From The Inside July/August 2010
Digital Magazine, Digital Newsletter, Digital Resources, Digital Advertising, Digital everything…
I have it. They have it. We have it, but how do we access it?
We have been researching how to improve our digital copies of the International Spectrum resources, and we keep running into the same question and problem that everyone seems to be having. There is no one solution that solves all of these digital needs.
Everyone has some form of digital resources, but not all digital resources are available for all devices. And trust me, there are many, many different devices available for accessing digital information.
We have e-mail clients, web browsers, tablet computers, smart phones, e-readers, SMS, and social networking clients. If you look at this list, everything is accessed, viewed, and categorized differently. It used to be all you had to worry about was the web browser, and everything else was an afterthought.
Now each person is looking at your company and enterprise resources and information from different locations, and different devices. As more devices start supporting Web 2.0 and social networking concepts, your data will start merging with other data that doesn't belong to you.
Case in point is calendaring. Most enterprise applications have some kind of application that needs or should present it's data in a calendar or schedule format — customer contacts, production needs or expectations, deadlines for missing data that sales people need to retrieve.
New applications and mobile phones all include some kind of ability to sync against iCalendar format. Since very rarely does one calendar contains all this information, these applications allow you to merge multiple calendars into one presentation — alarms and all. This allows employees to keep track of business calendars and personal calendars from one device without having to duplicate it into multiple applications. Now enter Google Calendar. Set up a shared calendar for your family and now you have one place for all family scheduling needs, plus a personal schedule, plus a business schedule, and look what you have: "No more time in your day."
Well, actually we already knew that, but let me get back to my point. Digital data has become the norm, and the data must be able to be viewed by many different devices and applications.
With the International Spectrum digital data this is important as well. Since you don't always know when you will have the time to view your MultiValue resource, we are making more and more smart-phone enabled formats available (m.intl-spectrum.com). In the coming issues, the magazine will be available in a more mobile-friendly format. The resource directory will allow you to search and view technical and knowledge resources while you are standing in line at Starbucks.
You can also use the Spectrum iCal feed (ical.intl-spectrum.com) to see up-to-date user group meeting schedules, webinars, and other MultiValue events.
Don't forget our other digital versions of the data: Email, Facebook, Twitter, and RSS.
Nathan Rector, President of International Spectrum, has been in the MultiValue marketplace as a consultant, author, and presenter since 1992. As a consultant, Nathan specialized in integrating MultiValue applications with other devices and non-MultiValue data, structures, and applications into existing MultiValue databases. During that time, Nathan worked with PDA, Mobile Device, Handheld scanners, POS, and other manufacturing and distribution interfaces.
In 2006, Nathan purchased International Spectrum Magazine and Conference and has been working with the MultiValue Community to expand its reach into current technologies and markets. During this time he has been providing mentorship training to people converting Console Applications (Green Screen/Text Driven) to GUI (Graphical User Interfaces), Mobile, and Web. He has also been working with new developers to the MultiValue Marketplace to train them in how MultiValue works and acts, as well as how it differs from the traditional Relational Database Model (SQL).
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