Corey Smith's Business and Technology Blog

New Drupal 6 Theme

Corey Smith — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 16:52:15 +0000

The Drupal community has grown by leaps and bounds in the last few years. I think it is a testament to good system design, an advanced feature set that puts most other systems to shame and strong community involvement. I think that one thing that really helps this is the fact that Drupal is built as an open source platform.

As we built our company over the last year and a half, I have been a little disappointed with the lack of spectacular theme options available in the community. Oh, there are a few, but most aren’t something to write home about.

We have been building themes for sometime. We have built a lot of themes. We finally decided to contribute back to the community. continue reading...

Is 2 Trillion Really a Big Number?

Corey Smith — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 21:56:25 +0000

I tend to think the main reason why congress is so willing to spend our money is that they forget what big numbers really are. The attitude is, “well it is only $20 million… so what’s the big deal.”

“A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money.” (Senator Everett Dirkson)

I think that the reason why the populous doesn’t scream more at the spending of money is two fold. First, people in general don’t have any idea how much money we are talking about and second, people in general don’t realize that it is their money.

The 2 Trillion from the title is from my last post on how much new debt we are incurring via the bailouts in just the last year. And they have added even more since that post. In reality… it is significantly more… not just a little more.

So, how much money are we really talking about? continue reading...

The politics of pots and kettles

Corey Smith — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 20:18:47 +0000

Earlier this week, there was a summit of governor’s called by President Obama. The most interesting to me was one news report indicating they were going to talk about “fiscal responsibility.”

The fact that elected elite vote to spend yours and money today and put this country into such significant deficit that our children’s children will be still struggling to see the end of debt tells me that our elected officials are too entrenched in the attitude of “spend what I want” that this level of hypocrisy is laughable.

These are the people that are spending over $23,000 of every tax payers money in less than 1 year just in a bunch of “stimulus” bills.

The last people that can claim any level of fiscal responsibility are those that so freely spend your money and mine without thought of the reality they are causing.

But, what does this really mean? Is this something we should worry about? continue reading...

Are you cheap or frugal?

Corey Smith — Wed, 18 Feb 2009 19:45:19 +0000

A number of years ago my wife and I wanted to go on a cruise. We met some owners of a CruiseOne franchise. I did a little graphic design work for them and got a little excited about the prospect of going on a cruise. We had never cruised before, but working with them got us a bit excited.

So, we started our discussions with them on where we wanted to go. We talked about Alaska, Hawaii and the Caribbean. We didn’t know what we wanted to do or where we wanted to go because we had never done it before.

We thought we made up our mind when doing some personal research until one of the owners came up with a brilliant plan for us. continue reading...

Fraud, stupidity and bad customer service can ruin your day.

Corey Smith — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 21:53:46 +0000

Last week I looked on my Discover card online account and found a few $100 charges (four of them) to an online processing company. I also saw three $100 credits.

Confused, I called the company. I found out that someone was using my credit card to purchase credits at an online casino (I promise Mom, I don’t have a gambling problem). The service rep I talked to indicated that there were 19 total attempts to buy from this online casino and 15 of them were voided before they hit my card. The company recognized that they were fraud.

This company was very nice to work with. I got my last $100 back with no problems or headache. But, I decided to report fraud to Discover Card to be safe.

There were two recurring charges on my credit card that were pretty important to be continued. One was our hosting package from Aplus.net for all the sites that we host… 150+ sites on two servers. We pay good money to keep these sites functioning, backed up and updated. We have had the servers with Aplus.net for sometime now and I wanted to make sure that there were no problems with my service.

Well, this is where the story gets interesting. continue reading...

Use your marketing resources wisely

Corey Smith — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 20:33:22 +0000

When you have a platform that gives you an opportunity to reach people, you would be foolish not to use it.

People ask me all the time why they should be willing to give away content for free. They wonder how can they monetize something if they give it away. For example, a record artist makes far more money performing than from royalties from a radio station yet they won’t get a lot of publicity without the radio station playing their music. (So why does a radio station have to pay to play?)

Having a blog or free content, like what I do with the tutorials at www.TributeMedia.com allows you to provide a permission based marketing platform. People can subscribe and then have given you permission to market to them. continue reading...

When Is It Okay To Discount?

Corey Smith — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 18:01:03 +0000

With all the talk about the economy being so bad, companies are finding new ways to increase traffic and sales. During the Christmas season, we always see businesses offer discounts (sales) to attract buyers. They are willing to offer discounts in the hopes that it will drive more traffic to their location and sell other products that have not been discounted.

If you are selling a product or a service, the real question is, “How do you know when to discount?”

You might be talking to a customer that is trying to negotiate a better deal or you might be trying to set up a new promotion to drive new traffic.

So, how do you know when a discount is appropriate? continue reading...

Five Ways to Grow Your Business in 2009

Corey Smith — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:17:39 +0000

I know, we are a few days in to the new year and I am finally getting back to posting. I have been thinking a bit about how I am going to grow my business this year amidst the “recession.”

I believe that the economic downturn right now is due to a series of bad business decisions and not much more. There are certainly outside influences that can cause challenges in business but businesses can weather the storm if their leaders start making good decisions. If Wal-Mart can grow, then why can’t you?

We are on target for triple digit growth and I thought I would share the top five things you can do to experience the same type of success in your business this year.

I’ve talked about growing in a down market before, but what can you do that will specifically help you right now see success? continue reading...

Why Legislating Behavior Never Works

Corey Smith — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 16:09:55 +0000

Earlier this year, the New York Times posted a story about the goal for California to remotely control thermostats in homes.

In concept, I can understand the reason why the energy commission would back a proposal like this.

Reducing individual customers’ electrical use — if necessary, involuntarily — could avoid that, Dr. Rosenfeld (California Energy Commission member) said. “If you can control rotating outages by letting everyone in the state share the pain,” he said, “there’s a lot less pain to go around.”

Forget about the security implications for a moment and look at the practicality of this. Take a look at what really is going to happen in the construction world should this law pass. continue reading...

The Challenge of Using Social Media for Business

Corey Smith — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:00:17 +0000

More and more people are trying to use social media for business. The problem with using social media for business is that social media is, first and foremost, social. You will find that because of the social nature of social media, people want to be personal.

Three of the best examples of where social media can be a challenge for business are Facebook, Twitter and Friendfeed. These are great examples because they provide an environment that fosters conversations.

The fact is, people need to be personal. If they don’t put a human face on their activities, others will simply look at them as a spamming entity and will tune them out very quickly.

That social aspect of using social media for business brings a challenge that most people overlook. continue reading...