http://www.fluidapp.com/
This little utility will allow you to create standalone apps for PositiveWare, Google Calendar, IloveToFly.com and whatever other websites you frequent.
It’s great b/c when you’re in Safari and ILoveToFly.com crashes Safari, you don’t lose your PW session.
As I clean out the garage I am coming across various relics from my technology history. 10 year old pcs, a TRS-80, two original Macs, and so on. What to do, what to do.
An article in Yahoo/AP indicates that recycling of these kind of items is rising, but still difficult. A US EPA website is a good resource for finding a way to not put your old monitor on the curb.
We all need Google AdWords accounts. We all have Google AdWords accounts. We all want to do better with our Google Adwords accounts. We all wonder what our competitors are doing with their Google AdWords accounts.
Wonder no more. Check out Spyfu. If you search on your competitor’s domain you find out what their campaigns are. For grins I did a search on Victoria’s Secret. See the results below.
The dismantling of the traditional newspaper model continues. Today the Denver Post announced that the Business section would now be part of the local coverage section Denver and the West. Apparently advertising support had dropped to where the section no longer made sense on a stand alone basis. Ironically the news was reported first in the Denver Business Journal, which seems to be doing fine with its hyper-local coverage.
Rockies Venture Club announced today that it had secured free and discounted PositiveWare subscriptions for paid up RVC members as an additional member benefit.
PositiveWare is a web application that is used to track time, manage projects, and create budgets and bills. The PositiveWare user base falls into the exact same category as RVC members: management teams and small professional services firms.
“PositiveWare provides the increased collaboration, alignment and accountability that every small business needs to be successful, and we are thrilled to be part of the RVC success story,” said Charles Von Thun, President, PositiveWare.
Under the terms of the agreement PositiveWare will offer RVC members five free users and a discounted rate on additional users. Because the majority of RVC members are startups and small professional service firms, RVC expects most members to be able to take advantage of this benefit at no cost.
“RVC helps create Colorado success stories. This important new benefit for our members is part of our ongoing commitment to make the latest information and technology available to our members to make sure they are successful,” said Maita Lester, Executive Director, RVC.
About Rockies Venture Club
Rockies Venture Club (RVC) was one of the first non-profit organizations in the country to help entrepreneurs launch and manage high-growth potential companies. Founded in 1985, RVC is the Rocky Mountain Region’s premier networking organization that connects entrepreneurs, service professionals, investors, venture capitalists and other funding sources. More information is available at www.rockiesventureclub.org
About PositiveWare
Founded in 2003, PositiveWare Gives Work Meaning™ by providing a single environment for workers to know what they are working on, why it is important, and how they are doing. Functionally this includes collaboration, time tracking, project management, billing, and budgeting. In addition to the web application that is a hybrid of performance management and project management, the company provides professional services including executive coaching, management consulting and IT development. More information is available at www.positiveware.com.
For More Information Contact
Maita Lester, Executive Director, RVC
(303) 831-4174
Charles Von Thun, President, PositiveWare LLC
(303) 293-2200
A weekend article in the Denver Post/Wall Street Journal Sunday by Kelly Spors offered some great advice for finding a mentor. The advice in nutshell is figure out what you are looking for and then use on these tools to find it.
There are also numerous resources available at a cost, including:
Why mention this? A key part of mentoring is performance management, and that is what PositiveWare does really well. As mentioned in the article,
“A good mentor is someone who is expecting the mentee to show up prepared and with their homework, so you waste no one’s time”
Coacing mentors and their mentee clients use PositiveWare as part of regular meetings to stay on track.
So I sent out a bunch of Twitter invitations and got no takers. Which makes putting out 140 fairly pointless. Must be an age thing. Nonetheless I think there is a business application there.
In August I wrote the following:
Things I wish the iPhone could do…
1. Send/Receive photos via SMS like the Treo
2. Update calendar automagically
3. Support Flash on the Safari browser
4. Work elegantly with PositiveWare for time tracking and project management
So at MacWorld how did I do?
1. No.
2. No.
3. No.
4. See 3.
The focus seems to have been on configurability. Maybe next time. We are really struggling with iCal and Address Book in the enterprise environment.
A great list about startups from the facebook group Web 2.0
1. Your idea isn’t new. Pick an idea; at least 50 other people have thought of it. Get over your stunning brilliance and realize that execution matters more.
2. Stealth startups suck. You’re not working on the Manhattan Project, Einstein. Get something out as quickly as possible and promote the hell out of it.
3. If you don’t have scaling problems, you’re not growing fast enough.
4. If you’re successful, people will try to take advantage of you. Hope that you’re in that position, and hope that you’re smart enough to not fall for it.
5. People will tell you they know more than you do. If that’s really the case, you shouldn’t be doing your startup.
6. Your competition will inflate their numbers. Take any startup traffic number and slash it in half. At least.
7. Perfection is the enemy of good enough. Leonardo could paint the Mona Lisa only once. You, Bob Ross, can push a bug release every 5 minutes because you were at least smart enough to do a web app.
8. The size of your startup is not a reflection of your manhood. More employees does not make you more of a man (or woman as the case may be).
9. You don’t need business development people. If you’re successful, companies will come to you. The deals will still be distractions and not worth doing, but at least you’re not spending any effort trying to get them.
10. You have to be wrong in the head to start a company. But we have all the fun.
11. Starting a company will teach you what it’s like to be a manic depressive. They, at least, can take medication.\
12. Your startup isn’t succeeding? You have two options: go home with your tail between your legs or do something about it. What’s it going to be?
13. If you don’t pay attention to your competition, they will turn out to be geniuses and will crush you. If you do pay attention to them, they will turn out to be idiots and you will have wasted your time. Which would you prefer?
14. Startups are not a democracy. Want a democracy? Go run for class president, Bueller.
15. You’re doing a web app, right? This isn’t the 1980s. Your crummy, half-assed web app will still be more successful than your competitor’s most polished software application.
Do Not Try To Port A Number to Vonage
As a small business we are always looking for ways to reduce costs and provide the best possible service to our customers. Having a flexible voip based telephone service has always seemed to be part of that answer. 18 months ago, when we started with Vonage, service was decent if not perfect, but more importantly we were able to lower our telecom cost by 66% from what we were paying Qwest.
This fall we decided to try a virtual pbx system that would allow us to add extensions, queueing, and other features to help us deal with increased headcount and incoming traffic. As part of the virtual pbx we decided (stupidly, in retrospect) to port our main number to the virtual pbx provider. The virtual pbx we selected didn’t work out so great, and we decided to throw in the towel with them in mid-November and switch to a virtual receptionist instead, as several firms that we knew had had good luck with them. This is when the Vonage nightmare began.
From mid November until this morning we have tried to port our number back to Vonage with no success. The number of hours spent on the project has eclipsed any cost savings from Vonage, and of course we still don’t have the number back. I have spoken with numerous reps in the Philippines, Chile, and New Jersey, and have never gotten a straight answer about the port. Normally I would not be inclined to be so churlish about a business problem but this is the second time Vonage has utterly failed to port a number in - I lost my home number of 15 years the same way, because Vonage was too disorganized and incompetent to manage the transfer properly, and incredibly, lost the number.
If you are starting a new service Vonage is probably a good solution - it is great value for money, and the VOIP features are very helpful when you need to manage a number remotely.
Do not attempt to port a number into Vonage - you will be condemned to a seventh circle of hell as you are passed from one moronic Vonage rep to the next, all of them apologizing deeply as they ask you security questions for the seventh time on a 90 minute call, and all of them wishing that they had done a little better in school so they could be working in the Wii call center instead.
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