We all know most TV is pretty banal, but every now and then something comes along that provides insight, makes you think. So if you ever wondered what it’s really like to be the boss, you need to watch the latest episode of House. They’ve done an excellent job (based on my experience, anyway) capturing [...]
Read More Academia, business support, customer service, entrepreneurI had an interesting experience the other day at my local BJ’s (it’s like Sam’s Club and Costco). I had finished loading my items into my car, and was returning the cart to the corral, when I passed an employee gathering carts to reload the stack at the entrance. He had already gathered the carts [...]
Read More business support, customer serviceIn case you haven’t heard, Sun is being bought by Oracle. After dancing around the issue in blog posts over the past 8 months, MySQL developer-founder Michael “Monty” Widenius finally comes out and adamantly opposes MySQL’s role in the sale. In a Dec. 12 blog post, Widenius tries to rally open source MySQL supporters in [...]
Read More business support, enterprise, open source, software developmentAfter my post discussing how vendor-client relationships are complete crap most of the time — which was really a thinly veiled excuse to post a funny vid — a friend of mine posted a response on my Facebook page: While you’re right that you in essence ‘get what you pay for’ in this economic climate [...]
Read More business supportI was quoted in an article over at IT Expert Voice that pooled advice from hardened IT Veterans on the process of rolling out a new OS in a business environment. There’s plenty of great advice on the actual act of a rollout — test-test-test, schedule for downtime, etc. — but obviously the timing of [...]
Read More business support, desktop tips, Microsoft sucks, quoted, tech supportThe Future of Web Apps conference is so right up my alley it’s almost stupid that I couldn’t attend. Web development with a focus on business: customer service, driving traffic, marketing, sales… It’s essentially the event for geeks who want to go from the basement to the corner office. Fortunately, Ryan Carson and the team [...]
Read More business support, content sharing, customer service, entrepreneur, expo, marketing, software development, usabilityAs an email-based backup service, Fwd:Vault ran into spam filters pretty quickly. Most of this can be mitigated with proper server configuration and getting records in the right places (i.e. abuse.net). From there it’s simply a matter of reminding users to check the spam folder when things are missing. However through the tribulations of one [...]
Read More business support, crappy coding, customer service, fwdvault, spam, tech supportAn effective business always remembers that their relationship with a client is a two-way street. If the client isn’t holding up their end of the bargain, the company can and should drop them. This is called firing your customers. The discussion surrounding this notion, both pro and con, is pretty vast, and I recommend you [...]
Read More business support, customer service, marketingDave Ramsey is a fantastic businessman with an approach to businesses and finances that eschews what works over what’s hot. Given Wall Street’s track record of late, I’d say that’s a really good thing. He’s got a good regular column called Dave Says, answering questions about personal finance and business (with a focus on entrepreneurs [...]
Read More business support, customer service, entrepreneurDuring the networking hour at my last entrepreneurial networking event, I had the pleasure of meeting two fellow young starters who are starting their own identity consultancy (I’d love to link, but there’s no site yet). We had a great talk about the challenges of properly pricing your goods and services. They were nervous about [...]
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