These have been sitting under my desk since the forum. I wear them. I downloaded Southwest’s little “DING!” widget. All this from the Crains Small Business Forum “Doing The Web Smartly” the other day.
Now that’s good swag.
Chicagoist.com is an enjoyable site that’s having a bad day. At least it’s consistent. I thought this was an error with the new iMac, but it’s happening on Junior as well. And the display is equally irritating on Firefox and IE.
So don’t feel bad if your site has a bad day. It happens to the best.
Looks like it might be a Movable Type epidemic. Did I read somewhere they’ve had some issues this week? I think so, but I can’t find it just now.
People often ask me why I have an office and, for that matter, why I have employees. It’s common in the worlds I work in—software development, website maintenance—to work out of your house or to work out of a Starbucks, and it’s even more common to use contractors. Why don’t I?
It comes down to consistency and predictability. I’ve done the work at home thing, with and without an assistant, and I’ve worked with contractors instead of employees. I’ve found that way of working to be less consistent and less predictable.
When you work out of your house, any number of things can come up. I’m not just talking about the refrigerator, or the radio, but other, larger issues. If you work out of a small condo, there will be social pressure for you to be the one who handles condo association duties during the day. After all, you’re home, right? And then there’s the dogs, the phone, the TV and on and on. It’s not impossible. It’s just more difficult.
The overhead of an office imposes a structure. For example, I now get up and go to work. Before I go to work, I shower. When I’m at work, I work. My work has enough distractions as it is without having to worry about everything going on at home.
The employees versus contactors debate is largely the same. When you work with contractors, there’s always a certain amount of negotiation. Are they available, can they meet your deadline, do they have the right toolset, etc. That’s the overhead that comes with the territory. You spend more time answering the can we do this question, so the answer to how long will it take is longer than you or the customer might like.
With employees, you have overhead but you know what’s going on. (Well, ideally you know what’s going on.) Sure, you assume the risk of having to meet payroll and provide benefits, but you also gain the ability to restructure their day, to reprioritize, and you can usually answer the basic service questions faster and more accurately.
Neither way is right for everyone and, for a lot of small businesses, employees are not an option. But I’ve found that customers prefer predictable and consistent service and that having a regular office and staff are a better way to provide both.
