Behind The Times

I got a call from my oldest customer (15+ years!) today. No, it wasn't about work unfortunately. I had made suggestion on her LinkedIn profile which prompted her to see how I was doing. It definitely wasn't a cheerful conversation. Business is very bad for a lot of people.

But that's not what this post is about. We also talked about using social networking as a marketing tool. Of all the people I have worked with in the industrial automation business, she is the only one on LinkedIn. Think about that for a second. Now, if I say that most people in the automation business are hopelessly behind the times, do you think that is a total exaggeration?

(And yes, I'm well aware that I would probably find more of them on Facebook but I have to overcome the Facebook-creeps-me-out factor before I can sign up there.)

No More Industrial Automation

I am declaring the industrial automation side of my business is dead. It has been true for a while now but it is time to make it official. All of my contacts in the industry have gone silent and without them I have no way forward. There were some memorable projects but it is time to move on.

Marketing

I am spending way too much time on marketing these days. It has to be done but it is definitely not the most interesting part of being self employed. Plus, it seems to give me a headache.

Reversing Trend

The trend of sending manufacturing to China is slowly reversing - at least in the U.S. I haven't found similar stories about Canada yet, but in economic trends we usually lag behind the U.S. by a few months to a year. Canadian manufacturers who export to the U.S., and have to compete with U.S. manufacturers, must be reaching the same conclusion: that off-shoring is a bust for smaller companies.

The important point is that the manufacturing process has to be much more automated in order to be competitive. This is good news for businesses (like mine) that provide automation services. Still, the problem that remains is convincing business owners of the advantages of a custom solution versus the off-the-shelf ones, which have become more capable over the years.

Of course, none of this is good news for the general employment situation, since manufacturing traditionally employs the least skilled, and automation eliminates those jobs. Some trends will not be reversed.

Make It Count

I splurged in the last week of 2010, spending money on new hardware, and on a few domain names. Now I have to make those expenses count, otherwise it was just a waste of money, something I can ill afford.

The new hardware (a SATA card and drives) is for an old 2GHz P4 that will become my new mail and web server. However, the machines's primary function will be a media server, as it will have the most disk capacity of all my servers. The P4 is a power hog and isn't my first choice for a server system, but it's the only spare CPU box I've got lying around at the moment.

More on the domains later. ^_^

Bad News

I got some bad news today but it was from an unofficial source, so I can't get into the details yet. The news wasn't a surprise as I suspected something was up for a few months now. All I can say for now, is that this is definitely going to have a negative impact on my business.

This Is Not Good

I visited one of my long time customers today and they were deathly quiet. It was scary. There was not a single new project being assembled. The only thing they were working on, was an old project that's been stalled since the spring, and which they desperately need to finish so they can get paid. They are hearing the same story as I am: nobody has money to invest in new projects. It looks like we are all in the same boat. This is not good.

Doubt

The only thing worse than telling the customer the project isn't ready, is when you tell him it isn't ready and he can't tell that there is something wrong. In other words, if there is a problem, make damn sure the customer tries the parts that will fail. If you don't do this, you are sowing seeds of doubt, even if he completely trust you. Being forthright about what problems need to be solved, is always the best policy.

Warning Signs

Big music is doomed to die a slow, inexorable death. The numbers say it more clearly than any words ever could. The decision to suppress digital distribute by suing Napster, instead of embracing the new distribution opportunies, was the beginning of the end. Suing music fans for file sharing was just another step down the same path.

But will anyone else heed the warning signs of fighting digital distribution? Unfortunately, the answer is, no. The lawyers at the US Copyright Group have convinced the producers of the Hurt locker to sue 14,000 ordinary people for file sharing the movie. No, the lesson has most definitely not been learned.

We can assume that the lawyers who spearhead these sue-'em-all campaigns, always get paid, even as the businesses they supposedly represent, are failing. Once you allow your business decisions to be made by a lawyer, you are so screwed.

Same As The Old Boss

The CEO of Verizon claims that good ol' U.S. of A. is number one in broadband. This comment reminded me of how, in the 1970s, the CEO's of the U.S. car manufacturers dismissed the Japanese cars that were just appearing in the U.S market. Look where the U.S. manufacturers ended up 30 years later. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

One Month Down

If January was any indication, 2010 is still going to be rough for me, but there are hopeful signs. I'm seeing more activity among my customers involved in manufacturing. The projects are all very basic automation stuff which does not require someone with my expertise to complete, so they are of no direct benefit to me. However, these kinds of projects are the bread and butter of small automation shops, so it's good to know they won't be going out of business any time soon. Between them and my new contacts, there should be enough work to keep me going.

Specifications

Getting specifications out a customer is an art. You may get something so long winded and detailed that it takes days to understand. You may have to coax it out them. Either way, you won't have the complete story. Even the most detailed specification is never going to be complete. Of course, no matter what happens, you are expected to provide a fixed price quote with an exact delivery date. ^_^

Windows. Sigh

Sometime I wish hadn't done so much Windows development over the years. The problem is the systems are all getting old. The newest is already nine years old. The oldest is now 16 years old. Thankfully, the latter system has seen some improvements apart from OS upgrades, but all of the core functionality is still original.

The main obstacle is cost of course, even in good times never mind a recession. For me there is a bigger problem, however. These are all Microsoft shops and they'll have not yet seen the light of open source. This is a common in the smaller companies that are my usual clientele. Unfortunately, there not much I do except be there to offer advice when it is needed. I never try and persuade anyone to use open source.

So even if these ageing system are replaced, they will use Windows again. Sigh. If I'm lucky, the replacement systems may use open source databases, programing languages, and other bits, but that is the best that I can expect.

Making New Contacts

I got a new prospect for some Linux server work today. Yay! I don't how much work will be required yet but making the new contact is probably worth more than anything.

The contacts that generated most of my work in the past, have become moribund in recent months. To try and expand my circle of contacts, I signed up at Linked In, social network site that is caters specifically to professional connections. I don't know if will help at all, but there's nothing to loose. I decided to keep my profile public since the point of the exercise is to attract attention. Only two connections so far so I'll have to spend some time on that.

New Prospect

I built several Linux servers for a small web hosting company over the past year, and that has now led to a new prospect. Its a small job, just to setup Bugzilla on a CentOS server, but it should be interesting. It could lead to some sysadmin work too.

I'm doing a lot of sysadmin work lately and I find it is not really an area that interests me too much. But I need to diversify the business while I reevaluate the application development side.