Running 2 ways at once

I read an article in the technology review magazine that spoke about various entrepeneurs and their ideas of what they thought while starting their companies and the last couple of days this article has really stuck in my head. I have this blog as a way to journal my adventures cause even now I'm having problems recalling certain events and how they happened pertaining to my firm and business dealings. I currently have two businesses that take the majority of my time the first being NATIVERES which is an application development firm that specializes in Opensource Health Apps and CMS's but also still doing alot of Microsoft Sharepoint work for federal entities. I also provide technical advise to different groups. Under this banner I have a personal project called "American Indian Search" which is a directory that will allow SMB's the ability to market themselves to indian country. This is truly a labor of love and takes more time and money then I will probaly see back but it's such a needed channel that I will keep it ongoing for as long as possible. And finally I have a year and half company that I've partnered with another entrepenuer called "Buffalo Nickel LLC" which is a screenprinting and distribution business. This last endevor I call selling widgets. I sometimes tell people "I make widgets, I ship widgets and make the software that does the entire process." I plan on writing about each of these projects. Which brings me to my title. As a business person we are required to wear many hats and often time are juggling different priorities. I use various software packages to keep me on track. One is called Basecamp from the group signal 37 this helps with keeping my team as well as clients all on the same page when it's dealing with projects and deadlines. We also use a custom bug tracker internally to help my webteam keep track of the software details when dealing with specific issues. We also use timetracker widgets to keep track of everyday work due to our multiple clientele. and lastly we use outlook exchange to keep our calendars and email and contract lists in place. I've found that these tools are invaluable to me cause often times I am running in two different directions at once. Comment on the tools you use to keep your day straight.

Empowerment

A little something offtrack. I was reading a blog this morning from South Dakota concerning language and racism. I'm native american. Hocak from wisconsin and lakota oglala from pine ridge. I grew up with racism and have had it point blank in my face with people actually telling me they don't like indians or hate indians. These kinds of experiences give one a perspective of distrust when it comes to dealing with people but I've also had wonderful experiences with people who let me know not every person is out to hate you either.

In the past 15 years of being activily involved in the tech community one thing has always given me a sense of calm is that I have never been judged by the color of skin but by my technical merit. I don't feel like I've ever been singled out in this field because of my heritage if anything I have found a sense of belonging because most people I get to work with are more concerned with what I know than how I am defined.

I know racism exists and my daughters will have to confront this but it feels good to tell them that some areas "they will be accepted based on their knowledge and not the color of their skin because I experience this everyday."

Very Exciting Site - GETGO MN

I think every entrepreneur can agree that sometimes we spend so much time in the future trying to figure out where our business is going we forget the present is just as important and our past is even more so. But one of the joys in running your own business is you sometimes run into other ideas or projects that really get you excited. I ran into this when my neighbor who works for a hightech association passed a link along to me called GETGO.

Here's the gist:

First off, GetGo (www.getgomn.org) is a, social network that's been developed to support the Minnesota entrepreneurial community.

GetGo is a very deep system and here are just a few of it's features :
-- GetGo, along with Wells Fargo, provides a Resource Center to support our members with guides, advice, tools and more. These resources are provided by many of our partners as well as organizations throughout the state that support entrepreneurs.
-- GetGo provides a directory of local service providers in a variety of fields who focus on servicing small business & entrepreneurs. This can be found on the Professional Services tab above.
-- GetGo provides event calendars and highlights major upcoming events to support entrepreneurs.
-- GetGo provides blogs & forums, which allow members of the GetGo community to communicate with the rest of the community. Read about what others are up to, share your story and get to know others in the entrepreneurial community. More information on Blogs & Forums can be found on the How to Use Blogs & Forums page.

It's basically a hub for people to find one another but it does it through internal marketing from the site itself. I find this idea very englighting because its dedicated to a niche group but narrows that focus through it's profiles and search functions. Very Web 2.0. I will keep you posted on this because it parallels AmericanIndianSearch.com but revs my idea engine about possibilities.

B's 4th of July

Open Source is it for you?

I get asked alot about opensource because I think because alot of groups we deal with don't have alot of money but want alot of function in web operations. Open Source has been developing at a rapid pace and is now at the same level as propriety software in most basic functions. We are going to write a little bit about a CMS we've been installing alot this year.

How Open Source Software (OSS) and Drupal can Benefit Non-profit Organizations?

What is OSS?
Open source software is software that is non-proprietary in that it is made available under an open source license which allows users to use, modify, improve, and freely redistribute the software. This arrangement fosters a collaborative environment where developers who favor a particular kind of software form a community and work to improve code, add new features, and generally extend the software’s capabilities for the betterment of all who use it. In many cases, OSS is distributed and redistributed free of charge.

Why Use OSS?
As a non-profit, you need to wisely use a tight budget. While OSS might or might not free you from development costs, it does free you from licensing costs. You also have the freedom of choosing who will provide your technical support. It can come from your in-house developers, an outside consultant, the open source development community, or a commercial entity.

Because OSS can be customized and redistributed, you have the freedom to make modifications to suit your organization’s needs and goals. You still maintain overall control of your project and your data.

What is Drupal?
Drupal is an open source content management system (CMS) that is particularly good at building user-driven, community web sites or information hubs. Drupal is:
- a content management system that makes it easy to create and edit web sites. A web site built in a content management system enables you to add new pages or edit existing pages at any time regardless of HTML or programming skill level.
- user-driven which means the content comes not only from your organization, but from anyone visiting the site. Think of MySpace, YouTube, Wikipedia, and Flickr. These are all user-driven, social networking, community sites where everyone is a content contributor.
- open source software which means its code is shared, so anyone can use, modify, or improve it. Essentially, this means it's free and comes with a large community of developers from all over the world who are constantly expanding its features and making the platform better. With this Drupal knowledge base in place, you have access to several professionals who can help you build or improve your Drupal site.

Why Use Drupal?
It offers friendly URLs, web-based management, modular design, and has good documentation and a strong, knowledgeable developer community. You can use existing modules as well as custom-built modules. The open source nature of Drupal makes this level of customization possible. Code is reusable and shareable by the community.

Additional strengths of and reasons for using Drupal
It's easy to set up sites fairly quickly
It’s a powerful platform where advanced functionality can simply be added by dropping in free modules that manage such features as images, audio, video, etc.
Modules can be custom-built
It’s fairly easy to modify its theme
Search-engine friendly
Scalable for small to large sites
You aren’t locked into a proprietary system
It’s flexible in that it permits integration with other software and web services
It has an extensive user permission system that allows users to set up public and private groups, make certain areas of the site accessible to only a few members or to the whole community, etc.

Web 101 pt.2

We left off with hosting so we pick up with Content. If you think of your site as a human body this would be your heart. Without it you don't live.

Content is King
To ensure that construction of your site can begin promptly, have your content prepared.
Have all your facts and figures ready; anything that is important and relevant to the company that you want to share with your visitors. This includes relevant text, images, and other assets such as video, audio, etc.

Remember that content is king. It doesn’t matter if your site is fancy and looks appealing if it doesn’t provide the content your visitors are seeking. And your content must be fresh. It’s a good idea to have someone on your team who can dedicate time to periodically create new content, and update your site’s information as necessary.

At the very least, your site should have the following sections:

About Us: Describe your business, the people in charge of the company and their roles, and the history of the company.
Contact Us: Include your company’s physical address and/or P.O. box, a contact name(s), email address(es), and telephone number(s).
Privacy Policy: State that you will not share nor sell your customers’ personal information with any other firms and make sure that you follow through.
Subscribe Here: To stay in the minds of your customer, you should be sending out a monthly newsletter keeping customers informed of your company’s latest news, latest products and services, and ways your company can assist them. You can also offer valuable discounts and coupons on your company’s products and services via your newsletter.
Disclaimer: Limit your liability with customers and have your lawyer look over this statement. This can appear with the Privacy Policy or on a page of its own.

Additional sections you might consider that can potentially increase traffic to your site are:

Links: Provide additional resources and information to your visitors by using reciprocal links to other sites related to your industry (but not direct competitors’ sites).
Articles: Write articles about your industry and about your company that not only educate your customers but also give them a reason to consider using your products and services. Make sure these articles are informative and helpful and provide value to your visitors.
Blog: A blog, or web log, can be a great place to publish your industry-related articles. It can also be a place for case studies or how a particular member of your team is handling a latest project. Again, be sure to make it informative, relevant, and compelling.
Press Releases: Make it easy for the press to obtain information about your company, your company’s people, and the latest and greatest product and service offerings. Publish your latest press release. Include a press kit with high-quality photos, company history, and other information the media could use to put together a compelling story about you and your company.
Testimonials: Consider including testimonials from satisfied customers on your site. While tooting your own horn can go a long way in getting you noticed, you will never find a better way of building credibility and a great reputation than having someone else provide glowing praise of your company and its accomplishments.

Building Your Site
You have a lot of options available to you when it comes to building your site. You can try to save a buck or two by building it yourself. But this depends greatly on your skill set and your availability.

While sticking to a budget is likely a concern, shopping on price alone is not the best answer. If you don’t have the necessary skills, equipment, nor the internal team members, it’s best to hire someone to build your site for you. You can go to an outside firm and have them handle much of the design and construction of your site, with your input. This will free up your time to continue running your business. No matter who builds your site, just be sure to provide them with the content and assets they’ll need. Be sure the content is edited and organized. Have all photos, artwork, and other visual assets ready.

It helps to be very clear on what you want the site to do from a marketing perspective as well as a technological perspective. Again, this all goes back to knowing the purpose of your site and knowing what features and functionality you require. Find someone or some firm to whom you can communicate your vision and make sure they have the necessary skills to help you express that vision.

When going to an outside firm, ask yourself these questions:
Do they have the skills to make my site do what I need it to do?
Do we communicate on the same level? Do we understand each other?
Do they have experience creating sites that are similar to what I’m proposing?
Do I like their previous work?
Do they stay on time and within budget?

I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For
So now you have a fully functional, live web site. People are visiting your site in droves, right? It doesn’t quite work that way. People have to find your site before they can fully take advantage of what your site offers. If you take steps to improve your rankings with search engines, you just might get several new visitors per day. This is known as search engine optimization, or SEO. Let’s face it, there’s too much information vying for everyone’s attention – on and offline.
Your site needs to be at the top or at least near the top of the list of search results to get on people’s radars.

Every search engine varies in its ever-changing criteria for how it ranks web pages. It helps to visit several search engine sites and find out what latest tips they offer on optimizing your site. Title, keywords, and content are the basic areas you want to consider when optimizing your site for the search engines.

Each page of your site should have a title. This title will show up at the top of a visitor’s browser when they land on a page of your site. In a search result, a site description also shows up. Make sure you include a brief description of your web page so that it shows up in search results. Don’t miss this opportunity to briefly clarify for searchers what your company does.

Keywords, or tags, describe the content on a web page. They should match the actual content on your web page. When you’re writing targeted marketing copy, it’s best to repeat important keywords and phrases throughout your page. Ideally, these are keywords that you’ve researched and know are commonly searched by people who seeks out products and services that your company provides. While this sounds like an easy system to manipulate in your favor, do be aware that excessively repeating keywords and phrases can get your site banned from a search engine or can at the very least bump down your ranking. Be sure to include as many keywords as possible in your web page descriptions, as well. Descriptions have length limits to about 150 words, so make those words count.

Final Thoughts
There are several factors to consider and many basic steps to take when designing and building your first business website. It’s important to know what your company stands for and what core message you want to put out on the web. A focused, concise, and consistent vision and message will help you optimize your online brand. Whether you simply want a brochure site or a full-featured, complex social networking content management system, planning ahead and being prepared will save you time, headaches, and frustration and will help you come out ahead when you’re finally online.

This is the basic premise for developing a site. We will have more instances and give specific experience of our work concerning the various areas of development. Thank you for taking time to read this.

Joseph