Category: Business

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 cases, [...]

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 Susan [...]

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. I [...]

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 your friends. [...]

Microsoft’s Kevin Beares and I have been engaged in a squabble about the SBS Community Survey. (See his blog entry and all the associated links and comments.)
Kevin asked me to stop debating the survey’s methodological merits, which I will happily do at this point. He also posed the following questions:
How about telling me what you [...]

A few other solo IT consultants have asked me how I get my clients; that is, what marketing strategies work best for me. Currently, 100% of my new business is generated through referrals. Referral sources include current and former clients, other IT consultants, friends, and people I’ve met through professional networking. My business has matured [...]

The recording of yesterday’s conference call with Karl Palachuk is now available.
As Karl promised, one of the topics we discussed was my “Ten Commandments” for solo IT consultants. I’ve now posted those commandments, with commentary, on The Schlog.

Michael Vizard has an interesting commentary on the choice we IT consultants face between offering our “own” services and offering similar services from well-known, brand-name providers. It’s not all that different from the choice we faced years ago, between selling “white-box” PCs and recommending or reselling Dell, HP, IBM, and so on.
There are still a [...]