Challenge Starts today at 6pm!!
April 10th, 2009
Remember that your “turn-it-off” challenge starts TODAY at 6pm… Take 24 hours to yourself and report back Monday morning on how you did!!!
The Challenge – Learning How to Turn it Off
April 8th, 2009
Its Challenge time!!
A couple days ago I wrote a note at around 1am in the morning about learning how to “Turn it Off”. The gist is that we, as business owners, can get so caught up with running our “babies” that we have a hard time shutting the motivational engine down and just, simply, relaxing. At that time I told you that I would challenge you to learn HOW to turn this off.
Well, IT’S TIME!!!! My challenge to you will start out simply. After all, if we want this to be sucessful, we can’t just quit this cold turkey. Starting this Friday, April 10th at 6pm, when we leave our desks and our offices, we are not touching anything work related for a full 24 hours. This means no phone calls, no emails, no checking the business voicemail, NOTHING!!! Believe me, your customers and clients will understand if you want to take 24 hours off and spend it having a picnic with your wife or husband, throwing the ball around with your kids, finding a long lost hiking trail, or anything else you may enjoy doing.
I want to hear reports of how you did come Monday morning. Simply get back here and leave a comment on the blog. Your input of success or failure will help all the rest of us as well. So, go forth and enjoy a solid 24 hours of “turning it off”. Remember to report back Monday morning!
Learning how to “turn it off”
April 6th, 2009
Havin a hard time "turning it off"?
It seems that every year that passes, things get more and more busy. The advent of “modern technology” only proves to make your life more complicated. Between keeping up with Facebook, your email, Evite’s from friends, and replying to that text message that simply says, “whats up”, where do you start draw the line.
This is the challenge that I, and many of my peers, are faced with. Drilling down further, this is the challenge that I am faced with at 1am after presenting a MAJOR project but only a few hours ago. The project is all but complete so one would think I can start unwinding. However, I find myself scrambling to fill my unwinding time with inconsequencial things such as facebook, catching up with emails, and, yes, of course, blogging.
I was up until 4am last night wrapping up the largest web project of my career. I just told my wife, via instant messanger (she is currently 15 steps from me), that I’m having a hard time “turning off the engine”. It was at that instant that I realized that I seriously need to learn how to “turn if off”.
Motivation and ambition are great. But if it only serves to burn you out, what good is it in the long run? I am going to propose a challenge to those who read this blog and have a hard time “turning it off” like me. Stay tuned to the next post to see how we’ll all make the first step in controlling our work-a-holic habits.
Is your business ready for the end of the recession? – Part 1
April 2nd, 2009
I wrote a a couple months back that a recession is like Darwinism for businesses: The weaker businesses will fail and die off which will free up a greater market share for the remaining businesses when the economy DOES improve. Well, guess what? The economy is already showing signs of improvement. You may not be swimming in business right now, but you’d be foolish to think that the recession will last any longer than 2009.
This begs the question: Are you ready for the end of the recession? I’m sure the answer that rolls off any business owner’s lips would be, “Are you kidding me??? Of COURSE I’M READY!!” Sure it’s nice to have business improve but you have got to realize that when the recession ends, those competitors of yours that didn’t make the cut, the ones that Darwin considered to be weaker than yours, have left their market share of your industry ready for the taking. So, NOW I ask you, are you ready to woo these new customers to YOUR business instead of letting them go to another competitor? Consider these next few pointers and apply them to your business over these next several months. If you do, you’ll be well positioned to not only recover from the recession, but come out of it much stronger than when you entered it. This is the first part of a several part series on tips to help your business succeed right out of the gates when the recession ends.
- Have you diversified your services like we’ve suggested? Or are you still simply making a blue widget? Do your competitors only make blue widgets? If so, then you’ll probably still get those customers looking for a new service provider. However, odds are, your competitors are making blue, green, purple, and gold widgets as well. Take a hard look at what your competitors are doing and what your customers are asking for and make sure you offer these services and widgets to whomever may be interested. This is not to say that you should go out and start offering plumbing services if you are an electrical service provider. This is to say that you should consider offering commercial data installation services in addition to simply offering commercial electrical services. The concepts are still the same but you open yourself up to a brand new market and brand new set of clients. One thing to consider is surveying your existing clientele. Find out if you’re providing them with everything they may need from your industry.
- Do you communicate with all of your clients and customers on a regular basis? If not, shame on you. A simple newsletter, or email to let your customers know whats going on with your company goes a long way to helping your customers remember your name the next time they need a new widget. You probably have their email addresses or mailing addresses already. Therefore, figure out if a snail-mail or emailed newsletter is best and keep in contact with your clients and customers.
- Are you at max capacity for handling customers and clients right now? If so, congratulations (all the rest of us business owners hate you…
). But don’t stop now. If you’re at capacity now (ie your employees are working non-stop just to keep up with demand), then imagine where you could go once those new customers coming knocking on your door looking for a new service or widget provider. There exists an enormous potential for this recession to make or break businesses. If you plan now, you’re setting yourself up to grow exponentially.
This series of pointers will continue next week.
Got a call from the President – He would like me to step down from Dagda Technologies
March 31st, 2009
While the title of this post sounds absolutely ridiculous (after all, when Mr. Obama and I speak, we only discuss sports and leisure and never talk shop ), I believe it would have sounded just as ridiculous if it said “The Obama Administration asked Rick Wagoner, the chairman and CEO of General Motors to Step Down…” – if only one year ago.
Well, this is exactly what has happened this week. The Obama Administration has stepped into the role of General Motors Board of Directors and requested that Rick Wagoner step down as the head honcho of General Motors. This is an unprecedented measure taken during, well, unprecedented times.
We can sit here all day and debate whether this move was the correct thing to do or not. I don’t care whether you are a Liberal, Democrat, Moderate, Republican, Libertarian or hardcore Conservative, one thing we can all agree on is that this sort of intervention by the government was NOT what our founding fathers had in mind.
In fact, the last president to step into a private company and fire a CEO was Vladimir Putin, the ex-president of Russia and a major player to get Russia back to the basics of Communism.
I’m certainly not implying that what President Obama has done is Communistic. What I WILL say, however, is that we, as Americans, should take note of such drastic measures.
Keep in mind that income taxes by the Federal Government were only supposed to be a temporary thing. It was a series of “baby-steps” that got us to the total tax rate that we have today (averaged about 30%). What’s to say that the unprecedented actions by the Federal Government in the past year won’t become Modus Operandi?
New Virus Worm to Strengthen this Wednesday, April 1st
March 30th, 2009
I don’t often take the stance of warning my readers of impending virus attacks. First of all, I really don’t think I am the foremost authority to do so and second, it’s a bit off topic for this blog. However, there is a potentially malicious worm (called Conficker) out there that has already infected a couple million computers (they first discovered it this past November) and is set to strengthen it’s defenses exponentially this Wednesday, April 1st (yes, April Fools Day… no, this is not an April Fools joke).
Basically, the Conficker embeds itself on your computer through holes in your security system (thanks Microsoft). If you have been keeping up-to-date on your Microsoft and Security patches (Semantic, McCfee, etc) then you should be fine. But if you got tired of paying those subscription fees for your security system, then you may be at risk.
The worm is already very difficult to remove from your computer as it updates itself by checking some 250 different websites for new orders but as of April 1st, it will begin checking 50,000 websites for new orders essentially making it untraceable.
“Experts” don’t really know what its going to do yet. As of now, its just sitting there. But the potential for it to steel personal credit card information, turn your computer into a slave-bot, or even wiping your harddrive clean always exists.
Please get the most recent patches and security updates for your computer prior to Wednesday by following this link. I don’t want my next blog to be “How to recover from a devestating attack by Conficker”.
The role of modern communications equipment in our business… or, rather, Why I bought an iPhone
March 24th, 2009
no, thats not my hand... this guy seems to moisturize.
I have a close friend who, for years, preached to me that cell phones were nothing more then leashes. These leashes were held by clients, salesmen, friends, and family and were capable of being jerked at their whim. His philosophy was that he didn’t like the idea of having to jump up, answer the phone, and resolve whatever issue was on the other end of the line just because the person calling felt like you should resolve it then and there.
While I agree with the overall belief that cell phones, and even more so, smart phones, have become tethers to different entities in our lives, I also feel they serve an invaluable purpose of freeing us from our desk, our city, our state, and even our country to pursue travelling and other things that we like to do without feeling like we are ignoring our business.
I had resisted the idea of getting a smart phone for quite some time now (I should clarify that I consider a smart phone of the caliber of LG Envy, iPhone, Blackberry Storm or most other Blackberry devices, and the like). However, I fell victim to the trend when I had experienced, for the last time, the frustration of not being able to fix some client issues (adjustments to websites, answers to emails, etc) while enjoying a quiet evening at a coffee shop (and, without my laptop). You see, I take pride in the fact that I put my clients first above many other aspects in my life. They put their trust in me to run their online presence so I take it VERY seriously when there is a question or concern from one of them. Is this a bit extreme? Sure. But I also feel that I owe much of my company’s success on this level of service.
While it may seem that adding an iPhone to my life is just MORE WORK, it also frees me to be able to take an afternoon to escape to the Poconos for a hike, take a midweek flight to see a friend across country, or even head into Europe on a whim… all without the worry of ignoring my clients. While I agree with my friend, Dave, that being married to a cell phone of any sort is similar to being leashed to the folks on the other end of it, I feel stronger that I am able to live my life like I’d like to live it and throw off the leashes of my desk, my office, and my geographical location.
Domain Names Being Freed From Tyranny
March 16th, 2009
When I first started this company, I wanted a domain name like SouthJerseyWebsites.com. However, I was beat to the bunch by someone that had a bit more foresight then I. This is a constant struggle of finding the “right” domain name for your new or existing business. It seems that most everything that you can think of is already taken.
Well, this is may be true but I have good news for you. Many of the names that you may be looking for (or have looked for in the past) may be available again this year. You see, back in the late 90s, and 1999 in particular, wanna-be entrepreneurs were buying up domain names left and right. They weren’t just buying them for one, two, or three years, they were buying them for the maximum amount of time, 10 years.
Fastforward to 2009. Many of these domain names who are owned by defunct dot-bombers, businesses who never went forward with their ideas, or Joe-schmo who wanted to start an online-chicken-naming-system will this year become available again. So, if you became distraught that ChickenNamingOnline.com was already taken, this may be your lucky year. In the meantime, head to our domain checking tool to see if the domain name you wanted is available or not.
Also, in just a few days, as our clients, you will be able to register and manage these domains automatically with us. Stay tuned for this very exciting new service!!!
Why us engineers are mocked so frequently
March 15th, 2009
If you don’t already know, I was educated as a Mechanical Engineer. It wasn’t until a few years after getting my degree did I decide that computers and online development really is what interested me. As such, I have engineering written all over me. I am constantly ridiculed by my wife that if someone asks me what time time is, I “tell them how to make a watch.” Well, I take that as a compliment because this is what I do best and this is what helps make the world go round.
Well, you also may know that I love dogs. I have a very sweet old guy named Bear who I have had since I was in college (he is now 10 years old). I ran across this video below titled “when engineers have pets” and loved it. You may not get as much of a kick out of it that I did but hell, I’m a dorky engineer so this stuff appeals to me .
Announcing the launch of Haddonfield United Methodist Church Website
March 12th, 2009
We are pleased to announce the launch of our most recent web design project, Haddonfield United Methodist Church.
The church approached South Jersey Graphics Design with a complex project which involved a total redesign of their old site (shown below). The church also wanted the ability to have members of their staff adjust the content of the pages. As a result, South Jersey Graphics Design implimented a custom editting system allowing 5 members of their staff to manage their individual portions of their website.
Additional features of their site include audio and video podcasting of their sermons and other noted events, a full event management system, and a news and announcement system. Feel free to visit their new site and have a look around.
The old version of Haddonfield United Methodist Church