I feel likeTranslate server error today
Written 2 months ago by MIKETEE (11 August 2008)
Filed under Miscellaneous
When it comes to translating your business name into another language, it's best to double-check with someone first. Especially if you're using web-based translators!
Via: AdFreak
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We've rebranded to "MatchBox Lite"!
Written 81 days ago by MIKETEE (17 July 2008)
Filed under MatchBox Lite: Updates
We've kept ourselves very busy the past few months with massive behind-the-scenes work on MatchBox CRM.
Yesterday we released a new website which marks the first milestone in our rebranding efforts. In the past few months, we realized that the service has grown beyond being just a "CRM". We felt that the name did not do it much justice, and after much contemplation, we've decided to rebrand MatchBox CRM to "MatchBox Lite".
Why "Lite", you ask?
Because we believe that the word "Lite" embodies the spirit behind the service. MatchBox Lite is a simple software for simple needs. It doesn't boast of extraneous features, or attempts to solve all existing problems. It is built to be easy to learn and use, does what it needs to do, and then get out of the way.
There's a lot more work still to do, and the rebranding process will be done on a progressive basis to eliminate any inconveniences to our users.
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Customizing your own logo
Written 103 days ago by MIKETEE (25 June 2008)
Filed under MatchBox Lite: Updates
Existing users - noticed anything different logging into your MatchBox CRM account today? In case you haven't noticed - your company logo is showing!
That's right, you can now "personalize" the MatchBox CRM interface with your own logo. The same logo that you upload is also used in the Invoices, Quotations and Receipts modules.
Logos can be updated via System Settings > My Logo. For best results, upload only a GIF or JPEG, and resize it to no more than 150px (width) x 60px (height).
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The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing
Written 109 days ago by MIKETEE (19 June 2008)
Filed under Business & Entrepreneurship
1. It is better to be first than it is to be better.
2. If you can't be first in a category, set up a new category you can be first in.
3. It is better to be first in the mind than to be first in the marketplace.
4. Marketing is not a battle of products, it's a battle of perceptions.
5. The most powerful concept in marketing is owning a word in the prospect's mind.
6. Two companies cannot own the same word in the prospect's mind.
7. The strategy to use depends on which rung you occupy on the ladder.
8. In the long run, every market becomes a two horse race.
9. If you are shooting for second place, your strategy is determined by the leader.
10. Over time, a category will divide and become two or more categories.
11. Marketing effects take place over an extended period of time.
12. There is an irresistible pressure to extend the equity of the brand.
13. You have to give up something to get something.
14. For every attribute, there is an opposite, effective attribute.
15. When you admit a negative, the prospect will give you a positive.
16. In each situation, only one move will produce substantial results.
17. Unless you write your competitor's plans, you can't predict the future.
18. Success often leads to arrogance, and arrogance to failure.
19. Failure is to be expected and accepted.
20. The situation is often the opposite of the way it appears in the press.
21. Successful programs are not built on fads, they're built on trends.
22. Without adequate funding, an idea won't get off the ground.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_22_Immutable_Laws_of_Marketing
Eric Sink has also written a more detailed entry on his blog.
Note: The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing is a book by Al Ries and Jack Trout.
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Files & Documents - updated
Written 113 days ago by MIKETEE (15 June 2008)
Filed under MatchBox Lite: Updates
The Files & Documents section is a handy place to centralize files that you use for projects. It's easily retrievable and can be shared with your team members.
An update to the module now enables image file types to be displayed as thumbnails for instant recognition.
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When In Doubt, Choose Difficult!
Written 129 days ago by MIKETEE (30 May 2008)
Filed under Business & Entrepreneurship
Have you ever experienced stumbling upon a series of unlikely coincidences, and felt that it's because Life wanted to get a message across to you?
I had that today, although it all happened in front of the monitor.
Taking a break from work, I chanced upon Paul Graham's excellent article on "How to Make Wealth", which challenges a lot of common assumptions about our understanding of wealth and money. It's a very long article - worth reading every single line, and covers a lot of ideas, but what really struck a chord with me was the advise on "choosing difficulty":
Use difficulty as a guide not just in selecting the overall aim of your company, but also at decision points along the way.
What this meant in practice was that we deliberately sought hard problems. If there were two features we could add to our software, both equally valuable in proportion to their difficulty, we'd always take the harder one. Not just because it was more valuable, but because it was harder.
We delighted in forcing bigger, slower competitors to follow us over difficult ground. Like guerillas, startups prefer the difficult terrain of the mountains, where the troops of the central government can't follow.
This is a good plan for life in general. If you have two choices, choose the harder. If you're trying to decide whether to go out running or sit home and watch TV, go running. Probably the reason this trick works so well is that when you have two choices and one is harder, the only reason you're even considering the other is laziness. You know in the back of your mind what's the right thing to do, and this trick merely forces you to acknowledge it.
Barely a few hours later, I stumbled upon this amazing "live ad" by Honda for its new "Difficult Is Worth Doing" campaign. The show involved massive amounts of planning and coordination - not to mention the risks, but watch the video and see if it was worth the effort!
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MatchBox CRM - Tasks
Written 131 days ago by MIKETEE (28 May 2008)
Filed under MatchBox Lite: Updates
The Tasks module in MatchBox CRM has always been embedded within its own Cases - which we realized affected its usefulness because it was buried too deep.
So we've decided to publish Tasks as its own module which can be accessed directly from the main left menu. We've also updated a number of things:
1. Improved Layout
The new layout sports a cleaner interface, with additional filtering options such as viewing tasks based on Cases, or showing only My Tasks, or only Overdue tasks.
2. E-mail Notifications
When creating a Task for your team members, MatchBox CRM can automatically send them a notification e-mail.
This way, team members know immediately what they need to do, and by when!
3. And a few usability updates
Tasks can be edited to switch to another Case, clickable deadlines (today, tomorrow, next week, etc), new / edit task screen improvements, undo tasks, etc.
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Real-life Rocket Science Programming
Written 133 days ago by MIKETEE (26 May 2008)
Filed under Design & Development
The software industry is notorious for bugs and errors, even those made by giants such as Microsoft and Google. In 2006, when an early version of Windows Vista was released to beta testers, it received and fixed over 20,000 bugs, with an average of 81 reported bugs per day.
How does this statistic measure up to critical software that powers NASA's shuttles in its space missions? Surely they cannot afford to encounter blue screens or system hang-ups where billions of dollars of equipment and dozens of lives are at stake!
FASTCOMPANY.com's recent article on NASA and its software development methods shed plenty of light on what it takes to produce "the perfect software":
This software never crashes. It never needs to be re-booted. This software is bug-free. It is perfect, as perfect as human beings have achieved. Consider these stats: the last 3 versions of the program -- each 420,000 lines long-had just ONE error each. The last 11 versions of this software had a total of 17 errors. Commercial programs of equivalent complexity would have 5,000 errors.
On how critical the software is:
Every time it fires up the shuttle, their software is controlling a $4 billion piece of equipment, the lives of a half-dozen astronauts, and the dreams of the nation. Even the smallest error in space can have enormous consequences: the orbiting space shuttle travels at 17,500 miles per hour; a bug that causes a timing problem of just two-thirds of a second puts the space shuttle three miles off course.
How do they do it? It's in the Process.
...about one-third of the process of writing software happens before anyone writes a line of code. NASA and the Lockheed Martin group agree in the most minute detail about everything the new code is supposed to do... no coder changes a single line of code without specs carefully outlining the change. Take the upgrade of the software to permit the shuttle to navigate with Global Positioning Satellites, a change that involves just 1.5% of the program, or 6,366 lines of code. The specs for that one change run 2,500 pages, a volume thicker than a phone book. The specs for the current program fill 30 volumes and run 40,000 pages.
And then there's a database that stores just the errors. Every -single- error ever encountered.
The error database stands as a kind of monument to the way the on-board shuttle group goes about its work. Here is recorded every single error ever made while writing or working on the software, going back almost 20 years. For every one of those errors, the database records when the error was discovered; what set of commands revealed the error; who discovered it; what activity was going on when it was discovered... It tracks how the error was introduced into the program; how the error managed to slip past the filters set up at every stage to catch errors.
Of course, NASA had always had an advantage:
They have a single product: one program that flies one spaceship. They understand their software intimately, and they get more familiar with it all the time. The group has one customer, a smart one. And money is not the critical constraint: the group's $35 million per year budget is a trivial slice of the NASA pie, but on a dollars-per-line basis, it makes the group among the nation's most expensive software organizations.
Having said that, it certainly is a lesson worth studying. No matter the size of the company, there's always room to produce higher quality software. And as NASA has illustrated, it's all about working on the right processes and having a razor sharp vision towards perfection.
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Famous Failures
Written 133 days ago by MIKETEE (26 May 2008)
Filed under Business & Entrepreneurship
Just in case you needed a little inspiration :-)
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How to make more friends and close more deals!
Written 139 days ago by MIKETEE (20 May 2008)
Filed under Business & Entrepreneurship
I was shopping around for a laptop the other day at a local IT mall, where vendors set up stalls at practically every inch of available space, on all 3 floors of its building. I had a sneaking suspicion that they all belonged to a handful of owners (otherwise how could they survive with everyone selling the same things?!) but that's out of topic altogether.
There weren't any computer models that I was particularly looking out for, so I went around randomly checking prices and generally, trying to pick out the best deals just like any other buyer would. The laptops were all, however, priced so competitively that none really stood out as a great bargain.
The few salesmen that I approached didn't persuade me to buy from them, either. I could tell that they were just going through the motions - answering enquiries with as much enthusiasm as a brick.
With the exception of one young chap, however, who took the simple effort of asking what I actually do for a living, and what I needed the laptop for. He then showed a few models, and recommended one which he thought offered the best deal for my budget and work.
Guess who I bought the laptop from?
Sometimes all it takes is just a little bit of sincerity in getting to know your clients, and building an emotional investment in them. And vice versa.
We've cut countless deals just by being nice to prospects - and by getting to know them on a personal level. What do they do away from work? Do they have kids? What's their favorite food? Where was their last holiday?
We find the great conversations makes the best, and most lasting impressions!
We don't do it just because we want to close a sale. We're genuinely interested in making new friends, and when we meet prospects, our natural enthusiasm for getting to know them flows naturally.
Of course closing a sale is great - but even if it doesn't work out, we'd have made a new friend and that's a reward in itself!
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