Hello, Are You There?

I was recently power-reading some other websites (as I am known to do) and I noted that some of them hadn’t updated their blog page in a long time. While it is still true today – your business needs a website – more often than not it is just not on the priority list of things to do when it comes to managing the business.

And I thought, “Well, that makes a pretty poor first impression.” Most of us still remember when the Yellow Pages was the place to go to find a company.

There was always the company with the full page ad and then you saw other companies that didn’t even spring for the bold company name. You called the full page ad guys – everyone did – that’s why that full page ad costs thousands of dollars compared to that free listing.

It was about at this point that I realized that it’s been well over a year since I last blogged about my own company… time to stop throwing old phone books and do a little full page publishing.

It’s no surprise: I’m still open, the lights are still on, I still read email in real time and answer our phone all day long.  We have a Facebook page so we can brag to our social media friends how awesome we are. You’re likely to see the latest and greatest projects at http://www.facebook.com/criticalcomputer. I promise: no cute kitten/puppy/horse pictures with built-in captions, although you will frequently see the bare-naked innards of computers without their cases on.  SFW.  The now omnipresent LIKE button is off to your right, just under my contact information.  Clickie if you haven’t already!

I carry my trusty cell phone everywhere and it is still the single, best, fastest way to get a hold of me: 612-710-2617.

Most recently my time has been invested with my two primary customers. In one, I’m continuing to deliver custom software solutions by leveraging our knowledge of the transportation industry and good system design to save them time and money. In the other, I’ve been supporting their web-based order entry system on-demand (code for NOW RIGHT NOW) and adding new map data to their servers during off-peak times as their customer service area expands.

Other than that, things are pretty quiet in the office. All my customers are doing financially well, surviving the ups and downs of our economy. The computer and technology systems I support for them are running and don’t need any attention beyond the occasional ‘whoops, what happened’ (which is, more often than not, a half-installed MS Windows Update program).

Why do I feel a deep, sudden and meaningful kinship to the Maytag Repair Man?

In the computer business, probably more than any other, you have to keep your knowledge current. Last quarter I completed learning all about Ruby-On-Rails as my research showed it was a pretty good core for developing online applications. I put in about 85 hours re-writing some applications from Dataflex to RoR; there is no better learning environment than having an actual thing to develop.

While I still think OS Commerce is the best online solution for retail businesses, the mobile-web revolution is pushing business applications to be ‘accessable’ just about anywhere, from any mobile platform. I’m about to start in on a product/platform called DotNetNuke, which I am told is even better when it comes to offering customer-driven data information systems.

So what’s new with you? Have you been thinking of getting your website cleaned up, maybe removing that employee that left months ago from the ‘about us’ page? Perhaps there is that computer that does that… weird thing… and maybe you should finally have that looked at. Then there are those computers that need their software updated (you can’t run on Quicken 2004 with Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 5 forever you know… well you could, but I certainly don’t encourage it).

Or better still, have you wondered what more you could do with technology and your company? How does your site look on your smartphone? (old sites look atrocious, just saying) What would it be like if your customers could get their answers from your computer systems directly, without you even having to be there?

Let’s think outside the box. I want your company to make money because, well, that means I’ll make money and you’ll want me back. Win-win, say the economists. Give me a call and we’ll talk for free.  I’ll even buy the coffee if you want to get out of the office for a bit. After all, look at how much money I’m saving by not having that full-size Yellow Pages ad.