Which Widget Should You Use?

Among the top ten questions I get, something always comes up about office tools.  Everyone wants to know what I use.  They know I am picky and will return anything and everything that doesn't work.

I went ahead and put up a quick website with shortcuts to all the essential business tools we use for our business.  If you walk into my office, you will find it, or a newer version on our Amazon Affiliate Store.  Check it out at www.kuhltoys.com.  Everything is there, our speech recognition software, our desktops, all of it.  About the only things we couldn't get on there were the iPhone, iPad and Blackberry Torch.

If there is a category or something I missed, let me know please.  I am trying to make this as easy as possible.

Business and Economic Burdens

Growing up I used to hear people make fun of the "laugher curve".  I thought everyone was laughing at President Reagan and his economic policies.  Going through business school I learned that the "Laffer Curve" was some real economic theory by a real professor.

Here is a copy of the basic laffer-curve:

The big problems with the interpretation are pretty easy to spot.  Given this image it would appear that 50% tax is the ideal percentage for the Government.  That is no where near the case, The Horowitz freedom center noted that many thought the tax cuts President Reagan asked for were incorrectly thought of as only for the rich.  They were tax cuts for everyone, the popular media slanted the view.

Business and Friendship don't mix...

For most of my adult life I have owned businesses and been pretty happy with them.  Admittedly until the last few years, my businesses were based on stuff I was "pretty good at".  As long as you can figure out how things work you can always build a business, it might not be the right business, but you can still build it.

One of the things I hear over and over is "You can't do business with your friends." or "Don't mix business and Friendship".  This is a very strange concept to me.  If you trust your friends and they trust you, why can't you do business?  Most of our waking hours are at work, why not work with your friends.  Yes I have had a couple of deals go south and partnerships fall apart that started as friendships.  The real friendships survived the unraveling of the business involvement.  The people that just be-friended me for a "deal" went by the wayside and I am not that much worse off for it.

Building a killer business.

George Foreman is someone that most people think of as a "lucky" guy.  He made it as a boxer, and spent it all, then he made it again as a boxer and spent it all.  By his own admission he never liked boxing, he liked helping people.  George Foreman was also a minister, and it was during his time as a minister that he spent his boxing fortunes.

When George was approached with the Lean Mean Grilling Machine, he took that to the mat. It is an excellent lesson in rebuilding for both people and business.  If you missed the CNBC Bizography special there are some clips here worth watching if you are thinking of starting a business or own a business.

Are you a mile wide and an inch deep?

Every day you get out of bed, you have choices to make whether you realize it or not. The funny thing is how many choices we make subconsciously without even realizing we are doing it. We are always heading in some direction with every choice. As the old saw goes, “If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there.”

I had an excellent conversation a few days ago with Robert Menard. An industry expert in purchasing negotiations and systems for over a decade, Mr. Menard has a depth of experience that few posses. He has spoken to Congress about better ways to purchase. Mr. Menard and I talked at length about how he built his business to be one inch wide and a mile deep. I asked him about buying a car, and he referred me to someone else. He isn't a buying expert, he is a purchasing expert.

After the conversation I walked by a repair on our family house that I had made 10 years ago. The previous owners had a large dog and right at the front of the house was a dog door big enough for most 5 year old children to walk through. One day someone walked in and helped themselves to a bunch of my stuff, and now the dog door is gone.

Living with the iPhone 4 Day 68

When the first sliding windows touchscreen phones arrived I have to say I was almost giddy. I had been carrying a Motorola Razor (that I still keep as my back up phone) and a huge laptop. The new windows phone was going to solve my problems. I traded my sleek little Razor for a phone that by comparison was a small laptop.

The first windows phone I picked up was from HTC and as a phone it worked pretty well. The internet features and speed left a lot to be desired. It turned out for the next year I was carrying a bigger phone and the laptop. When my first HTC windows phone quit working due to “water damage”, I waited and got the “tilt”. I have beard from many people that the “tilt” was a significant improvement over the original Windows slider phones.

Living with the iPhone 4 day 57

Living with the iPhone 4 has been a challenge for me. Having been spoiled by the first two windows phones and then completely ruined by the BlackBerry curve, the iPhone has been an adjustment.

Last week or maybe even the week before, I had an AT&t employee and an Apple store employee suggest that I would be happier going back to the BlackBerry and getting the new Torch. Not being one to give up that easy, I continued to try and solve the issues I was having with the iPhone.