Category Archives: Business / Entrepreneur

Me to a “T”

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I had a friend of mine point out an article that he thought talked about “what real IT guys (like all of us) want in the workplace and what leads to genuine teams.”  Thanks, Bob.

He was right!  It’s almost perfect. 

The article, The Unspoken Truth About Managing Geeks, is written by Jeff Ello, IT Manager at Krannert School of Management at Purdue University.

I’ve always said that in almost every sense an organizations IT department is different.  Yeah, I know “they all say that”.  However, with IT groups, it’s true.  As Ello points out, “It’s all about respect”.

Anyway, I could recite the whole article but that is usually frowned upon.  I just wanted to point out that I really liked it.

So, if you want to know anything about managing or even tolerating a Geek, go read it.

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Microsoft and Free?

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What is with all the “free” stuff from Microsoft?

I use the quotes because I haven’t read the whole license agreement, but from the outside it looks FREE. So, what am I talking about?  There are two programs that Microsoft announced recently that provide their high priced stuff to you for free (at least for a while).

  • image2 Microsoft and Free? Microsoft BizSpark – You can get software to run your business (Windows Server, Office, SQL Server, BizTalk, Dynamics, SharePoint, Expression Studio, Visual Studio Team System Team Suite, MSDN subscription and more).  You can be in the program for 3 years, as long as you make less than $1 million and don’t go public, and only pay $100 when you leave.

    That’s a lot of software that you get for free.

  • image3 Microsoft and Free? Microsoft Office Live Small Business – Get a free web domain plus website hosting (500 MB) plus online applications (web design tools, email, contact manager, document manager, project manager, etc.) to run your business free for 1 year and only $14.95/YEAR after that.

    image4 Microsoft and Free?That is quite an offer. 

 

Personally, I think that this is probably in response to Google Apps.

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Cato Institute To President Obama – WRONG!

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There is no disagreement that we need action by our government, a recovery plan that will help to jumpstart the economy."

PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA, JANUARY 9 , 2009
With all due respect Mr. President, that is not true.

Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s "lost decade" in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policy makers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.

 

via Cato Institute

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Online Marketing Lesson From Dilbert

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image thumb12 Online Marketing Lesson From Dilbert

Look at that!  The Dilbert comic strip is read by probably millions of people everyday and Scott Adams uses it to market a new web site.  The site is a service that allows you an easy way to send large files to people over the internet.  There are plans from $9.95 for one user to $269.95 for up to 100 users.

Marketing Lesson: If you have the audience, USE IT!

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