http://www.cummingsconsulting.com a blog about small business opportunities that collide with technology Tue, 08 Aug 2006 20:22:38 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Do you wonder what all the Web 2.0 hype is? Do you want to read an article that explains it in business terms, rather than technology terms? Well honestly the technology is way more fun than the business view in this discussion, but it's not that the business view isn't cool. It's ... http://www.cummingsconsulting.com/2006/08/07/heres-the-web-20-business-opportunity-in-a-nutshell/ Last week I talked about how small businesses couldn't afford to invest in technology projects that didn't show immediate returns. I offered that 30 days is the outer limit of acceptable time to implementation. ## So how does a small business get anything meaningful done within 30 days? Automate a specific business ... http://www.cummingsconsulting.com/2006/08/04/custom-web-applications-in-30-days/ Businesses are focused on a pretty discrete set of activities, based on their size * Startups and small businesses should focus __all__ their efforts on finding new customers. * Medium Sized Businesses should focus their efforts on growing their organization by solving their cashflow challenges by streamlining their accounting and ... http://www.cummingsconsulting.com/2006/08/02/agile-software-development-and-your-small-business/ Managing a software projects is, to a large degree, about managing your requirements. The one simple thing every project can benefit from in managing their requirements is understanding how to categorize your requirements. I often see projects that have requirements at all sorts of different levels of detail mixed together. Often these ... http://www.cummingsconsulting.com/2006/05/04/one-simple-thing-to-improve-your-requirements-categorize-your-user-stories/ Good Technologists look things up so they can use their brains for the hard work. Got API? is there to help. Every now and then I meet a technologist that can rattle off detailed arcane minutae relating to obscure JavaScript functions or obscure foundation classes in Java. I usually don't think ... http://www.cummingsconsulting.com/2006/04/27/got-api-reference-site-a-great-utility/ Lots of times I have customers share their marketing and communications plan with me. As I focus my work on using technology to create growth opportunities for my customers, this is pretty much expected. I need to understand what their marketing and communications efforts are saying. http://www.cummingsconsulting.com/2006/04/19/sharing-your-marketing-and-communications-plan-with-your-technologists/ There is no royal road to getting the world aware of your organization. Technology can help, but only when you already have a good plan for your business and/or product development. http://www.cummingsconsulting.com/2006/04/19/what-small-businesses-and-non-profits-need-to-know-about-building-awareness-for-their-organization/