It is an amazing time we live in for a person who wants to start their own business. Your technical infrastructure costs have damn near plummeted to zero cost in many regards. Here is what I mean:
- Web presence can be done using Squarespace. It is all point and click, drag and drop to get a decent website.
- Phone Service is even more amazing. Between Skype and Google Voice you can have a phone setup that rivals many medium sized businesses. Then add into this that cellular service has gotten damn cheap and friggin amazing.
- Mobile connectivity is broken out from Phone Service since you no longer need to use your cell phone just for calling. Now that smartphones communicate to the web and have a shit ton of processing power you really can be out of the office and still handling business. Take Sprint’s Evo. Its more powerful then some laptops from a few years ago. And oh wait, you usually don’t do any actual processing on the phone itself instead you use its data connectivity to interface with a host of remote servers.
- Free or pay as you go internet services. Back up you documents to the cloud. Use the cloud for heavy duty computations. Not only do you not have to pay the infrastructure cost for this but you can ramp up or down how much you use these services as your budget allows.
- Open source collabrative software. Git, subversion, Drupal, wikipedia, eGroupware, etc, etc…
- Free office tools. Openoffice, googledocs,KOffice, etc, etc…
- Free operating systems for your hardware. Ubuntu, Android, etc, etc… (And yes Ubuntu is easy enough for anyone to use and install.)
- Free Customer Relation Management software to track your customer interactions.
Literally for a minimal cost you can get a professional grade infrastructure in place for your business. And what kills me about this is I can’t think of a side business to start for the life of me. Here I sit with a college degree, a familarity with technology that would allow me to lower my startup cost and a wife that would help me find the time to do this. And not one damn idea comes to mind. Note that all those things can be used for ANY type of small business. Not just tech related.
Hell, our landscaper who is fixing up our backyard could lower her operating cost by implementing some of them. She lives off of her phone calling and interacting with customers and then writes down notes on whatever piece of paper is handy. This has caused a bit of delay on two occasions. (Both times were understandable.) But with a little training she could be keying in conversation recaps into some free CRM software to track customer conversations. Could be using one of the free office suites to save money. Could use her iphone to snap before and after pictures of our yard and then use one of the many photo sharing sites to display them to potential customers. On and on I could go.
And I wish I was in her shoes. I wish I had a viable business that I was running. But not a damn idea has come to me in the past two years that I have been actively pondering it. The best I had was opening up a sandwich wrap place that also sells smoothies. The location would need to be near enough for the Wal-mart lunch crowd and for the afternoon soccer mom crowd with their kids. But the upfront cost are just too much for me to risk. The other one was a suite of tools for Churches to use. Hosted website, custom smartphone app/mobile interface for communications, automated desktop publishing to the website for announcements, a/v infrastructure for a daily homily to be broadcast, webcam integration for day care facilities, etc, etc… All of these are existing components that just need to be tied together. Turns out that has been done. @#$%@!!!
Aargh!!! My kingdom for a business plan muse.
Chad Work
So I have moved teams at work since I was getting kinda bored on my old one. Its not that the work wasn’t challenging, its just that it wasn’t challenging in the way I wanted it to be. Instead of being “Here’s a technical problem to work through” it was becoming “Here’s a project management headache to fix while dealing with other’s egos” type of work.
Both are problems that are in my day to day job. The second one is the one I deal with so I can have fun with the first. It amazes me watching how some people are able to interact with others and magically come out with what they need from the other person without having to get frustrated. I feel like those kinds of situations would be easier if I had a giant pugel stick and could demand trial by combat. That would be freakin sweet.
“Uh Joe, you were supposed to have that server online today.”
“Well I had some stuff come up and its going to be a few days.”
“That does it! We are taking this to the Octagon.”
And by the way, all trials by combat should be done in octagon fighting arenas.
But enough kvetching. Good news is the stuff I am now doing is new enough to me that it’ll be a while before I am up to par where I can relax. Kinda sucks that the area where I sit is so warm that it makes me sleepy in the afternoon. All I need is to fall asleep face first into my keyboard. Qwerty face is a hard thing to hide.
So the technical problem I am facing right now is the common dilemma to all fields. How much effort do you put into something? Enough to meet the requirements? Enough to give the customer a heart attack when they see all the new bells and whistles? Its the age old question. When does done arrive? The report I am fixing is a report that has been broken for some time and people have lived with it. The fix was pretty much already designed and just needed some tweaks to finish it. But how it integrates into the overall flow is still horrible broken. Its the same story you always see. One time process gets written, becomes a bit more permanent, gets some new features bolted on, grows and morphs into this ungainly piece of junk. Looking back at the history of the program I could easily spend some time redesigning the whole thing and have a better solution. But if the report is so easily ignored that a whole country just made do with not getting the report does it really warrant a rewrite?
So I sit at work tweaking it more and more but at some point I just need to let it go. (Could have probably declared victory over it about 3 weeks ago.) Even while I know I could do a better job on this report the long term payback isn’t there. There are other projects that I need to move on to that have a greater ROI. But it is so hard to let it go since I know I can deliver an amazing report given the time. At least this is the biggest complaint about my job. I really do understand and acknowledge that things could be much, much worse. So many of my classmates don’t have jobs right now and sometimes I wonder how have I been so lucky. Sure if you are a hard worker you lessen the odds of being laid off but that is not a guarantee that you won’t get laid off. Far from it as has been demonstrated in my field.
Chad Work
Convinced Shannon to agree to sign up at Fuse Fitness here in Bentonville. Pretty nice gym when compared to Walton Fitness Center or the others I have been in. The real question is will this translate into any measurable sucess. Can’t decide if I am going to set a goal of weight loss at first or just plain going to the gym consistently.
Chad Weight Loss, Wife
Colin’s latest feat is his ability to finish off every feeding with some spitting up of food. At first I thought we were over feeding him so we dialed the bottle size back. No luck. Not sure what this entails but for now we’ll leave it be.
Chad Colin
I have traded in my blackberry curve for an iPhone. So far I am still having to adjust to the damn thing. Still in the ambivalent stage of the swap. This isn’t the first time imade this swap. Last time was when the original iPhone came out. The 3.0 firmware and the app store are the two items that helped to tip the scales back. But I am still not keen on the fact that I can’t run apps in the background. At least the keyboard has been improved enough so that it is useable.
Chad Mobile Posts
So, Shannon and I had a few “discussions” about whether to circumcise Colin or not. She was gung ho for it while I was kinda reluctant for it. Just seems wrong that it is ok with society to butcher a man’s genitalia for a negligible health gain. Round and round we went, back and forth. Finally I decided I could be ok with this. It isn’t like it this is some really off the wall kind of thing. And over the long run it makes things simpler.
In steps lady fate. When Colin was born he had a hydrocele. Since his man bits are all swollen they won’t be doing a circumcision right now for fear of screwing it up. Now I find myself pissed that we wasted all that time discussing this to death when it would have been a moot point for the next 6-12 months.
As to other Colin news… Eating, shitting, pissing, sleeping and occasional bouts of crying. So far that is his day. Really can’t wait until he gets to be a bit more interactive. Right now he feels more like another pet to take care of then a child of mine.
Hell, at least Boudreaux and Solomon can go through the whole night without pissing. I am sure I am going to burn for that last statement…
Chad Colin
Not sure why but Colin knocks right out when I put him on my chest when I am laying down. Doesn’t do it for Shannon so something’s unique about it. Not quite sure if this is a good thing but at least I know I can make Colin go to sleep. Does that mean I am boring to be around?
Chad Colin
Had Mat and Alicia over for dinner this evening. Kinda awkward at first since there is no existing social context to mimic. No sitcom tv, no literary references, no past experiences, no nothing to guide us on how this should work. Kinda thawed out after a bit but each of us was so timid that there were some pretty long moments of silence in the conversations. Not even sure if the point I wanted to make came through. That we don’t need to worry about what others think the social dynamic should be. That right now there are only 4 people whose input should listened to. (Mat, Alicia, Shannon and me.) Once Colin is old enough to express his feelings and thoughts he’ll get some say. Anyone else who tells us what kind of relationship we should have can but their opinions are just that, opinions. For the most part we just need to make sure to be very communicative when something happens that crosses anyone’s level of comfort.
So while it wasn’t a bust it also wasn’t a boom. I think it’ll just take time for all of us to test the boundaries and see what is comfortable and what isn’t. Kinda nice with all the social media sites to help facilitate conversations and picture sharing. Makes it a bit smoother. Still debating if these post need to continue to be about how I am dealing or more of what did Colin do recently. The first is cathartic for me. The second is more useful for other. Probably doesn’t need to be an either/or situation but I only have so much blogging in me.
At least the food was good. Cooked a deboned chicken, corn on the cob, salad and fresh muffins for dessert. Could have used some bread or rolls though. Maybe some cornbread. Speaking of which. Is it weird to be looking forward to when he can eat grownup food? You don’t know how much I am looking forward to the occasional fish sticks with Mac & Cheese. Yeah, yeah I know. I can have that now. But if I cook that now, I feel guilty for eating it. But later on… Well its for the kid so that makes it alright?
Chad Colin
Finally took the picture but it didn’t quite come out like I wanted. Sorely understimated how tall that sign was. Wanted to go for the geek humor of converting it from ” POP 2,346″ to “POP = 2,346 + 1″ but damn thing was out of reach.
Chad Colin
As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night, she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question — “Is this all?”
-Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique
I know that right now is atypical in what I could expect as a stay at home dad… But with that being said I kinda have the feeling that it wouldn’t be that bad from the amount of work required. Housework usually is done by about noon. Toss in an extra hour or two for the yard work. The mental and emotional bit is a bit daunting but that is what play groups are for. So while it is a bit isolating and daytime TV is horrible this isn’t the hell that Betty Friedan made it out to be. It’s work, but no more challenging than my regular job. Has society come far enough to make Betty’s original concerns moot or since I have a penis I can’t begin to understand the burden that housewives carry?
Chad Colin, Social