Being a fledgling company is intimidating enough. Coupled with the way new technology takes off and leaves you behind, it’s an uncomfortable scene. There is hope. All you need is a system and stick to it. Here are six simple ways your young company can keep up with technology trends.
Learn to Read Tech Reports Regularly
Checking in with your AMD earnings can be a valuable part of this step too. You can see how the stock is doing. You can see if the stock is gaining in strength or having a lackluster showing. If it is falling, you can research and find out what is happening in the semiconductor sector.
Tech reports are many on Google. You can choose the ones easiest for you to understand. They don’t complicate everything on tech. It helps to understand what types of new tech can help your business. This can take 15-20 minutes a day to just Google and digest the information. Once you understand what the technology does, you can upgrade to a podcast and listen while you do your morning routine.
Know the News on Tech for Your Industry and Your Competitors
Reading the news on tech is a good first step, but not enough. As we mentioned before, upgrading to tech news podcasts are precious. Check Spotify and iTunes for these first. The tech news for your industry is important, but so is the tech news for your competitors or any industry that affects yours.
For example, you are an environmental company with a special concentration on aquatic life. You may want to know the positives and negatives about the way oil companies use technology to prevent tanker spills.
Get the point? Think about your industry goals and then about the other side of those goals. When you did your business plan, it included a SWOT analysis. If you haven’t done one, you should. In fact, you can find this online free. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. This can help you get a genuine look at this side of the coin and learn what tech keeps the competitor or “threat” afloat. It will also teach you what others in your industry are using to make them the big bucks.
Turn on Alerts From Your Chosen Tech News Aggregates
We assume you’re a busy entrepreneur. Alerts are your friend. Turn them on for the current news so you can playlist and save them or listen on the spot. This automated habit will keep you on the leading edge of the news you need to know. You can sort by relevance and priority.
Get With GitHub and Similar Platforms
GitHub is an open-source. There are many like it, but they’re at the top of their game. This is a space that will keep you alerted to what trends to look for, even if you aren’t ready to bring them into your company. That’s not the point of it. For you, the point is an awareness of the impact new tech has on your company.
Research, Report and Strategize
This may sound odd to you. How do you delegate the knowledge? If you have a team, ask them to study a particular technology. There’s no reason to overload yourself. The reason you have a team is to play the game together. What’s the game? To collect information and strategize it. Add a company meeting that discusses the new technology and trends. Get people to give a brief report once or twice a month.
Take it a step further and have each one create a strategy. It doesn’t mean you have to use it. What this exercise does is flex the muscles of the company around the subject. You may use the strategy and tweak it to suit your company’s needs. You will then schedule and assign the implementation to the team.
Make the Concepts Visual
At the aforementioned meetings, you’ll want to keep it all in order. Develop a useful technique to make it visual. After you assign your team their technology research, report and strategize. Allow them to use visuals in whatever way your company culture accepts.
These six simple steps revolve around research, reporting and strategy. Why not just create listicle steps? Because business doesn’t work. Society is great with snacking on information. Putting it to use is another subject. In this formula, you get everything you need to institute the information in a way that eliminates overwhelm and encourages success.
