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The secrets of a system integrator. My Journey of Startup, Product + Project Development
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It turns out a “how-to” interview I did with Andrew Warner of Mixergy got published today. Happy Thanksgiving in Canada, indeed. 
When Andrew asked me to share, I was honoured. Andrew accesses very cool people in business and tech, and asks them the deeper questions we all wonder about. Luckily, I was only doing a “how-to” interview, haha.
I hope my contribution of information furthers what Andrew is working to put out there. I can’t recall picking a Mixergy interview to watch and being disappointed. It’s quality stuff.
One skillset that I’ve learnt and and continued to develop over the last 12 years is systemizing and automating things in businesses. I hope you enjoy it and future posts on systemizing and automating in a business.
http://mixergy.com/jas-panesar-damaag-interview/
Why systemizing sucks less than not systemizing
10, Oct 2011When we read about systemizing, there can be a sense of dread of having to do it.
So much writing. Documenting. Trying it out. Make sure it works.
It’s seems easier and faster just to do it yourself, right?
In your business, is it your job to do everyone else’s job? Or is it your job to help figure out how to best do something?
Take a look at your actions. We go off figuring out the latest item we need to get running smoothly for ourselves. We want to make our own lives easier. So you decide to document it, scribble down some notes, and know that in a few months you’ll have enough to go back on. Bask in satisfaction of a job well done. Kind of.
Are you really finished? Or did you just systemize a process into being more efficient for just yourself, and not for your business? Don’t know what I mean? Systemize yourself so you can pass your expertise into your business to become systemized, and run that one thing without you.
This is a second post diving into the mind of entrepreneurs and understanding why systemizing is the most critical thing they need to go while they build their business. When we start a business, we have a dream. Of a life. Full of creating and living. Remember that?
That dream doesn’t always happen as we plan. An undisciplined business can take over every non-business area of your life if it’s left to carve it’s own path. A new business is a new born and it needs constant attention and feeding and direction. I learnt that first hand in the early days of my freelancing/contracting career around 1999-2004 before I made myself see my work for what it needed to be: A business first. My time since has been spent getting better at it every time something goes how I don’t want it to.
Let’s agree on one thing before exploring it from this perspective.
What is a business? Something that creates value and can run without us.
We don’t own a business until it can run without us. Until then we own a job we can’t quit because it cant run without us, and we’re too invested to easily quit or change.
My last post about How to systemize and Automate any business was the starting point of something I want to write more about.
It was pointed out to me today that there’s not a lot out of actionable information out there about how entrepreneurs can systemize their business. More of a problem, entrepreneurs don’t know why they should keep systemizing a high priority.
I have some information on how to systemize any business. That’s a pretty crazy thing to say for some. But, I’ve been thrown down a lot of wells too and learnt a lot and keep learning more every day. Hear me out, let me know what you think, and test what I’m saying. It’ll help me clarify it even more.
I’m going answer one question in this post:
Why must you systemize as much as you email, breath, sleep and bathe?
How to systemize and automate any business.
7, Sep 2011Look out information hoarders. Knowledge isn’t power, applying knowledge is power. 15 years of being thrown down many problem solving wells is about to rain down some cold hard facts!
So, you have a business. Like any business, you need answers from every system in your business. The funny part? Every business wants the same answer from their data.
WHERE IS EVERYTHING AT?
That’s all anyone cares to know. On demand. Get good at it and there’s a future for you.
Automatically presenting this answer through systemizing is what I do as a Systems Integrator. I first make it simple to use what you click and read. Then under the covers, the complexity of what you do is busy working away for you 24/7.
If you’re looking for for meaty, applicable experience, here’s the first post in hopefully many. If more software was built like this, or better, we wouldn’t have so much bad, time consuming, hard to use software.
- In: Business| Business Technology| Customers| Productivity| Startups
- Tags: automate, systemize, systems integration
Ideas are worthless. Tune out the noise.
17, Oct 2010Ideas are worthless. There’s three things any ideas need to become reality. Time/Money, Technical Talent, and ability to Sell. If the idea doesn’t have those three it’s stupidly harder.
Generally, avoid idea people like the plague. If they don’t have money, tech talent, or the ability to sell, it won’t work out. If Idea-only people won’t put their money where their mouth is, no one’s time is worth it. I never sign NDA’s with first timers. If person has never had a success and they’re already scared, it’ll only get worse.
Having a profitable business alone isn’t success.
Every business needs cashflow (and profit) to survive like the body needs oxygen, food, and air. Just because a business has cashflow, doesn’t mean it’s a success, much like we aren’t a success in life just because we sat around and survived.
I recently decided to switch over to it full time instead of using Entourage 2008 and discovered a strange crash with Apple Mail whenever I’d try to start it up.
Trying to start Apple Mail would leave me with a message of “Mail had quit unexpectedly.”..
A distant lightbulb went off in my head and I realized it might have to do with my Marketcircle Daylite software and it’s plugin to the Apple Mail, and the Daylite server, which syncs my calendar, todo, projects and contacts automatically over the air.
- In: Productivity
- Tags: Apple Mail, Daylite, Mac, Snow Leopard
The Mac came back.. the very next day?
4, Dec 2009Anyone who doesn’t purchase extended warranty from Apple for their Macs needs to read this.
I put a lot of time on my 15″ Macbook Pro. An average of 8-10 hours a day. Every day. The last 3 years since I switched back to Mac (since we all started on Apples in elementary school) have been incredible. No longer have I been tied up dealing with Windows to do the smallest things like connect a new camera to get a photo to fight with drivers. For the most part Mac just works, gets out of the way and let’s you focus on the task at hand.
Then, there was the day the music died. November 16th, 2009, for me, to be exact. I remember it, like it was yesterday. I am working at the office, no problems. Arrive at a clients, and the screen won’t turn on. Try to reboot, no luck. Everything seems to be turning on, except the screen. Strange.