May 2010 - Digital Tool Factory blog May 2010 - Digital Tool Factory blog

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How much deep thinking is the right amount?

Meta PortraitureEarlier today I began writing a blog post about the artisan style of entrepreneurship and I began wondering: what is the right amount of meta thinking to do in a given day? Stronico has yet to emerge from beta and I have not earned a reputation as a visionary (yet).  Who really cares what I think about a given meta topic?   By looking at my web stats and links to the site it does seem that no one cares about my meta thoughts but they do love the posts on QuickBooks and how to solve Silverlight problems.

Therefore from this point forward I resolve to do no more than one meta post per week; all other blog posts will be practical information on solving business and technical problems.  Deep thinking will return once the first million is made.
Creative Commons License photo credit: mescon

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

History & Theory— No comments
28
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

Channeling Seth Godin again – being remarkable in a sinister way

I will be your accident if you will be my ambulanceLast night while thinking about the Stronico marketing plan I thought about ways in which I’m already remarkable.  I am not saying remarkable to brag; I just came up with a list of things other people say about my abilities.  They are:

  • Programming: I create useful code generation systems
  • Business: I am easy to work with
  • Personal: I explain technical matters well, with good use of metaphors
  • Photography: Good use of black and white, along with “I can’t believe you went into that neighborhood at night with expensive photo equipment”
  • Music: I write wonderful Appalachian Bad man ballads, mostly in the style of Jim Thompson, all from the bad guy’s point of view.  The songs are the first things someone mentions when they describe me to someone else (or so I have heard from many people).

Of all these, the last is the most useful.  I am considering making the Stronico marketing have a sinister delivery.  The product remains the same, a brain helper to remember the weak ties in life, but I will make the marketing have a film noir quality.

Creative Commons License photo credit: Sebastian Fritzon

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Marketing— No comments
26
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

A workable secret society web application – Brain Trust

These are a few of my favourite things

I wrote about my desire to form a secret society several months ago and so far have found no suitable web application to help me do that. IMind seems to be the closest complete solution but it seems too jumbled to accomplish much (I’m judging them purely from their website, I have not tried the product.)  Recently I came across BrainTrustHQ.com and I think it supply the collaboration tools needed for a workable secret society.  I’ve signed up for their free version and I’ll let everyone know how it goes.

Creative Commons License photo credit: conorwithonen

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Free Ideas / History & Theory— 11 comments
24
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

A lesson learned in QuickBooks – Capital Investments is a magic phrase

Quick Note: QuickBooks refers to an owner’s contribution (i.e. an investment in the business) as a “Capital Investment”.  Also, Bank of America charges for their QuickBooks integration.    HT: Recording Infrequent Transactions in QuickBooks

Does anyone know of any good online only business banks?

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Accounting— No comments
24
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

Free downloadable Articles of Organization for a Georgia LLC

SpiralSmokeI just established Stronico as a Georgia Limited Liability Company, and now Stronico Contact Management LLC is born!  As I was doing the paperwork to I could not find any templates for the Articles of Organization, so here are the templates I created to file my paperwork.  Remember to change the names to your LLC.  Please check out the Georgia Secretary of State’s office for more information and exactly what you need, but this should get you started.  If you are not in the state of Georgia you might need to use another format.

Full Disclaimer: I am not an attorney, nor account, and I assume no liability for anything you do with anything on this blog

Download Sample Articles Of Organization (pdf format)

Download Sample Articles Of Organization (Microsoft Word format)

Creative Commons License photo credit: deanfotos66

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz— 6 comments
21
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

A partial list of my entrepreneurial weaknesses, and one time steps to correct them

Wheelchair OnlyMy weaknesses have made themselves apparant over the past few days, here is a preliminary list.  The first entry is the topic, the one below that is the specifics, and the one below that is the practical step to get me to an adequate level in under ten hours.

  1. QuickBooks
    Problem: I am terrible at accounting in general, and QuickBooks in particular
    Solution: Spend 10 hours taking free online classes, break this up into one half hour per day
  2. Elevator Speeches
    Problem: Whenever I talk to someone about Stronico I start from scratch every time
    Solution: Create 10 second, 30 second, 5 minute, and 15 minute pitches.  Run these by interested parties and refine and rehearse
  3. Uneven progress in the Stronico Venture
    Problem: The venture breaks down into long unfocused slogs of marketing and development
    Solution: Create master plan, with deadlines and goals
  4. Fame and Goodwill
    Problem: Not enough people know about Stronico
    Solution: Continue prospecting, apply it to the intelligence gathering aspects of Stronico, and make contact with relevant bloggers, then refine the approach.
  5. Metrics
    Problem: There are no good metrics for Stronico, either in profitability, marketing, sales, web hits, etc
    Solution: Create spreadsheet listing weekly goals for all of the above, have second row be the actual numbers.

Creative Commons License photo credit: JoshuaDavisPhotography.COM

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Accounting / Biz / Marketing— No comments
20
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

I answer Seth Godin’s seven questions

GauntletSeth Godin posted seven questions all entrepreneurs should answer.  The more I try to answer these questions the more useful they become.

Here I go with my attempt.  I first list the “off the top of my head response” and then the edited response so I can show the evolution:

  1. What problem are you solving?
    Original: The problem is a faulty memory for names, faces and connections.
    Edited: People can only remember a limited number of names, faces and connections.  As social networking expands and corporate life gets more erratic we encounter more and more people we will never see again, and could be useful to remember.  The downfall of a large social network is that the quality drops as the size increases.
  2. What is your solution?
    Original: Showing the user how someone is connected to him or her. Continue reading →
Biz / Marketing— 1 comment
17
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

Is it time to replace QuickBooks with Less Accounting?

Where in the world Late Payment ReminderThe internet is filled with hatred of QuickBooks.  After doing much of the hating myself I realize now that people do not hate the program because of what the program can’t do; they hate QuickBooks because the program discourages them in small ways at every opportunity.  Using QuickBooks is like wading three miles through a swamp to pay your taxes.  If you took away half of the options and removed the unwanted spontaneous advertising you would have a nice program. Continue reading →

Accounting / Biz— 10 comments
14
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

Better to remain silent than to say any of these things

Lost TreePeople use some phrases to make themselves feel better, not to add anything to the conversation. Using these phrases annoys everyone in earshot and decreases motivation to fix the underlying problem.   My preliminary list:

  1. Any sentence starting with “I need” – you want, “need” is an attempt to manipulate someone from a position of weakness, and that is how they will think of you in the future-weak.
  2. “In the real world” – where else does anyone live?  By saying this you just make excuses for your own failures.
  3. “In reality”, or it’s evil cousin “In actuality” – All you say about yourself is that the previous thing you said was not true, which means that you have no interest in describing matters well.
  4. “I didn’t have time” – You chose to spend the time on something else, don’t apologize for putting something else first.
  5. “But we know more about X than we ever have before” – Possibly true, and probably not meaningful.    Citing unspecified knowledge is a manipulative appeal to authority.  If you had a good reason, you would be sharing it.  If you are not sharing the reason, it is probably not good.

That is my preliminary list.  Can anyone thing of any other counter productive phrases?

Creative Commons License photo credit: h.koppdelaney

 

This post originally appeared on the Stronico blog – with the absorption of Stronico into Digital Tool Factory this post has been moved to the Digital Tool Factory blog

Biz / Sentiment— 1 comment
11
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

How I engineer my life for maximum productivity

Keep Out Experiment In ProgressSo far 2010 has been the year of gradual improvements in life, health and productivity.  I made most of these changes based on what I learned in Brain Rules.  Here is a snapshot of my changes so far:

General Improvements:

  • No more smoking (though it did take two months to get my concentration back)
  • 8 hours of sleep per night (up from 6)
  • Minimal alcohol consumption (I never drank that much, but I now drink alcohol once a month or less.  I think I’m more sensitive to sugars than anything else)
  • Six hours or more of intense aerobic exercise a week cycling, and 11 of mild exercise (walking the new dog).    I think I’m close to the optimal level of physical activity for maximum brain function.

Workplace Improvements Continue reading →

Biz / Productivity— 2 comments
10
May 10

Written By Steve French

 

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