Slashdot Mirror

If you're female, don't wear an engagement ring without a wedding band, because I will think "OK, she's likely getting married soon and that'll chew up months of productivity."

Interesting that a "guy who used to do PR" is publically advertising that he discriminates against engaged women. I guess that you can't be fired from the company you created but I still question the wisdom of posting your illegal hiring practices on slashdot.

I covered this on my marketing/communications weblog. The salient points from a marketing perspective:

HP just proved it doesn't understand basic branding: OK, so that's a pretty big smackdown to throw at a multi-billion-dollar tech giant. But consider: People buy the iPod because it's cool, it's functional and (stay with me here) because it's an iPod. If you're going to compete, you need to be different/better/unique, you need to have a dramatically lower price point, you need to have a better channel or you need to have God on your side. HP has demonstrated none of these things.

HP just told us it doesn't listen to its customers. I challenge anyone in HP's marketing organization to produce research indicating existing customers would buy an hPod (my name for it -- HP can send me a royalty check) over the existing Apple product based on exact functionality. My guess is the research doesn't exist.

Finally, HP is broadcasting the message that many of their strongest brand attributes are gone. No, I don't expect Joe Consumer to make a statement like that -- but I do expect him/her to pick up on it subtly. HP used to be about great, long-lasting products that led in their categories (printers, anyone?) both in terms of sales and innovation. They still do some innovation, but increasingly HP is trying to be all things to all people, and it's not working out too well. The clearest branding message from the hPod? That HP is a follower, not a leader.

I currently host MT and Mambo, and have also hosted other weblogs and nuke-type systems. Each has its pros and cons.

If you're comfy with Perl and want to hack extensively, MT is the natural choice. You can make it do damned near anything you want without hacking, of course (via plugins), but sometimes it's fun to mess around under the hood. Oh, and you can avoid the comment-spam problems you mentioned via a number of plugins.

If you prefer PHP, I'd say try Mambo (with a nice polling function built in) or Wordpress (which gets props because it produces valid XHTML/CSS and is clean, clean, clean on the admin interface.

Best advice: go to Open Source CMS and play around. They have default installs of a lot of CMS/blogging systems, and even let you play with the admin interfaces. Very helpful, all in all.

Mandatory plug for my MT-based weblog, here.

... It's just a different type of pass.

By chasing a chimera of of objectivity they can't meet -- and one the public would happily tell them matters more inside the newsroom than outside of it -- traditional newspapers have gotten further and further away from writing in a manner that readers can relate to.

This matters a lot because it's at the root of the "gotcha" journalism most local broadcasts engage in, it's one of the big factors behind the decline in newspaper readership and (most importantly), it's pissing away the trust that the U.S. model of press freedom spent 200-odd years building up.

The funny thing: Newspapers know this, but they're trapped by the by the same bundling mentality that's choking innovation in the telco market.

Disclaimer: I was a journalist for a bunch o' years and made these same observations then, too. Not a good way to make friends with the publisher's office.

The point: Most readers will trade off accuracy for someone who's openly in their philosophical or political corner. Another segment will trade off accuracy for immediacy. If you're both passionate and immediate, of course you're going to be a formidable thread to old-school media.

OK, maybe this isn't helpful at all, but it's meant to be.

First things first: You don't want to develop a site; you want to develop a business model that doesn't cost a fortune to set up and has some vague, distant hope of making you money. Lesson 1: A community site is a tool, not a means to an end, unless you're in the religion, politics or *nix-is-better-than-windows evangelical categories.

OK, so a site's a tool. Next thing to consider: Why do you want to pay all the people you mention? You brought up hosing (OK, you'll likely have to pay for that), but also artistic and web-design help, as well as DB management. There are scores of portal-style, slashdot-style and blog-style software packages out there -- go play with 'em a little. Most of 'em have a range of skins/themes you can download that might not be perfect, but they're a start. And do you REALLY want to build a custom app before you even figure out if your community is going to take off? Lesson 2: Quit overthinking -- if you're building a community site, then get something out there and put your energy into promoting it. If there's a market for it, the community will tell you how to make the site perfect because (repeat after me) you'll ask them every chance you get.

The greatest horror a new site -- or any new business -- faces is usually cash flow. Do you have enough money to pay the hosting bills? How long, in your worst nightmare, will it take the site to start making money? (Hint: Take that number, double it, and go up by one order of magnitude.) What are the quick ways to make money from the user base, what are ways to get additional money from users who have been around a while and what are the ways you can get long-term, sustainable income from the site? If you don't have multiple ideas for each category, you are going to hit a cash-flow problem. Lesson 3: Your great ideas are just that -- great ideas. But the thing is, great ideas are a dime a dozen; great execution is what makes people money. Have an execution plan.

This probably sounds discouraging, but it's meant to be just the opposite -- if you can do a little up-front planning, can resist the (very common) urge to overfret the technical details and over-buy from vendors/consultants, and can know in advance how you plan to convert eyeballs to money, then you'll likely see some success. These things are basic; it's just shocking how few people follow the basics. Disclaimer: I get paid to offer advice like this.

There are so many hurdles to starting a business that worrying about whether you can tell your employee to "shut the fsck up and get back to work" without having to hear about it over dinner that night. Having said that, look around in your community: In other cultures (Indian, east Asian, etc.) it's very, very common for a single family or multiple families to band together and make a business work. Some suggestions:

• Employees, not partners. Unless you need the equity, it's a lot easier to get out of employment arrangements that go south than out of partnerships.
• Maybe you treat them nicer than employees, but treat the *paperwork* just the same. Everyone gets an offer letter that spells out salary, benefits, hours, expectations, etc. Everyone gets reviews. Everyone has to document their time. Is it likely someone will sue you? No, but it *is* likely that disagreements will turn nasty if things aren't down on paper.
• If you can grow your way into it, have someone outside the family in a management role. Things go better if there's someone unrelated in the middle.
• Ask yourself: Do you really need the help? This is true whether you're hiring family or Joe Techie off the street. Employees are a steady expense in a world of uncertain cash flow -- make sure you're stretched *damned* thin before you commit to the expense.

Good luck! Oh, and noodle around my weblog for advice on business development and promoting your business.