Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from I Heart Radio.
Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm an executive producer with iHeart Radio. And
Speaker 1: how the tech are you today? I want to talk
Speaker 1: about how small businesses are leveraging tech and how the
Speaker 1: intersection of small business and tech is shaping the future
Speaker 1: of work. But before we jump into that, let's talk
Speaker 1: a bit about the recent past. And we all know
Speaker 1: that COVID nineteen caused a level of disruption that your
Speaker 1: typical Silicon Valley startup founder would only dream of. We
Speaker 1: use that word in tech a lot, disruption, and and
Speaker 1: typically it's shorthand for we're doing this thing that's been
Speaker 1: done by other companies for ages, only we're doing it
Speaker 1: different and better. But COVID nineteen wasn't entirely different level
Speaker 1: of disruption. By the summer of twenty twenty, of small
Speaker 1: businesses had closed due to the pandemic, and some of
Speaker 1: them would never reopen. More would close over the following months,
Speaker 1: and a lot of small businesses happen to be ones
Speaker 1: that are disproportionately affected by requirements like social distancing. I'm
Speaker 1: talking about your restaurants, your nail salons, your barbershops, your
Speaker 1: tattoo parlors, and what have you. But we also saw
Speaker 1: communities rally around local small businesses that we saw an
Speaker 1: outpouring of support that buoyed businesses that otherwise would have
Speaker 1: been struggling to remain open. And we saw innovation. In fact,
Speaker 1: we saw tons of innovation. And I'm sure you have
Speaker 1: all heard the saying that necessity is the mother of invention.
Speaker 1: And if you need any proof that that saying is
Speaker 1: absolutely true, just look at the massive trends we saw
Speaker 1: over the last two years. Companies embraced digitization. Even companies
Speaker 1: that happened so much as dipped their corporate toe into
Speaker 1: the digital landscape found ways to pivot and to adapt.
Speaker 1: I can't even tell you how many stories I heard
Speaker 1: about how companies found ways to keep doing business and
Speaker 1: what I would call beyond difficult circumstances. But let me
Speaker 1: share my own experience, and I realized anecdotal evidence isn't
Speaker 1: really evidence, but I think like it's a it's a
Speaker 1: use case kind of. So obviously I podcast for I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio well before the pandemic. The way that worked
Speaker 1: is I would go into our office in Atlanta. I
Speaker 1: would book one of our studios we have four of
Speaker 1: them in the office, and I would record one or
Speaker 1: more episodes sitting in a sound booth while my producer
Speaker 1: Tari sat outside the sound booth monitoring the recording in
Speaker 1: real time, marking down all the little moments where I
Speaker 1: made a flub so that she could edit them out later.
Speaker 1: Some episodes had a lot of those markups in them.
Speaker 1: And then March twenty happened. That was a Friday, the thirteenth.
Speaker 1: Fittingly enough, that was the last day our office was
Speaker 1: open before we went into lockdown. Now, I know that
Speaker 1: because for the longest time, all the desk calendars in
Speaker 1: our office, the ones that require someone to you know,
Speaker 1: physically change them. Anyone who had a desk calendar, it
Speaker 1: was stuck on March thirteenth. I know that because on
Speaker 1: rare occasions, I had to go to the office pretty infrequently.
Speaker 1: But it did happen, so our whole operation had to
Speaker 1: shift to remote work. Now my show publishes daily, so
Speaker 1: there was no real gap in publication. We secured microphones
Speaker 1: for all the hosts. We established cloud storage solutions to
Speaker 1: upload all the audio files because you know, we're no
Speaker 1: longer recording them directly to studio computers. Our producers adapted
Speaker 1: to edit and publish shows offsite while they were working remotely.
Speaker 1: The whole operation changed from this centralized arrangement to a
Speaker 1: distributed one. March thirteenth, we're in the office. March six
Speaker 1: we're recording from home. And here's the amazing thing. Nearly
Speaker 1: every show on the network did this without an interruption
Speaker 1: in production. Now, there were kinks that had to be
Speaker 1: ironed out. Of course, not everything worked perfectly out of
Speaker 1: the box, but we adapted. To this day, our office
Speaker 1: tends to be pretty quiet. Even as things have opened up.
Speaker 1: People have adapted their work styles. We use digital collaborative
Speaker 1: project management solutions to work together. We use online video
Speaker 1: conferencing services in order to have meetings. We even have
Speaker 1: web based studio solutions to record episodes with multiple hosts.
Speaker 1: You know, when we first started, everyone was recording natively
Speaker 1: on their own devices, and a producer had to mix
Speaker 1: it all together. Now we're actually using tools that allow
Speaker 1: us to do like a studio recording, but it's a
Speaker 1: virtual one. Uh Me. I don't have to worry about
Speaker 1: that very often because I'm a solo host, but you know,
Speaker 1: I've got it. I do use it whenever I do
Speaker 1: interviews and things like that. Now, the way we do
Speaker 1: work in our office has fundamentally changed, and I believe
Speaker 1: at least some of that change is permanent. I think
Speaker 1: I'll see people in the office more regularly in the future.
Speaker 1: But I really do believe that a hybrid approach is
Speaker 1: how will work from here on out for most of us.
Speaker 1: And that's true for tons of other businesses as well,
Speaker 1: even for those businesses that cannot adopt a hybrid approach.
Speaker 1: We've seen some massive moves toward digitizing work processes, whether
Speaker 1: it's adopting online payment strategies or instituting digitized payroll services.
Speaker 1: Small businesses have evolved more in the past two years
Speaker 1: than they had in the previous decade. Now there is
Speaker 1: a lot of technology that has made all of this possible.
Speaker 1: I've been in the workforce for a long time, so
Speaker 1: I've seen some big changes in tech. When I first
Speaker 1: started in the workforce, which was not at how Stuff
Speaker 1: Works or Stuff Media or I Heart Radio, it was
Speaker 1: in a consulting firm. Well, when I first started, your
Speaker 1: average employee workstation was a desktop computer, typically a tower
Speaker 1: that was connected to a big old monitor. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about the CRT monitors, not exactly a portable solution. That's
Speaker 1: where your workstation was, That's where you had to do
Speaker 1: your work. If COVID nineteen had hit back in those days,
Speaker 1: I'm honestly not certain how or even if companies could
Speaker 1: have adapted in the wake of it, at least not
Speaker 1: without potentially putting their employees in danger. But today we
Speaker 1: have portable solutions. Lightweight laptops are commonplace. In fact, in
Speaker 1: our office pretty much everyone has one, and improvements in
Speaker 1: battery technology and more to the point, power management with laptops,
Speaker 1: I mean that a laptop can last a lot longer
Speaker 1: on a battery, even if you know you don't have
Speaker 1: an outlet to plug into at the moment. They can
Speaker 1: last a lot longer than the clunky, heavy things I
Speaker 1: used to work on back in my college days. Uh
Speaker 1: way back then, I remember having a laptop, although I
Speaker 1: wouldn't call it a laptop because if you were to
Speaker 1: put on your lap you would crush your legs. It
Speaker 1: was a portable computer that was like a very heavy suitcase.
Speaker 1: I almost think of it as like like one of
Speaker 1: those things you would see in a spy movie, except
Speaker 1: not as cool. Now, modern laptops make it possible for
Speaker 1: you to do your work from anywhere, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's their purpose. And before the pandemic, anywhere usually meant
Speaker 1: wherever I was traveling for work, like if I was
Speaker 1: going to c E s or to eat three or something,
Speaker 1: I would bring my laptop with me. But today it
Speaker 1: really does mean anywhere, and as things open up, working
Speaker 1: from anywhere can actually be really nice. For a couple
Speaker 1: of years, anywhere really just meant my office in my house,
Speaker 1: like it's actually a spared room. It's a guest room
Speaker 1: that we turned into an office slash studio for me.
Speaker 1: But now now that things are opening up, anywhere can
Speaker 1: also include stuff like the patio at a local coffee
Speaker 1: shop if I want to go there to research and
Speaker 1: write an episode. Patio culture in Atlanta is serious business.
Speaker 1: We love al fresco dining during that sweet spot in
Speaker 1: the spring just before the weather gets too hot. We're
Speaker 1: starting to creep toward the too hot right now, so
Speaker 1: get those patio days in why you can at Lantern's. Now.
Speaker 1: On top of that, in the old days, the computer
Speaker 1: was really where all the power was like your computer
Speaker 1: was where all the power was. And by that I
Speaker 1: meant we had to depend upon our PC to provide
Speaker 1: all the processing and all the storage that we were
Speaker 1: relying upon. Some companies had their own servers that would
Speaker 1: let you save documents to a company network drive, so
Speaker 1: you were saving your files to a server rather than
Speaker 1: your work computer. But you know, your computer was really
Speaker 1: your enabler and also the limiting factor on what you
Speaker 1: could do. But the emergence of cloud and edge computing
Speaker 1: services have completely changed that as well. Cloud services, whether
Speaker 1: it's storage, or it's compute, or it's a mixture of
Speaker 1: the two, mean that businesses can partner with providers in
Speaker 1: order to handle all that heavy lifting, and the businesses
Speaker 1: can then rely upon more nimble computer systems for employees.
Speaker 1: That is an enormous change. It creates value bull options.
Speaker 1: In some businesses, it might make sense to secure powerful
Speaker 1: laptops or other computers for employees, but in many businesses
Speaker 1: that kind of computer just isn't necessary as long as
Speaker 1: the employee has a reliable Internet connection, and we've seen
Speaker 1: a huge surgeon small businesses taking advantage of the cloud.
Speaker 1: The circumstances of the pandemic really necessitated it. But beyond that,
Speaker 1: the cloud has created new ways for businesses to you know,
Speaker 1: do business. In many cases, it has expanded businesses ability
Speaker 1: to reach new customers, sometimes customers that they never would
Speaker 1: have encountered without the migration to the cloud. And of
Speaker 1: course we're still seeing cases in which businesses are keeping
Speaker 1: everything on premises or on prem as they say in
Speaker 1: the biz, and then some of them are going with
Speaker 1: a hybrid approach where they're keeping some servers on premises
Speaker 1: and they're relying also on the cloud. And in those cases,
Speaker 1: you're typically seeing businesses really keep mission critical, high security
Speaker 1: applications and storage on premises and then offloading everything else
Speaker 1: to the cloud. And it really expands your options. When
Speaker 1: we come back, i'll talk about some other technologies that
Speaker 1: have really enabled small businesses to continue working through the
Speaker 1: last two years and ways that it's going to create
Speaker 1: new opportunities moving forward. But first let's take a quick break.
Speaker 1: We're back now getting back to connectivity. That's something that
Speaker 1: also has changed dramatically since I began working. Not only
Speaker 1: have we seen broadband access increase, we've seen data throughput
Speaker 1: capabilities explode. You know what, we considered a fast back
Speaker 1: when I first started working in the workforce, wouldn't even
Speaker 1: qualify as slow. Today we would think of it as
Speaker 1: excruciating lee slow plus. Now we're seeing more options for
Speaker 1: connectivity than ever before, whether it's a fiber connection or
Speaker 1: a five G wireless solution, or you know, even satellite
Speaker 1: Internet services for people in remote locations. There are businesses
Speaker 1: I have gone to that aren't served by hardlined UH
Speaker 1: Internet connections, or they're not really in a place where
Speaker 1: they can get reliable five G service, so they use satellites. Well,
Speaker 1: satellite services even improved, so the connectivity component for small
Speaker 1: businesses has enabled new ways to reach and serve customers.
Speaker 1: Businesses that in the past relied entirely upon you know,
Speaker 1: in person UH interactions have had to adapt to this,
Speaker 1: and a lot of them have done it incredibly well. Now.
Speaker 1: I mentioned earlier that businesses can make use of servers
Speaker 1: for in house networks, and another big change we've seen
Speaker 1: since I started working is the cost and the availability
Speaker 1: of servers. I remember, like when I started that consulting
Speaker 1: firm in the nineties, it was the first time I
Speaker 1: had ever interacted with servers outside of an academic setting,
Speaker 1: and for a while only larger companies were really able
Speaker 1: to afford servers or even have a need for them.
Speaker 1: But today servers are much more affordable and they offer
Speaker 1: businesses some incredibly useful and powerful tools. For example, employees
Speaker 1: connected to the in house server can collaborate directly, they
Speaker 1: can share files, they can share other resources with each
Speaker 1: other without having to send that information over some other
Speaker 1: network like the Internet for example, where seeing lots of
Speaker 1: businesses adopt these kinds of strate geez. Now, ideally you've
Speaker 1: got yourself a dedicated server, maybe you augment it with
Speaker 1: a VPN or virtual private network, and this becomes not
Speaker 1: just the nexus of collaboration, it also becomes a key
Speaker 1: component to companies security. So one of the ugly trends
Speaker 1: we've seen over the last two years is a serious
Speaker 1: uptick in cybercrime. We saw everything from widespread phishing campaigns
Speaker 1: that sought to trick people into handing over important information
Speaker 1: or sometimes even control of a machine or even a network,
Speaker 1: all the way up to massive state backed campaigns that
Speaker 1: targeted some of the most influential companies and agencies around
Speaker 1: the world. And this meant there was a big bright
Speaker 1: spotlight on the challenges of I T security in a
Speaker 1: distributed work setting. Well, I hate to say it, but
Speaker 1: there is no such thing as a perfect security system. However,
Speaker 1: one thing that is an important tool is a server.
Speaker 1: If employees are logging into a server, if they're logging
Speaker 1: into a company machine before they then do further explorations
Speaker 1: out into the Internet for their work. For example, I
Speaker 1: do a lot of research. So having that as a
Speaker 1: stop is important because a business owner can employ security
Speaker 1: tools to protect the business and the business's assets. On
Speaker 1: the server side, a firewall is a really good start.
Speaker 1: A firewall helps protect against unwanted traffic into a company's servers.
Speaker 1: A tool that can detect and prevent intrusion attempts and
Speaker 1: other threats can really mean the difference between business as
Speaker 1: usual and going into full on damage control. So for
Speaker 1: a lot of small businesses, incorporating a server into the
Speaker 1: business makes a ton of sense. Though we do also
Speaker 1: have to acknowledge that any security strategy also has to
Speaker 1: include employee training and understanding. Anecdotally, I have seen an
Speaker 1: uptick of phishing attempts targeting me recently. Most of those
Speaker 1: are going to my phone via text messages or to
Speaker 1: my personal email account, which suggests to me that my
Speaker 1: information is probably part of a massive database that's being
Speaker 1: traded around on the dark web somewhere. That's tons of fun.
Speaker 1: That's something you obviously want to avoid if you can,
Speaker 1: and it's certainly something that businesses want to avoid. You
Speaker 1: don't want people exploiting information at your expense, so good
Speaker 1: security practices help a lot in those cases. Something I
Speaker 1: find really fascinating is how small businesses are starting to
Speaker 1: leverage high tech solutions like machine learning and artificial intelligence
Speaker 1: and data analytics. I often get a bit narrow minded
Speaker 1: when it comes to certain things in technology. I make
Speaker 1: assumptions such as the only companies that are really engaging
Speaker 1: in those kinds of technologies are the really big ones,
Speaker 1: you know, the companies that are known for pioneering AI
Speaker 1: and machine learning. That somehow this is all confined to
Speaker 1: laboratories and people in white coats with formula. But that's
Speaker 1: really missing the point entirely, isn't it. I mean, I
Speaker 1: get it like that is like that is the most
Speaker 1: primitive way of looking at those disciplines, because why are
Speaker 1: these companies even pursuing these technologies? What is the purpose
Speaker 1: of doing all this R and D work well. Ultimately,
Speaker 1: it's to offer a product up to customers, and customers
Speaker 1: can include small businesses. So small businesses, while not necessarily
Speaker 1: at the forefront of developing the next powerful AI, are
Speaker 1: certainly taking advantage of those technologies, and more of those
Speaker 1: small businesses are doing it every day. In fact, many
Speaker 1: analysts suggest that small businesses are actually adopting these technologies
Speaker 1: faster than the bigger companies because the small businesses are
Speaker 1: more nimble, they're able to respond more quickly than the
Speaker 1: big companies are. But then, what are they using these
Speaker 1: technologies to do well. Sometimes it's for stuff that might
Speaker 1: seem kind of mundane, such as automatic transcriptions for phone calls,
Speaker 1: but that service can get really sophisticated. I'm sure some
Speaker 1: of you have had experiences in which you were using
Speaker 1: some sort of audio conferencing over the Internet, or maybe
Speaker 1: some sort of speech to text application, and you probably
Speaker 1: saw that depending on what you said, you might have
Speaker 1: some interesting options pop up. For example, I've used the
Speaker 1: notation program to remind myself of upcoming appointments and then
Speaker 1: saw that the program actually created an option for me
Speaker 1: to actively add the notation as an appointment to my
Speaker 1: calendar that automatically said, oh, I understand you want to
Speaker 1: be reminded of this event at this time on this day.
Speaker 1: How about we just add that to your calendar. And
Speaker 1: it's the AI component of this transcription service that is
Speaker 1: able to contextualize what I was saying and quote unquote
Speaker 1: understand that it meant I needed to put something on
Speaker 1: my calendar. That is phenomenal. It's something that a lot
Speaker 1: of us kind of take for granted, even after the
Speaker 1: first time we see it. But that was a huge,
Speaker 1: huge breakthrough. And that's just a simple example. I was
Speaker 1: actually on a conference call just the other day and
Speaker 1: during the call, I mentioned that I needed to email
Speaker 1: someone on our team, and during the call, a little
Speaker 1: notification popped up in the service I was using that
Speaker 1: said do you want to add this to your to
Speaker 1: do list? And it was email so and so, And
Speaker 1: it was just amazing to me. And we're seeing these
Speaker 1: kinds of services offer up even more utility as time
Speaker 1: goes on. Imagine that business gets on the phone with
Speaker 1: a supplier and that because of the phone service that
Speaker 1: they're using, it automatically ends up creating a transcription of
Speaker 1: the phone call. You have an AI component that's doing
Speaker 1: speech to text. The AI might make note of specific
Speaker 1: components of the conversation, such as any orders or sales,
Speaker 1: prices of items, or inventory or supply schedules, all that
Speaker 1: sort of stuff. We're seeing AI solutions automate many of
Speaker 1: the processes that in the old days would have to
Speaker 1: be tracked by human beings who would then input various
Speaker 1: data points manually into spreadsheets and stuff. Now a lot
Speaker 1: of that can be done automatically, and we're seeing technology
Speaker 1: enable automated solutions that any business can take advantage of.
Speaker 1: Typically it just includes securing a business license for a
Speaker 1: specific product. There are limitless scenarios where machine learning and
Speaker 1: AI are making transformative changes in how businesses operate, freeing
Speaker 1: up people in the business to focus on things other
Speaker 1: than tracking points of data. In the era of big data,
Speaker 1: a critical component is data analysis. That was something that
Speaker 1: was clear from the very beginning, but for a while,
Speaker 1: data analysis capabilities were trailing behind data gathering capabilities. We
Speaker 1: were gathering terra bytes worth of information at of a
Speaker 1: frightening speed, really, and the ability to sort through it
Speaker 1: was kind of lagging behind. Well, information is not valuable
Speaker 1: if you can't figure out what is in that information
Speaker 1: if you can't separate the signal from the noise. Fortunately,
Speaker 1: very smart programmer came up with incredible algorithms that started
Speaker 1: us on the process of being able to sort through
Speaker 1: all this information and find the meaning within it. Machine
Speaker 1: learning sped that process up significantly, and data analysis is critical,
Speaker 1: whether it's getting a better understanding of what customers want
Speaker 1: and expect, or it's for managing supply chains. Data analysis
Speaker 1: is a key component for pretty much any small business.
Speaker 1: It might not always be obvious, it might not even
Speaker 1: be formally acknowledged, it might be done more like by
Speaker 1: feel and intuition, but it's always there. It's rare for
Speaker 1: a business to be successful without some element of data
Speaker 1: analysis coming into play, and tech really makes that possible
Speaker 1: on a scale that was unimaginable a few years ago.
Speaker 1: But now we're seeing powerful systems, often driven by machine learning,
Speaker 1: that can find real meaning in all the data that
Speaker 1: we've collected, and this can end up being useful to
Speaker 1: small businesses as well. Not that every small business has
Speaker 1: to comb through terabytes of data to get things done,
Speaker 1: but what might have seemed abstract in the past is
Speaker 1: now a concrete reality and businesses are using these technologies
Speaker 1: to get a better understanding of their business strategy, what works,
Speaker 1: what doesn't work. They also get a better understanding of
Speaker 1: their customers and how to do things better at lower
Speaker 1: costs with higher revenues. Now, not all the changes from
Speaker 1: the past couple of years are rosy small businesses based challenges.
Speaker 1: As ever, some of those challenges have emerged over the
Speaker 1: last decade or so. For example, pivoting to a digitized
Speaker 1: strategy brings new consequences. A big one would be the
Speaker 1: rise of the aggregators. So these are companies that collect
Speaker 1: and curate other companies. They act as a sort of
Speaker 1: clearing house or a centralized way for customers to find
Speaker 1: what they're looking for. And there are massive online stores
Speaker 1: that do this. They are numerous ones. They give small
Speaker 1: businesses a chance to reach customers UH using the internet,
Speaker 1: and they can rely on this enormous online store as
Speaker 1: their platform. But this can come at a cost. The
Speaker 1: customer may not ever associate the product with that small business.
Speaker 1: They might instead associate the product with the overall huge
Speaker 1: online store. And we've seen this a lot over the
Speaker 1: last two years. UH food delivery services in particular have
Speaker 1: really contributed to this. Restaurants can find it challenging to
Speaker 1: connect with customers directly as these delivery services become a
Speaker 1: literal go between for the restaurant and the customer. I
Speaker 1: suspect we're going to see a lot of innovation in
Speaker 1: this space as well, as small businesses find new ways
Speaker 1: to reach customers, possibly adopting hybrid approaches to do so so,
Speaker 1: in other words, maintaining a place on these larger online platforms,
Speaker 1: but also keeping their own space as well so that
Speaker 1: customers can go directly there. Maybe they'll find ways to
Speaker 1: attract customers to those owned and operated stores. I imagine
Speaker 1: we're going to see a lot more use of things
Speaker 1: like online newsletters and such in order to do that,
Speaker 1: because it kind of hearkens back to going to small
Speaker 1: individual stores rather than a mall. Right, Like you're shopping
Speaker 1: locally in locally owned stores, rather than going to a
Speaker 1: giant box store or a shopping mall filled with you know,
Speaker 1: franchised stores. I feel like that's where we're at right now,
Speaker 1: where small businesses are finding ways where they can make
Speaker 1: those connections with their customers and to perhaps not rely
Speaker 1: so heavily on aggregators or maybe we'll see aggregators shift
Speaker 1: a bit and how they operate so that there isn't
Speaker 1: this disconnect between customer and business. Finally, I wanted to
Speaker 1: mention that technology has enabled more people to pursue an
Speaker 1: entrepreneurial dream than ever before. That, to me, is something
Speaker 1: that we can't lose sight of. Technology has reached a
Speaker 1: level of affordability and utility that allows people who had
Speaker 1: a dream but no means to pursue it, to suddenly
Speaker 1: flip that switch. And this is a global phenomenon. We're
Speaker 1: seeing people who traditionally have been drastically underrepresented in small
Speaker 1: businesses chase their dreams. Technology is what is powering that.
Speaker 1: Whether it's someone in Atlanta spearheading a service that brings
Speaker 1: rashly grown produce right off the far to customers in
Speaker 1: the city, or it's a school for the deaf in
Speaker 1: El Salvador adapting to remote instruction and subsequently expanding, which
Speaker 1: meant they could accept more students, and that is an
Speaker 1: incredible benefit both to the school and to the students themselves.
Speaker 1: Tech is a foundational pillar for the future of work
Speaker 1: in general and small businesses in particular. That's it for
Speaker 1: this episode of tech Stuff. I hope you enjoyed this.
Speaker 1: If you have suggestions for future topics that I should
Speaker 1: cover in this podcast, please reach out to me. The
Speaker 1: best way to do that is on Twitter. The handle
Speaker 1: for the show is tech Stuff H s W and
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. Text Stuff is
Speaker 1: an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts from my
Speaker 1: Heart Radio, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite jumps come