This worked great, however when installing the CF module onto a Linux server, there are a few items that we learned. For anyone that will be installing a windows based site onto a Linux server in the future, here are a few tips:

1. Linux is very picky about Upper/lower case in the url structure.  So, if your directory structure and page name uses upper/lower cases, ensure that you use the same structure for the url link.  As an example, if your directory structure is /UpperCase/files.cfm  don’t use http://www.siteurl.com/uppercase/Files.cfm.  This won’t work, you must use the same structure as your site which would be: http://www.siteurl.com/UpperCase/files.cfm
2. Forward slash and back slashes. While windows uses the back slash structure \ for it’s server path, Linux uses the forward slash structure /.  You may need to search and replace any instances in the files where a backslash \ is used.
3. Upper/lower case in image names.  If using Flash or other types of applications that can be called to display within a page, ensure that the same Upper/lower case structure is used for images.  If your .fla flash file has the images that are used to create the flash application as lower case, ensure that images on the server are lower case as well.
4. A strange item, although not specific to Windows/Linux conversion, is when placing a site live and using WordPress you may need to resave your permalinks (without making any changes, just hit save again on the Permalink page).  I had this issue when placing the new site live, where some of the site url’s were displaying the temp url structure used during the initial set up and testing phase vs. the domain name. Once I hit save on the Permalink page, all worked fine.

Good luck with any new site deployments and any other recommended items to look out for are welcome!!

The answer? A big YES! Here’s how the above functions would be customers and extremely important to your continued business success:

As a vendor & consultant you provide goods and services to a client, however based upon your client relationship, the vendor or consultant could also be a consumer & marketing source to friends, family and other business contacts.

Clients and Consumers are the customer and purchase or pay/contract with you for your goods and services. Clients and Consumers can also be your best free marketers as they recommended you to their peers and continue to use and contract your services.

A Project Manager is also a customer as they not only represent you and your organization (an internal customer), but also establishes the client relationship which is invaluable.

A Business Owner, whether the client, vendor or consultant are all customers and not only have the final say in relationship and continued contracts / services but can also be invaluable in marketing your services via their peers and social media.

In essence, each and everyone that you have contact with throughout your day is a customer to you in some form and are invaluable to your organization. Relationships and marketing through word of mouth and social media can sustain or break any business.

Take care of your customers and treat them as you’d like and expect to be treated. This will ensure top level customer satisfaction and continued growth for you and your organization.

Fast Facts:

• Average Number of TVs per U.S. Household: 2.5
• Percentage of Americans with 4 or more TVs: 31%
• Number of Mobile Phone Users (13+): 228M
• Percentage of U.S. Mobile Subscribers with Smartphones: 31%
• Number of mobile phone web users: 83.2M

The question is, how are you communicating to get your message across to those who whose smartphones quickly and easily?  The newest and easiest way to provide your contact data, information, directions, coupons, etc. is through 2D QR barcodes.

A 2D QR barcode are a particular implementation of 2D barcode, designed for quick decoding – QR stands for Quick Response. QR Codes can be printed on business cards, encoded with contact cards, or included in advertising such as print or electronic (email) and used to deliver a web address to interested parties via mobile phone. QR Codes can also be delivered digitally, on the internet or television. QR Code reading software is available for most modern mobile phones which feature cameras, and comes pre-installed on many newer models.   You can visit your smartphones app store and download barcode scanners both free and paid.

The benefit of having the scanner is that retailers and advertisers are using the QR codes more and more in magazines, billboard advertisements, retail shops, and online to present coupons, directions and updates to their companies and offers.

Having a QR barcode yourself is also a great idea so people can easily load your vcard (contact information), easily connect to your social media outlets or provides you with a creative opportunity to pass along a discount to members or users via email marketing.

Think about sending an email marketing message out to new subscribers or members that has a QR barcode included.  The subscriber/member can scan the barcode and receive a coupon code that that they can use online to purchase a product or discounted membership or they can bring the coupon into a store with them for a discount.  You can print QR barcodes and place around your business for users to scan and bring into your location or scan and map your location.

The possibilities with the barcodes are endless.  If you need help creating a barcode, let us know, if not the tools are available via the internet and start creating and passing along barcodes to speed up socializing with your peers!!

Here are some barcodes for you to try out:

Contact me via Twitter

Contact me via Facebook & become a Fan

Would they be sitting in the Coffee Shop talking about posts from friends on Facebook and Twitter vs. their life’s issues?  Would Samantha be a YouTube phenom with videos of her exploits? Would Carrie be a blogger who could write more than one column a week?

I found myself watching an episode of Sex and the City while at the gym one day on the treadmill and it amazed me how far we’ve come in such a short time and how Social Media and technology has affected how we interact with each other.

Only a few short years ago, we were talking face to face to each other, meeting for coffee, dinner and talking on the phone about our days and adventures.  We laughed together, conversed about something important or silly and usually ended the conversation on a good note feeling more relaxed that we had the time to interact with a friend.

Today, we post information via Facebook and Twitter and for most of us, this is our main source of communicating to our network of friends and family.  There’s even a car that will give you your Facebook status updates as you drive.  (Honestly, is this really necessary?)

How many times have you been out to lunch, dinner or shopping and have seen other people with their Smart Phones and iPads watching/checking for updates or sending status updates or texts?

Technology is great, wonderful and absolutely amazing.  I for one love, love, love my iPhone and iPad and admittedly, do take them with me with I go places.  But I focus on the people that I’m with and having conversations, enjoying our time together.  The technology is there should we decide to look something up or decide to change locations or directions but it isn’t the focus.

So, what would Carrie Bradshaw and the girls be doing with today’s technology?  I’d like to think that they’d still be meeting in the Coffee Shop to talk about their lives and share the days events with each other.  Posting status updates can wait until they are home.

What do you think?  How has Social Media affected how you used to interact with friends and family?

• Facilitate open, two way dialogue with your audience
• Obtain direct and immediate feedback about your product or services
• Extend product reach and open new market opportunites
• Deliver information to customers and partners quickly and efficiently

By creating a community, you have the ability to not only reach your target audience and encourage the interaction listed above, but establish yourself as a leader and a thoughtful innovator of customer service and relations.

Communities offer a wide range of functionality from Community groups within an organization that can interact amongst the group members themselves, to a larger scale communities which includes forums, blogs, and community member interaction.

Determining which is best for you and your organization goes a long way in determining the best type of community set up and software. There is a wide range of paid and free community software packages available. Deciding which one is best for your organization can be overwhelming if you don’t have a good sense and idea of your community goals.

Establish these goals first, what do you want your community to do, who do you want to reach with your community, and what type of interaction do you want your community members to have?  These are all important aspects of being able to set up the correct community for your organization to further your web presence and customer interaction.

A few open source communities that I’ve recently interacted with and have found to be terrific are:

While Ning offered a great community structure previously, the changes that they are undergoing currently will provide an even better community structure in the future. Check out the proposed changes at: http://about.ning.com/announcement/

DotNetNuke (www.dotnetnuke) also offers a great open source structure that provides you with the ability to add and purchase modules according to your needs and customize as needed with a developer.  The support by the DotNetNuke module developers is also excellent and they can assist with alterations if necessary depending on your needs and the module.  I’ve found them to be more than willing to assist.

Communities allow you to reach your audience and interact in a larger and much more open way. Adding this ability onto your website and/or establishing a separate community site is a terrific way to engage your audience and members and provide them with a vehicle for quick and easy interaction.