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Do you look at technology vs. strategy or technology & strategy? As this article points out, the difference can be as real as you vs. growth or you & growth:

As a business owner you’re constantly planning for the future. You focus on company growth by offering new products and services, adding staff, or expanding into other areas of the business. But how often do you tie technology plans with your company’s future strategy? If you don’t have a technology road map, it may be time to form one. The right technology investments can support a company as it advances toward its goals; it can also launch the business to a higher level of performance and achievement.

A new study indicates that more and more people are donating to political causes online. For political junkies, this is really exciting as it opens the door to new donors.

The George Washington University Institute for Politics, Democracy and the Internet along with the Campaign Finance Institute found that a quarter of donations to Republicans and more than half of donations to Democrats are now made online. Especially exciting is that many of these are first-time donors:

A large portion of small online contributors ($100 or less) gave unsolicited donations. About 46 percent said their first donation was self-motivated, not triggered by a phone call, letter or email. In years past, unsolicited donators had to work harder to find a way to make a contribution.

For anyone who has ever had to file a campaign finance report, compliance can be a nightmare. Trying to hunt down a donor’s details can be time consuming and many times fruitless. Online donations don’t have that problem, as donors are required to enter their information before the donation is processed.

Through our experience designing political websites, campaign websites, and policy websites, we have found several online donation tools with reasonable transaction fees and great service. It really can open the door to new donors, both today and down the road.

Epicor has a great new white paper out on the changing trends in professional services. This affects not only how we work but how we market to professional service firms. Not surprisingly, technology is a huge driving force in this change.

Register to download the free white paper through IDG Connect.

There’s been a lot of talk about Web 2.0 and just what that means. One of the major themes of a Web 2.0 site is how well users can interact and contribute content to the site. Enter Yahoo! Sports and the 2007 NCAA Tournament.

Using the Yahoo! Sports Tournament Pick’em feature, users can join a group, create a group, or just fill out their own bracket. Completely online and interactive. Users contributing content. Online fantasy sports groups are in many ways the precursors of today’s Web 2.0 trends.

Remember when your friends used to e-mail around a spreadsheet w/ the tournament picks in it? No more. Sites like this allow users to contribute their own content and complete the bracket online. Then print it out, share it, rub it in people’s faces after three rounds… whatever.

So welcome to Web 2.0. March Madness style.

There’s a great song by the Freddy Jones Band called ‘Take the Time’ that should be the theme song for every professional. Even those of us who manage to cobble together a strategic plan/ marketing plan tend to throw it out the window just as soon client business gets the better of us. Not that billable clients are a bad thing, mind you, we just don’t take the time to look ahead.

But even as we are servicing our clients, even when we get those terrific phone calls asking us to take on new business, we ought to think back to our strategic plan. Keep a copy on your desk. Write down your goals (measurable goals) and put them on the wall. Put them on the wall in the break room. Put them in the conference room.

New business is good. Strategic new business is better. As the song goes, ‘Take the time to look in front of you…’