Google Desktop Search is soon going to be a viable alternative to Windows Desktop Search in Windows Vista. This is seriously bad news for Microsoft, and this is largely the result of Google’s new lobbying efforts.

In today’s Washington Post, there are two articles about the new Google lobbying powerhouse here in DC. While Microsoft has had a strong policy influence in this city for the last few years, they’re continuing to suffer the consequences of a poor presence in the time leading up to their major federal antitrust case. Google recently delivered a striking blow by bringing attention to the officials tracking Microsoft’s antitrust compliance the “issues” with third-party desktop search applications in Windows Vista. As a result, yesterday Microsoft agreed to “allow users to select a default desktop search provider in the same way they choose a default Internet browser or media player” and “to provide technical information to other companies so thay can make their desktop program run more smoothly on Vista” (as paraphrased from a Microsoft executive in this article). These changes will come in the Vista Service Pack slated to be released (at least for testing) near the end of the calendar year.

For the last couple years I’ve been recommending Windows Desktop Search (WDS) over Google Desktop Search (GDS) simply because of the Vista and Office 2007 compatibility advantages. WDS is built into the Start Menu, every Windows Explorer window, and every Outlook folder (see below) so it just makes sense for people to get used to WDS in XP and then stick with it in Vista. Until now GDS in Vista has been slow and had poor OS integration. And trying to running both applications would be a huge system hog. Continue reading…

This spreadsheet has been such a success that we’ve vastly improved it! Grab the new version of the Dreamline Spreadsheet here.

You can subscribe to this blog to find out when new versions come out and discover other 4-Hour Workweek hacks/lessons-learned. You can also skim through my 4-Hour Workweek articles here, as well. Enjoy the spreadsheet and best of luck living your dreams!

As I previously wrote (1 2), I’m a big fan of Timothy Ferriss’ Four Hour Workweek approach. Just a few chapters in he mentions what he calls a Dreamline, which is a chart designed to calculate how approachable and within reach your ideal lifestyle is, in terms of finances and time. On the book’s website there were online calculators for filling out the Dreamline, but I didn’t find them to be as helpful as I’d like…so I’ve come up with my own.

I emailed with Tim to get his thoughts on this, mentioning that my company frequently creates attractive and functional reports in Word & Excel, and he figured it’d be worth a try if I could improve on it. As such, all the prose in the spreadsheet I created is directly from his example and used with permission. Anyhow, here it is (with assistance from Keith, SET’s awesome designer) as a Microsoft Excel download:

Dreamline Worksheet 1.2 [old version]

[new version available here]

Continue reading…

I’ve been attempting to stick with the less-email approach for the last two weeks and it’s been generally helpful. However, I’ve had to violate the number of times I check email and ran into some surprises. I’m also not sure whether it’s a good idea to restrict yourself in certain circumstances or just to go with the spirit of the idea. Anyhow, here are some realizations after checking email mostly-twice during the work day for a couple weeks.

Lesson 1: Email is always a distraction. If you’re working on something it’s never a good idea to check your email and get distracted.

Challenge: Some tasks merit fast-paced email exchange or require a response via email. Sometimes an email message in the morning relates to an appointment in the afternoon. But looking for one email typically results in receiving more than you wanted.

When I initially communicate with a prospect or a client, I want to impress them with responsiveness…and I feel I can achieve that (to some degree) with quick email back-and-forth. I’m also not yet in a position to explain to them my new “philosophy of email” and thus why our email exchange may take a while. And, as for project-related emails, as deadlines are coming I feel that it’s of crucial importance that I receive them.

Possible Solutions:

1. OUT OF OFFICE RESPONSE: I could, as Tim Ferriss suggested, create an “Out of Office Response” that tells people my email strategy. That would solve the “appointment confirmation” problem but it could still weird-out a new prospect and I’m not sure how well it’d help in a project-based situation–the sender might not be aware of the significance of their input into my work.
2. COMMUNICATION: For starters, telling people about your process is a good thing. Especially your co-workers. Right now I’ve only told a few people about my approach because I wasn’t sure that I was going to stick with it. But now I realize that checking email twice (or at least not until around lunchtime) is magnificently liberating (I actually get stuff done in the morning!)…and I’m going to tell a lot of coworkers and clients. Though it doesn’t solve the “new clients” problem, it’ll resolve 80% of the communications issues, as those are with the same small group.
3. FUDGING WITH DISCIPLINE: There are going to be times when you need to check your email. Just try not to pay attention to anything else when you’re looking for that one message.
4. THE IMPORTANT DUDE: Have someone else check your email (frequently) who is familiar with your process. If a really important message comes in (they’d have to fully understand what really important means!) then they’d let you know. I look forward to that day…

Lesson 2: Breaking the system for seemingly logical reasons is risky.

Challenge: It seems that when you’re in transit or in between tasks that email won’t take away from something else and thus it’d be perfectly fine to check it now. However, when you do check your email you may be surprised by something that changes your mood or makes you realize you really had to do something. Unfortunately when we’re between things we don’t have the luxury to respond to pressing or emotional issues.

This week I was working with a client in a conference room and things were moving very slowly–they hadn’t prepared for the meeting and had to do a few things on their laptops before we could actually get to work. So I figured, why not check my email?

In Outlook I found a message about a project I’d recently won with a major client, though they had placed all of the Terms and Conditions into their own language. They had added a “Work for Hire” clause, indicating that our training material was “Work For Hire” and, as such, that they could rebrand and reuse it. Now I’m cool with people having issues with some of my terms, and I recognize that the contracting officer probably just plopped our contract into his template which already had that clause…but it still royally irked me. When I communicated (somewhat strongly) with the CO about why our work was not Work for Hire they just removed the clause without a question (our material is usually treated like a book–you get a certain number of copies)…but, again, it really changed my mood and I felt the need to respond then and there.

This kind of stuff happens all the time when we check our email: things surprise us and change our mode of thought.

Possible Solutions:

1. BE PRODUCTIVE NOT RISKY: The goal of checking email when you have free time is to use that time wisely. So be wise–have a book or other task ready for you. Maybe file some things, clean up, work on a task that’s not super thought intensive but needs to get done. But whatever it is, don’t check your email because there will often be surprises that change your current state.
2. CREATE A BARRIER: Don’t turn on automatic download of email messages in any of your portable devices. Put a password on your email application. Don’t carry your cellphone when you go into a client’s. Whatever it is that makes it just a little more difficult to check your email–that’ll make it much less likely to happen.

I have many more lessons to share and some specific practices I’ve tried…but at 9:30am I’d really best be getting some work done. Stay tuned…and don’t check your email.

We should receive all forms of mail once per day.

Can you imagine a world where the mailman would show up a bunch of times each day?  Where weekend activities were interrupted by bills and packages at various times?

Sounds foreign…and kind of annoying.  But that’s email.  And that’s what’s wrong with it.
Continue reading…

I used to hear people talk about cash flow as being “the biggest challenge” for small businesses. I always understood that billing in March might translate to payment in May or June and that, depending on the amount due, borrowing might be necessary. But a lot of things in the last year have offered a better understanding of cash flow:

• The better organized your books and reporting, the more you realize that cash flow is an issue
• Positive cash flow can be much worse than negative cash flow
• Smaller revenue from many clients may be easier to stabilize, but it’s much less predictable and more time-consuming to manage. And big checks are a whole different story.

The better organized your books, the more you realize that cash is an issue

When invoices go out, checks will start to come in. But not all of them. We’ve always kept pretty organized books, but this year my books have become somewhat of a work of art. I want to grow SET Consulting and strengthening SET’s reporting capabilities has seriously improved my picture of what’s going on . With regard to cash flow especially, I realize much more lucidly what to expect, and when a phone call or letter is in order. Sadly I realize that my “wonderful clients” can be a royal pain.

Positive cash flow can be much worse than negative cash flow

The concept of cash flow is essentially that the money in your pocket is not an accurate picture of your financial condition. This is especially important to realize when you have a lot of money.

In the past, the amount of money I perceived as having was in line with the transactions I’d entered in QuickBooks–so I always felt pretty good that I was basing my ideas off the assumption that all the checks I’d written had been cashed (when they hadn’t yet). But that’s such a small part of the story.

You may have $50k in the bank. Payroll may only be $10k. But what about the other expenses each month? What about the projects that are being worked on right now but the contractors? What about quarterly taxes? How long will it be before you’ve got $10k? Or 0?

If you’re smart, you know your monthly burn (when I found out mine I was not particularly happy…though it did convince me that a few nice meals really didn’t make a difference). But the question is how much do you pay attention to it, while factoring in your A/R aging, when you’ve got a bunch of money in the bank?

When cash flow is not so hot, you pay closer attention to what’s going on in your business. But you need to pay just as much attention when things seem good because cash comes in waves…and cash goes away as quickly as it comes onto the scene.

Smaller revenue from many clients may be easier to stabilize, but it’s much less predictable and more time-consuming to manage. And big checks are a whole different story.

The more variables and the bigger the check the more things get to be a pain. When we were receiving a few small checks per month, we didn’t have as much trouble collecting. But everything gets to be more of a pain when there are more clients and bigger checks. Of course this isn’t always the case, but more variables never really makes anything easier. And cash flow is harder to predict when there are more bits and pieces involved.

Well, I did manage to get Vista installed. The advice here worked like a charm, and I was able to install Vista clean with an upgrade product key. No, Microsoft never did follow-up with a solution…but at least it worked.

I’m really enjoying Windows Vista. Sure, a few programs don’t work (I don’t want to upgrade QuickBooks and iTunes isn’t even upgraded) but the visual improvements are stunning. Sure, Mac may have had similar features for a while…but it’s great for us PC users to finally get a break.

Some of my favorites: the integrated search, the new Windows Media Player, the lovely Aero interface, the massively improved wireless and network connection management, the better display options, the weather gadget… I really dig it.

On the other hand, I’ve been seriously disappointed with Apple. The majority of my gripe is that I purchased a lemon of a MacBook. I’ve spent about 5 or 6 hours on the phone in the last week with a unit that is now officially considered DOA. Now I have to run between a few places to get it repaired. And I’m going to think twice before purchasing from MacMall again. When business is so busy, as it is now, this is a horrible waste of time.

But, for the record, when this MacBook was working it was no panacea, no magnificent wonderful machine. It wasn’t necessarily more intuitive to work with, and I’m not in any way sold. Some of my least favorites: error messages that are immensely unhelpful, no manual way to eject a CD (and no eject button that works without software), a remarkably sparse online support, no visual or audio indication when important statuses changed (like connecting to a network or disconnecting from a network), and about a million compatibility issues with Office. But I’m going to take a deep breath and get this machine (for SET’s designer; it’s running Vista, as well) repaired…

So this week has seen a great deal of upgrades. A MacBook. A Vista install on my primary machine. A gorgeous new notebook (Dell XPS M1210) with all the bells & whistles. Now it’s time to update the infrastructure a little bit–redo the server, clean up a dedicated XP box for use as a computer-to-be-dialed-into, and figure out some more features in OneNote 2007 and Groove Server…

I’ve had a lot of debates in the last few weeks about motivation and incentives. From money to benefits to praise to penalty and everything in between I’ve been asking people what they do to make their employees (or partners, peers, and friends?) motivated. But before I delve into some of these conversations, I want to make sure I’m clear what we’re talking about.

When looking for a definition of motivation, it immediately brings up the controversies surrounding the topic–i.e., the difference between personality and motivation. From wikipedia:

Motivation is having the desire and willingness to do something. A motivated person can be reaching for a long-term goal such as becoming a professional writer or a more short-term goal like learning how to spell a particular word. Personality invariably refers to more or less permanent characteristics of an individual’s state of being (e.g., shy, extrovert, conscientious). As opposed to motivation, emotion refers to temporal states that do not immediately link to behavior (e.g., anger, grief, happiness).

In the business context, things get more muddied. At its most basic level, motivation is about a desire to get work done without having to push too hard. But invariably it gets into questions of quality of work, responsiveness, and helpfulness/proactive-ness. In other words, much as we want people to get things done, we want them to do things sooner than later, perform the work well, and genuinely seek out ways to stay occupied or improve things for the business. I know I’ve clearly just mired motivation with personality-traits like discipline, interest in quality, and loyalty…but how can they be separate? What would be the point of just getting things done if someone’s job is more than just cranking a widget? If it’s a high level task that has things at stake and many possible definitions of “completed”…?

And this again goes back to the wikipedia definition–there are issues of personality (which might arguably be considered nature) and issues of raw performance/throughput (which can sometimes be addressed through nurture aka incentives).

In conversations with peers about this, some brought up the point that it’s all about personality and that you can incentivize more work or new skills…but not a desire to do better or for the company to grow. Other issues were raised, such as how certain personalities may fit the skills or conditions of some jobs, and that those personality types actually go against some of the motivational aims. That is, people with a strong desire to please others aren’t necessarily the ones who can spend 12 hours straight on a single and at times monotonous project. There’s a big difference between the stereotypical techie/geek/engineer persona and the stereotypical salesperson or consultant. And there’s some basis to that.

So what is the answer to all of this? Can employees be motivated? Well, they can be given goals and incentives. That much is obvious. As for what kind of an effect monetary and psychological benefits can produce–well, I don’t know the answer to that.

In the last day I’ve had some emotional reactions to business-related decisions–one by me and one by a peer.

I think I’ve learned my lesson, which is essentially twofold (and I hope is valid):

Continue reading…

One of the problems being in a super small company is that a lot of decisions are made exclusively by the SBO (small business owner). But just because the final decision is made by the SBO doesn’t mean that the process of deciding needs to be an independent one. Here are two less obvious reasons for involving other people in the process:

1. A scheduled meeting may make the SBO show up with the research needed to make a decision at the meeting (i.e, s/he has a deadline for completing the research)
2. A meeting creates accountability that would not exist if the decision were made solely between the SBO and the SBO.

The result of these two items is often that a decision will be made sooner than it would have if the SBO had made the decision him/herself.

In the past (and to this day) I work with outside consultants and close friends to help make important decisions. But I don’t think I’ve relied on my coworkers enough for decisions that don’t relate to specific projects they’re involved with. For instance, when automating a client’s proposal process we might discuss what custom features that particular client needs. However, rarely will I sit down with coworkers to brainstorm what general features most proposal processes should incorporate.

As such, many of the bigger processes for SET (i.e., the things that don’t relate to specific projects but are still day-to-day operations) that I’d like to script out never get done. There’s not much push and I don’t like wasting people’s time outside the company with them.

The answer I’m suggesting here is to look at coworkers who are there anyways and bring them into these projects just like any other project.

I see that many of my larger clients decide everything in meetings. It’s not the best approach–taking people away from their work for a decision that’s not particularly relevant to them. But it does bring accountability into the picture and it alleviates procrastination.

I think that in the coming months I’m going to have more conversations/meetings with coworkers about things I’m working on–just to force me to make some decisions sooner than later. Even if I know I could do it myself, it’ll force the decisions to take place sooner. And, if all goes well, we’ll likely arrive at better conclusions and everyone will feel more a part of the team.

We’ve all heard the mantra that a business must grow or die. Over time it’s begun to sink in. At first it was just me working too many hours, then it was contractors, then it was employees + contractors. And at each phase there was always a point where I worked too much. Now is one of those times.

Grow the business I must do–or sure as I heck I’ll be the one that takes the fall.

I bet no one’s following this site just now, but I assure you it’s not because I haven’t had things to share or that I’ve lost my motivation. It’s that I haven’t had anything worthwhile to say. The web is full of ideas from all sorts of people and I didn’t (and probably still) haven’t found a voice that I like hearing out of my blog.

This issue of grow or die is one that I have to focus on. It’s probably a big part of the reason why I haven’t been writing. It’s certainly what’s been usurping my time. Or rather, the fact that I don’t have time. It’s the evening and I haven’t paused from work-related things yet today. If I want to be happy I need to give SET a chance to live on its own:

SET must grow or it won’t ever get a real chance to live.

Four and a half years ago I decided to start a company. Within six months it was able to pay for my livelihood. Within a year or two I was debt free. But if I had just found a job in the tech-world I could have made more money quicker. If it’s taken me this long to be where I am then I need to have something to show for it. And what that thing must be is not me, and not some material object–that thing must be greater. I need to be able to say five years from now that SET exists completely outside of me.

So this blog post is me putting my foot down. Maybe it’ll mean that I write more here. Maybe it’ll just sit here as a landmark. But it’s time to grow.