StarForum – the Software Sextant
by admin on Jul.29, 2010, under StarForum
StarForum serves the community of web designers, programmers, integrators and marketeers in Northern New Mexico.
How many people does it take to build a great site? A modern customer is likely to expect Content Management System, forums and blogs, eCommerce, SEO and maybe some custom database programming, and a goodly dash of eye candy.
The tools are ever-changing, so if you land a new project but don’t have all the needed expertise in-house, how can you find the right people to partner with? How can you avoid the engineer’s strain of “writer’s block”? StarForum aims to create an well-organized web of resources to help us keep our projects moving andforge relationships.
Freelancers and consultants know how easy it is to lose focus on the highest priorities (remember current customers) or to stretch yourself to do everything needed for a project. And for individual consultants it can be lonely work. But with occasional interaction with other humans there can be an element of fun.
Internet development is finally getting interesting! For decades programming has been difficult and repetetive work. With the advent of powerful Content Management Systems, mature high-level programming frameworks, and standardized multimedia, you can see results quickly.
For the moment StarForum adopts these quaint notions to limit its scope:
Face-to-face is important => Focus on members, resources reasonably close to Northern New Mexico
Smaller is better => Limit to small firms less than say seven people
Power tools => Linux, PHP, jQuery, WordPress, Joomla!, HTML 5, Adobe Suite, IBM Sharepoint
Individual knowledge workers tend to specialize in one of these areas:
Web Design,
Web Development,
Hosting, Hardware and Systems Support, or
Marketing and Web Presence.
If you are any of the above, we welcome your input and discussion topics! If you have ideas about how StarForum might serve you, register and post here or drop a line to point@starfinger.net.
July 29th, 2010 on 8:34 pm
A colleague tipped me off to a great way to manage time, and to keep projects on track. It’s called the Pomodoro Technique, and you can read about it here: http://www.pomodorotechnique.com/
I’m test-driving Pomodoro and I’ll get back to you on its effectiveness.
Take Control!
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