Category: Business

I’ve just posted a copy of my WISP to my web site. If your company does business in Massachusetts and you have no idea what I’m talking about, you might want to read the rest of this post, which I created as a guide for small business IT consultants like myself. How to Help a […]

Microsoft partners (e.g., consultants like me) often get their knickers in a twist about perceived slights by Microsoft to the partner community. A recent example is the move by Microsoft to offer on-line services to small businesses using the partner community as sales agents earning a small commission rather than true resellers who are able […]

What Google search term shows the following 5-year trend? No, it’s not britney spears. It’s computer consulting. Now let’s take a look at the same trend line with another search term superimposed: What’s the second search term? No, it’s not amy winehouse. It’s cloud computing. I’ve known for a while that the times they are […]

Channelpro magazine (“the insider’s guide to SMB”) asked me to write a brief “peer-to-peer” article about an aspect of my business. I wrote about writing – specifically how The Schragazine was launched and eventually morphed into The Schlog and The Schrug. You can read the piece here, but for the full effect (including color photo […]

As I was reviewing the Microsoft Online Services Partner Agreement, I noticed this paragraph: Potential conflicts of interest. In situations where Company is receiving any compensation (money or otherwise) from a Customer for providing pre-sales support, or where Company has a fiduciary relationship with a Customer, Company has a potential conflict of interest. In these […]

For the first time in recent memory, I can actually see the entire expanse of my desk that lies between my keyboard and my monitors. I owe this to The Desk Apprentice ($37.99 at Staples). The sucker is huge and consumes a lot of desk space all by itself, but its big pockets and Lazy […]

If you’re getting The Schlog via RSS feed, you probably haven’t noticed anything different. But if you’ve been to www.theschlog.com (a.k.a. www.davidschrag.com/schlog), you’ve seen that there’s been a major makeover. The Schlog has been commercialized. I’m not under the illusion that putting ads on my blog is going to let me quit my day job. […]

In his brilliant book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell describes the tremendous impact that the Pepsi Challenge had on the soft drink industry in the 1980’s (see pp. 155-159). Pepsi was trailing way behind Coke in market share, but it looked like there might be a sea change. Pepsi began running ads featuring the Pepsi Challenge. The […]

I had to create a support ticket at Dreamhost. I like their style. Here are a couple of the questions they ask, along with the options available in the pop-down menu: I’m not sure how well these responses work for people whose first language is not English, but I definitely appreciated the effort.

Great public radio interview this week with Felix Dennis. Some choice quotes: One of the sacrifices that anybody makes who is determined to have more money than their neighbor is time…. And it’s not only them that’s doing the sacrificing…. Your spouse is going to sacrifice, your children are going to sacrifice, and so are […]