Q&A: Power Up Your Small-Medium Business
Author Robyn Aber is Technical Marketing Officer for the Commercial Segment at Cisco Systems. She searched high and low for a book like Power Up Your Small-Medium Business to use in her own work - to no avail. And so she set out to write the book herself. Read on to find out what sets this book apart.
Title: Power Up Your Small-Medium Business: A Guide To Enabling Network Technologies
Author: Robyn Aber
ISBN: 1587051354
Download a sample chapter: Performing with a Net: Becoming a Network-Centric Business
Q: Does this book fill a need that others have failed to fill?
A: Yes, definitely. There are no other combination business/technology books for the small-medium business market. You either find "Dummies" books for SoHo readers that offer step-by-step cookbooks of how to set up a home office or, alternatively, down-in-the-weeds technology installation and troubleshooting tomes for large enterprise IT experts.
It was like a Goldilocks syndrome. All of the books were either too small or too big ... nothing was just right. That's the gap this book aims to fill. It's for those businesses with 20-1000 or so employees who want to achieve what larger enterprises do business-wise, but with fewer employees and at a lower cost and technical complexity. Power Up Your SMB helps prepare SMB business and technical decision makers to choose right-sized network technologies that enable and achieve their business goals and objectives and provides the means to justify them in business value terms.
Why this book? Why now?
Small-medium businesses represent a growth engine for the U.S. (and globally). Anything we can do to support their growth and spur their innovations and success is worth the effort.
What Hershey's kiss concept (bite-sized, dense, and sweet) do you most want your readers to walk away knowing?
Remember to put the horse before the cart. Don't just invest in technology for technology's sake. First decide what you want to achieve in your business, then find the right technology to support the business goals. There's at least one "right" technology for every business need. This book helps with that matching process.
And while we're dwelling on food analogies, I'd like to put forth a macadamia nut chocolate chip cookie ice cream concept (tasty and lots of textures). That is... while written for SMBs, the book is versatile enough in its business value concepts and technology discussions to be applicable to others too (such as large enterprises, VARs, managed service providers, and anyone who wants to understand network technologies!). The textural richness of Power Up Your Small-Medium Business includes: business case justification ideas, simple to understand technology tutorials, case studies of technology use by vertical markets and checklists of questions to ask vendors when deciding which technologies to invest in. Readers can enter the book with either a technology interest or a business need to solve. Hmmm, just thinking about ice cream has made me hungry!
What did you learn while writing this book? And, how will that help your readers?
There are a lot of far-flung sources of information (mostly in 'geek speak') on network technologies. Most SMBs wouldn't take the time to track them down. There also is very little information about the business value of technologies out there. Power Up Your Small-Medium Business eliminates the need for SMBs (and others) to go on informational scavenger hunts by pulling together the vital information they need in one place. It doesn't eliminate the need for trusted advisors, but it certainly helps SMBs make more informed technology decisions.
What's the one question that no one has asked you about your book that you wish they had?
What's the shelf life for your book? The answer: Power Up Your Small-Medium Business should be a useful reference for several years to come. It blends information on proven technologies that are here to stay for the foreseeable future, highlights ways to track progress on advanced technologies that are facing evolutionary developments, and provides a roadmap to SMB technologies that are emerging and are likely to emerge in the next few years.
(The other question I haven't been asked is whether I really look like the picture on the cover. Let's just say the photo was touched up a bit.)
What reading material is on your nightstand?
The Da Vinci Code (reading it now). The Devil Wears Prada and Katharine Graham: Personal History (up next).
Which websites top your favorites list?
webtorials.com, entrepreneur.com (especially the "experts" section), amazon.com, photographysites.com (I'm really into digital photography.)
What is your most hated buzzword?
Not so much a word as a sentence.... "Put more wood behind the arrows."
Do you have any predictions for the IT year ahead?
Network security will continue to be a top-priority issue to IT that should be addressed with defense-in-depth solutions that ensure business resiliency. There also will be more focus on putting a new generation of more intelligent networking foundations (switches and routers) in place that third party software applications and advanced technologies (like Internet Protocol [IP] telephony and wireless local area networks) can more easily be supported upon. Expect to see a burst of SMB interest and investment in data storage systems (networked and portable) because they not only protect the intellectual assets of companies and ensure their uptime, but also contribute to the mobility of workers and to an agile, distributed and collaborative work environment.