GEEKNOTE: Change Is Constant

GEEKNOTE:  I've been writing these Geeknotes for Patch for over two years now.  This one will be the last one with the current tag line at the bottom:   

"(Rob also serves as deputy mayor of the City of New Port Richey. Opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent the position of the city.)"

Alex and I will be sitting down this week to chat about my time serving on the city council, so rather than steal his thunder, I'm going to concentrate today on the changes here with my day job at Gulfcoast Networking.

Along with securing more time to spoil my grandkids, one of the reasons I gave for my decision not to run for reelection was that I needed to spend more time over the next year concentrating on my business.   I've started that effort by taking an in-depth look at our sales and marketing activities.  We track how folks find us and that has given me several projects to work on during the coming months:

First and foremost is our website.  The last major refresh of our website was several years ago.  The old website was beginning to look a bit dated and it was becoming increasingly difficult to maintain.

I've been working on several web projects for customers and started playing with Wordpress as a web design platform a little over a year ago.  Wordpress is based on themes and I've looked at dozens of themes, most of which I didn't care for. 

A little over a month ago, I found a theme that had both the look and the features I wanted for our website.  Gulfcoast serves two very different primary markets, businesses and consumers, so I created two websites:  A business focused website and a consumer focused website. 

The business website concentrates on things that small and medium businesses are looking for in an IT company and how Gulfcoast meets those needs.  This is easier said than done.  We have business customers ranging in size from those with a single computer to those with over 500 computers.   The business website is still a work in progress.  I've got more pages to add to our "Expertise" section and some more "FAQ" pages to complete as well.

The consumer website is essentially complete.  The biggest difference between it and the business website is the inclusion of a blog on the consumer site.  The blog includes our monthly newsletter, selected Geeknotes, and shorter bits like one I wrote last week: Yeah, Right...

Much like this Geeknote on Patch, the blog allows reader comments and I'm looking forward to seeing and responding to those comments.

I'm planning on continuing to do my weekly Geeknote here.  I can't thank Alex and Patch enough for allowing me to share my thoughts with you.  My Geeknotes on Patch will continue to cover both tech issues and local community issues.

If you frequent facebook or have a twitter feed, you will see more from us during the coming months.  Twitter is both the hardest to make good use of and the most immediate in its timeliness.  Facebook is a bit of a challenge because the facebook folks keep changing the way things work.

Another change is that we have re-joined the West Pasco Chamber of Commerce.  The Chamber is under new management that intends to focus on building up the local business community and we think the time is right to become an active member again. 

We are looking for a self starter to work for us as an account manager who can get out and help us continue to grow our business.  I'll be training that person once we find the right person for the job. 

Beyond a sales and marketing standpoint, there are other things in flux in our world:

The technology we offer our customers is continuing to change.  I wrote about Intel's Next Unit of Computing a couple of weeks ago.

One of the parts of our new business website that I still need to write up is a section on virtualization.  We've installed new servers at two customers in the past three weeks that incorporate virtual servers.   This is an amazing technology that can be very cost effective for small businesses.  Windows Server 2012 significantly improves virtualization support compared to older versions of Windows Server.  I'll no doubt write a future Geeknote here about our experience.

I suspect the next twelve months will be a busy one as our business customers finally give up their XP boxes for something new. 

Even our phone system is getting tweaked.  We are now taking full advantage of a feature in our phone system that allows it to call our cell phones when someone leaves voice mail on our office phone.  This is great when we are traveling and need to know when someone is looking for us.  Unfortunately, the phone system has been a bit too persistent in letting us know that we have voice mail, calling every few minutes until we pick up the voicemail.  This can be a problem when we are in a meeting with someone and don't want to be disturbed.  Fortunately, there is an easy programming fix for this issue.  We'll get the notification that there is voicemail without a slew of repeat notifications.

The next year promises to be quite the ride.  I hope that you will continue to keep up with my latest articles on Patch.  It should be a lot of fun.

As always, feel free to drop me a note or give me a call if you have any questions about your computer or the Internet.

Rob Marlowe, Senior Geek, Gulfcoast Networking, Inc.
http://www.gulfcoastnetworking.com

(Rob also serves as deputy mayor of the City of New Port Richey. Opinions expressed here are his own and do not necessarily represent the position of the city.)