Home from Mothership Redmond

...and I have a cold. Of course it isn't too surprising since I spent the last 5 days suffering jet lag with 600 other people from around the world. Further the conference day started a 7:00am and lasted until 9:00pm at which the time the parties began. Needless to say I've come home needing some rest.

My brain is full of new ideas. As these things roll out into action you might start to feel like the characters in a Dilbert cartoon. I'll be meeting with each of you create a plan to try to avoid this. I've always been concerned about security but after this conference I'm down right frightened and I'm going to start to insist that we get more serious about locking down the computers inside the network. Up to this point my focus has been the firewall and backing up data but it's time to take it to the next level. Fortunately you already own all of the tools needed so it'll be just a matter of implementing them.

The real reason that I went to the conference though was to learn how to better run my business. Some drastic changes are needed here too. Documentation and accountability are the new buzz words here at the office. We also need to reach a balancing point between on-site service and remote service. While remote service has the benefit of providing faster support and saving us from drowning in fuel costs, we run the risk of loosing touch with you. I'll be looking for business mentors to help me suceed in finding that balance and some of those people will be you. After all if it doesn't make sense to you, then it doesn't make sense period.

During one of the sessions the speaker said, when a large business stubs its toe they say ouch but when a small business stubs its toe it dies. As soon as I made the decision to grow the business I had this sense of impending doom. So now is the time to make the changes necessary for continued growth without stubbing our toes. Furtunately the resources were at the conferences that should let us do just that.