I'm not exactly sure where I heard it first, but somebody said, "If you want to know where the future is, follow the free". As I think about it, we've been following the free for a while now...
At Ticor, we provide title insurance and escrow services. That's what we do. But how we communicate with our clients and with each other continues to evolve more and more rapidly every day. A few years ago here in the Northwest we created the Dashboard, a killer system that facilitates a very structured and consistent means of communication with our clients. That was a fresh solution for our industry at the time. Now it's the norm. Now it's simply expected that we would provide the status of a transaction online. Where is the Ticor Dashboard, you ask? It's online. It's in the 'cloud'. And it's free.
A few years ago, at the dawn of the new millennium, we used the phone and email (and sometimes pen and paper) to correspond with each other. Five years ago we got blackberries to go along with our cell phones so we could use email on the road. That was cutting edge at the time. Now look at the recent explosion of ways in which we communicate. We're on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Yammer, LinkedIn, and Active Rain. I use these venues as much or more than I do email. And for most of us, this all just popped up in the last year. And where are all these communication platforms? They're online. They're in the 'cloud'. And they're free.
A year ago when we planned a project, we would schedule a meeting around a table in a conference room in some central location, get our notepads out, and brainstorm ways of taking the next hill. We still do that. But now we have the option of free web conferencing via Vyew.com, working on shared documents online via Google Docs, and hashing out ideas on a mind map at mindmeister.com. It's so much more efficient. We could potentially be at other ends of the globe and still get our work done together. And where are all these collaborative tools? They're online. They're in the 'cloud'. And yes. they're free.
How about you? Do you find that you're integrating more and more free technology into your work life these days? If so, please chime in. I'd like to hear what it is.
Matt Sweet
Ticor Title
For more background on the concept of "follow the free" check out this excerpt from Kevin Kelly's book, "New Rules For The New Economy"
;)
;)
Very interesting... I'm currently reading Tom Friedman's (sp?) book The Earth is Flat. He speaks about how technology has caused a leveling of the playing fields across countries. I can't remember the term, but he speaks about all the software and platforms that are free now... the money is made on all the things we do with them, and on the advertising and sponsors of those sites.
It's like Active Rain... look at the incredible platform we all have... for free.
Free use of photos, graphics, graphic capabilities... there are a ton of examples, and his book explains it all. Good post (And I worked for T.I. when it was Title Insurance and Trust in the '70s in Santa Barbara. I even have an original printer's stamp of the TI, which in reverse (like you would see on a stamp) reads "IT". I received that once, when I had "gotten it".