
Business
Successful projects, part 2: Paying for Deliverables
Clients love fixed-price projects, because they have transferred the risk of the unknowns to the vendor. Even so, if the vendor cannot fully handle those risks, the entire project might fail.
Successful projects, part 1: Paying for Attention
Ask any contractor the most economical way to get a job done, and the answer will be "Time and materials." The reason? You are taking on all the project risk.
PCI Compliance: the risks of doing e-commerce
It goes something like this:
(Client): I want to add a shopping cart to my site. I heard that xyz cart is free, can you add that for me?
(Developer): Sure! That looks easy.
CRM is a discipline, not a tool
Whether you realize it or not, you're doing CRM already. Customer Relationship Management (CRM) has become a hot buzzword that all kinds of businesses desperately want.
Staying nimble with Drupal
What are the results you are trying to achieve? How can your web site help you get those results? These are a couple of questions we're starting to ask all our clients, and what we're finding often reveals some very easy things we can do to drive more results, quickly and easily.
Keeping up with the Changes
There's a few problems with setting up shop on the web. All of your competitors are right next door. You're in the worst neighborhood, with crooks inventing new tools to break in every day. That parking lot you just built now has to accommodate scooters and semi trucks.
A note to people planning development projects
1. EMBRACE YOUR INNER PESSIMIST...
This doesn't mean you can't be your usual, happy-go-lucky self! In fact, it's absolutely vital that you approach any project with a healthy 'yes we can' attitude.
What is the value of your web site?
Results. Return On Investment. Value. How do you measure these things in a website? There's one thing you can easily measure -- cost. Or at least the amount you actually spend to build and maintain a site. The others are far more troublesome to measure.
Fate doesn't like to be tempted
Not 4 hours after posting my most recent blog stressing the importance of setting up systems with disaster recovery in mind, fate stepped up and thwacked me. "Oh yeah, think you're so resilient?