stargeek
Technology Gets Some StyleTechnology Gets Some StyleTechnology Gets Some Style 11/03/2003 02:35 PM At least a decade ago, I remember conversations with people wondering why all PCs came in beige boxes. I couldn't understand why no computer companies were actually working on more appealing designs. It was all very Model T-ish ("you can have any color you want, so long as it's black") of the world. When IBM came out with one of the first PC cases that was actually black instead of beige, I thought it would be a huge hit for the color alone (which it wasn't). Now, however, partly due to Apple's designs and also because of the increasing maturity of the market, more companies are realizing the benefits to adding style to their products. The various well known industrial design firms like Ideo and Frog Design are apparently doing quite well these days, as everyone wants them to help design the next iPod or similar device. This is a GrokNews Entry: (what is grok?)Technology Gets Some StyleGrok Headline matches for Technology Gets Some StyleCanyon Technology Releases Sport-Style
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 (Eleventh instalment of the
upcoming book Natural
Enterprise.
List of previous instalments here.)A lot of readers of How to Save the World will probably be disappointed with this chapter in my upcoming book Natural Enterprise for two reasons: I'm not going to plug any specific vendors of technology for small business (although I've identified quite a few, including some regular readers), because by the time the book comes out this information could well be obsolete. (When the book comes out there will be a companion website with a list of recommended vendors of technology, though, so don't despair). And although buying technology is one of the most fun parts of new enterprise formation, my advice is to buy as little as you can get by on. Most entrepreneurs, in my experience, go overboard. There is no blueprint 'best answer' for what technology a new entrepreneurial business needs. It depends on the industry in which you operate, the number and location of your customers and products, whether your product or service can or should be effectively offered online, and a host of other factors. So the first thing to do is develop a Technology Plan. Although you can hire a consultant to do this with you (don't let them do it for you), you can also develop the draft plan yourself and then run it by tech-savvy people you know, and (more importantly) other, established entrepreneurs you know with businesses of a similar type and style to yours. The entrepreneurs who've already gone through this process can tell you what you really need, and how to avoid the missteps they made, and this can really save you money and grief. You also need to talk to some prospective customers about your Technology Plan, because if it's inadequate to meet their expectations you'll need to re-think it. And if they shrug and say it doesn't matter much to them, that probably means your technologies are mostly internal, back-office tools: Avoid spending too much on toys your customers (who ultimately pay for them) don't see or benefit from. The Technology Plan need not be long, but it does need to be carefully thought through. Here's a checklist of the types of technology it should address. For each type, you'll need to assess whether you need it at all (some manual alternatives work just fine, and will do so even when your business scales up), identify and evaluate the alternative tools available (including an increasing number of free alternatives), and budget when to buy and how and how much to pay for each. Telephony: Most telephone companies offer packages designed for entrepreneurial businesses. It's essential that your telephone system, often the first point of contact with new customers, be reliable and professional. Consider voice messaging, call waiting and call routing needs. Look at them from the customer's viewpoint. Consider VoIP alternatives including free (but not yet ubiquitous) solutions like Skype. Fax: I keep thinking fax is dead. It isn't, yet. Avoid the hokey systems that require customers to call twice to send you a fax. E-mail: If you want to be taken seriously, you need your own e-mail/web domain, even if you don't have a website. Make sure it's short and easy to spell. Shop carefully -- prices are all over the map. Cardinal rule of e-mail: If you give your e-mail address to customers, check your e-mail very frequently (route it to someone else in the business if you can't) and respond to customers immediately. Public Website: Depending on your business, this may be the most critical technology you buy, or you may not need one at all. Talk to as many others as you can before deciding what you need and who to buy from. You will probably need someone to host your website, and the package the host provides will probably include software to build and maintain your web pages, and limit the size of the site and the volume of traffic (beyond which you pay extra). Most hosts also offer scalable additions for e-commerce at an additional price: Product catalogue, shopping cart, order management and credit-card handling etc. Beyond that, the sky's the limit: You can add functionality to do online surveys, offer multimedia presentations, provide help-desk support for your products, and many other business applications. As with telephony, think this through from the customer viewpoint: What do they want, what do they need, what might they actually not want to see on your site. Keep it as simple as possible, easy to use, clean-looking, and professional in appearance. If you're not taking orders for your products over the Internet, it's unlikely that putting marketing information on your website will produce much benefit: Focus your site content instead on educating your site's readers. If you give people useful information 'free', they're more likely to want to buy from you. Exception: Put a few, enthusiastic, signed customer testimonials at the top of your site (but get the customers' permission first). And make sure your contact information is up there with it, and that you're there to take the calls when they come in. And give your customers a simple way to give you feedback, good and bad, on your site. The good feedback can be the basis for testimonials and viral marketing. If you don't give them a simple way to vent bad feedback to you directly, they'll vent to others (including potential customers) instead. Financial Information System: Depending on the nature of your business, you will have certain statutory reporting and filing requirements for your business. Technology can automate these somewhat, but unless you have a lot of small transactions (purchases, payments, sales and cash receipts), or a lot of different products and services that you need to track and inventory separately, technology isn't going to reduce your paperwork burden that much or tell you anything you don't already know. Find a financial system that meets your needs, not the government's. That probably means a system that will allow you to budget, forecast and monitor cash flow day-to-day, easily. Don't buy a huge, complex accounting package with thousands of General Ledger accounts and reports you don't use to manage your business. Again, thinking of the customer first, you want invoices and other financial paperwork that is visible to the customer to look professional. If you have a lot of employees, consider outsourcing payroll and HR records management -- it's usually the most cost-effective application for small enterprises to farm out. Customer Information System: If you have (or hope to have) a lot of customers your first database application will probably be a customer information system, listing contact information, sales calls (held and scheduled) and successes. A simple spreadsheet application (free over the Internet) will probably suffice until you get more than, say, 100 customers. Order and Inventory Management System: Depending on volume and nature of your business, you may need Point-of-Sale (POS) and Inventory Management software to keep track of what and how much you've sold. Most entrepreneurs don't have enough distinct products or enough individual transactions to require this, and some accounting packages include rudimentary invoicing and inventory management capability. Intranet: Once you reach a certain size, or if your organization is virtual (i.e. your people are physically scattered), you'll probably need some kind of internal website, a space behind a firewall where your people can communicate and collaborate. Don't design it in a laboratory -- get the people who will use it to design it with you. Possible applications are: Scheduling and calendaring, Document- and file-sharing, Internal e-mail and instant messaging, Internal newsletters, Housing databases purchased from outsiders used by all employees, Hosting collaboration and project 'spaces' and tools. Your work colleagues will tell you what they need, what makes sense to share, and to what extent (e.g. setting up meetings automatically for other colleagues) they're willing to allow technology to impose on and make some decisions for them. Desktop Publishing and Marketing tools: Unless others have told you that you have a real flair for this, or it's your business, this is best left to professionals. If you're relying on viral marketing you need very, very little marketing material. A business card, a brochure, a simple website -- that's probably it. Get some one-time professional input on these, and then leave them alone. I know, designing these things yourself is fun. But it's not the best use of your time. And the results can be truly ugly. Computers, Mobile Devices and Local Area Networks for the Front Line: Let the users specify what they need, hardware, network and software. Consider free alternatives to the major business software packages. Stress connectivity applications over processing power, memory and multimedia applications -- they're the ones with payback. For applications essential to your business, make sure you have backups for everything -- the data, the hardware, the customer connectivity. Even the smallest business needs some redundancy and security systems. Customers just won't tolerate 'down time' anymore. But the more sophisticated your systems, the more costly the redundancy and security systems become -- think about this before you go for wireless networking. Weblogs & Social Networking Applications: I am of course biased about these technologies, but I'm the first to admit that they aren't the easiest to use, they aren't for everyone, and they aren't yet ready for prime time business application. If your colleagues are weblog-savvy, consider them for specific business purposes: Capturing valuable business lessons, Archiving subject matter expertise, and as a Substitute for internal newsletters. And consider running a weblog as an adjunct to your public website -- they can be informative and engaging for customers and prospective customers, at minimal cost. And keep a close eye on the burgeoning world of social software: There is a burning need for better tools and databases that can help entrepreneurs find partners, colleagues, advice, information in context, and even customers. Someone's going to figure out how to meet this need. Once you have your Technology Plan completed and vetted by users, customers and other entrepreneurs, you have one more critical decision to make: Lease vs. Buy. This decision is getting more difficult as the number of creative financing alternatives increases. There is a new phenomenon called "pay as you go computing" that looks at most or all of the above technologies as a single computing 'utility'. There are companies that now offer 'utility' computing packages, where you outsource all of the purchasing and maintenance of the technology of your business to a third party, in return for a single monthly payment that varies with your usage. The big computer companies are likely to offer 'utility' computing by the end of this year, though probably on a less extensive and less flexible basis. Unless you're a whiz with numbers it may be hard to figure out whether to go for such a plan or not. My advice: Gather up all the costs and the leasing, financing and 'utility' computing quotes, buy your friendly accountant lunch and have him compute what's the best deal. That goes as well for any lease vs. buy decision in your business: Cars, premises, and machinery. The calculations are complicated but straightforward -- if you're an expert in Present Value computations and discounting variable cash flow streams. Not only is the array of technology choices dizzying, it's changing daily. That's why the key is to leverage the Wisdom of Crowds: Talk to a lot of people, especially other entrepreneurs, who are usually all too willing to tell you their technology success stories and horror stories. It's all part of the homework for building a Natural Enterprise. OK, dear readers, this is the chapter of Natural Enterprise that I feel least confident, and competent, writing. So please tell me: What's missing, and what have I got wrong? Remember that this book is for the novice, so I've tried to keep it simple and jargon-free. This chapter will get the last re-write just before the book goes to press, but I'm still worried it will be obsolete by the time the book hits the stores. What do you think? |
 If
you're a regular reader of this blog, you probably know that I'm
opposed to unregulated 'free' trade, very worried about the
extraterritoriality of the WTO, NAFTA, Davos and other corporatist
captives, strongly opposed to domestic corporations 'offshoring' jobs,
using influence with the Bush regime and other right-wing governments
to circumvent social and environmental laws and responsibilities, and
a
great believer in taking the pledge to buy local, and in community
self-sufficiency.At the same time, I'm a strong supporter of the UN and other multi-lateral NGOs, and I believe that we each have a responsibility for the well-being of all the people and creatures of this world. Some readers have said this view is inconsistent, and I wasn't quite sure how to respond to such charges. Fortunately, Peter Singer, in his recent book on global ethics, I'll have more to say next week about Bush's fraudulent and despicable Earth Day media blitz, and the major media's shameless lack of critical evaluation of the utter nonsense that his propaganda machine has been churning out this week on the environment -- newspeak of Orwellian proportions. The first part of Singer's book deals with environmental responsibility, and his prescription for increasing it -- immediate ratification of Kyoto by the US and other holdout countries, and introduction of an emissions trading mechanism to make the realization of Kyoto feasible (subject to the need for some oversight on the disposition of the proceeds of such trading when it involves autocratic governments). The second part of the book deals with the global economy, and Singer adroitly tears apart the Economist's (and other neocons') naive assertion that economic globalization somehow benefits both rich and poor countries. He then goes on to prescribe a substantial reform of the WTO and the GATT, which could actually lead to more equitable distribution of wealth and more efficient production of economic goods, while safeguarding human rights, labour and the environment. Unfortunately, the multi-national corporations and corporatists who hold sway in the WTO would never tolerate Singer's prescription, since it would entirely divert the benefits of economic globalization from their pockets to those of the world's poor. The third part of the book deals with international law, and Singer lashes out at Bush for his unconscionable refusal to ratify the International Court of Justice, and for the UN's continued hesitancy to accept a duty (not a right) to intervene in situations of genocide and other humanitarian crises, even within a single nation. Singer is sanguine about the limitations and dangers of 'global government', but supports strengthening the UN to enable it to act as a 'protector of last resort', and including in its mandate the responsibility to supervise elections in all member nations. The fourth and final part goes back to ethical principles and proposes that countries must, in this world where national boundaries no longer have any logistic meaning, set aside national interest and embrace, once and for all, global interest, impartially. That does not mean cultural homogenization, but imposes a responsibility for the reduction of inequality, both of economic resources and personal rights and freedoms. Always the pragmatist, Singer concludes by worrying out loud about how the responsibility for a global ethic could be managed: It
is widely believed that a world government would be, at best, an
unchecked bureaucratic behemoth that would make the bureaucracy of the
EU look lean and efficient. At worst, it would become a global
tyranny,
unchecked and unchallengeable. These thoughts have to be taken
seriously. How to prevent global bodies becoming either dangerous
tyrannies or self-aggrandizing bureaucracies, and instead make them
effective and responsive to the people whose lives they affect? It is
a
challenge that should not be beyond the best minds in the fields of
political science and public administration.
I'd like to believe that this was possible, because if it isn't, we're in serious trouble. We cannot expect national governments to set aside parochial interests, especially when this entails accepting a responsibility that would, for the richer nations, inevitably lead to a drastic redistribution of wealth to poorer nations and hence a sudden and sharp reduction in, at least, economic living standards (if not necessarily well-being). But as John Ralston Saul has so eloquently argued, larger organizations and institutions, whether public or private, are almost always, and inherently, less efficient, less agile, more resistant to change, more hierarchic, and less transparent than smaller organizations. So the challenge is to achieve the best of both worlds, having organizations of global scope and authority and responsibility, but broken up into sufficiently small, autonomous and dynamic units that they are sensitive, resilient, responsible and responsive to the people and communities they serve. We can only hope that "the best minds in the fields of political science and public administration", wherever they are, are up to the task. |
ptech.wsj.com/archive/ptech-20040916.html
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ptech.wsj.com/ptech.html
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Style One has a chief characteristic of trying to make everything better. When they are healthy, they are morally heroic, making sacrifices for the greater good, balanced in their judgments, uncompromising in their principles. They are concerned about what is right in morals, sometimes in esthetics, and sometimes in other things like literary or movie criticism or even manners. They are objective in their judgments and utterly clear about what is right and wrong. They are prophets and reformers.
If they become unhealthy, the vision narrows and their concerns diminish. They begin to moralize, they can get picky about little rules and they always go by the book regardless of consequence or circumstance. They develop either/or thinking and pay little attention to anyone's emotions.
Ones you may know: Judge Judy on TV, Laura Schlesinger (Dr. Laura on talk radio), Hilary Clinton, Ross Perot, Ralph Nadar, St Paul, Martin Luther, Harrison Ford, Tom Brokaw, Pope John Paul II, The Lone Ranger, Martha Stewart and Miss Manners.
What is your enneagram?
(Via Marju t.)
Checkout the Napkin L&F (look and feel) for Java. Interesting although the best way to use hand-drawn graphics is in contrasting combination with smooth lines and anti-aliased text. They have to be rougher too.
homestarrunner.com/tgs9.html
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Direct and Related Links for 'A style revolution'
“Our retro computers will dramatically alter the way you see your computer. No more unsightly beige boxes; Facade Computer aims to provide you with antique, high-quality cases. Our creations are not only stylish, but affordable, packing solid performance that won’t break the bank. We are currently accepting orders. Click here. Please note that our products do not come with mice, keyboards, or monitors. We recommend Swedx for retro-themed peripherals….lokitorrent.com
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Thanks to Jim and Ado for setting up the BitTorrent tracker. Here is a torrent for Lawrence Lessig's Free Culture talk in Helsinki that I blogged about earlier.
UPDATE: Please standby. It doesn't seem to be working.
Comment - TrackBack
Download: The Paper (pdf) | The
RegisterHey, Hollywood! Can you feel the future slipping through your fingers? Do you understand how badly you've screwed up? You took a perfectly serviceable situation - a nice, centralized system for the distribution of media, and, through your own greed and shortsightedness, are giving birth to a system of digital distribution that you'll never, ever be able to defeat. In your avarice and arrogance you ignored the obvious: you should have cut a deal with SuprNova.org. In partnership you could have found a way to manage the disruptive change that's already well underway. Instead, you have repeated the mistakes made by the recording industry, chapter and verse. And thus you have spelled your own doom.Link (via waxy)It's said that the best sequels are just like the original, only bigger and louder. Ladies and gentlemen, prepare yourselves for one hell of a crash. This baby is now fully out of control.
Used BitTorrent a little bit when it first came out and was a bit underwhelmed. It didn’t work, there weren’t a lot of places to find files, etc.
I decided to take another look at it when a designer friend of mine was telling me that he has the latest version of every single piece of design software on his Mac compliments of bit torrent (yes, I know it’s wrong… not the point I’m trying to make, the point is coming :-).
Part I: I installed bit torrent and immediately noticed an amazing new trend (prob. not new to all of you) of people posting dozens of albums in one RAR file for download. Huge file sizes in the 500 to 4,000 meg size range. The last season of seven seasons of Southpark, every Nirvanna album and here is another file with every Howard Stern radio show from March in one file.
In one click you grab one really well organized, clean and deep sets of files—scary.
Part II: A couple of month ago I got the Gateway Connected DVD player. For $195 it connects via WiFi to my desktop and I can hit the My Music or My Videos button on the remote control and pull up those directories on my hard drive (in the other room).
Part III: Today I moved into my new apartment in Santa Monica and was faced with the standard $100 month cable/dish bill and I’m thinking “dang, I only watch less then a half dozen TV shows and they are all here on bit torrent… maybe I should save the $1,200 a year and just download the shows and watch them via my Gateway Connected DVD player?”
The Point/Question: How soon before you’ll be able-with one click-download every prime-time TV show or last year’s top 500 CDs in one click?!
(Note: This is not a trick question, I have yet to find a file containing that much content—however, I did find a file with last weeks top 100 singles that someone put together in one nice package).
[The Digital Music Weblog]
Torrentocracy has announced a free BitTorrent hosting service for Creative
Commons licensed content: Prodigem.
Download one of the beta torrents currently available. Send an email to Torrentocracy creator Gary Lerhaupt to request an upload account.
Update: Download all of the Duke Law School Arts Project Moving Image Contest finalists via one torrent at prodigem.
Your big article on M.I.A over the weekend reminded me that I had downloaded a mix mp3 shortly after the Tsunami disaster comprised exclusivly of Sri Lankan hip-hop. I can't remember where I originally found the mix (boomselection, maybe?) so I just made a .torrent. 58.4 Meg mp3 mix by Dr. Auratheft.Link
Previously:
M.I.A. is, well, MIA; and
MIA for intergalactic overlord
Thanks to Dave over at Scripting News for the link. The already easy process of downloading files via BitTorrent has just gotten easier. [Downhill Battle]
orbdesign.net/bt
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dv.open4all.info/bblog/torrent_files/20040828_kinberg.mov.torrenttrack this site | 3 links
View: Full Article @ The Register View: Avalanche WhitepaperDownload the Windows XP Service Pack 2: The guys who were doing Microsoft a favor by pushing Service Pack 2 via Bit Torrent got slapped down by Redmond.
Microsoft sent DMCA takedown notices to our two webhosts, one of which was just linking to a torrent file on another server. We've stood up to these kinds of legal threats before (see the Grey Tuesday protests), but we decided not to bother this time, because we started this site primarily as a demonstration and to that end it's already been a huge success.
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Here's some serious substantial non-infringing use of P2P. I bought the DVD and watched Outfoxed. Definitely worth buying the DVD, but being able to download and use the interviews from the documentary is a great contribution to the commons. It will be interesting to see how people remix this stuff. Comment - TrackBacktorrentocracy - blogOutfoxed Torrent (torrentocracy exclusive)In working with Lawrence Lessig, Robert Greenwald has agreed to release the interviews within Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism under a Creative Commons non-commercial license (press release). This means that among the rights now granted, interviews balancing out the fair journalism of Fox News can freely be used as anyone sees fit. To see the full movie, you can purchase the Outfoxed DVD or check it out in theaters.
Torrentocracy (along with archive.org) has exclusive initial access to distribute these interviews in their digital form due to the work undertaken to promote a TV-connected, public domain, internet based media distribution network. The torrent file to start your Outfoxed download can be found at http://www.torrentocracy.com/files/torrents/outfoxed_intervie ws.torrent. For more information on how to use bit torrent peer-to-peer filesharing to download this, go here. If you were a Torrentocracy user, you could already be downloading Outfoxed to your television.
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