Sustainable/Open Business

I was talking with a new client the other day who spends a lot of money on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM) to try to get people to visit his online store. And yet his blog -- what search engines value most -- was on wordpress.com.

At Monday night's MIT Enterprise Forum event, Mark Anderson headlined a fascinating sideline discussion of the "Coming Tech Wreck."

We're growing quickly at Freelock, and I've been interviewing candidates for a number of positions.

As we delve more and more into ways to make our customers' organizations run better, we keep an eye out for things we can do to make their jobs easier. One big problem lots of our customers have is out of date contact information for their customers, members, or audience.

Business Intelligence. Customer Relationship Management. Big Data. High Speed analytics. A/B Testing.

Just back from attending TEDxRainier for the second time.

I'm having a lot of discussions about CRM systems these days. What is CRM? To hear many talk about it, it's some magical program you buy and suddenly you start getting more business.

I have been interested in setting up clients with blog sites for a few years now and I know they really help drive business to your website. Any way you can continue to let your potential clients know how knowledgeable you are on your profession is a bonus.

Crowd-funding is a pet favorite topic of mine. It's the opposite of taking control over a shared resource and turning it into profit -- it's building something that benefits everybody, enlisting a large number of people to make it happen.

Customer Relationship Management. After the term being around for the past 15 years or so, it seems CRM is becoming a really hot thing right now.

Block and Tackle Businesses. That's what my father-in-law calls them, regular businesses that aren't going for sexy venture funding, but critical to a functioning economy. Businesses that perform a valuable function, and grow on their own revenue more than anything else.

Starting a sustainable business is like starting any other business in one way: you need some capital to get it off the ground. What differs between different kinds of businesses is how much you need.