Karl-Peter Gottschalk: BusinessBusiness is not just for businessmen - those grey-suited grey-faced people in old movies on TV. Business is for people who want to control their own destiny in a way that working for the Man does not allow.Do You REALLY Need MS Office- August 16, 2002 Here is another great article by Charles Haddad for BusinessWeek Online where he writes about whether Microsoft Office is really as necessary to have as most people believe it is. &160; &160; &160; Very timely, when Microsoft is whingeing about how it has failed to meet its sales projections for the Mac OS X version of Office. Some people out there do grasp that you do not actually need it, and can get along just fine without it on their computers.http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2002/tc2002087_7792.htm Beware The Luddites Amongst Us.- August 16, 2002 I had a meeting yesterday with 4 guys, 2 of whom evidently do not understand the nature of the world we now live in and the way the Internet has changed how business is conducted within cities, between cities and across the globe. &160; &160; &160; They were trying to be devil&8217;s advocates, but they just succeeded in making themselves look silly. I don&8217;t think one of these guys has ever used a computer, much less email and the Web, in his life. Certainly he came across as very...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100271/categories/business/2002/08/16.html#a583 Beware Scumbag Accountants.- August 16, 2002 Sometime early this year, unbeknownst to me, my accountant in Sydney suddenly got tired of it all and sold her business to a competitor in the same street. &160; &160; &160; She had always talked about going off and doing something arty. She was one of the few accountants in Sydney known to be sympathetic to people in the arts, and all their problems in a society that still regards creativity with suspicion. Good on her. &160; &160; &160; However, on selling the business neither she nor...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100271/categories/business/2002/08/16.html#a581 The Last 1% Takes 99% Of The Time.- August 12, 2002 That is a truism that I recalled late last week while waiting for the last bit of content to arrive from the agency and client for the Jalna website. &160; &160; &160; I want to wrap this thing, upload it and get on with something else. But this last 1% is taking forever.http://radio.weblogs.com/0100271/categories/business/2002/08/12.html#a564 Death of an Australian Design Icon- August 10, 2002 The Caroma stool, an Australian design icon born sometime in the 1960s or 1970s and still alive up to the present day, seems to now be under threat. &160; &160; &160; I wrote about this product in When We Had Quality. The stools have been priced ridiculously low throughout their history, most recently being available for $12.95 each. Compare that to the $100 or so that you pay for a Philippe Starck-designed Italian-made stool in Oz. &160; &160; &160; The only place I have ever seen Caroma...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100271/categories/business/2002/08/10.html#a557 Selling Computers, For No Markup.- August 10, 2002 As a sideline I intend to direct retail Apple Computers and other devices, ergonomic input devices like trackballs and art tablets, the best cases and bags, ergonomic high quality split keyboards, RAM and so on. &160; &160; &160; I have already made a few sales of these kinds of things, but because of the new business scheme&8217;s strictures I cannot charge a markup on these sales. I was surprised at how easily I have been able to sign up as a reseller with the distributors in the east for...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100271/categories/business/2002/08/10.html#a556 Even More Limbo.- August 10, 2002 The grey and damp days that have been prevailing this winter in Perth have not helped at all. The weather has reminded me every day of being in England. &160; &160; &160; That web design project I was doing during the course, that I was not meant to be doing according to the rules and regulations, still has not been completed. The client is still pondering whether they want more content in it, and the creative director has been pondering more illustrations to go in it. &160; &160; &160;...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100271/categories/business/2002/08/10.html#a555 More Limbo.- August 10, 2002 I was told late Friday that I will go before the committee next Thursday. Meanwhile I must rewrite my business plan and financial projections yet again. I have been told to inject what in my book are more lies. &160; &160; &160; We have to lie in these documents because the people on the committees do not actually seem to understand business, or at least the kind of businesses many of the people trying to get into the scheme intend to conduct. &160; &160; &160; My meeting last week was with.http://radio.weblogs.com/0100271/categories/business/2002/08/10.html#a554 Living In Limbo.- August 10, 2002 For the past two months I have been enrolled in a federal government program to assist people into starting their own businesses. Sounds great in theory, but whenever government gets involved in things it fails to understand then it always screws up to some degree. &160; &160; &160; First came 5 weeks of a mostly boring and repetitive small business management course. We were required to attend all day every day, and if you did not turn up for four days then you were unceremoniously ejected...http://radio.weblogs.com/0100271/categories/business/2002/08/10.html#a553 |