The downside to a new business.
Anyone who has actually gone out and started a business will be well aware of the wonderful feeling of independence, the rush of doing something new for one’s self and the market, the hunger to do it all as fast as possible. Unfortunately it is the last point that can often lead to tears later on.
This morning I attended a presentation at the Cork OCC given by David Reilly, Solicitor, on some legal issues that face new businesses, especially those involved in software. It was illuminating and depressing simultaneously. And that is because starting a business, losing your entrepreneurial virginity, can be a harrowing exsperience.
It would be great to maintain the enthusiasm and avoid the boring work : finance, tax, compliance, legal and so on. But in so doing, you are only creating larger problems that will have to be dealt with later. As David put it so well, “I would prefer to get all the fights out of the way at the start, than have to deal with them later”.
A major point that David brought up was that of Copyright and Software. You may have a brilliant idea, and hire a contractor to express that idea through software – In which case, the copyright is with the Contractor. Try selling that amazing web app a few months down the line and see how far you get in Due Diligence without the appropriate agreements having been signed by the contractor. Messy!
Photo owned by Jesse Michael Nix (cc)
David has a load more good information on his site on Intellectual Property, Contracts etc… Good stuff.
Labs available in Google Apps Email.
Several small businesses I work with use Google Apps as part of their Office Productivity tools. I love Google apps, already being a huge fan of Gmail for several years.
One advantage the public Gmail version had over its Google Apps counterparts until recently is the availability of “Labs”. These are available under “Settings” in the Gmail client.
These are experimental but extremely useful modules. For example, you can add a gadget to your Gmail interface which provides a snapshot of your Google Calendar. Very handy – But Labs also provides very simple enhancements such as the “Signature tweak” which allows you to get rid of the hugely annoying “–” at the start of the default Gmail signature.
If you use Gmail and haven’t checked out any of the Labs features, do it now.
If you use Google Apps (whereby you get a lot of the excellent Google web based tools such as their Email client, Calendar and Docs, but all under your own domain) you may be missing out on some of the lovely Google Labs functionality. It is not turned on by default for all Google Apps domains.
But it is turned on for some, and as of this last week, it has been turned on for all of the businesses I work with. Is it available for yours? Check immediately, click on Settings (Top right of your email client) and then hopefully, you will see a link to Labs.
The Labs link.
Is it there? Can you see it? I hope so.
If not, hmmm… What can you do?
- If using Google Apps Premier Edition (where you actually pay) then get on to Support.
- Google like to roll out stuff in phases and priority appears to be given to those who have their language settings set to English (US). So change that under Settings | General within your Google Apps email and also change it at the domain level if you can. To do this you need to logon to your domains Google Apps control panel. (Usually available at http://www.google.com/a/mycompany.com). Log in as the Administrator of the domain and navigate to Domain Settings | General. (Obviously by changing your language settings, this may alter how Spell Checkers behave – Ask yourself if you think this is an acceptable loss).
- While you are there in the Control Panel – be sure to tick the following boxes:
Apps Domain Settings
Does this seem a little risky – Maybe by selecting these options, Google might screw up your whole IT structure by releasing dodgy functionality. Well, if you are already trusting Google with such a large chunk of your business infrastructure, I think you can go this extra step.
Completing these steps does not guarantee that you will get Labs, but it should help. After that, it is up to Google to decide when you get your Labs option.
I’ll follow this post up with a separate post on which Lab features you should be using and why.
To-Do List Sorted. Thanks RememberTheMilk.com
Since starting my first job, I have been the sort of person who needs a hardback notebook within arms reach at all times. Occasionally handy in meetings, or when dealing with obscure technical problems for recording progress. The main reason I have used them is for To Do Lists.
I also always hang on to them. Not sure why. I must have at least 30 gathering dust at home, and if I won’t read them, who will? Well I do remember coming across a business diary of a Grand Uncle, who owned a decent yard somewhere in the vicinity of Ballylongford/Tarbert in North Kerry. A local bus owner used to store that bus in my Grand Uncle’s yard and pay up for the number of nights it was parked.
So while his journal had to occasionally interesting entry such as “Cycled to Cork for the Munster final – Beat them well again”, most entries consisted of “Bus in Yard” and nothing else.
Photo owned by eye of einstein (cc)
Will a descendant of mine look with the same nostalgic interest on “Replaced another disk on live server today”. I hope not.
I have been dying to dump my habit of using notebooks, and Even more so since I have let Google into my life. I have my private GMail account, my Google Apps Email account for work and a Google Calendar shared across both accounts. I now organise a huge amount of my work through these excellent apps, and this has only been heightened in the last year by their excellent integration with my BlackBerry Curve mobile phone.
What has stood out for me has been the lack of a “To Do List” app integrated with the Calendar. I tried a bastardisation of Events as tasks, but it wouldn’t stick. And there are plenty other sites out there which offer excellent To-Do list apps, such as taskfive.com but without integration with my google account, that’s a huge uphill battle.
In fact of all the stuff I do online, it takes an extremely special piece of software to make me switch from Google’s offering. The only two that spring to mind are:
- Flickr – The Photo sharing standard. Google’s online Picasa photo-stuff just plain confuses me.
- WordPress – Miles ahead of Google’s Blogger. Miles and miles.
Re-examined this during the last week in the hope that I could drop the notebooks and was delighted with what I found.
- Straightforward Integration with Google Calendar so that Tasks and Events can all be viewed on the one page.
- A very useful gadget that displays all your tasks in Gmail.
- Its Free.
Any downsides?
- A stupid name, in that for the first few times I tried to access it, I typed “Dontforgetthemilk.com”.
- I find its own interface on its own site a bit confusing. I prefer the limited amount of information displayed in the Google Calendar and Gmail gadget.
- If I want to get full integration with my BlackBerry, it will cost me $25 to upgrade to the pro account.
But most annoying of all…. This integration has been around for ages and I never knew about it. Only when I mentioned it on Twitter did I realise I was late to the party.
The proof whether this changes my career long behaviour of dragging notebooks around will emerge with time, but its looking really good already.
Wife is Blogging – Non techie – Interesting.
Being a techie, being on twitter, checking Google reader regularly – Its all very repetitive. What a homogenous glob of information.
But, at last, and after way too much in the way of emotional blackmail – My wife, who works at Carroll’s Jewellers in Cork, has started blogging via corksilver.com.
Its a slow start, only one post of their own so far which shows the famous Jimmy Dazzle at work on an engagement ring. But its gonna be great. This really is a world so far divorced from what I am used to, what most of my friends are used to… each post will be an education.
I set up the domain, the wordpress backend (Thanks WordPress) and Google Analytics. Every Monday night, Eileen, Chris and Jimmy will receive a report from Google Analytics detailing where their visitors are coming from. Even with just a placeholder up for the last few weeks, they have been getting visits from all over the world, and the report is giving them a real buzz every Tuesday morning. Your visits will contribute to this buzz, and hopefully keep them doing it.
I haven’t been spoon feeding them on how to post, I think they will learn more by doing it by themselves, so give them time.
They work on everything from one off Sculptures to Engagement rings and Church-ware (is that the right word?). Wait til you see the state of their workbenches, its a different world.
Give them a visit and leave a comment. (If you don’t mind).
Evaluating WordPress.com as a CMS for a Small Business Web Site.
Should you use WordPress.com for the design and hosting of a Corporate website?
The short answer: It is possible, but not desirable.
Comparing the functionality available under WordPress.com against Google Page Creator (available under Google Apps) – It is an excellent product. However, most business websites are going to require a minimum of flexibility that just isn’t available with WordPress.com.
Before going any further I think it will be useful for many readers to clear up some of the confusion surrounding WordPress software. The full history is available here but to be extra brief… WordPress is Blogging software, and available for download, use and manipulation from wordpress.org. Some of the smart people behind WordPress decided that in order to make things extra easy for people to get up and going with their blogs, a hosted version of their super software should be made available, and so wordpress.com was born.
With WordPress.com you can be up and going in a matter of minutes, even under your own domain, as I am here at AntGalvin.com.
Blogging software? Amn’t I evaluating WordPress as a CMS (Content Managment System) for a fully fledged small business website. Why sir, yes I am. WordPress software is very capable of managing small professional looking websites. In fact in recent chats with three successful home-office website desiners, all three use WordPress software. (For more complicated jobs, Drupal is their preferred option).
So WordPress.com is a very convenient solution for getting started with WordPress software. The downside of this convenience is that a lot of the functionality that makes WordPress software great has had to be curtailed to make it work in this hosted situation. There is a great list of the top 15 limitations and benefits of using WordPress.com available here – I suggest you read them. The main one in my mind is the limitation on design freedom on WordPress.com – A problem that evaoprates when you use WordPress software on an independent host.
I make one other argument against using WordPress.com for hosting a corporate website. You cannot use Google Analytics on WordPress.com webpages (See the WordPress.com faq). “So what?” you say.
If you are own or manage a small business, I am sure you understand the problems of being short on resources, especially time and cash. So if you are going to develop a website for the business, you need to know if its cost-effective. How do you do that? The best way to do this (apart from looking at directly generated sales) is to monitor your website via Google Analytics. This excellent software is free to use and provides any website proprietor with invaluable information on the performance of their website. Its also simple to use.
Please note that WordPress.com does provide good stats on the visits and behaviour on your site – But it is limited and will become a problem in time for anybody serious about developing their website.
The same is true for the other limitations of WordPress.com – They may just annoy you at the start, but they will eventually become a major issue. When that happens, you will end up using WordPress software on your own choice of host.
If you are a small business, save yourself the hassle, Start at wordpress.org and leave wordpress.com to the part time bloggers, like me.
Checking out WordPress’ viability as a Corporate WebSite CMS
Update: Just ignore this old post and go to this new and more complete post. Cheers.
Cheeky I know.
But I need to know If I can use WordPress.com to host a few small Semi-brochure-ware Business websites. I have considered using Drupal but was hoping WordPress.com would provide an easier solution.
So far I have found:
- Choice of themes is very limited but at least I can augment CSS.
- Help on WordPress.com is poor.
- Domain mapping was a breeze when I could eventually find the Settings link.
- uses PayPal which I hate, but hardly WPs fault.
I fully intend to have some sort of blogging presence here soon, with actual content so hang in there.
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