1. Make sure the work is documented.

Just think what would happen if a consultant decided to pack up and leave one day. Do you have clear instructions on how to continue operating the system, or do you have access to their documents in an editable format? Losing a good consultant is enough of a change but having to search for documentation once they have left can leave you frustrated! Ask within reasonable means to have work well documented, reviewed periodically and maintained in a central repository.

2. Be informed.

Make sure consultants keep you informed of progress and of course any potential problems. If you think meetings will be a waste of time then insist on regular reports via email. You don’t want to deal with ticking time bombs.

3. Acronyms.

Even though you and the IT professional will have a solid understanding of the industry and project at hand, acronyms can still cause a lot of pain. Ask consultants to define acronyms they use so you can be clear on the content and context.

4: Learn by doing.

If the consulting is training, ensure you attend and be part of the training process. i.e. don’t just sit around and watch – be part of the presentation, ask questions, get up and draw on the whiteboard. Insist on getting hands on experience, purposely make mistakes to ensure the consultant covers error handling. Learning by doing promotes critical thinking and will quickly make you an expert into new systems and processes

5. Expenses.

Set daily limits for hotels and other expenses. Whilst most consultants are reasonable with their expenses almost always you will get a few who will behave as a prima donna and demand to stay in the best hotels and travel business class. To avoid such issues be clear and upfront with consultants on the expenses they are allowed. Better yet, simply set a per diem allowance and leave it up to the consults to manage that amount. The worst you can do is not set an agreement in place and have to deal with unreasonable reimbursement claims down the track.

6. Be clear on leadership.

This may sounds simple but I’ve observed this issue countless times in various organisations. Be 100% clear on who is in charge of the project, that is, who ultimately has the final say, whether you bring in a small number of consultants to complement your existing team or a whole team of developers to create a new software systems. Ensure this is discussed upfront before the project begins and/or is made clear during the project so everyone is aware on who is responsible and who has ultimate authority.

7. Have measurable milestones.

Rather then have percentage statuses reported back to you, such as “analysis complete 80%” insist on a sign off date. This ensures that “complete 80%” status is still not 80% a month later.

8: Ask to be notified before long absences

IT consultants will often have multiple clients and multiple projects. However, as the client, you have a right to know when they are absent from your location. Even if they have documented their work and/or gained approval from their consulting company is no excuse for them to not to inform you. Ensure they always inform you of extended absences.

9. Give feedback.

Keeping quiet when you have issues with IT consultants never helps. Don’t let issues fester. Speak to them politely and if the issue can’t be resolved then escalate it to their boss or bosses. If consultants have done a good job then ensure you compliment them for it. Recognising good work is guaranteed to ensure that they will extend themselves for you in the future.

10. Have a turn over plan.

Consultants may have developed the system and may stick around to operate and maintain it, leaving you and your staff the time to do other things BUT you don’t want them to stick around the office forever. In my experience the output achieved from IT consultants tends to drop off the longer they linger. So have a plan to either turn over your temporary consultants or have a hand over of the system they have implemented.

There are several reasons why the mobile browser and hence, web applications will prevail over native applications. Currently mobile operating systems are severely fragmented. To give you a bit of an idea we have iOS from Apple, Android from Google, WebOS from HP/Palm, Bada from Samsung, Symbian from Nokia, Blackberry OS, MeeGo, Maemo, Linux and now also Windows Phone 7!

Try asking a developer to create a native application that works across all phones. Most will give you a dumbfounded look, others will tell you your crazy, but some will pursued you to go completely mobile web. The web is the common platform that all phone operating systems and browsers are united under.

So it’s not surprising to see some big market players making big moves into this area:  Sprint Nextel the third largest carrier in the USA will introduced a new browser based mobile applications service promising developers the tools to create web applications and value added services which span across the different operating systems and device form factors. Expected to be released in the first half of 2011 it’s a system which will be composed of open APIs giving developers the ability to quickly build web applications that leverage location, content adaptation, security and analytics. The solution is also touted to include a range of monetisation models like targeted advertising and content conversion services.

A further development which is no surprise given these guys have been creating widget based content for years is the introduction of Widgetbox Mobile. It’s the same team behind ClickTurn ads. Widgetbox mobile aims to help businesses build mobile web apps in minutes. After using their solution I have to admit it’s very slick and easy to use. It’s basically a DIY platform which allows you to build HTML5 based web applications which work on the iPhone and Android platforms (Blackberry support is apparently on the  road map). You can use images, icons, skins, social media buttons, splash pages, slide shows and polls. As you build the application you get a preview window so you can always see how it’s eventually going to turn out. It’s a little pricy in my opinion at $25-$100 per app, per month, likely pricing most small businesses out.

The space of mobile web app v native apps is clearly polarised, and as the old saying goes we could take about it until the cows come home and so I’ll leave it to Jason Alderman (@justsomeguy) and Matthias Shapiro to rap battle it out. Thanks to 0m4r for discovering this vid.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=fchbLzwtexk

Let’s face it most people just plain don’t like managing their business books. Hiring an accountant to take away this pain helps to a certain degree but you still need to do your regular housekeeping. For several years I used spreadsheets to track my income and expenses…it worked out OK at first but over time it because a daunting task.

Each month I would copy the details from a previous month and then save the file in different directories on my business PC. Then the clients would change billing methods so I’d have to change my spreadsheet and refile the document in different ways, overtime this directory had filled up with messy files and I was stuck with a problem which was more messy then a spaghetti bowl.

I did some research and I found out that the market for online business bookkeeping was relatively small with only a handful of companies offering systems which allowed contractors or freelancers to manage their records online. At the same time several friends of mine who were facing similar issues with spreadsheet based bookkeeping hell and were keen to build a system from scratch to solve a ‘not so’ unique problem. Several months of late nights and a thousand coffee cups later we invented Net Numero.

Net Numero set itself apart in simplicity as it’s tailored to the freelance and contractor market. I’ll be covering Net Numero in more detail in the following months as we introduce a range of new features, in the mean time head over to the Net Numero website to find out a lot more.

Nothing turns away visitors more than a poorly designed website. Let’s face it, most sites on the internet today ARE poorly designed. When I discover new sites they almost always contain basic design flaws.

Most of the clients I’ve worked with in the past think websites are a cheap method for getting a business name out there … in many ways that’s actually true. Unfortunately many business don’t think about their competitors online strategy which, could be to ensure they have the best web design for their market. Customers visiting a site are likely to base a large part of their purchasing decision on the professional perception they have about the website.

So if you want to use the online channel to boost the bottom line then you better invest some time and money into developing a professional, attractive and modern web page that will stand out.

It’s not hard, whether you do this yourself or contract an agency or designer to do it for you. The following points should always be considered when designing a website.

KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid)

Just because you have content doesn’t mean you need to add it to your site. Many businesses stick large amounts of text and look at design as a secondary priority. Go with the “less is more” approach. A basic homepage, with some bold branding. If a site overwhelms a visitor with content they will simply leave, remember the death by power point saying…well the same goes on a site, death by content! Use plenty of whitespace to break out sections, this allows the users to focus on the sub messages you want to portray and marks out the calls to action (explained below) more clearly. Another reason for keeping it simple – mobiles. More users are accessing websites on smartphones and tablets now and your website should appear just as attractive on those devices as it does on a big monitor. Whether it’s on an iPhone, iPad or Android device, you need to take into consideration how it’s all going to appear.

Consistency

Make sure you use consistent fonts and graphics that fit into the overall brand. Your logo and colours should reflect the company that you are. Keep in mind that the styles will be used offline on items such as printed stationary and signage. Select a colour palette and and stick with it. If you use the Antenna font then stay with Antenna, don’t change halfway through a design and decide to implement the rest of the site in Arial.

Calls to Action

Every website should give users an action they can fulfil as soon as they visit. It could be signing up to an email address list, putting in their information or clicking on a poll…these are the calls to action. They should feed into your design – the text should be bold and visible and stand out. A good method used to highlight a call to action is to use an individual graphic as it is more attractive to a user then plain text. Look at the use of bold colours, and then use buttons, messages and links to drive the user into purchasing or doing something else. Always remember to make the text very clear so the user knows what they are about to do. Part of good web design is to ensure these calls to action are all over the website, whether its “Get in Touch” or “Buy Now” or “Signup”, ensure it’s consistent, simple and most importantly clearly visible on the site.

GREAT! Navigation

It’s not good having a site when your users can’t find their way around it! Creating a solid and fool proof navigation system is critical. If your site is small (less then 10 pages) then opt for a horizontal primary navigation approach. It if contains many pages then it might be worthwhile implementing a control which reveals lots of different options that are triggered by hovering over or clicking over a menu option. It should be possible for your users to make their way through to the bottom page of the site in a matter of seconds. Keep sub pages distinct and purposeful – remember not to clutter! You can use different techniques to achieve great navigation but don’t forget to implement some basic principals such as the use of breadcrumbs…if your site is large with more then 10 pages and several layers of navigation then breadcrumbs are great. They are a popular way of allowing users to find exactly where they are.

Creating a great looking website is not difficult if you follow tried and tested principals. There’s no need to be a design guru just remember to keep it simple, clean, consistent and clear.

The right thing for small businesses to do today is to move away from from keeping it all internal and move towards an external model….to the cloud. Yes, it’s a fundamental change but one which has gained traction with a plethora of online SaaS (software as a service) providers. Whilst, I don’t think it’s possible to eliminate everything locally one thing is very clear: we are all heading towards the cloud to fulfil key business functions.

Some examples of cloud based software services areas include:

• Accounting
• Customer Relationship Management
• Helpdesk
• HR & Payroll
• Document Creation, Spreadsheets & Presentations
• Project Management
• Invoicing & Payment – a start up area I’m currently working in.

…there are many more.

So what’s the big deal…

There are many advantages. Primarily there is a key money saving advantage, with no large upfront expense in terms of software license or hardware purchases and installation costs.

Usually providers will charge a small fixed monthly fee allowing business owners to spread their costs easing cash flow.

With no ongoing maintenance fees or electricity costs associated with running-dedicated servers, users simply need a personal computer and an internet connection.

Some things to consider…

There are a few things to consider when making the move to the cloud if you’re a small business owner.

1. Portability – does the provider allow you to move your data away from their system. Do they provide the data to you in a common file format such as CSV.
2. Security – are secure measures in place by the provider to protect your data from intrusion and unauthorised access.
3. Integration – does the software integrate with other applications in the cloud, this is particularly useful as small businesses expand and required additional features which the provider may not offer.
4. Longevity – this is hard to qualify as there are so many providers in the online space, some will last longer then others. This means more emphasis should be placed on point 1, even if a provider goes bust you will still be able move your data away.

Developing for devices is not a hard game to get into. With well documented APIs, downloadable development kits, tools & videos, backed by internet behemoths Apple and Google further coupled with a strong community of existing developers – it’s not hard to see why developers have produced over a 300,000 iPhone and 85,000 Android applications to date.

Other incentives for developers and development houses to create device specific apps are:

Attractive revenue splits: developers keep 70% of revenue from paid applications. The splits are the same across Apple and Google with Apple retaining their 30% whilst Google are currently opting to pass their 30% onto network operators and partners.
Easy billing: Both Apple and Google have established billing relationships or can establish a relationship quite easily should customers want to purchase applications. Apple have had this relationship with it’s customers through the iTunes store whilst Google have introduced Google Checkout. Without the need to integrate complex payment systems into their own applications, developers simple focus on functionality. Another barrier developers need not consider.
Continuing growth: Androids adoption by manufactures, carriers and customers is rampant, a recent US study had Android in second spot with 28% market share compare to Apples 21%. However Apple have not really faltered, with the introduction of the iPad & iPhone 4, even more applications are now being introduced into the Apple app store.
Low cost of inception: got a computer? got internet access? it’s as easy as that with Apple even providing development membership with access to additional resources for a measly $99/year. Expensive tools like Visual Studio are not required for a developer or small development teams to get into the game.
Low total cost of ownership: deployment or hosting overheads are eliminated with the marketplace hosting developer applications, a prohibitive cost for developers on a shoestring budget.

It’s hard to predict when, or even if, native application development will stagnate, prompting developers to seek new models or users to be behaviorally coerced into using alternatives. However, if we look at 4 new offerings in the mobile market we can draw some predictions. By no means do I mean this to be a well researched prediction but more or less what I’d like to think of as an educated guesstimate as to what the next year will bring into the mobile internet landscape. The following are in no particular order:

Sencha: From the creators of ExtJS, these guys have been around for years, most notably having created a robust Javascript framework used by many web applications. It was certainly used to power multiple applications for previous clients of mine and I can vouch for it’s rapid development abilities and expansive library of UI controls. The company behind this original framework have no created what is dubbed “The First HTML5 App Framework”. It there success with ExtJS is anything to go by then get ready for some creativity unleashed as the framework taken up by more and more web developers. The Sencha framework promises developers the ability to develop and deploy essentially a mobile app site with the look and feel of a native iPhone or Android application. Taking a look at their Kitchen Sink examples it’s certainly impressive. Transitions are smooth, there is already a vast array of controls to use, the framework picks up multiple gestures and I’ve found it to work just as well on both my iPhone 4 and my Nexus One. The killer app for me was solitaire allowing users to use gestures and utilize local storage so I could come back and complete my game at a later time.

Jolicloud: from the creators of NetVibes, is a free new netbook operating system which recently came out of beta to v1.0. Jolicloud sounds promising in it’s attempts to mix both native apps and web apps. It preaches “bringing all the benefits of cloud computing” not sure how true it is but having run it on a virtual machine the interface is pretty and it does make discovering content seem like childs play.

hahlo: is a twitter client developed to run as a rich AJAX enabled application right from your mobile browser. Personally I find the user interface fantastic. It comes with options to view your lists, mentions and messages. Clicking on ‘Menu’ displays a great looking modal overlay which will trick you into thinking it belongs in a native app. Clicking tweet is magical…you know where I’m going with this one so best if you check out the web app yourself and make up your own mind.

Chrome Web Store: from Google opens later this year. Google are building an app store directly into their browser offering! not a bad move given they already have so much scale and have been advertising everywhere. On a recent trip to Paris I noticed on the underground, Google Chrome ads which eventually made my travelling partner – a local Parisian state “I’m going to check out Chrome from Google”. Clearly underground advertising works. Given Googles user base a big element then will bring is educating users about the so called web apps. Thanks to Apple people know about the App Store, expecting apps to be made available locally on their handset – and now Google have an opportunity to not only push web apps to browsers but to sync these with the Android operating system.

My personal view on this is as the internet become more pervasive and ubiquitous in the developing world and speeds improve in the developed world we are going to turn to the browser to deliver more of our consumption needs, more so in the mobile space. It will take time – no doubt. Web apps need to be more discoverable, but throw developers new technologies such as Sencha, support it on the mobile, and we might just find gravity moves away from Native Apps towards Web Apps.

I was so wrong !

HP have completed an astonishing turn around. They posted almost USD $130billion in revenue this past year making them the worlds largest technology company. They are going strong in multiple markets from printer dominance to overtaking Dell as the top PC manufacturer. They have even had a stab at Apple having released sleek and smart looking HP Envy laptops. Having aquired players such as EDS and 3COM, HP have signaled they are ready to taken on anyone. Once of HPs ways are:

“We encourage flexibility and innovation.”

A key ingredient I am sure in it’s transformation.

“In any arms race, the bullet makers win”.

2 guys from the GWT (Google Web Toolkit) team Ray and Joel have ported quake 2 to run on the browser!  No it’s no April fools joke as I originally thought.

Specifically they have taken Jake2 which is a version of Quake 2 (opening sourced by ID Software) and compiled it into Javascript using GWT. The final results are impressive. They claimed to have achieved 25fps on a Macbook and 60fps! on a Linux notebook. The port includes sound, has local storage + multi-player between Mountain View HQ in the States and Sydney, Australia was also tested … in short freakin impressive!

So What?

It’s a milestone.

As one of the developers indicates in his own post -

“I hope that this port encourages some people to become even bolder and crazier in the types of Web Apps they’re trying to build, because if Quake2 is possible in Javascript using browser APIs, then even more amazing applications are waiting for you to develop, so get started!”

Both these guys have demonstrated to the Internet community (trolls included) that anything is really possible in the browser using HTML5. The significance is more important for applications rather then gaming. Today more and more applications are being released on the Internet with the power that was only ever previously experienced on desktops. With the shift to cloud computing and SaaS it’s an approach clearly here to stay.

For mobile application development this is equally significant. Right now device manufacturers, media and telecommunication companies are all scrambling around to build their own application ecosystem generally centered around using traditional desktop languages and wall gardening developers & consumers into a specific channel. e.g. Symbian, iPhone, Android, Black Berry.  With the use of HTML5 developers, consumers & companies don’t need to rely on distribution through a single ecosystem, nor do they tie themselves into web technologies such as Flash or Silverlight. They can develop for the biggest channel of them all – the browser.

If your keen to try the port yourself you can get it here.

Or check out the end result in this video.