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Design a Virtual Office with Open Source?
apropos asks: "An interesting question came up recently when discussing (yet again) starting an open-source based consulting company: 'How would you design the ultimate virtual office with open source software?' With things like fax, VoIP, web, email, security and office suites all available as open source products, what kind of useful things could be done? One idea that came to mind was emailing answering machine recordings. What would you put into your ultimate virtual office solution?"
That's what I'd put into the picture. People. Remember, technology is nothing but an enabler. From the receptionist who answers your phone (can be in a call center, sure, but they should be breathing) to the monkey on the keyboard getting the job done, people are what will make the difference. Everything else is an end to a means, and besides - there's nothing like dealing with people to cut through some of the crap that we get day in and day out with this stuff.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
I haven't done it yet (largely because of the cost involved and my current lack of funds), but an open source VOIP system could kick ass and save you money. Phone systems are historically very expensive. It should be possible to run VOIP on your NAT router with an asterisk compatable phone card that supports say, 4 extensions (assuming a small office here). Phones are probably your biggest expense, but a complete phone system is often an order of magnitude higher than what can currently be implemented with VOIP in a small office, at least that's my take on it.
Slackware, what else when it must be secure, stable, and easy?
If your seceratay/personal assistant/receptionist isn't worth $40k a year you've got the wrong person in the job.
This isn't a place for a decorative "dumb blonde." That's Fortune 500 CEO stuff.
In a small, virtual, high tech company doing most of its work/business over internet/phone the assistants should be among the sharpest people you've got working for you, and payed for it.
They'll pay back their high salaries in triplicate. Thus they're cheap. The reduction of the assistant to a "seceratary" is one of the greatest tragedies of the corporate world.
KFG
. . .but I have to service my customers first and I only have 24 hours in a day.
Bingo! And your hours are more valuable taking care of those things that only you can take care of than they are taking your clothes to the cleaners and picking them up again, and all those thousand and one little tasks that the modern "seceratary" has been taught to refuse to do.
I've known salesman who payed assistants out of their own pocket when the company refused to provide one, because their time selling was worth more than the time doing the things the assistant did for them. And I'm not talking about million dollar a year salesman. I'm talking about people in their first year or two in the trade making $20k themselves if they were lucky.
Yes, startup is tough. You thought you were through living on Ramen noodles and sleeping on a hand-me-down sofa bed when you got out of school, didn't you? Now you've got all that again, plus the fact that you'll spend many a night tossing on that sofa bed wondering how in the hell you're going to make Friday's payroll.
You rich, bloody capitalist pig you.
Even so, you'll find that you're better off in the long run (like, within a year) hiring one technologist and one assistant than hiring two technologists, because that assistant will be leveraged into more, and better, work by both yourself and your technologist. The affect it can have on morale alone is astounding.
Use the software for what software can legitimately do. Like connect you with your technologists, and them with your customers. But use people for what only people can do, like making sure you never run out of toner, and thus lose hours of valuable work time while you chase after more instead of chasing after customers or getting the print job out by deadline.
Go to your local college and find a CE sophmore who'll take a part time internship for $7.50/hr, 10 hrs/wk.
Don't lie to them. Tell them they're going to be the office schlub for a startup with dubious finances and future. If they take the job they'll bust their ass for you with a smile on their face.
Just be sure to reward them when you've reached the point where you can. They'll be yours for life if you do that.
They'll piss all over you if you don't, and you'll deserve it.
And yes, I'll have a look at your software.
KFG