‘Biz’ Archive

A partial list of my entrepreneurial weaknesses, and one time steps to correct them

Wheelchair OnlyMy weaknesses have made themselves apparant over the past few days, here is a preliminary list.  The first entry is the topic, the one below that is the specifics, and the one below that is the practical step to get me to an adequate level in under ten hours.

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I answer Seth Godin’s seven questions

GauntletSeth Godin posted seven questions all entrepreneurs should answer.  The more I try to answer these questions the more useful they become.

Here I go with my attempt.  I first list the “off the top of my head response” and then the edited response so I can show the evolution:

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Is it time to replace QuickBooks with Less Accounting?

Where in the world Late Payment ReminderThe internet is filled with hatred of QuickBooks.  After doing much of the hating myself I realize now that people do not hate the program because of what the program can’t do; they hate QuickBooks because the program discourages them in small ways at every opportunity.  Using QuickBooks is like wading three miles through a swamp to pay your taxes.  If you took away half of the options and removed the unwanted spontaneous advertising you would have a nice program. Read more on Is it time to replace QuickBooks with Less Accounting?…

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Better to remain silent than to say any of these things

Lost TreePeople use some phrases to make themselves feel better, not to add anything to the conversation. Using these phrases annoys everyone in earshot and decreases motivation to fix the underlying problem.   My preliminary list:

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How I engineer my life for maximum productivity

Keep Out Experiment In ProgressSo far 2010 has been the year of gradual improvements in life, health and productivity.  I made most of these changes based on what I learned in Brain Rules.  Here is a snapshot of my changes so far:

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Preliminary contact profiling questions

Anonymous Exploring EyeAs Stronico is a helpful way to keep track of people, we must also keep track of their personalty traits, even if it is only a spot impression.  My preliminary list of things to track

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Is an Ivy League education pointless for creative people?

IVE•RI•TAS came across some of Richard Florida’s work online yesterday (Florida is the author of “The Creative Class” and the creator of the notion that creative people should self-segregate) and I began wondering: why do Ivy League institutions produce so few creative people? Read more on Is an Ivy League education pointless for creative people?…

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Beware aggressive salespeople – The power of “No”

the walls are coming downFor reasons unknown I spent most of yesterday dealing with salespeople.  One common component of all the salespeople was the instinct to “Close”.  The longer the contract period (these were all service companies) the stronger the close instinct.

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The civil war between designers and developers shifts to developers

07 Battle of Tunnel Hill 034I’ve long viewed web development as a shifting balance of power between graphic designers and software developers.   A rough timeline would go something like this Read more on The civil war between designers and developers shifts to developers…

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The Kill Shot and Project Management

Sniper - SpetsnatsWhat is a preventable cause of scope creep?  Anxiety.  Anxiety attacks project managers at the end of projects, making some or all of the following happen:

  • Project managers insist on new “essential” features
  • Assistants demand detailed technical explanations for the most mundane of matters.
  • Urgent, surprise meetings will be held
  • People you’ve never heard of start talking about “revisiting” and “Ten Thousand Foot Views“.
  • The main project manager will put the project on hold “just for a little while” until “this is all sorted out”
  • The main project manager will decide that every manager in the company must sign off on the project.

The cause of the above is a difference in anxiety between you and the client.  The web developer experiences the highest anxiety and least clarity at the beginning (least specific point in terms of development) of the project and the lowest anxiety and most clarity at the end of the project.

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