DO MORE WITH COMMUNICATIONS

by Robert Moskowitz

Overview

The central portfolio of PC software includes only word processing, database management, spreadsheets, graphics, and communications. To ignore any element of this portfolio is as foolish as not using third and fourth gears in your car. Yet you'd be amazed at the number of otherwise competent computer users who have never bothered to make full use of their PCs' communications capabilities.

Messaging

While the technology is extraordinarily complex, most users need never bother with the details. In practice, you can simply concentrate on the processes of communications, which boil down to: messaging, file transfer, and on-line information retrieval. Let's start with the simplest of these: messaging. Many large organizations have their own electronic messaging or "e-mail" networks. But any computer user who wants messaging capabilities can sign up with a public messaging network like MCI Mail and use ordinary telephone lines to accomplish the same thing.

Networked

Once you've outfitted your computer for communications and a messaging network is available to you, you're potentially in electronic contact with people all over the world. You can prepare your messages in advance, if you wish, or enter them directly from the keyboard to the e-mail network. To send, your computer simply contacts the e-mail network and forwards your message, tagged with the intended recipient's name and address. The e-mail network then locates the recipient and delivers your message. For electronic delivery, the network waits until the next time your recipient signs onto the network and immediately advises him there's a message waiting. But if you wish, some networks will print your message on paper and deliver it by local mail, usually within a day or two.

E-mail Messaging

E-mail messaging can provide your business with a competitive edge, because it allows you to quickly and accurately keep all your employees and/or customers informed of your latest offers and opportunities. Each message takes you only a few seconds to send (although it may take you hours to compose). You'll never have to leave your name and number with a secretary, or play telephone tag with important information. And your message is available to the recipient within a few seconds of when you send it. What's more, e-mail messages are cheap—cheaper than a letter, in most cases. Because the whole process is computerized, you can send a message to a hundred or a thousand recipients as easily as sending it to one. That's why paper-based delivery is a good option, because it lets you send the message just once and know it will be delivered to everyone on your list, whether or not they're using the e-mail network. In fact, several publishing companies are now e-mailing time-critical newsletters to several thousand subscribers every week.

File Transfers

Messaging is just a special form of computerized file transfer, except that file transfer is most often accomplished from one computer to another, rather than to more than one at a time. File transfer is simply the process of copying a file from one computer to another, even when the computers may be several thousand miles apart. The primary difficulty with file transfer is that some files, such as word processing documents, electronic spreadsheets, graphics images, and so forth, often contain characters which do not transfer as easily as ordinary letters and numbers. To transfer these files generally requires that computers use a "data transfer protocol." There are many "data transfer protocols" in common use. It doesn't matter which one is used, as long as the sending and receiving computers agree on it. The "data transfer protocol" adds a layer of encoding to the file transfer process, and also verifies that each group of characters in the file is received correctly. If one isn't, the sending computer sends it again and again until the receiving computer verifies that the data came over the wire correctly.

File transfers are one of the most efficient ways to keep far-flung offices and representatives in touch with the home office. For example, if every office fills in a standard electronic spreadsheet with the day's or the week's sales performance, it can be transferred to a home office PC in a few seconds and consolidated with all the others to provide up-to-date company-wide data. File transfer also allows various experts to contribute parts toward a single document far more efficiently than if they had to meet face-to-face and work in the same office. Shifting database files permits the analysts to make their forecasts from the most recent and complete data.

Online Data Retrieval

Online data retrieval is potentially the most profitable use of computer communications. There are literally several thousand databases of information now available for any communicating computer to search and copy from. The information ranges from highly detailed technical data like legal precedents, registered patents, and dictionaries of chemical substances to more general business information like government procurement invitations, daily stock quotations and investment analysis, and Dun & Bradstreet's summaries on over 1,000,000 corporations. You can also tap into daily newspapers, electronic yellow pages, TRW credit data, and the Harvard Business Review. The profit possibilities from on-line data retrieval are far too numerous to cover completely here.

But take a moment and imagine how much more profitable your business could be if you could more precisely identify your competition's marketing strategies, your customers' immediate and future needs, hundreds of prospective new customers, and your suppliers' pricing trends. Just landing one new customer would probably pay for all the hardware, software, and other costs of getting your computer to start communicating. The second, third, and additional new customers would be gravy.

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