Putting your Job on a Diet

An amazing thing about Americans: the more we try to lose weight the more weight we find we need to lose. As the size of the weight loss industry increases, so do our waistlines. We all know why, but we don’t want to admit it. The simple fact is that it requires hard work and [...]

Keeping Good Customers

When I graduated from college in 1984 I was already enlisted in the US Air Force and on my way to Officer Training School in San Antonio, Texas. The first thing they did when I arrived (besides shaving my head) was to issue me a set of uniforms. For the first four years after getting [...]

Collaboration and Cooperation

I was interviewed by a reporter from Computer Reseller News during the Technology Fair at the Ingram Micro SMB Alliance Conference. He wanted to know how partnering with peers has helped to grow my business. I think my answer caught him a little off guard because I told him the strength of peers comes from [...]

Almost Famous

I’m attending the Ingram Micro SMB Alliance Conference in Charlotte, NC this week. I had agreed to do a presentation on Online Presence Management a few months ago so I expected to see my name in the program. What a surprise when I was standing at the opening reception and I see my face flash [...]

Free at Last

I recently finished Free by Chris Anderson. I got the book for free on my Kindle (clever marketing). Anderson’s premise is that free is now a legitimate pricing model and we’d all better start thinking about how to earn a living when what we do for a living starts being done for free by someone [...]

Make It Easy for People

The other day, I received a solicitation letter from a Not-For-Profit organization that I support. You know the type. It includes a postage paid envelope for me to send in a donation along with a letter telling me what my contribution can pay for. It also included a description of the various giving levels with [...]

We All Want Something Different

I spent all day yesterday with a group of my peers – computer consulting business owners. We’ll be together today as well. I noticed as we discussed how things are going in our businesses that many people assume that their goals and motivations are exactly the same as everyone else’s. People who believe this don’t [...]

Turning Play into Work

I just finished reading Play by Stuart Brown and Christopher Vaughan. some of the best information I get from reading inxolves reminding me of things I already knew. That’s the case with this book. We all played as a natural part of our childhood, then we grew up and eschewed play. We feel that adults [...]

Adding Value

Google has a Chief Economist. His name is Hal Varian. He’s on leave from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and School of Information.  It’s an interesting idea for a corporation to have a chief economist, but it’s going to become as commonplace as having a CFO. The Internet has done a tremendous amount to [...]

On Becoming a Smaller Giant

I’ve been working on a couple of business plans recently. One is for a disaster recovery center that would augment the Pertingo® Computer Support Services that my Indianapolis small business computer outsourcing company provides. The other is for a new service we call Online Presence Management. Now I’m a story teller, so the narrative parts [...]

Email the Way it Should Have Been Done

I’m always following the new stuff that pops up on the Internet. Usually I don’t see the big wow in things and have to wait until someone smarter than me shows it to me. I still haven’t found out why so many people are on Twitter (or how Twitter can ever make money). I recently [...]

Everyone Has the Entrepreneur’s Work Schedule Now

A recent article at CNN introduced me to the term “weisure.” It’s the blending of work and leisure time that is spreading across America. I found the article interesting because that’s been the way I’ve lived ever since I started my computer outsourcing company, Port-to-Port Consulting, back in 1991. It’s how every small business owner [...]

The Things We Take for Granted

I got out of the shower yesterday morning and heard noises downstairs. Susie was still sleeping and I didn’t figure there was any way that Christopher would be out of bed this early. The noise wasn’t the sound of intruders though, so I dressed and went downstairs to see what was going on. There, in [...]

Business Books and other Drivel

I’m a big fan of popular business books. I’ve been reading them since my introduction to Tom Peters and Bob Waterman wrote In Search of Excellence in 1988. I also go thru phases where I really enjoy the rah rah feeling that comes from self-help and motivational literature. These I make even better by listening [...]

Keep it Simple

I read a story recently about a very successful British businessman’s early start. He was employed by the Mars candy company to sweep up the malted milk balls that fell off the production line. After spending most of a day chasing these little milk balls around the plant and having them take off at the [...]