Virtual CIO

You can almost feel the pendulum swinging back from so, so far left – whether it is politics or religion and definitely technology. I often wonder where we would be today if the government hadn’t forced Microsoft to unbundle the browser and open the door to also be bludgeoned by the European Union. How better off would the economy be and how many more jobs would have been created? Better yet, why or to be fair when are Apple and Google put under similar shackles?

I’ve used Microsoft products since 1985 and have been a Microsoft Certified Professional and part of the Microsoft Partner Program since 1994. Some have accused me of being “too Microsoft” in the past, but the reality is I was generally using or supporting another product and had to follow the market on any changes during the various technology wars over the years. Although I’m product agnostic, Microsoft is usually the main ingredient for a host of hardware and software.

It’s easy to forget history. Microsoft Basic was one of the first languages for a programming thought process with much more functionality than COBOL. IBM learned the hard lesson that software drives hardware with the Personal Computer. Some of the first versions of Word were like Lotus 1-2-3 with quick menu shortcuts using slash and dot - and it was bye-bye Wordstar my first editor. Apple sprung from the IIe to a Mac with graphical computing, but never became more than a novelty as Microsoft adjusted with Windows. Lotus was winning at the spreadsheet, but Excel took off in Europe capturing larger worldwide market and then got bundled with Word. Not only did Lotus lose at its core offering, but the industry learned another important point that several disparate products cannot compete as a bundle versus applications built to work together – ditto for Corel and WordPerfect. Windows for Workgroups was an evolution that doomed Lantastic for small networks. Novell was flat-out a tremendous file and print server that I cut my teeth on until it had to run any back-end application which would cause a daily crash. Windows NT Server was graphical, ran back-end applications, and did file and print – enough said Utah Orangemen. Who can win a technology war without caffeine anyway?

AOL at one point was the Internet and Navigator caught Microsoft behind. Internet Explorer got bundled in for free and was predatory when today Google regularly gives services away free versus established media competitors using the mantra do no evil. Somewhere in there it’s also been lost that Microsoft started Exchange when there were only a few hodge-podge e-mail clients on the market – it’s still the dominant mail server and maybe that was innovation? And how about SQL Serer versus Oracle becoming the defacto standard for databases?

Remember the buzz and midnight release of Windows 95 and 98 and how Apple Computer nearly went out of business, if it wasn’t for Microsoft propping them up with cash? It’s amazing how removing “Computer” from your name to become a proprietary media company with MP3, Smartphone, TVs, and tablet devices is somehow the greatest thing ever. Since they no longer make servers and Macs make up a small portion of revenue, it will be interesting to see what Apple will be or do post Steve Jobs.  Though a surprise to many, Microsoft did not miss a step after Bill Gates began his humanitarian non-profit several years ago.

While Xbox came from nowhere to be a top contender in gaming, Google swooped in during the dark days of the Internet and indexed sites with no idea of how to make money. Despite the SPAM,  Google still leads for text search and mapping. However, Bing does much better if you’re looking for something social, music, or video.

A few remember when there was only Blackberry hanging on and giving away server licensing after Microsoft released free ActiveSync as part of Exchange along with Microsoft Mobile. iPhone and Droid currently rule, but must continually adapt with new features for Exchange/ActiveSync. Windows Phone 7 will likely follow the Excel historical example using Nokia in Europe to leverage eventual win worldwide. By the way Apple and Droid reviewers, you don’t build several tiled screens to swipe for contacts, press the button and say “Call John Mobile” without any training or configuration.

Years before “Cloud” was popular or Gmail existed Microsoft provided free e-mail to millions of Hotmail users. Today, Skydrive for consumers and Office 365 for business may not get the skateboarders to say “cool”, but customers regularly say “YES” to familiar technology with more features, better productivity, and significant cost savings. While the non-sensical chatter about browser wars continues, most industry players are oblivious to the huge strides Microsoft has made in various lines of Accounting/ERP software.

Hopefully, Apple can transition well after Steve Jobs and Google decides to focus back on great offerings around data. Unlike Microsoft, Google has never fought multiple wars at the same time (or had to compete at all) and Apple must fully make the leap to the new business model of media before their devices are an iCommodity.

Mostly, I wish people would remember that technology is the remaining industry in which America leads the world – and it doesn’t have to be a zero sum game where Google, Microsoft, and Apple destroy each other and open the door for a foreign startup. In the previous 5+ years, extreme rhetoric, blame, and wild speculation has been too much in vogue. While President Obama is a great orator and we caught Bin Laden, I’ve never heard any other President blame a previous administration in my lifetime. The press was so fanatical that they somehow thought Vista was associated with George W. Bush and castigated the product while people in the industry had few problems with it.

Now we regularly hear ”No one get’s fired for using Microsoft” or Microsoft is slow/boring/un-innovative. All of this negativity in spite of record profits and obvious innovation on all fronts? Just like the U.S. is just now beginning to recover from horrendous terrorism, Microsoft continues to endure making tremendous contributions to the economy and our competitive edge.

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In technology, you better be willing to accept change and leverage experience. A potential client recently asked about my background and when hearing I had a Management information Systems degree from 1989 said “then you were born to work with technology”. In actuality, growing up in rural Oklahoma I didn’t get my hands on an Apple IIe until seventeen. Now as a dinosaur in this industry, the following are some lessons learned throughout my career:

1) Start at the end. Determine the outcome, compare what is being done today, and what does it really mean to the person requesting. There is so much buzz and FUD in technology, that a reported problem or requested solution is rarely correct. Working backwards from a goal of why and when also quickly qualifies commitment, feasibility, and time-line. 

2) Think out of the box. As a student at Tulsa University, I quickly got tired of sitting in the gloomy basement and waiting for printouts when programming. I knew I’d  be in the industry, so I bought one of the first Personal Computers with a modem to develop programs on a PC editor in less than half the time and with very little mainframe time.

3) Tell the real story and get buy-in. Over-emphasize things to expect and when upfront, especially any pain. Make sure you have buy-in by management and the project team and that they are doing any assigned tasks. Check the dates and signatures of contracts. I’ve actually seen “Why Bother” scrawled to look like a signature and backdate of a year to circumvent contracts.

4) Re-usability. Everything in technology you will do again. Take the extra time to document the first time or make a template as there are very few one-off things and even with changing paradigms there is base knowledge and historical facts that will prove valuable.

5) Follow-up. In 1987, my old dentist retired and I stumbled across Dr. Hinkle. Whether it was wisdom teeth removed or a simple cleaning, he called the same evening to make sure you were OK. It was a powerful lesson as no one likes to go to the dentist, true caring was shown, and loyalty definitely won.

Technology is like math as it is fairly simple to learn the nuts and bolts. Thought process and proven approach have been much more valuable than some tactical knowledge of a language or infrastructure. Of course starting with mainframes and working through virtually every war in the technology industry, my perspective is a unique blend of old-school and cutting-edge.

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Recently, a few prospects and clients have asked what I pay to rank highly in Google. The answer is virtually nothing in dollars, but a great deal in  time, effort, and thought. That is what you have to figure out. Do you want to even play in the Search Engine Marketing (SEM) game and what do you want to accomplish? The standard 10 page website will not rank well, conversion to a sale should be the ultimate intent, and you may toil for months before gaining any traction.

Two years ago, I began researching search engine ranking for my 20% time. I couldn’t figure out why a startup competitor’s site was number one when searching for one of our key services and we were on the fourth page. After all, we were a 30 year old company with several national case studies from major manufacturers. After sifting through the massive amount of mis-information and lots of trial and error, the following are some things I’ve learned so far:

1) SEM is part technical, part content, and part rhythm.

2) Most web developers have no clue about what is invovled.

3) You and your staff must  be committed to regularly generating new and different information for customers of approximately an hour per day.

4) Use Google Alerts, Analytics, and Webmaster Tools along with corresponding Bing Webmaster Tools to monitor performance.

5) Research some keywords or key phrases by searching Google and Bing to see your competition.

6) Decide if you want to compete or identify longer or more specific phrases like adding a geography to try and rank.

7) At least monthly, research, monitor, and add/adjust content – you’ll need a spreadsheet to record various activities and ideas.

8) When searching, always note the related searches for content ideas and alternative anchor text.

9) Compare and contrast your website versus the competition to determine unique approach for customers.

10) Your competition reviews your website more than your best prospects or customers.

11) Your site should be about what customers need, giving away some expertise for free, while not arming the competition with a complete approach or your best ideas.

12) ”Content is King” is so vague and overused – It means you must have quality and quantity from a variety of sources.

13) Put another way a 100 page well-structured website with quality information for customers and supporting links from recognized external sources will dominate over several 10 page sites.

14) Eliminate duplicate content and ignore the multiple fake websites with canned content of any competitors.

15) Use a 301-Redirect so that company.com is automatically redirected to www.company.com as otherwise they are treated as two separate sites with duplicate content for search.

16) Home link should always point to www.company.com and not default.htm or index.htm.

17) Have a folder for images, company, and any other general or utility type folder to group information.

18) Don’t use more than one level of subfolders.

19) Keep the website structure as flat as possible.

20) Important pages should be named by keyword like estage-planning.htm rather than services.htm.

21) The same is true for folders – accounting rather than services.

22) Dump any Flash as it’s not searchable, is a legacy technology, and no one wants to wait for it to load.

23) Feel the need for speed – focus on making all pages load fast.

24) Consolidate CSS into one file and use simple HTML menus rather than script.

25) Smush images to increase load time with smaller file size and no quality loss.

26) Eliminate unnecessary code.

27) Each page should have a unique Meta title of up to 65 charachters with keywords first even for the home page such as “Estate Planning – Jones Brown Law Firm”.

28) Each page should have a unique Meta description of up to 150 characters which is used as the snippet information under title link in search results.

29) Customize headers H1 – H4 to fit the page style and utilize at least H1 as the keyword title on the page.

30) Images should have the Alt tag with the keywords for the page.

31) Pages should start and have some keywords throughout the page.

32) Internal website pages should link to keyword named pages with anchor text that matches or is a variation of the keyword.

31) Identify one or more conversion or calls to action.

32) Write for customers. Start at the end. Tell a story if possible.

33) The best content answers a question, automates a task, or illicits a response.

34) If you are expert in a product or service, have more than one page about it.

35) Forget the brochure features and think what buyers want – how will their lives be different and what questions they need answered.

36) Review your competition regularly to verify you have a different and more compelling message.

37) Use robots.txt to block irrelevant pages for search like login pages and pages that have been moved or removed.

38) Create a sitemap.xml to submit to search engines and track published pages versus crawled pages.

39) Similarly, create a rss.xml file to submit to related RSS directories to your site.

40) Create a blog at Blogger or your favorite to add content that supports and links to your site with no web development.

41) Use main keywords or phrase to link to your site.

42) Link to important keyword subpages too.

43) Use LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Youtube and other social media sites to link to your content – again by keywords or variation.

44) Everything you start with social media will be wrong – learn the merits of each and add your own personality.

45) Automate as much as possible linking services together so one update hits them all.

46) Participate with major players in your industry for listing at their site and linking to yours.

47) Find communities where you can provide information that you can link back to your site.

48) Press releases and article sites are another way to link to your site.

49) Some things you do will have a negative effect and you will have to adjust.

50) Use a URL shortener like http://goo.gl/ in status updates to save characters and provide a place to track hits.

Stay focused on your goals and observe the competition, but don’t run after everything new. Again, track how you are doing and evaluate if it is worthwhile. If you aren’t capable or don’t enjoy creating content for customers, stick to your day job as half-hearted shows through even more on social medial than on the phone. SEM is something I enjoy, but more importantly it has brought in more business than 2 salespeople in the last 2 years for little cost.

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We Sooners are known for first to aid or fight  for wars or disasters. Given the auspicious start for our state, we’re also a bold and stubborn lot that unfortunately trails the nation in business trends and technology. For over 30 years, our firm has provided flat cost professional services for IT. This decision was obviously a business strategy and my former partner often said “I’ve made enough mistakes in business that would have paid for dozens of  college degrees”. (By the way, I’m proud to report that he is neither dead or estranged and was simply bought out on amicable terms in 2003.)

While most of the industry eliminated the billable hour over a decade ago, much of the state channel still utilize billable hours which are bad for customers because it is fraught with conflict, deception, and poor performance. The conflict is often heated before, during, and after projects for rate and number of hours.  Critical tasks may be shortened or eliminated imposing significant risk and costing additional time resulting in significant overage - which leads to the main deception of padding hours to start or milking tasks during. When you pay by the hour, the only incentive is to stick around and bill more hours. Forget about thoroughness, prevention of future problems, or anything relating to efficiency and quality.

Flat cost is a win-win for customers and professional services firms. Customers know what they’re paying and service providers leverage their expertise and assume all of the risk for the unforeseen and lengthier than expected engagements. However, we occasionally still have prospects ask things like “How can I compare without hours?”

And there it is: a descriptive list of tasks/outcomes, estimated due date, and total cost. Now you compare approach, credibility, and repeat wins. No it’s not fair to startups or one-man-shows with their journeyman approach of rate and hours, desperate hope of impressing with the 10 page brochure website, and BB logo everywhere even though no focus on consumers. Comparison is done on business criteria rather than the sales person who was liked the most, along with the hourly company the CFO feels is easiest to renegotiate or delay payment based upon too many hours.

Obviously, the more physical or smaller the task make time and charges a better fit. However, for the viability of a business, achieving goals with smooth operation is often a much more valued criteria than simply cost. Again, we sometimes hear “You obviously started with hours so why not show them?”

So it’s MBA 101 and anyone doing pricing knows cost-plus is easy to understand and manipulate, but also a novice business approach that has diminishing growth potential leading to eventual bankruptcy. It comes down to business savvy and motivation. If we haven’t proven our worth upfront and will not make a required margin, then it’s not a fit for either us or the customer. Our personnel are not paid by the hour, so the only motivation is providing good service and not dragging out every task to make the weekly hourly bonus.

I recently approached a customer and pointed out a potential risk issue, but more importantly where they could save $100 – $200 per month going forward. It was a fairly simple two sentence quote with the work done over the weekend for a nominal cost less than a PC. The customer balked and said it was too high. It was an impending risk point and a great customer, so I recommended I show them how to do it. We spent about an hour in a remote session having them drive and do the task. Our team still had some minor work to do afterward, total cost to the customer was zero, and the customer had reduced recurring cost going forward.

So Monday comes and the customer sends an e-mail stating it didn’t take very long and maybe we should look at an hourly rate going forward. Somewhat rebuffed I called back and explained that my 25 years of experience was leveraged to train them exactly what to do and that our team still had cleanup tasks. Also, where did I go wrong with zero cost and less going forward?

Such is business life with no good deed going unpunished. It’s a good lesson to never get complacent and always over emphasize value, no matter all the previous wins. So what is your take on flat cost versus hourly?

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