Sunday, March 15, 2009
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Clients
How do you potty train a client?
Do they want you to be a true consultant and tell them what to do and they will actually value your input and do it?
Or do they think that they are so damn smart that they can tell you how to do your job?
It is important to try and figure out what the client wants.
They will fire you if you are trying to be a consultant but they want a gopher.
They will fire you if they want a consultant and you are being a gopher.
Eventually both you and they figure out which one they want.
Hell, I will do the most idiotic thing in the world if you want to pay me for it, but only after I have tried to be the consultant with you multiple times and you have shown that you only want a gopher or yes man. Well I can be that too.
Nevermind I have a masters degree in business, have my own business, been in the web business over 10 years, created more web sites than I can remember, have/had my own web business, managed tens of thousands of dollars of clients money to promote their web sites and saw what worked and what didn't. Nevermind all that, you oh client are so wise that you surfed around, or read some article from some reporter who didn't know a damn thing... you oh client I will do what you want since you are so damn smart and opinionated.(and I believe in not casting my pearls before swine, and you have proved yourself to be swine and I would rather take your money than try and do what is best for you, since you have proven time and again that my expertise is not worthy compared to your subjective list of sites you like and crazy ideas you have about things that work)
If a client TRUELY will listen and give heed to an experts view.. even if they don't agree or implement their ideas ALL OF THE TIME, but at least give it some credence, then the expert will continue to tell them what is best for them, even when it is not what they want to hear. In the end the one who listens to the expert will probably do better than the guy who thinks he knows everything about something he knows little about.
But have it your way, if you discount someone's advice enough, sooner or later they get tired of trying to help you do things better and just give up and say, "yes I can do that for you." and hang up the phone do what you want and invoice you for it, telling their buddies in the business what an idiot you are and never giving anyone your web site as a reference since everyone but you knows that you wear no clothes.
I go both ways, both ways I make money and one of the ways you end up making more money.
Do they want you to be a true consultant and tell them what to do and they will actually value your input and do it?
Or do they think that they are so damn smart that they can tell you how to do your job?
It is important to try and figure out what the client wants.
They will fire you if you are trying to be a consultant but they want a gopher.
They will fire you if they want a consultant and you are being a gopher.
Eventually both you and they figure out which one they want.
Hell, I will do the most idiotic thing in the world if you want to pay me for it, but only after I have tried to be the consultant with you multiple times and you have shown that you only want a gopher or yes man. Well I can be that too.
Nevermind I have a masters degree in business, have my own business, been in the web business over 10 years, created more web sites than I can remember, have/had my own web business, managed tens of thousands of dollars of clients money to promote their web sites and saw what worked and what didn't. Nevermind all that, you oh client are so wise that you surfed around, or read some article from some reporter who didn't know a damn thing... you oh client I will do what you want since you are so damn smart and opinionated.(and I believe in not casting my pearls before swine, and you have proved yourself to be swine and I would rather take your money than try and do what is best for you, since you have proven time and again that my expertise is not worthy compared to your subjective list of sites you like and crazy ideas you have about things that work)
If a client TRUELY will listen and give heed to an experts view.. even if they don't agree or implement their ideas ALL OF THE TIME, but at least give it some credence, then the expert will continue to tell them what is best for them, even when it is not what they want to hear. In the end the one who listens to the expert will probably do better than the guy who thinks he knows everything about something he knows little about.
But have it your way, if you discount someone's advice enough, sooner or later they get tired of trying to help you do things better and just give up and say, "yes I can do that for you." and hang up the phone do what you want and invoice you for it, telling their buddies in the business what an idiot you are and never giving anyone your web site as a reference since everyone but you knows that you wear no clothes.
I go both ways, both ways I make money and one of the ways you end up making more money.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Sharepoint
Microsoft's attempt at an intranet in a box is sharepoint.
It looks like crap and is great at document management.
You can just click on a document on a web site or intranet and have it open in Excel or Word on your desktop.. you edit the document and save it and sharepoint saves the file back to the server for you and makes the changes to the whole version control system. Very cool.
But try and do some simple things and use their automated tools and it is like pulling teeth.
It makes editing documents or web pages easy, but once you start trying to customize it or try and do something even a little bit sophisticated and it just is more of a hindrance than a help.
In the end your web people will just be spending tons of time trying to work around it or trying to do it the "sharepoint" way.
It looks like crap and is great at document management.
You can just click on a document on a web site or intranet and have it open in Excel or Word on your desktop.. you edit the document and save it and sharepoint saves the file back to the server for you and makes the changes to the whole version control system. Very cool.
But try and do some simple things and use their automated tools and it is like pulling teeth.
It makes editing documents or web pages easy, but once you start trying to customize it or try and do something even a little bit sophisticated and it just is more of a hindrance than a help.
In the end your web people will just be spending tons of time trying to work around it or trying to do it the "sharepoint" way.
DNN or Dot Net Nuke
DNN or Dot Net Nuke is supposed to be sort of an intranet in a box.
It is supposed to make updating your site easy, even if you don't have experience making web pages.
Well what it does is
1. make updating the site easy as far as new pages and text changes
2. creates havoc when you eventually move to a new version of DNN
3. Usually you end up with an ugly site that isn't so friendly with the search engines
4. You end driving your web designer or programmer nuts, since things he can do really easily are extremely difficult in DNN
5. Every other thing you need to do has to be in the DNN way, instead of the more common, ordinary way and every time you turn around you have to buy and install a module. The modules are not user friendly to setup or use, so back to number 4.
In the end you save money if you want to update an ugly site yourself without a web designer.
If you have a web site that keeps growing and getting more and more features, you probably will end up spending alot more money to pay a programmer or web guy to make things work the DNN way, which is just plain much harder than it should be.
It is supposed to make updating your site easy, even if you don't have experience making web pages.
Well what it does is
1. make updating the site easy as far as new pages and text changes
2. creates havoc when you eventually move to a new version of DNN
3. Usually you end up with an ugly site that isn't so friendly with the search engines
4. You end driving your web designer or programmer nuts, since things he can do really easily are extremely difficult in DNN
5. Every other thing you need to do has to be in the DNN way, instead of the more common, ordinary way and every time you turn around you have to buy and install a module. The modules are not user friendly to setup or use, so back to number 4.
In the end you save money if you want to update an ugly site yourself without a web designer.
If you have a web site that keeps growing and getting more and more features, you probably will end up spending alot more money to pay a programmer or web guy to make things work the DNN way, which is just plain much harder than it should be.
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