Tuesday, April 30, 2002

Set priorities to get out of the rat race At more clients than I can count, employees discuss the endless changes to the priorities or the absence of priorities at all. Janice Fraser takes a look at the phenomenon in the field of web design. The tools and methods she recommends work in every area of a company. This is good stuff! Janice Fraser: "Nearly every company I've worked with since becoming a web professional six years ago has lacked an efficient way to decide which things to do first." [EVHEAD] 5:25:51 PM     Comments[]

Scott Johnson's absolutely right! Our company has been doing a lot of this lately. We've found a terrific set of resources and business processes for direct mail, email follow-ups and measuring our marketing results. Nothing's instant and nothing's guaranteed, but there are some tried-and-true principles to follow! Marketing Software When You Are a Small Company: "Let's start with a definition. Marketing is the creation of demand for a product or service. Sales is the execution of strategies that fulfill demand. For example, you send out a bulk email about your product to a targeted list. That's marketing -- you are creating demand. When fifty replies come back that need to be individually answered, that's sales. When you follow up on those fifty replies three weeks later to see if you can answer additional questions then you have a good sales program." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson] 5:09:14 PM     Comments[]

Dane always points to things others don't seem to find! What Blogging Archetype Are You Most Like? "Every blogger is different. From personal diaries to funny links to incisive political commentary and everything in between, bloggers are an amazing bunch. Yet, as in any community, some have emerged as leaders - trusted authorities whose voice (and reciprocal links) demand respect..." [From the Desktop of Dane Carlson] 4:55:50 PM     Comments[]

At some price there is some value in some of these companies! If you can get behind the numbers and peel away the 20-40 year depreciation schedules for outdated equipment, the flakey "swaps" that inflate revenue and the slow-thinking management styles that pervade legacy telecos, a value can be found. The need for communications isn't going away. There may always be a debate about copper, wireless, fiber, coax, cable TV, teleco, satellite, etc., but somewhere in all of the debate is a monthly number that consumers and businesses will pay for their communication needs. Once those numbers are estimated, some additional estimates of intrinsic value exist. No one is certain where the bottom is in either the slump in demand or the free fall of market caps, but value exists down here somewhere. It certainly appears that value is closer today than it has ever been! Can these companies go to $0.10 a share? Sure, but by that time they'll be sharing such doldrums with an awful lot of other industries. Telecommunications Issues Fall Sharply. Investors in the troubled telecommunications sector stepped up their pace to the exits Monday. The hardest hit were Qwest Communications and WorldCom. By Barnaby J. Feder. [New York Times: Technology] 4:43:55 PM     Comments[]

"The only viable reinsurer for truly large-scale terrorism is the U.S. Government." This sentence is from a November 9, 2001 letter to shareholders of Berkshire Hathaway. The quote is Warren Buffett's. The letter, like so much of what Warren Buffett writes, is enormously helpful in understanding the insurance and reinsurance industries. Apparently, there's hope for some action! Senate Takes Up Terrorism Insurance. Lawmakers have reached a consensus on the need to revive federal legislation that would put most of the burden of paying for a major terrorist attack on the government. By Joseph B. Treaster. [New York Times: Business] 4:32:36 PM     Comments[]

Well said Meanwhile, let me declare my own goals here.   First, I want to see the Web finish turning into the writing environment of first resort. Back in the mid-80s there was a book called The Mac is Not a Typewriter. I don't remember what the point was, but I do know that I want to see the Web turn into the next typewriter: a writing and publishing system for everybody — the final fulfillment of the press freedom sanctioned by the First Amendment. To me that's what weblogs do, big time.   Second, I want to see the Web restored to its original design as a symetrical system. I'd like speeds both up and down to be equal. I'd like Port 80 to go unblocked. Cable and ADSL (which constitutes most DSL) systems are set up today with the expectation that most people would rather consume than produce. In fact they actively discourage production. Yet most of us would probably rather put our photo albums and home movies on our own home servers instead of some BigCo or ISP server, if the choice was available. Decentralized weblogs, by appealing to relatively resourceful and motivated early adopters, will do more to drive a symetrcial web than anything else on the horizon right now.   It seems to me that Userland is pushing toward both those goals with Radio, and has been for a long time. In fact, as I understand it, Radio was designed originally as a completely decentralized system. But because very few potential customers were running on their own IP addresses out of their own homes and offices, the market was too small. So they desinged it to allow upstreaming for HTTP service out of an ISP — a solution that's as decentralized as it practically can be. Again, I don't know enough about the others to say how decentralized they are. [Doc Searls Weblog] 4:11:48 PM     Comments[]

Sage has been Best Software since late last year! Sage adds up threat from Redmond. Double entry bookkeeping [The Register] 3:52:56 PM     Comments[]

Amazing coincidence! I've just experienced the same thing as Jason. In my particular case, it's slightly different. My weblog which is unread by the masses remained unread whether I was posting or not! Note to self (so that I'll remember this feeling when it's gone): I'm finding it harder and harder to get back into the Web when I'm away from it for long periods of time. It's not that I was on vacation, stomping about in the beautiful Alaskan wilderness. I thought it was that at first, but it's not. It's something else, but I don't know what exactly. I'm sure I'll forget all about it in a few hours when the digital crack starts taking hold. [Kottke.org] 3:47:33 PM     Comments[]

Weaker demand... is so often cited in these teleco disasters, but we've not found a single (mainstream/BigPub) writer who is willing to get specific about which services are suffering from weak demand. Is long distance service? Is local service? Are entry-level broadband ISP services weak? Is the long-haul carrier business weak? What about end-to-end IP networks? Hosting? Data traffic? Most of these writers leave the impression that all forms of the communications industry are down and out. Some would have you believe that the communications industry is going away. If not some form of our existing communications industry, then what? Qwest's loss widened to $698 million as the telecom provider took a hefty write-down for its Dutch venture and continued to struggle with weaker demand. [Wall Street Journal] 10:22:07 AM     Comments[]

Sir Winston Churchill. "When the eagles are silent, the parrots begin to jabber." [Motivational Quotes of the Day] 10:03:47 AM     Comments[]

Anonymous. "Liberals are very broadminded: they are always willing to give careful consideration to both sides of the same side." [Quotes of the Day] 9:59:41 AM     Comments[]

Can Sidgmore renew this behemoth? Under Pressure, Ebbers Quits as Chief of WorldCom. Bernard J. Ebbers, WorldCom's chief executive, resigned, bowing to a plummeting stock price and a government investigation of company support of his personal finances. By Richard Waters and Ft.com Staff. [New York Times: Business] 9:45:13 AM     Comments[]

I'm back... with a different attitude and set of objectives for learning and using a weblog and the software application behind it. More on this in the next couple of weeks. 9:40:29 AM     Comments[]

© Copyright 2002 Steve Pilgrim.