9/8/2011

Dave Barger from LunaWeb visited the class tonight.  I have known Dave for about a year so I was excited to learn that he is one of the top resources for small business building in Memphis.  What I found most interesting about his presentation was what he said about keep of top of new inventions in technology.  He said it is exhausting.  I can see how this would be this case for a service oriented business that does custom software.  To compete with others, you have to be able to offer the latest 'toys' to clients whether they need them or not.  This can be both good and bad.  First, it makes great marketing pitches.  People love to see the 'sizzle' with the animations and pretty pictures and this certainly can be appealing to the customers of clients as well to help distinguish them.  It can also be a distraction.  There must be enough attention given to the business that the client is trying to conduct.  This could be difficult when implementing new features and techniques all the time.  This is another reason why I think I am more interested in a product oriented business.  In a product oriented business I would get to choose the business goals and then I could spend more time using technology to pursue those goals as opposed to learning a new business model for every new client.  I'm not saying that one is better than the other, but rather this is helping me learn which is better for me.