Countdown to NaNoWriMo
As some of you know, I’ve committed to participating in NaNoWriMo this year. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writers Month, and is a program to support writers in their efforts by providing a yearly event wherein writers concentrate on completing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. The focus is on quantity, not quality. You [...]
Random Musings: 10/14/11
I’ve pretty much written off the Occupy movement as not heading in a direction I can support, but then the Tea Party’s response to Occupy is pulling them in a direction I can’t support, either. I can certainly understand and sympathize with Tea Party frustrations over the conspicuous lack of coverage of negative Occupy activities [...]
Change of direction?
I guess it’s official enough to announce: I have accepted a position with a new employer, starting this Thursday. While the store was going well, I ran out of time and had to get a job. I may still continue with the store in some capacity, but not anywhere as actively as I have been. [...]
A marketing update
Not long ago we committed to a more significant marketing effort. We decided to buy radio advertising, an ad in one phone directory, and we placed flyers in student newspapers from several nearby high schools. I thought it might be good to follow up and report our findings so far. I should start by saying [...]
Hacking hackers
I’ve been toying with the idea of expanding the subject matter of this blog, and I’ve decided to take the plunge. This week will be an exception, but on Monday-Wednesday-Friday I’ll take on business topics as usual. On Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays I may slip in something else that’s on my mind. I’ve been watching [...]
Marketing ideas from unexpected places
My mother recently came to see us for a few days. That same weekend my daughter had a dance performance in another town, so the three of us took the trip together. It was not a short drive, and it gave me a chance to catch up with Mom a bit. My mother is, as [...]
Giving radio another try
I may have mentioned previously that when we first opened our store we paid for three months of radio advertising which, from what we could tell, didn’t accomplish much. We got some customers who mentioned they’d heard our ads, but largely it seemed as though we got more traffic from our sign out by the [...]
“Macy’s sending customers to Gimbels! I just don’t get it!”
One of my business partners has an interesting take on customer service, which is one of the reasons I went into business with him. His take is nothing new–he and I both got it from “Miracle on 34th Street”. The idea is this: When you enter my store, my job is to help you get [...]
Computing in a cloud
I have to admit I’m somewhat ambivalent about cloud computing, in which a company’s websites, data, and applications can be spread out among several web servers across the internet. In some instances it makes sense–most companies can’t afford their own data centers. My company, for example, pays a hosting service to host our website. We’re [...]
Everyone’s an expert–and a critic
Last week I mentioned an encounter with a customer who offered us some unwanted business advice. While this gentleman was a more extreme example of the know-it-all customer, he was by no means the first. When it comes to small business, everyone has an opinion, from your landlord to the Fedex guy, and every customer [...]
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