Quick W.I.T.S.

Guess what? Building a website for your business doesn't have to cost a fortune. I know I've said this before, but lately I've been hearing some horror stories that make me feel like it's worth mentioning again. There are companies out there, including right here in Pictou County, who want you to believe it costs several thousand dollars to have a site built, or that it's perfectly reasonable to pay hundreds of dollars a month to host the site once it's online. It's certainly true that it CAN cost thousands of dollars to build a website, under certain circumstances. A huge corporate website with hundreds of pages and lots of customized features, coded from scratch, can easily take a web designer hundreds of hours to design, and cost thousands of dollars to build. But the fact of the matter is, most businesses don't need anything nearly that complicated (or expensive). As someone with over 20 years of IT experience, I know that people tend t...

When you're a small business owner, you don't always have a lot of resources at your disposal. We have to do a lot with a little. Sometimes, we have to do something with nothing. The key is often finding a new way to look at things. You may think you're at a disadvantage over the other guys, but if you look at things from a different perspective, you may be able to turn your weakness into an advantage. When Michael Keaton was preparing for his role as Tim Burton's Batman, he was extremely uncomfortable in the suit - because he's very claustrophobic. He said the suit terrified him because he couldn't move around in it easily or even turn his head. But rather than letting that break him down, he channeled it, and used it to create a dark, brooding character that became iconic. He said the fear and discomfort helped him to realize that Bruce had this personality - "dark, and really alone, and kind of depressed." Without the claustrophobia, he may neve...

With all the reports of ransomware and cyber attacks in the news lately, it's getting scary out there (check out http://www.itworldcanada.com/article/canadian-firm-pays-425000-to-recover-from-ransomware-attack/394844 if you're a business owner and never want to sleep again). Now more than ever, it's important for even small companies to protect their data, and make sure their computer systems are patched and up to date. The real scary thing about ransomware is not the big dollar amounts you see in the news, but the fact that these hackers can cast a very wide net for almost no effort, as any business that gets caught up in their trap is in serious trouble if they're not properly protected. Arguably, a successful ransomware attack would be much more damaging to a small company operating on a small budget than to a large company. A big company having to pay money to retrieve their own data will suffer a bad quarter, but likely continue operating. A small company, o...

I thought I'd shift gears a little today, and talk a bit about what I do for a living. A lot goes into web design - it's not just about putting the code together to get a site online. The shape and feel of a website is important, and there's more to the look of the page than just the pictures you choose. Not a lot of people think of programmers as artists, and maybe not all of them are, but think of it this way: we use our words to sculpt a foundation and a structure, use the symmetry of placement and the flow of images and words to evoke feelings from our audience. How we present the information is probably even more important than the information itself. Knowing your audience, and knowing how to make them think what you want them to think, are important parts of design. Imagine a website for a dentist's office. It won't look the same as a website for an urban artist. They need to evoke different feelings in the viewer. People tend to be nervous of dentis...

Why is it that truth is so hard to find in advertising? Why do companies think that making false and deceptive statements, to trick people into using their products instead of actually selling them on their virtues, is a practice that can work indefinitely? This style of marketing baffles me, and if you actually take a look around, it's everywhere. Stores advertise "ROCK BOTTOM PRICES!!" on huge banners all across the front of the building, then happily charge you 20% more than the store down the street for the exact same product. You see, they didn't actually lie to you - they didn't say, "Our prices are lower than that store 2 blocks down." They just said their prices were "rock bottom," whatever that even means. Companies do this sort of thing all the time, making bold and loud statements that can't be disproved because there's nothing to compare them against. They list subjective opinions as though they were facts (you know, th...

I've lost count of the number of times I've been asked whether or not a website is really necessary to do business these days. "I have a Facebook page, isn't that enough?" People will find you wherever you are, right? Social media plays an important role in the modern business. Yes, people use social media, and it's important to have some kind of presence there if you want your customers to feel like you're accessible to them. But social media is not all that your business is. Here's a question: do you remember myspace? How about Friendster? AOL? CompuServe? In their day, they were all the big thing. But who uses them now? Some people have never even heard of them. Someday, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram will all suffer the same fate. The world moves on to the next big thing. Where does that leave you if your social media account was all you had? Aside from that, there are aesthetic concerns as well. When you look at a social media page, a...

I read this morning that  Microsoft is laying off workers again . This seems to be happening a lot lately in the IT sector, and really, across all industries. The more I read about these layoffs, and having lived through a few of them myself, the happier I am that I am my own boss now, and don't have to answer to some executive's bottom line, or third quarter profits. Don't get me wrong... being self-employed is its own special kind of terrifying. Everything that goes wrong is your fault. Any mistake could be potentially fatal for your fledgling venture that you've poured your heart and soul (and blood and sweat and tears and hopes and dreams and...) into. Owning your own business is a daunting process, and I don't think a lot of people understand exactly how much goes into it, and how much uncertainty there is, even in a business that's actively taking in money. The real problem is that businesses have a lot of extra expenses, costs, and disadvantages t...