Over the years students have asked/suggested/cajoled that I write a book with the information I present in my classes. For starters I decided to pull together all of the tutorials I have written for my Web Development course.
The Secrets of a Web Developer is now available for $39.00. You can view some excerpts from the book as well as the complete table of contents out on the site.
There are over 300 pages covering all the major aspects of web page development with lots of screen shots and graphics and step-by-step instructions.
The
Web and the Internet
XHTML markup
Page styling with CSS
Page layout
using CSS
SEO – Search Engine Optimization
Design Principles and the Design Process
Web Marketing
An introduction to JavaScript
These tutorials were written for anyone interested in learning
how to build web sites with no prior knowledge of programming or HTML.
This is an entry-level book and all you need is an understanding file
management and basic typing skills.
The tools are all free. You will need a color-coded text editor (such as NotePad++)
and a browser. FireFox is recommended because of the many add-on tools that are available.
Researchers (Bloom (1985), Bryan & Harter (1899), Hayes (1989), Simmon & Chase (1973)) have shown it takes about ten years to develop expertise in any of a wide variety of areas, including chess playing, music composition, telegraph operation, painting, piano playing, swimming, tennis, and research in neuropsychology and topology. The key is deliberative practice: not just doing it again and again, but challenging yourself with a task that is just beyond your current ability, trying it, analyzing your performance while and after doing it, and correcting any mistakes. Then repeat. And repeat again. There appear to be no real shortcuts: even Mozart, who was a musical prodigy at age 4, took 13 more years before he began to produce world-class music. In another genre, the Beatles seemed to burst onto the scene with a string of #1 hits and an appearance on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. But they had been playing small clubs in Liverpool and Hamburg since 1957, and while they had mass appeal early on, their first great critical success, Sgt. Peppers, was released in 1967.
Being a programmer is a state-of-mind. And if it your passion, those ten years will fly past before you know it.
Here’s some points that Peter lists as Secrets to Success:
* Get interested in programming, and do some because it is fun. Make sure that it keeps being enough fun so that you will be willing to put in ten years.
* Talk to other programmers; read other programs. This is more important than any book or training course.
* Program. The best kind of learning is learning by doing.
* Work on projects with other programmers. Be the best programmer on some projects; be the worst on some others. When you’re the best, you get to test your abilities to lead a project, and to inspire others with your vision. When you’re the worst, you learn what the masters do, and you learn what they don’t like to do (because they make you do it for them).
* Work on projects after other programmers. Be involved in understanding a program written by someone else. See what it takes to understand and fix it when the original programmers are not around. Think about how to design your programs to make it easier for those who will maintain it after you.
* Learn several programming languages. Include one language that supports class abstractions (like Java or C++).
So, as you struggle with that obtuse error message, or work through a re-design or a re-design for a program that just didn’t work right keep in mind that challenge to move out just beyond your current ability; making yourself an expert in your field.
On Monday, February 23rd I’ll be presenting at the Marketplace for Entrepreneurs, a free conference being held at the civic center in Mankato, Minnesota.
I’ll be talking about using the Web as a Marketing tool and will be discussing:
Obtaining a domain name and hosting service
How to use the web to check on your competitors
Tips ‘n tricks on getting your website developed
Things every web site must have
How to improve your SEO (Search Engine Optimization)
Google Analytics and AdWords
There are over 20 speakers presenting on three different tracks throughout the day. So, if you are in the Minneapolis/St. Paul, Mankato area you should check this out.
On February 11th, 2009 Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times, “We live in a technological age where every study shows that the more knowledge you have as a worker and the more knowledge workers you have as an economy, the faster your incomes will rise.”
What are you doing to become a knowledge worker?
Knowledge Worker – a person employed due to his or her knowledge of a subject matter, rather than their ability to perform manual labor. It includes those in the information technology fields, such as computer programmers, systems analysts, technical writers and so forth. The term can also refer to people outside of information technology but who are hired for their knowledge of some subject, such as lawyers, teachers, and scientists.
Leverage your knowledge of the Web. Here’s a great opportunity to meet some really interesting people and help non-profits with their web presentation.
Sierra Bravo is a web design group in the Minneapolis-St. Paul area and they are putting together their 2nd annual Overnight Website Challenge.
The Challenge: Build ten teams of volunteer web pros to create free websites for ten nonprofits. Last time we dropped the F-word (free free free) we had more takers than we could take. Sierra Bravo fully expects that this kind of loose talk will again open the floodgates for non-profits seeking help and do-gooder types with mad programming chops. So, until there are no more good nonprofits with bad websites, let’s do it again.
Even if you aren’t a professional coder I’m sure the folks at Sierra Bravo would love to have you pouring coffee or making movies.
Be a part of the movement of using the Web to help change the world.
– Thanks Jesse for sending me this link!
Plan to attend? Post your experience as a comment to this blog entry.
As domain names become more scarce you might want to think about saving your own. Many people use their own name. Right now this may seem like a vanity thing, but it could be a valuable professional asset in the future.
Think of 5-10 domain names that you would like to own, then do a search to see if they are available. You’ll be surprised to find out how many are already taken. You can use Network Solutions to see if the name is taken. (Virtually every hosting service allows you to check domain names.) You can register your domain name for around $15/year.
Once you have a domain name you will need to get a hosting service if you want to have a presence on the Web. Some hosting services offer free domain registration, but their monthly rates are much higher.
Be smart and get the license to your own domain name now while you still can. Most likely it will become a valuable asset in the years ahead.
There’s a new web site, Animoto, that builds animated videos automatically from your photos and music. Here’s a sample version of some shots from my Mexico trip:
You can make a short video for free or a longer video for $3. Use your own music or choose from the music on the Animoto site. You can email the results or embed them in a web page like I did here.
One idea is to make the video and then record a voice over and replace the music track with your voice over. You can also include images with words to get titles and key ideas across to the user.
One of my students sent me a link to an excellent article on things to be aware of when purchasing a web hosting server package. Here are some highlights from Jason Faulkner’s article:
Be cautious on paying for your own dedicated server
Be skeptical of the claim “Our Data Center Is Top Notch”
Cisco router and firewall (I have a Linksys – a division of Cisco – home router with a built in firewall).
100 mb backbone (all my equipment and NICs are 100 mb capable), but you would probably see gigabit backbone instead.
Backup power supply (pick any consumer level battery backup).
Climate controlled environment (we have heating and air conditioning).
[insert a stock photo of row of server racks here which I paid $20 for the rights to use.]
Granted this is a very absurd example, but you get the idea of how easy it is to stretch the truth.
Avoid The “Free” Domain Registration With Hosting Package
If there is nothing else you take from this article, remember this: Never let your hosting provider register your domain name for you as part of a hosting deal. Often times you can purchase a hosting package which includes free domain name registration and renewal as long as you remain a customer. While this may seem appealing, it is the worst thing you can do because your hosting provider, not you, owns the domain. This may not sound like a big deal, but as soon as you want to move hosting providers, guess who controls your domain? Not you. Worse yet, there is absolutely nothing you can do to get control over your domain unless the current owner (the hosting provider) transfers it to you.
Be Aware of “Unlimited Bandwidth and Storage”
Less Than $5 Per Month Hosting: As the adage goes… you always get what you pay for. Putting it bluntly, if you are paying $3 per month for hosting, you are only going to get $3 worth.
Beware of the claim ” 99.99% Up-Time Guarantee”
If you do the math, 99.99% up-time means the server is only unavailable 4 minutes and 22 seconds per month (53 minutes an entire year).
Don’t trust the offer of “100% Free Hosting”
bandwidth is not free. Make sure you read the fine print in any agreement claiming this as most likely there are ads embedded somewhere in your site, or the hosting package is so limited that it is virtually worthless.
Google Alerts is a great tool to help you keep the pulse on specific topics being published to the Web.
Set up alerts for any topic you are interested in:
sports team
products or trademarks
your domain name (who else is referring to it?)
favorite topics or business names
people, famous or otherwise
The service is free and whenever Google sees a phrase that matches your Alert it will send you an email with links to that page.
Here is an example: I work with Drupal, an open-source content managment system. By setting up an alert for “Drupal” I can find out about all the latest reference to this program including potential security holes someone has discovered, tutorials, and new books.
Leo Baubuta on the FreeLanceSwitch blog writes about the 10 Essential Habits for FreeLancers:
One of the things about being a freelance worker is that it is so free.
This can be a tremendously liberating thing — but it can also be intimidating, and confusing, and difficult. Without someone forcing you to work, why should you? It’s much easier to find distractions instead. And if everything’s up to you, that also means you’re responsible for everything — from start to finish. And that can be tough, especially when you’re just starting out.
The key, I’ve found, is to develop certain habits that will keep you not only disciplined but successful. Simple habits, to be sure, but ones that can go a long way towards taking you from a broke freelancer to a happy and productive one.
You don’t have to be a free-lancer to make these habits useful. Entreprenuers and students can use these as a guideline to become the person you want to be, to accomplish what you want to accomplish.
Here they are in summary with some of my own notes:
Market yourself. Marketing is about connecting what people need with what you have. Advertising is part of marketing, and so is good customer relationships (word of mouth advertising and viral advertising).
Be persistent. It is commonly said that a person needs to hear/see/experience the connection or message at least 7 times.
Be professional.
Set and meet deadlines.
Find focus. Concentrate on your current task or project, and eliminate distractions so that you can focus on this one task. Get everything else out of the way, and really focus. I use the David Allen’s principles outlined in his book Getting Things Done (GTD) and use Chandler and iGTD on my computers to help me focus, focus, focus.
Find time. Or, I think of it as "make the time"
Awesome quality. When you’re done with an assignment, go over it again, and look for mistakes, and ways you can improve. Sometimes you just need time to let a project "simmer" until it is ready for that professional garnish.
Follow up. This is how you build relationships.
Billing. This is another aspect of being professional. Be timely and consistent.
Building a rep.Your reputation is your best asset. In all areas of our lives.
"It’s possible for a person to have an overwhelming number of things to do and still function productively with a clear head and a positive sense of relaxed control.", David Allen, Getting Things Done (GTD)
I’ve been running Chandler for several weeks now and am using it as a stand-alone application to help me get things done. The software is designed on the principles presented in the best-selling book "Getting Things Done" by David Allen. David’s concept is to get everything out of your head into a system. After all, our short-term memory is only 3-5 things. With everything in a trusted system (like Chandler) all you have to do is scan through the lists for the "What’s next?" item.
Chandler was a little perplexing when I first installed it but then I picked up a copy of David’s book and everything fell into place. Its amazing how quickly the stress of getting things done disappears and how much better I can concentrate on a single task (like writing this blog!) without being sidetracked by so many different things.
Chandler also offers a free server so projects and to-do lists can be used collaboratively. I will be setting one up to work with my advisor as I finish my Master degree project. The program runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It is still in beta but it runs very quickly and smoothly. This is a nice piece of software and a great application based on solid principles.
Here’s a short tutorial that shows how to install and use Chandler. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 have some great screen shots showing how the different aspects of the program work to help you organize your tasks and projects. After you play with the program for a few days, get the book and you’ll really be able to utilize the power of stress-free productivity.
TED does it again. Check out this amazing demo that was shown at the TED Conference (Technology, Entertainment, & Design) in Monterey, CA.
Using photos of oft-snapped subjects (like Notre Dame) scraped from around the Web, Photosynth (based on Seadragon technology) creates breathtaking multidimensional spaces with zoom and navigation features that outstrip all expectation. Its architect, Blaise Aguera y Arcas, shows it off in this standing-ovation demo. Curious about that speck in corner? Dive into a freefall and watch as the speck becomes a gargoyle. With an unpleasant grimace. And an ant-sized chip in its lower left molar. "Perhaps the most amazing demo I’ve seen this year," wrote Ethan Zuckerman, after TED2007. Indeed, Photosynth might utterly transform the way we manipulate and experience digital images.
Blaise Aguera y Arcas is an architect at Microsoft Live Labs, architect of Seadragon, and the co-creator of Photosynth, a monumental piece of software capable of assembling static photos into a synergy of zoomable, navigatable spaces.
One of the phrases that keeps resonating from Blaise’s presentation is how much your photo is enriched by being part of this collective memory. Your photo, when grouped with these others becomes an emergent entity which is greater than the sum of its parts. The last half of the presentation demonstrates this so well as Blaise shows individual photos working together to make an amazing image of Notre Dame. Cellphone photos, SLR photos, even a poster is all enriched with this collective memory of photos.
Thanks to Matt Potocnik for sending me the link on this one.
In 1984, John Gage, from Sun Microsystems, coined the phrase "The Network is the Computer" to describe the emerging world of distributed computing. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Gage) This was only three years after the stand-alone, non-networked PC had been introduced to the workplace, and most people dismissed John’s idea. They couldn’t comprehend what he was talking about. To them the computer was the new beige 386 computer sitting on their desk running Windows.
Now, over twenty years later, we are starting to understand what these five words really mean.
A few years ago Tim O’Reilly the O’Reilly book publisher coined the term Web 2.0. Below is a memory map created during the first FOO camp describing this "new" approach to the Web that reflects John Gage’s statement from 1984. (The FOO Camps are invitation only, no plan, tents on the lawn, geek fest to help O’Reilly find out what’s on the radar. The name comes from the common use of the word "foo" and "bar" traditionally used by programmers to designate an example variable name.)
Figure 2 – "meme map" of Web 2.0 that was developed at a brainstorming session during FOO Camp, a conference at O’Reilly Media
Web 2.0 utilizes AJAX making the difference between client and server virtually transparent. Instead of the old-fashioned click-and-wait as the client requested a web page from the server, mouse moves and clicks give immediate results and making the user think that everything is happening on his or her computer. (Google maps was the break through application of this type allowing people to "dragging" the map to see a new view instead of clicking on it and waiting for a new view to arrive from the server.)
Web 2.0 applications such as You Tube, MySpace, Wikipedia, del.icio.us, and Flickr encourage sharing and collaboration of all types of content. The user becomes king of the content. Instead of being fed pages, users create the content of a site. Instead of simply running programs or viewing web pages people are participating in a collective intelligence.
Instead of reading static pages we are interacting with each other on a global basis. Communications with people around the world are possible through IM (Instant Messaging), emails, postings, and web discussions. Instead of a private list of favorites you can now create a public list of annotated favorites with de.licio.us. Suddenly, a list of bookmarks becomes a fine-tuned search engine showing the best pages by keyword saved, shared, and annotated by everyone in the deli.cio.us world.
Instead of a Word document held captive by your word processor, you can now write collaborative documents on line using Google Documents & Spreadsheets. For example, I use Google Docs for committee meetings giving everyone the chance to add to the agenda as well as to view minutes and efficiently create collaborative documents instead of clumsy email attachments.
In the last module of my Web III (XML) course I discuss the phenomenon of emergence, a part of System Theory. Emergence demonstrates how complicated systems can be created from a series of relatively simple interactions. Examples include ant colonies that change personalities over a thirty-year period even though none of the individual ants live more than a year and there is no central leader ant (the queen’s only purpose is to lay eggs, she does not direct the colony). Or slime mold made of millions of individual spores. This mold forms when conditions are conducive and can "crawl" through a maze to find food, yet none of the spores has any brains and none of the cells act as a leader or catalyst. (These and many other examples are highlighted in an excellent book named Emergence by Steven Johnson.)
Our networked world and the Web in particular demonstrates the concept of emergence. Millions of connections are making a new, emergent entity. We are no longer simply interacting with the computer sitting on our lap. Now we are responding to the Web itself, the result of millions of seemingly insignificant additions from people (and computers) around the globe. The Network is truly the computer just as every web page, blog entry, forum question and answer, and You Tube video (and resulting comments) makes us part of its existence. To represent this concept Dr. Mike Wesch, an anthropology professor at Kansas State University put together the video entitled: Web 2.0 … The Machine is Us/ing Us. He posted it on You Tube where it became one of the most popular videos in 2007.
The network is the computer and the computer is Us.
Data is money, and probably the most important data you can maintain is your customer list.
In an earlier posting I had mentioned Kurlo which I have been using for several months now. But, I hit a few bugs and it just didn’t have the power that I needed.
Earlier I had looked at Sugar CRM but it was too much and very cumbersome to work with. I also couldn’t figure out how to set up categories for each contact and suspect that that is a feature that is only available in the commercial version.
This weekend I finished an install of XRMS, an Open Source CRM (Customer Relationship Management) program located out on SourceForge. Installation only took about 30 minutes, but I’ve been fiddling around for several weeks converting my Kurlo data into the XRMS tables. (XRMS has import templates for most popular software such as Outlook, Act2000, Goldmine, and SalesForce if you already have a customer list in one of those).
I now have the ability to keep track of meetings with all of my students as well as my business network, and clients. Like most CRM packages there are tables to keep track of companies as well as individuals. I can also track Activities, Opportunities, Cases, and Campaigns.
Activities are used to maintain contact with a client and to increase business. For most businesses this would be a follow up sales call. For me it is usually my student advising or the committee work I have set up for the high school Career Expo each May.
Opportunities are sales opportunities. For example, a business may find out that one of their customers will be changing their name in the next few months and will want their entire web site rebuilt. The follow up on this opportunity for that company or individual could be easily tracked using XRMS.
Cases are used to support client issues, like help desk activities and bug reports. A case is set up for an individual contact or a company.
Campaigns are primarily marketing-related. They take the form of direct mailings and similar efforts and are directed towards companies and contacts. Campaigns have a fixed budget and take place over a fixed duration. I might do an email campaign in a few weeks to all the people that have inquired about our program, telling them about the Registration Dates and our new online Orientation.
Right now I am running the program on my laptop but it would be an easy transfer to move it out to one of my web servers so the other faculty members in Computer Careers can access the data. XRMS is PHP/MySQL based so it will run on either a LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) server or Microsoft’s IIS. I’m using MAMP on my Mac. Or, you could use EasyPHP to set up a local LAMP environment on your Windows machine.
For my convenience, I also added a link on my FireFox favorites bar so the program is just a click away whenever my browser is open.
As part of the open source movement I will be writing a tutorial on how to transfer data from other programs into XRMS.
Follow up (June 8th, 2008)
I have quite using XRMS due to its limitations. I found the table setup to be very bulky and the input very cumbersome. Also, the online community support has virtually died out and it seems that no new development is being put into this application.
I’ve since migrated to address book on my Macintosh. It easily syncs with my iPod Touch. It also keeps track of the groups I need, and is very fast and easy to access. I found that I can also click and drag information from Entourage (the Mac version of Outlook) into Address book. If I need to follow-up on a call I just drag it over to my Mac calendar.
Every once in awhile the power of the Web still surprises me. Recently, reading David Pogue’s blog from the New York Times, I discovered a real gold mine: The TED Conference. Technology, Entertainment, and Design.
Every year some of the brightest people in the world meet in Monterey, CA for a few days to talk about what they are doing. It costs $4,400 to attend a conference and the 2008 conference is already sold out. Speakers are not paid but get to attend the conference for free. (You can also request an invitation from their website based on your enthusiasm, ideas, and success in your field.)
A little pricey you say? But wait, they’ve put some of the presentations on line. You can watch the videos of some very amazing presentations . Each is about 20 minutes (although there are a few three minute specials), and you will be thinking about them for days. The TED videos are especially effective if you watch two or three in one setting. I usually catch a couple before I go to sleep at night, just to give my brain something to think about in my dreams.
Here’s a quote for the upcoming 2008 conference, The Big Questions:
"Many people come to TED seeking something out of the ordinary. A chance to mentally recharge. A chance to step back and consider the really big stuff that’s happening. A chance to understand life in a richer way. "
Check out these videos and you’ll see what they mean.
Aaron Bartell from RPG-XML Suite presented during my Web III (XML) course last week. Joining him was Matt Potocnik, the webmaster with the City of Mankato and Jesse Daniels, a software engineer at DayPort, a streaming video company. All three have successfully finished our Computer Careers program here at South Central College.
Aaron covered a lot of the alphabet soup that comes with XML discussions and demonstrated actual code that utilizes web services, both in a simple, easy-to-see manner and using a real-life example. He also recounted his experiences as a student, learning about the iSeries midrange computers from IBM. As an employee of Krengle Technology, Inc., Aaron wrote some code that allowed a client to access XML documents with their IBM iSeries (AS/400). This was an area where IBM didn’t have a lot of tools so they decided to repackage their work and sell it as a product. RPG XML Suite was born and the company now has six employees. The software Aaron wrote fills a distinct need in the industry that it doesn’t look like IBM will be filling any time soon.
Along the way Aaron has published several articles in technical trade journals and he told the class how to go about this and how satisfying it is. Aaron told my students, "When you learn something new, just write about what you know. You don’t have to be an expert and know everything about the topic." Here’s a copy of Aaron’s PowerPoint presentation. Check out the list of skills employers look for on slide #6.
Aaron also spoke about what organizations are looking for in employees now days and listed several important traits.
Matt and Jesse joined in talking with Aaron about how they use XML in the "real world" Matt talked about being able to update the Civic Center web page using RSS feeds which are XML based. It is an elegant fix that allows updates without a whole lot of extra web coding and minimal support. Matt also told the class about his firm belief in the Java platform when he was in school. Ironically, once he evaluated the needs and basic assumptions of the city, he made the decision in making the shift from Java to the Microsoft Dot Net platform. It just shows how important it is to evaluate all of the tools that are available. Matt also talked about developing your own position in the IT world. He was an intern at the city for over a year before they created the web master position. During that year he worked hard to help develop many changes that made the position possible.
Jesse talked about the video streaming they do at DayPort and how he is working on a project that will incorporate XML with Flash. Jesse also does web page design and has developed a complete PHP framework that allows him to build very complete web sites in minutes. Check out his web design portfolio at http://www.longloft.com/.
Afterwards several of the students mentioned how interesting it was listening to the three developers exchanging ideas and offering each other solutions for solving various projects each of them are working on.
Thanks for coming in and sharing your experiences with the class Aaron, Matt, and Jesse!
People understand the Web because they use it every day. But, not everyone knows how easy it is to get your own web site up and running on the Web. You can do it for less than $40/year.
Domain Names
The first part of getting published is to get your own domain name. A good domain is hard to find because most of the common ones have already been taken. You want one that meets the following requirements:
describes your site
is easy to remember and easy to spell
is available on the Web
The DNS (Domain Name System/Server) keeps track of all the domain names on the Web so there are no duplicates. Domain names can be ordered from InterNic and other DNS vendors. For your convenience most web hosting services allow you to order a domain name as one of the services.
An annual license for a new domain name will cost about $17/year. Many web hosting services offer domains for free or very low priced as a loss-leader. Existing names are more expensive. Many people around the world purchase domain names hoping to resell them later. Often names licensed names will cost $1,000’s, especially if a company really wants a particular name as part of their product identity.
Because of the scarcity of good names it is best to make up a list of 20 or 30 names that would be appropriate for your web site. Prioritize them, then visit your web host provider as outlined below and do a search for each one. Be ready to purchase any you find. I’ve heard tales of people searching for names only to come back a few days later to find that their names have been licensed by someone else.
Purchase as many years as you can. (This is one of the criteria that Google uses to determine how to rank a web page.) Also, think of purchasing multiple endings (.com, .org. .net) as well as multiple names. If there’s a variation (or commonly misspelled version) purchase that as well.
Keep in mind that domain name licensing is separate from having pages published on the Web. You can license a domain name now without having the added expense of hosting a site right away.
Because of their high value and growing scarcity, a good domain name is an important asset for any company or business.
Web Hosting
There are thousands of hosting services available. A simple search on the Web (for example: web hosting comparisons) will give you lots of options.
Beware of GoDaddy.com. They are very popular right now and market their services heavily. However, their servers have very strict policies and a lot of tools such as Drupal, a popular CMS (Content Management System) , and CGI scripts are very difficult to install.
Building Web Site
You can create your own web site with a text editor and a browser. Cost: your time. More sophisticated web programmers use DreamWeaver from Adobe/Macromedia. Please don’t use FrontPage. It is now defunct having been replaced by Microsoft’s new product: Expression. There are also many free web editors available including NVue, FirstPage, AlleyCode, and Amaya which runs on Mac OS X as well as Windows.
Often people take my Web Programming I course just to learn how to write HTML and build their own site.
If you don’t have the time or inclination to build your own web site you can always contact the computer science or art department at your local college. Ask if their web students need projects to work on. For example, my Web Programming I and Web Programming II courses both have capstone requirements involving community business partners.
Your Own Piece of the Web
So, for less than $40/year you can have your own site up on the Web. At the very least you should consider setting up a personal home page. And, if you are an entrepreneur (or even thinking about being one) now is the time to get your piece of the web. At the very least, reserve your domain names.
Want to see more details on all of this? Check out my business presentation out on my web site: Web Marketing
Your business plan is one of the best tools you have to communicate your vision and excitement to a lot of different people. It doesn’t have to be a dry, boring document. Here are some ways you can make it into a document that reflects all the critical areas that people in the business world are interested in.
There’s five easy pieces:
Executive Summary
Describe the products/services (buildings, inventory, technology, manufacturing)
People and Stakeholders
Marketing
Dollars and Sense
Each of these is like a puzzle piece that affects the other pieces.
Writing a business plan involves writing each of these once, and then going back in and reworking them as new ideas and relationships surface as other sections are completed. By breaking the business plan into these five steps it becomes much easier to write and refine.
A business plan should be viewed as a working document. It helps to think of it as software that changes with different revisions. Each revision can be released and utilized, but the software is always being improved and extended into new areas. As your business grows it will need other, more detailed solutions. Your business plan documents this so others know and can realize what version you are currently using to run and operate your business.
The following highlights some common questions that may help you finalize each piece.
Executive Summary
People that read business plans for a living have very little time. The Executive Summary is written to make their job easier and more interesting.
In just a few paragraphs you not only want to capture the essence of your company, but catch the reader’s interest as well. Write this once and then revisit it each time you’ve finished working on one of the other sections. Then, weeks later, revisit this summary again and read it with more objective eyes.
Don’t labor too long over the Executive Summary. But reread it, rewrite it, and refine it often.
A good way to start is by writing five bullet points answering who, what, when, where, and why.
Frost your executive summary by adding a catchy headline. Not too cutesy, but something that will pique everyone’s interest. Keep in mind the old newspaper example for catchy headlines: Dog Bites Man vs. Man Bites Dog
Products/Services
Describing the products/services you are offering describes the what of the business plan. A simply as possible describe the products and services that the company will be offering. If you have multiple products/services give each one its own section.
For now just write a paragraph describing the product or service. Don’t add any fluff, or if you do, edit it out later.
Writing this section may trigger lots other ideas for marketing, and people, and money. First of all, try to stay focused on describing your product/service. But, if you are worried you might forget your ideas, go ahead and jot them down as a footnote. That way you can grab them and include them later with more details as you work on the other pieces.
People
The people piece is the who of your business plan. You will want to describe the owners of the company and list your board members. In addition, include the different types of employees (job descriptions) that are necessary to offer the products/services you’ve already described.
Being a small business it is necessary that several people may do many different tasks. It’s not unheard of for the President to also be in charge of sales as well as head janitor, especially during the start-up phase of a company.
You’ll want to demonstrate the team of experts that you are using to make the company successful. Depending on the business you will most likely be using an outside accountant, legal counsel, technology expert, and marketing consultant. Listing each of these professionals shows you know how to build a strong management resource team.
You probably have other stakeholders as well. Include them as part of this section, describing what their involvement is in the business.
You can mention the customer as one of your stakeholders, but the customer is so important that they get their very own piece. It’s called Marketing.
Marketing
Marketing is best summarized by the two questions: Who is the customer and what does he or she need? Marketing includes all the activities that involve determining who the customer is and making a connection between them and the product/service being offered.
This section can get fairly involved. You may want to set up several subtopics describing the following:
Who is the customer? If you have different target customers describe each one.
What needs does the product/service meet? It is often helpful to envision a particular person that you know that fits the customer profile being targeted. Simply describe the traits this person has and how the product/service will meet his or her needs.
How will we tell the customer about the product/service?
How will we inform people about the company? (goodwill, publicity, community service)
How will we inform people about specific products?
Different types of media to be used (web site, email campaigns, brochures, magazines, trade shows, articles and white papers)
Where is the target market located?
Describe the sales process (handling leads, closing the sale, customer service and follow-up after the sale)
Who is the competition and why are you different?
Marketing calendar
List the marketing activities will you be doing each month for the next twelve months.
What were the actual results of each of these activities
What should be done differently next time? (discard the activity, modify the activity, combine it with another activity)
This section will probably have the most information and be changed frequently. It is recommended that the marketing calendar be made an active part of your business activities and be updated often.
Dollars and Sense
This piece describes the why of the business plan. You might be in business for several reasons, but most likely it is to make a profit. This piece shows what things will cost, what your margins of profit are, and how much profit you plan to make.
As the company becomes older it is very helpful to include past history as well as projections. Don’t go into vast details here. Just give monthly or quarterly sales as well as fixed costs (salaries, rent/utilities, supplies) and variable costs (production materials, research & development, taxes).
Two important items to include in this piece:
Margin of Profit (MOP) – This is a percentage showing how profitable an item is or a product line, or sales in general.
Return on Investment (ROI) – Compares how much money is made when compared to how much was spent. If you invest 1,000 dollars for a new web site that brings in only 500 dollars for the year, than the ROI is very poor. However, if you can show that the web site will probably increase sales way beyond the 1,000 dollar investment, than the ROI is very good. MOP and ROI work closely together. If you are working with a very low margin, you will need much more sales before you can see a return on your money. On the other hand if you have a high margin you can see immediate ROI. But, a higher MOP may increase the sales price too high, resulting in loss of sales and a smaller return on the investment.
Summary
Your business plan is probably the best way you can communicate your vision and excitement to a lot of different people. These five steps will help you write a business plan that is effective and helpful. You may use it to help secure a business loan, to determine what and how you are going to proceed in business, as well to get others excited about your ideas and the potential of the company’s future. Don’t forget to smile as you write it. After all, it is your future!
I just finished putting together a session about blogging that I will be presenting to faculty members at our annual in-service training here at South Central College.I originally wrote this for the Minnesota SCSC Young Writer’s Conference back in May and I’m amazed on how vast the blogsphere has grown. Earlier blogs seemed to be mainly young, male college students filled with angst and/or technical folks talking about technology. They have now become an excellent source of information from experts in virtually any field. Its a rare search on Google that doesn’t bring up at least one blog entry with the information I need.
Here’s the blurb for the session:
Be A Blogger - Presented by Peter Johnson You will want to attend this session because you will learn:
What a Blog is
Famous (and some not-so-famous) bloggers from around the world
How to start your own blog in five easy steps (Blogging is free!)
The Benefits of Blogging
Four Golden Guidelines for Bloggers
How to be Safe On-Line (a great section if you plan to have your students blog.)
Explore what you are passionate about. Build a business using the power of the Web. Read these articles to find out tips and tricks on doing this successfully.
Have something to add? We are always interested in your ideas.
Leo Baubuta on the FreeLanceSwitch blog writes about the 
Every once in awhile the power of the Web still surprises me. Recently, reading 
People understand the Web because they use it every day. But, not everyone knows how easy it is to get your own web site up and running on the Web. You can do it for less than $40/year.
Photo from