due to Android rapidly evolving. The one thing that hasn’t changed is security. It’s a big deal but what does that really mean? Well it was brought to the surface for me recently. I’m running the new beta Apple iPhone operating system iOS 7 on my iPhone 5 and it’s very nice but my bank’s check deposit app doesn’t run properly. I’m lazy and don’t want to have to run to the bank to deposit my Phone.com check so I pulled out my newest Android phone I’ve been reviewing, the Samsung Galaxy S4. It’s a fine phone and I really like it but it’s Android. And once I downloaded my banks e-deposit app I started to put my bank credentials in and then it dawned on me. I’m giving access to my phone to my bank account. I never faltered doing this on my iPhone but I decided it wasn’t the best idea to do on an Android phone. We regularly hear about security issues on Android and I just had some niggle in the back of my mind saying don’t do it.

I waited till my wife got home and used her phone to deposit my check but that was a turning point for me. I don’t think I’m comfortable putting my entire life and trust into an Android phone that seems to be more prone to being violated than my iPhone. This is what I’m going to tell my friends that ask me what they should purchase for their employees, family and friends. No reason to put your security at risk which I feel you are doing using an Android phone at least for your most important details, in my case it’s my banking. I’m just not willing to take that chance.

Today there are so many small business resources and tools available for small business owners, making it an incredible time to be an entrepreneur. The power of the Internet has made starting a business seamless and chipped away at many of the competitive advantages a larger business might have over small businesses. Technology has lowered the cost, lessened competition and has made providing better customer service easier.

BrickCity Tech Meetup, a vibrant entrepreneurial Newark NJ Meetup group, was visited by Ceo & Co-Founder of Phone.com Ari Rabban. The meeting kicked off with host Anthony Frasier introducing Emily Manz of Brick City Development Corporation who announced the development of co-working space in Newark for entrepreneurs. George Lister, program coordinator of the Institute for Entrepreneurial Leadership, shared that starting in August they’ll have many exciting entrepreneurial events leading up to the opening of the co-working space.

Starting the meeting off discussing co-working space tied in nicely with Ari’s message. Co-Work spaces provide virtual offices for entrepreneurs at a fraction of the price of what a traditional office would cost. They typically have many different options available for small business owners like mail services, administrative support, event rooms, conference rooms, Wi-Fi Internet access and much more. One of the largest flexible workspace providers Regus has offices available worldwide with cost ranging from $40 – $400 depending upon your office needs.

Ari shared with this entrepreneurial audience that technology and other developments has made becoming an entrepreneur much easier. Take Phone.com for instance, you can now have an affordable business phone system with call recordings, call screening, extensions, multiple voicemail systems, hold music, conference calls and so much more all for less than $15 a month. A solopreneur can now have an extremely professional image for a fraction of what large corporations pay.

There are countless other examples of how costs have been reduced for those looking at starting a business. Take Stamps.com, you can now have you own small business mailroom on your desktop, eliminating costly machines and wasted space. Cloud accounting software like FreshBooks, has eliminated the pains of invoicing and greatly reduced the number of hours needed to manage a business’s accounting. New business owners can now also legally protect themselves online with companies like CorpNet for a fraction of what lawyers charged in the past. CorpNet even has a new Free cloud based corporate compliance tool that emails you when you need to file taxes, tax deadlines, print documents and many other needed small business requirements that small business owners had to pay accountants for in the past.

Cloud based software has made legal, accounting, phones systems and much more easier for small business owners. Though there are countless other tools that are helping entrepreneurs, one of the best has been in the development of staffing. Companies like Elance have made increasing staff and decreasing during slower times so easy. Elance has over 400 categories of freelancers ready to help business owners. They have programmers, writers, web-design, sales people, bookkeepers and so many other freelancers a small business owner can access within an hour to help them in their business at a fraction of the cost of an employee. Today you can simply jump on Elance and hire an employee for a project or for a long-term employment need, absolutely amazing.

Ari’s message really resonated with the entire room of entrepreneurs of how exciting it is to be an entrepreneur today. He closed though with sharing that regardless of technology, customer service still remains number one today. Phone.com has invested heavily in assuring small business owners have the best experience, something I can surely attest to having used countless other providers that don’t have phone support when a small business owner needs it. Regardless of technology, Small Business Owners need to remember:

“If we don’t take care of our customers, someone else will.”

About The Author, Mike Kawula

Mike Kawula is the Founder of Self Employed King, where they review Digital Products, Online Tools and other Business Resources to help new and existing entrepreneurs navigate the endless resources available. Self Employed King motto: “Before you buy, make sure it’s Koalafied”

They continue, “This is the second consecutive month for growth in job creation among smaller firms. In May, small businesses created 63,000 jobs, up from 57,000 in April.”

What does this mean for Phone.com customers? Are you adding new employees? Is your company growing? What can we do to help your company grow? We want to be part of the solution and help your company in any way we can. Drop us a line on Twitter or Facebook and tell us what we can do.