E mail
PC based electronic mail is often more convenient, faster and cheaper than phone or fax, and is rapidly becoming the preferred medium for business and personal information exchange. It's only a matter of time before most documents and data will be routinely digitized and transmitted through the invisible phone net, computer to computer, never touching paper or awaiting mechanical delivery. Such convenience will soon become the expected norm.
An easy way for independents to establish an electronic identity is through one of the major network services, such as CompuServe, America Online, Prodigy, Delphi or Microsoft Network. For a few dollars per month, you get your own mailbox in cyberspace and push button messaging from your modem equipped desktop or portable computer. Or, ready or not, you can buy or lease a hand held cordless cellular, satellite relayed Personal Digital Assistant (PDA). For even less money (about $1 per hour), you can get hooked up to a local Internet access provider and get e mail through them.
Once you've got an electronic address, get it printed on your business card and stationery, mention it to a few friends, and you'll start receiving e mail. Soon, you'll be in the habit of checking your e mail once or more a day, and finding along the way that it's so easy to write notes to people this way that you're communicating more than ever. Just keep it to productive business relationships!
In doing so, though, you'll find the medium is less formal and more conversational than letter writing. You'll get familiar with some of the unique conventions of e mail, such as copying and "pasting" essentials of your addressee's previous message verbatim (usually in quotes) as a reference for your reply.
Regardless of how you feel about e mailing, its popularity bodes well for the self employed, since it puts self directed solos on equal terms with those networked within (and outside) For tune 500 corporations.
More On Line
E mail is just one aspect of electronic communication. On line, a whole universe of information, organizations, services and talent awaits you, ready to be tapped for your professional advantage. There are thousands of publications, entire discipline specific libraries, huge searchable databases, indexed directories, up to date reference sources, downloadable programs and graphics, professional forums and special interest groups at your disposal. You can participate in informal real time "chats" and interactive guest "appearances" by nationally known authorities in an infinite range of disciplines. There's hardly a topic or task, question or concern that cannot be addressed on line quickly, inexpensively and (usually) reliably.
CompuServe alone perhaps the best all around information service for small businesses and independent professionals offers a Working from Home Forum, several Entrepreneur's Small Business Forums and a directory of Government Publications with information on numerous business topics. (See Resources)
In addition, you may want to connect directly to some of the hundreds of private, state and federal agency special interest, computer based bulletin board systems (BBS) available, often for free. For example, the Small Business Administration maintains a toll free BBS loaded with valuable information on start up and self employment. (See Resources)
Providing the main thoroughfare on this journey is the Internet itself. With 25 to 30 million people now having access to the Internet (and growing exponentially), you can't afford not to be Internet aware. After all, today's new breed of college graduates have been cruising through cyberspace since high school. You're either wired or retired!
Advances in technology, plummeting hardware prices, user friendly graphical software and the increasing popularity and numbers of on line services are together rapidly expanding the scope of the Internet to include advertising, sales, public relations, interactive marketing, consumer activism, education and entertainment. You can order products and services, book trips, pay bills, do your banking, file taxes, contact mass media, trade stocks, find clients and customers and access international resources and markets, literally at the touch of a button.
Opportunities for individual entrepreneurs and new and small companies are vast; perhaps even more so than for large, established (slower, less innovative) corporations.
If you're new to the Net, the easiest way to connect and get around is through one of the commercial services, such as AOL, CompuServe, Delphi or MSN. They offer guidance and provide easy access to the Internet, in addition to their regular in house services. Less expensive (and less helpful) are local Internet access services that don't include as much fancy packaging but get you where you're probably going anyway onto the Internet or the World Wide Web.
The Web is the greatest single reason for the Internet's current transformation into a mainstream medium. Together with simple point and click programs designed for it (such as Mosaic and Net Scape), the Web allows instant, effortless "go to" navigation among countless attractive, full color electronic environments throughout the world. This intoxicating freedom of movement has created an unprecedented boom in Internet usage. In just three years, the number of Web sites has risen from 100 to more than 10,000, and about 60,000 are expected online by this year. Web users totaled about two million in 1995 and are expected to soar to 22 million by 2000, predicts Forester Research in Cambridge, MA.
Most Web sites are promotional in nature, the Web being the only sector of the Internet where advertising is considered acceptable. With a simple Web site design manual (or a qualified consultant), you can put your logo, products, services, news, questionnaires and accompanying imagery on your own "home page," and invite one and all to drop in anytime, from anywhere. Even sounds and moving images can be included for the growing number of multimedia equipped users. Costs range from $100 to $1000 per month.
The necessary software for WWW "browsing" and home page construction is available free for the downloading, or in inexpensive commercial versions complete with manuals. The major online services also offer direct access to the Web.
