Category Archives: Opinions
Props to Grill’d Surry Hills
December 2nd, 2011Just wanted to give a quick thanks to Grill’d @ Surry Hills for the awesome service. Asked if I bought something would they give me access to the wifi, and he said it isn’t the policy to stop all the uni students mooching free Internet.
However it is currently Friday @ 6pm.
And I am very charming…
So he gave me VIP access to the Wi-Fi! #winning
So now I will be a customer for life at this particular Grill’d and just going that extra mile for a customer made my awesome day even more awesome!
Thanks guys!
Respect to Matt Mullenweg
August 30th, 2011Even though I have been a WordPress user, themer, and developer for about 5years, I had actually spent little time being active in the community or finding out more about the people and the company behind one of the greatest success stories in open source CMS platforms.
The fact that the software controls so much of the Internet’s content and distribution after 5 years is a massive credit to him and his team. I have a new found respect for the software.
But more importantly it is the decisions he has made toward the community and that is what I have think has caused the uptake in the installations and support for the software. He found his market, got the people behind the product, and let things progress from there.
And that brings us to his State of the Word 2011 presentation. I had not previously seen any of the other keynotes, but I was thoroughly impressed by this one. Definitely worth 40min of your time if you are a WordPress user or developer. I have embedded it here:
What Matt has motivated me to do
After watching this video I was definitely inspired to create something more than ever. To see someone create a piece of work he is so proud of and to have gained respect from a community and have it reflected in installations is something I would definitely love to be a part of.
I know it won’t happen over night, but I do know it will take hard work and the right idea to get off the ground. And starting later this year, hopefully I will be finishing a piece of web based software to be distributed, forked and improved by developers over the globe.
I have the vision and the ability, if only I could find the time…
Watched Inside Job the Movie
July 8th, 2011
After a busy day at work, many people wouldn’t have picked a documentary on the GFC to unwind to on a Friday night. However tonight, I did. Joined by my Dad, for the next 2hours of our life we were shocked and appalled at what we learnt. We both thought we had a fairly good understanding of the issues around the crisis, but what we failed to release is how far back the corruption started.
To think that a first world country could so be completely blind to what was occurring around them; to be so cocky and arrogant to think it wouldn’t catch up to them; and the audacity to pay performance bonuses to these criminals year after year proves to me that this world is a truly disgusting place to live.
Whilst other nations prevented with regulations what America allowed to happen since what appears to pre-date the Clinton administration tells me that money doesn’t not only buy taste but brains as well.
The smugness of these men’s faces repulsed me as well, especially when the questions were tricky and the evidence was stacked against them. Their suits must be made from material that cuts all emotion from reaching the heart, if one ever existed in the first place.
But it gets worse because do you want to know the most shocking thing you discover in this documentary? The fact that Obama selected the same men that caused this global recession in the first place, the very men that destroyed the entire globe’s economy, back into positions of authority in the government – or at the very least in advisory roles!
Someone needs to please explain to me how on earth this is possible, and what words or strategies could vommit out of the mouths of those men that could improve the situation of the world.
Business Vibes Are Amazing
June 16th, 2011Not until today (and last night’s haze of inspiration) did I fully realise how important it is to be surrounded by like minded individuals. Since I have been pretty much been a one-man-band, I have managed to focus much better than I ever did a team environment. My high school teachers would agree, every report that I received throughout my entire school life came through with “Ben has very done well, but could do even better if he didn’t distract others and stayed focused.”
But last night I caught up with some people that I really respect, in particular relating to what they have done in the startup scene here in Sydney. The whole time my mind was running at a million miles an hour, and I came back so charged and buzzed to do all these crazy things with my business.
By the time I came down off that high I actually had some time to stop and think about what actually occurred in that room. The only difference between the last few months and the couple of hours last night is that I had someone to vibe off. Someone to look at me and tell me exactly what they thought about my ideas, my approach to business, and what it takes to actually solve problems people and businesses face.
I suppose it’s the same when rappers have cyphers and musicians have jam sessions – business and music both thrive off vibes (I honestly can’t think of a better term) and together the sounds and ideas create amazing pieces of work – work that would have never existed unless there was an idea, a catalyst, mixed in with the excitement and everyone feeding off the same wavelength.
So I am planning on locating my business to that environment.
I want to thrive.
I want to create.
And I want to give something back to how people have helped me.
And the best bit of all? Is then once I leave that environment, I can spend the time with friends and family that matter to most and not bore them with all my crazy business ideas.
Essential Apps For My Business
June 1st, 2011Things have kept going from strength to strength with IDH lately and now I have gotten serious with the tools and apps I need to run the business in preparation for bringing on some more help. In fact I should have taken my own advice more seriously about setting up tools and infrastructure.
So what I thought I would share with everyone is a few of the applications I have setup and will continue to use to manage projects and people. Let me know if you have a better solution or infact want me to try out one of your services if you are have a web app you are trying to promote.
People Management Tools
This is important for both internal workers, clients and potential business buddies and people that have referred you business in the past. I find that I am using Apple’s Address Book as my primary database of people contacts (both personal and business contacts) and then can upload them and group them into my CRM/social management tool of choice. I find it better to have every single contact in one neutral spot and then divide them up into whatever tool is right for them.
CRM choice at the moment has been really difficult. There is no real solution that suits my specific needs (something I have discussed on various other websites and Twitter). So at the moment I am using HighRise for my clients and deal tracking, and for my keep in touch, I am working on a top secret project that one day I might release to the public, but at the moment it is suiting me fine.
Accounting & Invoicing
This was a difficult choice for a completely different reason to the CRM issue – in the cloud computing space there are quite a few really good apps to handle all your accounting needs. I ended up choosing Xero for a couple of reasons:
- Great look that works across most devices (iPad isn’t really the best I found).
- I had a promo code to have it for free until the 11/12 financial year.
- Personalised phone calls every week when using the free trial version.
- Bank feeds integration with my institution
Now I know a lot of the other guys have the same functionality but the thing that really put it over the edge was the promo code.
One thing that did upset me a little, none of them had a nice way out-of-the-box to manage timesheets. But hey, you can’t have it all…
Project Management
Once again, way to many choices. So I made it purely on a cosmetic and price decision. Rule FM are the ones I am using currently, mainly due to the sexiness of their platform. It is one really good looking bit of gear.
Since I am slowly moving all my projects over, I can’t really comment on how effective it is on a large scale, but it is treating me just fine at the moment.
Document Sharing
This was an easy choice because I just went with the crowd and signed up for DropBox. However, after their recent security and publicity issues, I am slowly doubting whether or not I should choose another provider. It was definitely a concern and unfortunately I do not know enough about the technology behind it to fully understand the implications. Worst case scenario is that I will set aside some space on a web server and get everyone to upload their work into there.
So thats the platforms I am using for my business, got any recommendations to make it better? Would love to know!
Working Hard for my Money
May 30th, 2011It’s been almost six months now since the business has started and it has been an incredible experience. Everything I learnt previously seemed to form the foundation of exactly what I realized I wanted to achieve. Because without that understanding of existing offerings in the web development and digital industry in Australia I couldn’t have come up with the idea of how to position myself in an extremely crowded market.
The realization didn’t hit me until early in the month of April, and now I wonder why no one has thought of it before. It’s so satisfying to hear people say I have been looking for someone like you for a while, which I guess that is what everyone in business is trying to achieve – providing real solutions to specific problems they are facing.
And now I am reaping the rewards from a good USP and smart, logical explanations to exactly how the Internet works. Doubling my client base was not something I was expecting to happen so soon, but I am so glad that it has.
I feel the heat though from overseas freelancers and I have recognized that as my true competition now. More and more people are realizing that with a little effort you can find some really good contractors. So I think everyone in the digital space needs to give all Australian businesses a reason to stay local with an offering that is not readily duplicated. And I am happy to say I think I have something that comes pretty close.
If you are an Aussie in the digital online arena, how important did you think it was to position you and your service correctly?
Im Using a KeepCup
April 1st, 2011Lately I have been doing a fair bit of reading and thinking about the situation that is occurring around the world. One thing that really shocked me is this article about trash island. And the fact that each of us can do something simple in our everyday lives to help stop this from happening really appealed to me.
So something I do a few times everyday is my cups of coffee – I need them to get through the day. And unless I am proactive and have enough sleep the night before, I am getting a disposable one from a coffee shop.
Now I was trying to find some statistics about disposable coffee cups and surprisingly there is very little specific stats or information. It is mainly just people doing guess maths (assume a coffee shop uses x kilos of coffee a day, which equates to y cups and then there are z amount of coffee shops for every million people). Whilst it gives a good estimate, I wouldn’t base my whole sustainability argument over a hypothesis.
And then the larger coffee shop chains (not just Starbucks, but each regions major coffee suppliers) pad and flesh out the numbers to make it look not as bad as it actually is.
But the fact is when there are great companies like KeepCups doing their bit by providing 100% recyclable long term coffee cups, its a very simple modification to your daily behaviour that can benefit everyone.
So whilst I am not going to turn my website into a soapbox, I just want everyone to consider taking it on board. I have been using one for the last week and I have to say that it is not really that much more inconvenient than just getting stuck with the disposable cup. All you do, is give it a quick rinse when your finished and let it dry before putting back in your bag.
But a really nice trick I have got going now is that I actually have a large one for the days that I really want a lot. But when I go to the coffee shop and only ask for a regular size and mention they don’t have to fill it all the way up – most of them do it anyway.
So basically the lesson is this: get a KeepCup, help the environment, and get a large coffee for the price of a regular.
Tools are Important
February 26th, 2011I was helping out some mates the other day in the garden in the ridiculously hot Sydney sun the other weekend. Now I don’t mind giving mates a hand because I know the reward of a beer or bbq is not far away from sweat dripping down my face. But with my analytical head clocking on for some manual labour, I was pleasantly surprised to learn something new.
There was at least 4 of us working on the garden, needing to spread around some mulch. We had the mulch already dropped off. We had plenty of shovels, plenty of hands (I’ll save you from doing the maths – there were 8), and we all knew exactly what we had to do (nice clearly defined task).
However – there was just one problem – we only had a single wheelbarrow.
Now on it’s own, that necessarily a bad thing. One shovels, one pushes the barrow, and a couple of us spread it around. What we soon discovered though is that there will always be at least 2 of us doing absolutely nothing (besides perspiring) for around 3min.
We did not have enough equipment and tools.
And then I got thinking about businesses and organisations. You can have all the talent you want, with the brains, looks, and charisma to lead teams to greatness – but they will only end up frustrated if they don’t have the right equipment.
We eventually used some lateral thinking and started filling smaller buckets and coming up with a chain-gang style production line to help get the mulch to the spreaders (is that the correct term…?) and that improved our productivity slightly.
But it was not even close to our full potential.
Lesson: Get the infrastructure and the resources sorted, then bring the talent, otherwise you will end up with less than their full potential, or even worse, doing nothing whilst they await their tools.
Bricks & Mortar Staff – Get Busy Online
February 9th, 2011I noticed something the other day for the very first time, which I never really stopped to think about. It was to dow with how bad the situation actually was for bricks and mortar retailers in particular niches.
It was on my way to lunch that I passed this particular punk-themed skate shop with not a soul inside it on a Tuesday at 12pm. The two late teens that were manning the store for the day were in the process of spinning around and around on their office chairs, laughing and wasting time amusing themselves.
I stopped dead in front for a while because of how stupid the situation seemed. I know that I cannot really be blaming them, but I can shake my head at the lack of fore thought their managers/owners/mates who run the shop have in running a successful business. Firstly, their target demographic is at school and probably not in a position to go shopping on a weekday, let alone lunchtime.
So what should they have been doing?
The answer is actually really quite simple: They should have been running their online store.
There is no excuse in this day and age not to have an online store, even something as simple as a “Buy Now” PayPal button on a 10 page static HTML website. Or a self hosted shopping solution where your margin is chewed up by hosting/transaction fees.
Because in the (punk/skater themed boards/accessories/clothing) niche they are in – there are so many blogs, video blogs, and online forums where they can be reaching the kids whilst they are at school (like they aren’t on their iPhones in class anyway), or even internationally trying to draw in some orders from countries that value Australian skateboard products.
They could be interacting with followers/fans on Twitter/Facebook. They could be sending out personalised emails to say thanks for shopping. They could be filming and photographing themselves practicing kickflips outside the front of the shop.
Basically anything besides laughing at chair-spinning (and yes… I know how much fun that is when your 18. But if your going to do it, film you spinning then stacking it and upload it to your YouTube channel).
The staff will get a kick out of becoming Internet celebrities and who knows, your video might even gain you some traction. I’m sure the staff also wouldn’t mind getting paid to Facebook either.
The Point: You Don’t Need a Social Media Consultant
All you have to do is give your staff some direction in what they should be saying, sharing, and uploading online. It’s pretty much common sense – small businesses rarely need a proper PR strategy, just a bit of good old customer service.
I should start a business where I can consult to these little guys and motivate their staff to get to action.
hmmmm…. lemme think about that for a little bit and I will get back to you.
What I Learnt from my Morning Coffee
February 8th, 2011So since I have been consulting on the road over the last few months, I have had to learn the where the best of the local coffee shops are located. A lot of experimentation and many watery coffees, it hasn’t been an easy or pleasant task. With one of my regular clients located in Castle Hill, I was really disappointed with the offering of the bitter mother and son combo behind the froth machine right out the front of the office. But we need to keep in mind this one point: unhappy coffee is still better than instant coffee.
The new year presented a very pleasant surprise.
The bitterness (of the staff) disappeared. What we had instead was a bright and chirpy father son combo that actually asked how I was going. They had given the place a fresh coat of paint. They had muffins available (yes I had to survive for a month without having a blueberry muffin fix along with my caffeine), and best of all – they changed to an Italian coffee blend. Things were definitely looking up!
Then the unexpected happened. The other guys at the office started getting a coffee. Regularly. And when questioned as to the reason of this uptake in caffiene consumption, they said the new owners were really nice people. And they gave good service.
This finding was amazing to me that whilst the product quality had improved tenfold, the reason for the uptake in business was primarily due to the service. Whether the new owners recognised this or not, when you are dealing with such a standardized product as coffee, it’s your service that is going to get you new business and maintain your current client base. A bit of sincerity and personal interest can go a long way.
So what can you take away for your service/consultant based business? Because consultants are fairly standarised product as well. Consultants go in, analyse, talk and come up with a strategy for their particular field and pass the ball to the organise. And consultants have a reputation (stigma even?) of not having the greatest ethics. So how about keeping these things in mind to set you apart:
- Make sure you respond to all emails within 3 hours.
- Return all missed calls by the end of the same day. If it is not possible, email acknowledging the call.
- Make sure that there is a follow up to all actionable items to the meeting
- Feel the love – over the last week or so, now that they know us, the owners are not even making us stay in line, we just drop our money and they deliver the coffee straight to the door. It doesn’t get much better than that!