Jun
7
A Problem Shared With The Landscaper
June 7, 2008 | Comments Off
This morning I woke up early to do pending work for one of my favourite customers. A few hours into it the roar from industrial landscaping equipment disrupted my concentration. My Landscaper and I have the same problem: The week doesn’t have enough days and the day doesn’t have enough hours. The amount of work [...]
May
23
Contractors: You Are Creating A Market
May 23, 2008 | Comments Off
When a full time employee goes on his/her own and starts selling his/her services there is one interesting thing that he provides the companies who may be interested in hiring them: A Market.
Big companies can’t offer services that they can’t deliver. But since the contractor offers to deliver services on their behalf, now they have access [...]
May
4
Where do you think they will get money from?
May 4, 2008 | 2 Comments
Banks have not been doing well lately. They got caught into a sub-prime mess of their own co-creation (the American Consumer, and overseas mortgage backed investors being their accomplices). They have also co-created a secondary mess: credit cards.
In the Old Days banks got money from charging Interest. In the 90’s and 2000’s they got money [...]
Apr
30
Charge Heavily For What You Know
April 30, 2008 | Comments Off
Charge Heavily For What You Know
…but give away what you do not know.
Often I am in a situation where I am called to provide advice and a satisfactory outcome to a situation where the Client doesn’t have the time or expertise to complete a task. I happily do the work: in my opinion faster and [...]
Apr
30
Creating a Market For Consultants
April 30, 2008 | Comments Off
I am currently offering services that are in higher demand than the available offer. That is fortunate for me, as you might expect that the law of Offer and Demand will be in my favor. In reality the macroeconomics law helps – but only if you can put it in a macro economy. [...]
Apr
17
NEED is a Four Letter Word
April 17, 2008 | Comments Off
Humans need air, potable tap water, food, and warm shelter. Humans want a TV, designer jeans, a 4,000 sqft. house, an iPod, and a Nissan Pathfinder.
There is nothing wrong in wanting something. It is natural to work hard to acquire or do the things you want. Buy what you want, just don’t fool yourself.
How many [...]
Apr
9
3 Year Education Jump Over The Years??
April 9, 2008 | Comments Off
The good news is that College Education has steadily increased over the years. So have high school education. What is surprising to me is that the ammount of people who complete 3 or less years of college has increased more dramatically than any other category.
As with any statistic, this is just a data source. You [...]
Mar
26
MiddleMan and Providing Value
March 26, 2008 | 1 Comment
I am an independent IT consultant. I think there are fewer of those than the industry needs. The important word here is “independent“. To me, an independent consultant or contractor is someone who helps advance the interests of the end client.
Sooner or latter a consultant finds out that they need more resources [...]
Mar
25
Portfolio vs. Portfolio – 20 Days Later
March 25, 2008 | Comments Off
Just to keep myself honest, these are the two portfolios I started tracking (my recommendations since March 6 2008).
This is my poor’s man portfolio experiment:
Company
Symbol
Start Price Mar/06
Actual Price
Win/Loss
Pepsi
PEP
70.13
72
+2.7%
Walmart
WMT
50.04
53.11
+6.1%
Yum Brands
YUM
35.80
37.8
+5.6%
ATT
T
35.06
37.76
+7.7%
This is my Technocrat Portfolio experiment:
Company
Symbol
Start Price Mar/06
Actual Price
Win/Loss
Cisco
CSCO
23.90
25.62
+7.2%
Intel
INTC
19.87
22.11
+11.3%
Microsoft
MSFT
27.58
29.10
+5.6%
Apple
AAPL
120.93
139.98
+15.75%
Had I invested in the DOW 30 (DIA), NASDAQ 100 (QQQQ) or SP500 (SPY), this is how I would [...]
Mar
20
Zecco: Free Trading and $100 To Top It Off
March 20, 2008 | 2 Comments
Long ago I had opened my Zecco Trading account lured by the Free trading offer. They still hold their promise and offer free trades if you hold a balance of more than a few thousand dollars. My initial visit to the website found it very cumbersome to handle. Way to many clicks [...]
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