Tech Made Simple

Tech Made Simple is Michelle Guerra's show about getting real use out of the technology a small business or nonprofit already has, or is about to buy. She calls herself a 'technology navigator', and her episodes sound like directions from someone who had to find the way herself first. Guerra says plainly that she was not always a techie person. She describes buying a MacBook Air in 2011 and admits to hundreds, if not thousands, of Google searches about setting up or switching off features on her iPhone. That admission is the show's quiet strength. The advice starts from where a beginner actually is. Much of it is about free or cheap ways to learn: tutorials from the companies that make phones, tip apps that come preinstalled, and the resources that come with a public library card. The library conversation is the most surprising of these. A guest describes borrowing ebooks through an app with no late fines. The same guest points to Reference USA, a Harris County database that can build lists of companies by sales and area, so a plumbing business could see how many competitors work nearby. Cloud technology is Guerra's home ground. She built an online course on using the cloud with a smartphone, and one interview features a student who completed it: Sam Cannon, a senior accountant at William S. Cannon & Associates, who talks about data spread over many devices and the slow work of consolidating backups. The G Suite episode moves from the phone to the back office. After assessing the technology at her church, Guerra found it was spending thousands a year on applications, and the episode covers a move to G Suite, which is free for nonprofits set up through TechSoup. The people on the church side say it ran far more smoothly than they expected. Websites get the same beginner-first treatment. Guerra admits she knew little about WordPress when she chose it, and a guest named Adam, who teaches it through YouTube tutorials, talks about referral commissions, negotiating discounts for viewers, and an 11-year-old who learned to build a whole site from the videos. Some episodes are not about software at all. A request for work that arrived by text at 7 p.m. on a Friday turns into a case for setting business hours. Guerra recalls her husband asking what her business hours were, because he knew she would blur the lines, and she gives a rule of thumb of 8 to 5 on weekdays for service-based businesses. Her point is short: uncertainty breeds stress, and structure is something an owner can control. Several episodes end by asking for comments in the show notes, and Guerra mentions her course, email club and consulting help where they fit.