June 2007 - Posts

• Non-Microsoft Magazine for Microsoft Partners

  For those that are not aware, there is a magazine for Microsoft Partners written by the same company that produces the Redmond magazine.  It is chock full of stuff and they send out newsletters and have a terrific website. http://rcpmag.com/ Posted Jun 29 2007, 04:30 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Articles

• Google's food for thought

  I've been a long time fan of companies providing free lunch for their employees.  The reason behind this is not providing a great recruiting gimick, but the theory is that your employees will take their lunch back to their desk and do some work.  And yes, unfortunately I do this a lot.  It's actually rare for me to go out to a restraunt with co-workers and enjoy a lunch out, which usually ends up taking at least 1 hour and 30 minutes. The following article talks about how Google does it as well.  The article brings up a great point about providing breakfast.  I know most programmers, including me, don't care to show up early at the office since they like to work late, and get up late.  But if you provide a hot breakfast till 8:30, employees are bound to make an extra effort to show up early. http://rcpmag.com/news/article.aspx?editorialsid=8755 Posted Jun 28 2007, 09:14 PM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Productivity

• Accounting Programs

  While this is not an official endorsement, I use QuickBooks Pro to keep my books.  It's simple and easy to use.  The main reason I chose QuickBooks, was that my accountant recommended it, and uses it.  Every so often I give a backup to my accountant and they review my books.  I found out that Intuit has a great accountant's program, where for a few hundred bucks they can get several special copies as well as other benefits. With that said, I would actually prefer they use Microsoft's Accounting program.  The main reason being, it's free for me!  I get it as part of the Microsoft Partner Program (http://partner.microsoft.com).  But, since my accountant doesn't use it, it would be foolhardy for me to switch to it.  I did find out a tidbit of information that I am going to try and get my accountant to do.  Accountants actually qualify for the Microsoft Partner Program.  Don't ask me how, I don't know.  In fact, how I found out about it was through some complaints to the Redmond magazine.  Evidently some partners are ticked because they are losing revenue since accountants can sign up for the $300 Action Pack and get the accounting program, crm software, office, and operating system licenses.  Since I don't sell those services to my accountant, their tech support vendor doesn't as well, and since they buy all their products from off he shelf, I'm going to get my accountant to sign up. So, before you get your accountant to sign up, please make sure you're not affecting someone else's bottom line.  I never recommend making enemies.  Especially when it would only save you $200, the cost of QuickBooks Pro. Posted Jun 22 2007, 01:36 AM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Accounting

• Growing a bigger business

  Many people would call me a lazy person.  But in fact I work very hard ... at not working hard.  After all, why do something the hard way, when I can do something the easy way.  And if the easy way hasn't been created yet, I'm definately one to try and create it.  Now of course sometimes it backfires, but overall, I think I'm still ahead of the game. Finally, this brings me to my point.  Why write a nice long article on growing a bigger business, when someone else has done an excellent job of it? Enjoy!  http://www.microsoft.com/smallbusiness/resources/expert/strauss052507.mspx Posted Jun 22 2007, 01:28 AM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Business Size

• TechEd 2007

  It's been way too long since I've blogged and I've been extremely busy.  TechEd 2007 in Orlando was absolutely terrific.  You can read a couple of blog postings I wrote about TechEd on my personal site at www.vonlar.com.  But I wanted to make sure to talk about how my presentation went. I was completely shocked to see over 60 people attend my session on "Running or Starting your own Software Business".  While I was worried people wouldn't get as much out of it, since user participation is what makes the presentations so good, I think it went pretty well.  Unfortunately we ran out of time and I didn't get a chance to cover the marketings and sales portion.  I also wished I could have gone more in depth on the tools portion as well.  It wasn't my best session, but I still think it was valuable to some.  I always love how there is always a handful of people that get so much out of the session that I can literally see them walk away so excited and pumped, ready to use the knowledge everyone shared with them.  This session was no exception, and so much so, a few of us sat around afterwards chatting.  Seeing that type of excitement is what makes it all worth doing, and I'm so glad people can learn from my own mistakes. This time I was honored that at least one person (there may have been more, but I only met one) had a much larger business (probably 10+ employees) who attended my session.  I also got to talk with another true inventor type entrepreneur.  The type of person who comes up with tons of ideas, so many in fact that they can never complete them all. Posted Jun 22 2007, 01:12 AM by Randy Walker with no comments Filed under: Presentations, TechEd, Accomplishments