E-Business, E-Commerce: Are You Online?

July 15, 2009

What is E-Business?
E-Business is the use of Internet Technology to facilitate doing business. It doesn’t have to be complex or costly to achieve benefits of E-Business.

More and more businesses are moving forward to the internet. In today’s world, it’s a smart move to have a website. There are different kinds of websites out there to choose from. Static sites are a simple one page that shows the business name, address, logo and perhaps a little about the business. We all know that there are some websites that are very involved showcasing various aspects of a business. Many are moving to e-commerce sites where you can do all your shopping online.

Would E-Business be beneficial to your business?

There are good resources out there to help small businesses decide. The Ministry of Small Business has a really helpful website that has solid information to help you make your choice. They even have a great E-Business Toolkit that you can download.

Need some local help? The Business Enterprise Centre in Owen Sound and the Bruce Community Futures Development Corporation in Kincardine are there to help you.

Written by Deb · Filed Under Business, Tech + Life

HICK Tech 2008

April 10, 2008

Following great success in 2007, HICK Tech returns in April 2008 for another year of enlightenment, inspiration, and networking. HICK Tech is a one-day conference in Owen Sound. In 2008 it will feature a keynote presentation by Heather Champ (Community Manager for Flickr) wrap-up session moderated by CBC personality Nora Young and twenty sessions under the topics of Business, Community, Food & Agriculture and Technology.

The event will take place, April 30, 2008 at the Bayshore community Centre in Owen Sound from 8AM-5PM.

For all the details be sure to drop by HickTech.com

Written by Ryan · Filed Under Community, Internet, Tech + Life, Web Tools, theOwen Features

Net Neutrality

January 7, 2008

On a daily basis I follow a near ridiculous number of conversations on line. It’s only near ridiculous and not actually ridiculous of course as a result of the systems I have in place to track these many conversations across numerous websites, blogs, and a variety of other social media platforms(like Facebook and Twitter as examples).

I have written a little about this system in the past and I will offer some more insight in the coming weeks as well as I continue working towards building an effective means by which we can carry out an ongoing, time shifted discussion of all things Grey and Bruce.

One of the topics that has been increasing in prevalence over the past few weeks is the idea of Net Neutrality. The basic idea being the net should be neutral, that was the original idea and we should stick with it. The fundamental reason the debate is heating up has to do with the wishes of telecom providers (who do own most of the Internet infrastructure) to create a two tiered Internet, with the different characteristics of each tier effectively determined by ones ability to pay to have their information available on line. The following video clips and links will provide anyone interested with the varied details of this debate.

Obviously I am following the issue with great interest. It is the neutral nature of the Internet that allows myself as an independent content producer to easily distribute information and ideas to you, the reader/listener/viewer. Easily might be a bit of an understatement considering the time and money associated with my efforts thus far here at theOwen.com but in principal it is.

As a follow up to this post I will draft up a locally pertinent “future scenario” of how a two tiered Internet might impact your access to local information. In the meantime here’s your homework on the issue.

Do some reading about Net Neutrality. A good place to start would be www.neutrality.ca. Otherwise a quick google search will link you to numerous thoughts on the issue. If you happen to find something you think might be valuable to this discussion please send me a link.

You can also watch the following videos…

CityNews International – Amber MacArthur