Business

Considering Freelancing?

November 14th, 2012

One of the reasons I love is teaching is to see how students evolve, progress and what they get up to after school. I haven’t looked at too many stats and this is not great research on my part, but most students who were more “design” inclined went on to do more classes, while the coders took on jobs. However during the course o the class, all of them always ask about freelancing and setting up their own company.

I’m pretty lucky that I’ve been able to experience both. I worked as a barrista for a few weeks back in 2000 and worked at a startup until the 2001 dot bomb exploded prior to going to going back to school. Following my time at BCIT, I started freelancing right away, but took on a job after about a year, at a company (that shall remain nameless), for only 6 months. I liked the job at the startup a lot, although the smell of money being burned got a bit overwhelming at times, but the other 2 jobs, not so much.

Freelancing has definitely been the right move for me. But is it the right move for everyone? If you’re considering a career as a freelancer, here are a couple of pieces that I think are worthwhile looking at.

Mike Monteiro, designer extraordinaire and author of Design is a Job (a must read for anyone, even non designers), wrote a great article a few months ago advising students to consider getting some experience before setting up their own firm. He makes a great case in point.

If you’re still not convinced by Mike’s argument and think to yourself that freelancing is the right path for you, you might want to check out Shane’s Freelance Primer.

Just fill in your email and you will get access to his one hour presentation on the subject. In his presentation Shane covers the basics of starting a business, getting all the paperwork done, finding great people to work with, finding great customers, most common mistakes, etc… This video is a great resource for anyone starting out and diving into freelancing.

Keeping Your Web Info in Order

October 20th, 2011

For some, building a website can be quite a big undertaking. Once you’ve done it once or twice, like anything, it gets easier. You’ve learned the lingo, understand the difference between domain registrar and hosting and have a good idea what your web designer will need from you.

One of the most crucial part is very simple, yet often overlook and that’s keeping everything about your website info in order. I’ve seen this problem happen many times when taking on new clients who dealt with a previous web designer. Transitioning to a new web designer can be painless or complicated, depending on how well you’re prepared.

All web designers see this and most of us offer similar advice. In this month’s copy of Zoonews, Kathryn Presner shares the following tips:

Domain registration – be sure you are listed as the domain registrant (not your web designer!) and that the email address on file is an active account. If your web designer’s email is listed as a contact instead of yours, make sure you switch it over to your own email address before you cut ties with your old designer. This is extremely important. I’ve heard of business owners who lost control of their domain name because they failed to do it.

Hosting account – keep handy all relevant details, including the name of your hosting company, the URL of your web-based control panel, and its username and password. Know your FTP (file transfer protocol) credentials, including your FTP host name, login and password. This information will allow your new designer to access your web server and website files.

Logo – have an electronic version of your current logo on hand. It should ideally be in a vector format (like Adobe Illustrator or EPS) on a transparent background, to ensure the greatest design flexibility.

Graphics – retain electronic versions of any images such as stock photos that you may wish to reuse.

E-commerce – know the login details of all e-commerce accounts you may have, such as PayPal and shopping cart systems. Be sure you have access to the accounts, and that they’re registered in your name.

Keep on file in an easy-to-remember place all other information and documents related to your website. It’ll simplify your life – and that of your new web designer – more than you can imagine.

Kathryn Presner runs a web design company, Zoonini Web Services in Montreal. She’s also spoken at several WordCamps and is a moderator on the WordPress Support Forums.

Hosting requirements for WordPress

January 14th, 2011

The main advantage of using WordPress as a Content Management System (CMS) is the ability to make your own website edits. Gone are the days of finding a typo on your site and not being able to do anything about it. However a website powered by a CMS isn’t the same as a static website. In fact a site that is powered by a CMS is called dynamic, not static.

When making changes to a static site, you’re web developer modifies the code of each HTML page. Changes on a WordPress site are done by modifying the content which is stored in a database. The WordPress templates, coded using PHP, then pulls the content dynamically from the database and displays the webpage.

Thus when planning your WordPress, you’ll need to make sure that your hosting provider offers the following:

PHP version 4.3 or greater
MySQL version 5 or greater

Any server that runs PHP and MySQL will do, but an Apache server is the most robust and has the most features for running a WordPress site. Some hosting provider will tell you that Microsoft based servers are perfectly fine, but please don’t listen to them. The set up is quite difficult and no fun at all.

Having installed hundreds of WordPress sites, I am happy to recommend the following hosting providers.

These hosting providers all have very good WordPress support and great customer service.

Once you’ve set up your hosting, you’ll need to provide your web developer with the following:

Access to your hosting provider control panel - This is needed to set up the database
FTP access – This is needed to install the files on your server

Setting up a WordPress site is a bit more complicated than a static one, but with WordPress’s popularity, more and more hosting providers and making the necessary changes to offer full WordPress support.

Looking for Canadian web hosting company? Look no further than Blacksun.

April 24th, 2009

More often than not, web hosting is something that clients have already set up when they contact me. As a result I have to work with many hosting providers and learn how to navigate their admin panel and many quirkiness.

I ran in to a very bizarre WordPress error this morning following a brand new installation on one of Blacksun‘s server. Certain area of the web admin turned up blank pages. I did a quick search on Google and thought that this error may be due to a wrong php.ini setting.

Looking at Blacksun’s website, I found the contact number to their technical support really fast, called, and was greeted by a human voice in less than 2 minutes. I explained the situation, she looked at the error files and confirmed my initial thought. Instead of putting me on hold and leaving me to talk to her manager, she simply took my contact details and told me to call back. Have you ever had technical support call you back? I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

No more than 20 minutes later, a voicemail was delivered to my phone. The error was fixed and my site is now working perfectly. That’s the best customer service I’ve encountered in a long time.

A fresh look at food

March 25th, 2009

As food issues tend to become more and more newsworthy, it’s nice to see independent bloggers take it upon themselves to spread their opinion and concerns.

LocalDelicious.com is a new blog which aims to get the scoop on local food in and around the Lower Mainland. As more and more people try to eat locally produced goods, this blog aims to provide tips and advice on where to find the best markets, products, events and books.

More info about local food, recipes ideas and gardening can also be found by visiting the Edible Vancouver blog while the Earth To Table blog is a collaboration between chefs and farmers that promotes logical, sustainable, righteous, and above all, delicious food.

Not enough time to follow blogs… No worries, twitter is another great a way to get the lowdown on what’s going on in the food industry. You can follow three of these bloggers on twitter @LocalDelicious, @Edible Vancouver and @Earth_to_Table.

Searching for signs of business in India and discovering a business man kit

February 24th, 2009

I was in India a few weeks ago on a yoga holiday and did not spend any time blogging, reading blogs or even thinking about it, but I did have a quick peek at a newspaper and during our stay in Delhi and Chennai, I kept my eyes open to see any signs of computer firms out-sourcing Indian expertise.

I usually get one or two unsolicited emails from companies in India advertising their services, so I thought I might see signs of this. I usually don’t pay attention to these emails other than take a look at the company’s portfolio and archive them. This trip being my first time in India, I wasn’t sure what to expect; big business parks, men in suits, laptops everywhere…? I saw numerous signs for computer classes, but no business parks or men in suits which would be dumb anyway, considering the weather. Most of the office buildings I saw were old and falling apart like the majority of Indian houses, temples and monuments, but perhaps I simply wasn’t in the right neighbourhoods or even the right cities.

During my short stay in Chennai, I read a piece in the Chennai Chronicle about how a group of twitter followers now get together on a regular basis to exchange ideas. I’ve also read and spoken to people who deal with Indian companies on a regular basis, so they must be around and India is most definitely booming and taking advantage of new technology.

I also came across a funny “businessman kit” in our Chennai hotel. I’m usually used to sewing kits and shower caps, but a businessman kit, that was new to me. On closer inspection, I discovered that it contained a couple of paper clips, three rubber bands, a safety pin and a few pins…. Not sure what kind of businessman would need this.

Using the Web for a Good Cause

November 19th, 2008

A few days ago, while under the weather, Darren thought about the future of Soap Operas. This reminded me of something similar which I consider to be out of date. I’ve often wonder why charitable organizations insist on calling me at home to ask for money. Personally, I just treat these organizations the same as telemarketers. Tut, tut you say..I know, I know, but I just don’t like being disturbed at dinner time and thus refuse to donate to anyone who requests by phone.

Raising money is tough, but the Web seems to be a pretty effective means. I’m just wrapping up the most wonderful book called “Three Cups of Tea“. At the end of the book, the authors lists how we can continue the work started by Greg Mortenson and how we can help. Of course spreading the word about the book and letting everyone know that they should read it is the best way, but visiting their website and the charitable organization’s website, are other ways to get further information. Additionally, by following the link on their website, all purchases of the book and all other Amazon purchases will generate 7% of proceeds to the Central Asia Institute. Kudos to Amazon!

Other organizations have made it quite easy for users to create profiles and raise money. Just a few weeks ago, a friend mentioned that he was participating in a 24 hour yoga relay to raise money for kids suffering from Aids and HIV. He simply sent an email, I clicked the link, inserted my credit card details, and now my name and contribution amount appears next to a thermometer on the charity site. Easy as pie.

My friend Karis, sent me an email just a few minutes ago telling me about the Animal Rescue not getting enough daily clicks on their website to get free food donated to rescued animals. I’m not sure logistically how this works, but simply by clicking the link, the site is able to raise money. This kind of button as been used on many charity sites.

These methods of raising money seem pretty good to me. Do we still need “telemarketers” calling us at home?

How to create a privacy policy

June 11th, 2008

When building websites, I am given all of the website content, but more often than not, the privacy policy is not part of this document. As a result I end up looking at the current site and copying the existing text or searching the web for inspiration and writing something brief for the client.

If you are collecting any type of information from your website, such as email for a newsletter or comments on your blog, then you should have a privacy policy in place. But what do you put in there?

Online Customer Service-An Oxymoron?

April 08th, 2008

Online customer service is not as hard as you think. It’s not quite as simple as smiling when someone enters a retail store, but you certainly can convey that your business is focused on meeting customer needs.

Websites have been around long enough that it’s easy to compare and see which ones make it easy to do business and which are causing their customers grief. Try it yourself. Go to a few sites you have never visited before and see how easy it is to locate specific information. Then go to a few of the rock star online retailers and see how they do the job.

There are a lot of rules to good online customer service. Here are a couple of my favourites.

First stop, create a site that is easy to use. And I don’t mean easy for you or your coder. I mean it needs to be dead easy for your site visitors to use. Frankly, even if you’re the one building it, your opinion doesn’t matter nearly as much as your prospective visitors’ needs do.
Make sure there is a way to contact your company available from the home page and every other page in the site. And don’t bury it in text at the bottom! Make it bright yellow if you have to, but make it stand out. Often this is done somewhere in the top right quadrant of the page and many site visitors look here first.
If you’re selling online, let people know the price before they input their personal information. Would you pull out your credit card and ring through a purchase before you know the price in a bricks and mortar store? Many site visitors will opt out of the selling process if they have to provide their personal data before seeing the full price of the product, including shipping.

In a nutshell, make it easy and you’re more likely to make the sale.

Don’t Risk Losing Control of Your Brand

January 15th, 2008

At a new media session at CES that I attended last week the panelists cautioned companies to ignore new media (especially blogs and social networks) at their peril. If companies insist on being ostriches with their corporate heads in the sand, they risk losing control of their brand.

Last weeks furore over Tim Horton’s employees and their Facebook antics is a case in point. With over 3,400 members, the “Rules of Ordering and More” group lists 80 or so tips that customers should take to heart if they want good service. Apparently the group is administered by Timmy’s employees unbeknownst to their employer. Its actually quite funny – you should take a read.

Had Tim Hortons (the famous Canadian Donut franchise owned by Pepsico) been monitoring the Internet effectively, the company would have been aware of groups like this much sooner and could have put contingencies in place to protect its brand or HR policies to outline appropriate employee conduct on the Internet. Had it been more proactive it could have channeled the publicity it received last week to its benefit rather than detriment.

Companies cannot ignore web 2.0 technologies any longer. They must, at the very least, be listening to what is being said about them even if they are not ready to be contributing to the conversation: in that way they have a chance at least of maintaining some control over their brand.