Smartalyx Computer Musings

As a consultant I get called in on a lot of projects. As an IT company I get called on a lot of problems. Over time I have noticed one simple fact and it bears worth sharing.

Some projects require many ‘chefs’ to be in the kitchen and yes it can get crowded. That is usually not a problem. However when something breaks or does not work as expected suddenly there is not a single knowledgeable ‘chef’ to be found. More times than not each ‘chef’ will point fingers at the others. This is where many small businesses fail.

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There it was a laptop on my recently organized desk just screaming to be abused. Or at least, treated like some lab rat. How could I resist- the DVD in my hand was screaming to be used on something- anything? So the two got their wishes and this is the beginning of their story.

Big huge note here: If you want to ‘replicate’ this procedure feel free, but as always do so at your own risk. The steps I take here will delete all data on the hard drive. I did not back up anything- after all Rat-meister laptop wanted to be abused. More importantly, this was a test machine. Nothing of any value was there anyway. So I say again- I did not back anything up. It is up to you to judge the value of your data. If you want it- save it. Moving on..

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This is the first part, swing on back next week for the follow-ups.
This past weekend was all work, don’t let anything you read below convince you otherwise. Really, really hard work. I spent two solid days of character study. 48 hours, a lot of it spent in the hot sun of Southern California, keenly noting and observing small businesses as they presented themselves to their customers. After the initial presentations, I was able to observe the direct effect of the efforts and see if the customer base grew. .And all of this was done without any PR hacks, marketting veeps or silky smooth ad campaigns with glossy videos of all the ‘cool kids’. I stood with the masses and gauged how the small businesses came across. It was hard, hard work and don’t let anything else I tell you convince you otherwise.

Where did I get this great exposure to these small businesses (some I would call early stage startups) and their audience? Where was I able to see successful small businesses stand side by side with unknowns hungry for attention? Was I at some Techcrunch 50 event, some Startup Mash Weekend or Pitch your Biz to TV meetup? Nope. I was at a music festival of course. Specifically Bamboozle Left in Irvine, California. The small businesses were the bands. There were major bands with record deals, labels, cred and history. Bands/performers that you would know even if you don’t listen to them specifically. There were some you could tell were in the middle, not yet signed to a major label, but touring around getting their name out there. And there were the early stage startup bands. Some of them were hungry (literally and figuratively I fear) with demo CDs cut on their own computers. Why is this a good lesson for the small business?

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