When it comes to the tools humanity has created, none are quite as great as the internet.
Being truly universal, anyone in the world has access to this fundamental resource, and a lot of people also get the chance to contribute to it. Over the years, this has built the net into a vast web of different tools, services, and solutions for businesses to take advantage of. The change that this has caused is huge, and you can use it to your benefit.
With so many people creating content on the web, the range of options you have has developed into something amazing over the years. Now, this gives business owners a huge amount of power, especially when it comes to finding free resources. To help you out with this, this post will be exploring a process to help you to start getting more of your computing work handled for nothing at all.
The process
The process you will have to go through to make this work won’t take too long, and it shouldn’t be too hard to complete, as long as you have some experience with Google. To help you with it, you can find each stage below, along with all of the examples you could need to make it easy to go through with your own company.
Assessing The Issue: To begin, the first stage of this journey will involve identifying and assessing the job which you need doing. Using a word processing tool, for example, is essential to most companies. The standard for a long time has been Microsoft’s Office, as this provides loads of tools and features. But, if you wanted something free, Google Docs could do all of the work for you.
Find Learning Resources: Once you have an idea of the type of tool you’re going to need, you’ll be able to start thinking about the ways you’re going to learn about it. Blogs can often be the very best tool for this, as they are written by people with genuine knowledge surrounding their field. Alternatively, though, software can also be learned about through the use of directories and other websites.
Collect & Compare: As you find more and more options, you should work hard to collect them to make them easier to compare with each other. In the case of word processing, you might have Open Office, Word, and Google Docs, giving you three solid choices to go from. With two of these being free, it gives you loads of room to choose, and you will probably be able to find more.
Choose The One: The option you choose should be the one which will be best for your business. Google Docs, for example, can only be used through a browser, and you have to have an internet connection to open it. Open Office, on the other hand, can be installed anywhere, and will remain on the machines it has been given to. Choosing what you need the most will be hard, so it can be worth getting the help of a consultant for the really hard parts.
There are loads of cases which this sort of work can apply to. It doesn’t matter if the job is big, small, or somewhere in between; you can almost always find something free to do it. To show you how easy this can be, there are three examples of solutions to business problems below.
The Admin: Some of the most time-consuming work most businesses have to do isn’t related to the products or services they sell at all. Instead, the background work going into a company can take a lot of hours. Organizing emails and names, for example, can take hours to do manually. Trying to achieve alphabetical order can be almost impossible by hand, and will take a lot of time. So, to avoid this, free tools from around the web can be used, you just have to find them.
The Emails: When you need to set up an email account with a client, it can be hard to step away from the option most people use. Unfortunately, Outlook has changed loads over the years, and the platform people know, and love isn’t the same as it used to be. This can make changing to something else nice and easy, though, as there are loads of free pieces looking to take the thrown.
The Graphic Design: Finally, as the last sort of job to consider, a lot of people assume getting into something like graphic design is expensive and takes a long time to learn. In reality, though, with options like GIMP, you have loads of chances to make this sort of work free. From video editing to games design, there are very few markets which can’t be approached for free. Of course, though, it’s worth doing some research along the way to make sure you’re using the right kick.
Finally, as the last area to consider, it’s time to think about the law in all of this. When you’re using things for free, it doesn’t always mean that you’re breaking the law, and this could be for a couple of different reasons. Most importantly, the developer of a tool or piece of software has the right to charge whatever they want for it. So, if this happens to be nothing, you’re not doing anything wrong.
Of course, though, there are plenty of free downloads out there which the content owner hasn’t approved. These sorts of options are almost always illegal and could get you into trouble if you decide to use them. Making money out of something which has been stolen like this will reflect badly on your company, and could even get you fines and cautions in court. Avoiding this should be nice and easy.
Hopefully, this post will inspire you to start working harder on the time you put into getting things for free. In the modern world, knowledge and information are two of the most powerful things out there. So, with the chance to get your slice for free, it’s worth looking for ways to do it.
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