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December 17, 2004
Personal Internet Software Consultants
I understand that Jeremy Wright's business is taking off. He's hiring bloggers to post to company blogs. This brings to mind another trend we may see develop.
Software in the form of CGI, PHP/MySQL .NET ASP scripts and programs is becoming increasing more difficult for small business people to understand. As the web matures, programming evolves, the complexity of the programs we have at our disposal is in some cases almost as complicated as some software you could install on your own hard drive.
Let's take Microsoft Office products for an example. How many adult learning courses do you hear about that trains people to work with these programs? My sister-in-law just finished a course on Excel.
Let's look at some recent examples from my personal experience.
There is the client who was recommended he should use 1shoppingcart.com for his ordering system. This online service is meant to be user friendly but he did not understand it, and asked me to setup his autoresponders, links, etc... and whenever he has a question about it... I have to read the manual for him and give him the answer.
BUT... this isn't just limited to 1shoppingcart. Whether it is remotely hosted or installed on a private hosting account, more and more people are becoming intimidated by the complexity of the programs, and claim they don't have the time to read the manuals to learn to work with the programs.
This is a problem...
The first rule of being an entrepreneur is to find a common problem and provide the solution.
Me?
No, no,no,no!
Yesterday I had six jobs to do for six different people. One job was installing a program on a customers website. It was a fairly simple installation. I did it in about 10 minutes... logged onto the program to make sure it is functioning and did a couple of minor tests.
The customer doesn't understand how to work with the program (he thought it would be simple)... doesn't want to take the time to read the manual, or access the customer support discussion forum. He assumed since I was a programmer that I would automatically know how the program works.
I don't!
I know how to install the program, check to make sure it is operating properly, but the installation of such software isn't even remotely connected to learning to use the software. Again take for instance Microsoft Office... I was able to install my first Microsoft Office in 1997 on my computer. But the ability to install the software on my computer doesn't necessarily mean I automatically become an expert Office user.
Ahh!
This opens the door for "Personal Internet Software Consultants" ... people who are willing to trade their time to help manage, use and learn complex web software for small businesses.
What do you think? Am I missing my bet here? Or do you think this will be something to watch for in the coming years?
Posted by Steve MacLellan at December 17, 2004 11:25 AM
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Tracked on December 26, 2004 04:23 PM
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