If you’ve been following my posts on this blog, you may already know this about me: I love, love, love SXSW Interactive. But do you know what Interactive means? Do you know why I think it’s so grand? Let’s take a closer look at what’s behind all the annoyingly bright orange lanyards, outrageously long lines, conference hashtags crowding your Twitter stream, more swag than you could possibly ever use, and a conference that turns major highways into parking lots. Despite how “glamorous” I just made SXSWi sound, it’s actually quite incredible and here’s why.

Hands down, the main reason I enjoy going to these tech events is because of the community they bring. Bringing together the most intelligent, proactive, disruptive-thinking people so they can all interact is electric. It’s kind of like TED – SXSWi has an “Idea Worth Spreading” (pun intended). SXSWi shares similar TED qualities but with lots of wide-eyed entrepreneurs, gaggles of freshly venture-backed startup teams, a sea of highly judgmental venture capitalists and, of course, me!

Here’s a little secret: experiences like this actually happen all the time in Austin. SXSWi just attracts people from around the country to our playground for a week. Talk about intense! I love to brag that I have the opportunity to live in this up-and-coming tech hub. Although now our secret is out and Austin really isn’t “up-and-coming” anymore. It has arrived with fascinating momentum!

This would not have happened without organizations putting in the elbow grease to make this work. It is absolutely necessary to give credit to networking groups like Door64, Tech Ranch, Austin Women In Technology , ATC,  We Are Austin Tech  and, of course, Austin Ventures. All of these organizations recognize the great potential of getting the geeks (and geekettes!) of Austin in collaboration.

Armed with a Redbull, I stopped by the We Are Austin Tech booth at the SXSW Startup Crawl in the gorgeous downtown Omni Hotel for the Interactive kickoff. It was great to meet up with director/producer, Ruben Cantu of We are Austin Tech at their booth.

Let’s keep in mind that it’s all of our responsibility to grow the community. I’ll speak for Austin when I say we certainly have a fun time doing it!

At Journyx, we speak to many professionals who deal with payroll on a day-to-day basis.  Our customers have an easy time submitting data to payroll, but other companies that don’t have a solution like Journyx can have a harder time.  Payroll can be a huge headache, especially for a CEO of a start-up.  Take, for example, the CEO of Tasting Table:

Being without a bookkeeper, Geoff Bartakovics needed to process payroll ASAP.  I find it interesting that Bartakovics felt such pressure to get payroll done on time because of his employees.  He believed that distributing his team’s paychecks late would make his employees doubt his new company.  The faith that his employees had in the business wasn’t something Bartakovics would sacrifice.

When I hear this story, I wonder if I take my on-time paycheck for granted sometimes.  As a young worker, I sometimes read horror stories on Facebook of friends who aren’t paid on time.  I can’t imagine the stress they’re going through with a late paycheck; how is that affecting their ability to support themselves?  I can remember a former job where I experienced something worse than a late paycheck—a bounced paycheck.  My trust for my employer was shaken during that time, and rightly so.  It was a clear sign that something was seriously wrong with the company and shortly after I left, the company folded.

In this stressful economic time, are you making sure that your employees are paid on time?  Is payroll a total nightmare for your company or a breeze?

It may seem a little counterintuitive, but tracking time can actually be used to strengthen employee morale at the office. When viewed through an automated system wherein employees track time to tasks, it can readily become apparent where employees are spending the majority of their time, but more importantly, it can also demonstrate where they are spending their time most efficiently. These two metrics can be referenced together to gain insight into what employees are assigned to do, and what they actually enjoy doing.

Let’s break this down a little further with an example. Say John is in charge of managing his company’s website. Viewing the hours he has tracked over a set period of time, it is obvious that he spends the majority of his time cleaning up bad code, refreshing links, and performing mundane site maintenance.  However, as an occasional side assignment, John also works on building code for his company’s software. His timesheet indicates that he spends far less time on this.

However, the savvy manager looks at the time spent on both of these tasks and compares completion rates to find that while John spends much more time on maintaining the website, he actually completes a greater percentage of work in less time when working on the software. The manager checks the software and finds the work is good, thus negating the possibility that John was simply speeding through the task to get it done. On these grounds, the manager decides he has enough information to speak with John about a shift in responsibility since it appears that John is better at programming software, and thus might enjoy that work more.

This example might seem simplistic, yet you would be surprised just how often circumstances like these appear in an organization, and how often they goes unnoticed. Employees working on tasks that they view as mundane will become dissatisfied in their job roles very quickly, increasing employee turnover unnecessarily. With a little insight it is possible to increase employee morale without necessarily spending more money or offering incentives. Simply giving workers responsibilities at which they excel creates the groundwork for increased satisfaction and productivity long term.

As you already know, Journyx will be at the Microsoft Convergence show next week in Houston to showcase Journyx Timesheet’s integration with Microsoft Dynamics. Here at Journyx, we are definitely experts in the field of Microsoft Dynamics, as evidenced by our published article in today's issue of MSDynamicsWorld.com.

The article, by Journyx CEO Curt Finch, is titled, "Evaluating Cloud Solution Options for Microsoft Dynamics". Below is just a taste of what you'll learn in the article but head over to the MSDynamicsWorld web site to read the full article. (It requires a quick and easy - and free! - registration.)

Evaluating Cloud Solution Options for Microsoft Dynamics

The advent of Microsoft partners offering cloud software solutions represents the beginning of a transition away from traditional self-maintained offerings. That being said, businesses are still seeking information about the cloud options available to them. Microsoft now offers multiple deployment solutions for their software, and many find that popular business software such as Dynamics ERP experiences increased functionality via the low maintenance and minimal up-front costs that a cloud system can provide.

For some companies, this transition might be viewed with suspicion and concern for security. There are reasons to be cautious. However, while cloud solutions have different issues than traditional IT systems, that does not mean they have more extensive issues. In order to understand the benefits and setbacks of cloud systems, you must first understand the types of cloud solutions available.

What Do the Different Solutions Look Like?

Basically, there are three types of cloud solutions available to Microsoft Dynamics users. From partner-hosted solutions, to on-site installation and management, to "pure" cloud solutions hosted by Microsoft or other major cloud platform vendors, the options can appear complicated at first glance. However, all of these deployment options will fall into one of three general cloud categories: private clouds, public clouds, and hybrid clouds. Depending on your exposure to current trends in IT, you might already be familiar with one or more of these. For the sake of clarity, let's take a look at each one in depth.

Click here to read the rest of the article...