As I was walking by the waters edge today, I came upon this bird.  It was floating lazily on the water waiting for its dinner to appear.

I was intrigued.  Beautiful and white, reflecting in the sunlight.  Naturally I pulled out my phone to capture the moment.

As I approached it flew off.

Swinging the phone and snapping the picture I got this result.

I was excited about the picture even before I had a chance to edit and crop it for the best display.  And it got me thinking how far cameras, and camera phones in particular, have come.

From the days of one to three megapixel cameras (enough to take a grainy picture for a website, but would be hardly recognizable blown up to a 3″x5″ picture for the photo album) to now 20 megapixel cameras that allow you to crop and the shot and still blow it up to a solid 8″x10″ photo for framing.

And like the camera phone, across the board technology has been improving at a rapid rate.  Business technology that in years past would be unheard of is now pretty much standard and expected.

Here’s a quick list.

• Email – we progressed from snail mail (3-5 days) to UPS/FedEx (overnight) to fax (5-10 minutes) to email (30 seconds).

• Pictures – one week to develop from negatives to 24 hrs at the local drugstore to 1 hr at the fotomat to now instant review on your camera or phone.

• Brochures and business cards – handing them out or mailing them.  Now with websites and vcards you can share that information quickly and they don’t have to hunt them down later or forget to put them into their rolodex.

• Advertising – you used to put ads in newspapers and magazines and wait days or weeks or months to find out if they were successful.  And split testing of ad copy could take years and tens of thousands of dollars to perfect.  Now with Google Adwords and Facebook advertising you can test your ads quickly in a matter of minutes, hours or days at a fraction of the cost.

• Word Processing – you used to use handwritten notes or typewriters.  Now you use Word or email systems to quickly write, edit, and send.

• Email Autoresponders – sending emails to your prospect or customer list is a simple process.  Consider how it essentially eliminated administrative staff time focused on making copies of letters and stuffing envelopes and getting them to the post office.

• Craigslist, eBay, and Amazon – leveling the playing field to allow small businesses and solopreneurs advertise and fulfill purchases on a shoestring budget.

And those only scratch the surface of the advantages today’s entrepreneurs have over prior generations.

So what are you going to do with that knowledge?

Is your to-do-list jam-packed?  Is there something on that list that could be outsourced?  Or an area where technology could reduce the time you need to spend on that endeavor?

Don’t suffer in silence.  Get it figured out so your business can shoot to the next level.

Will you have your camera out (or new system in place) when your Egret (prospect) flies into your view?