Kurt's Comments

I couldn’t get on the Internet this morning. After about 45 minutes of resetting/rebooting my computer, router, and cable modem I gave up and called the cable company. Busy signal, so I went ahead and rode to the shop. I should be able to get on the Net from there, right?

Wrong. The Internet was down everywhere, for a couple of hours. (Yes, it came back up, otherwise I couldn’t post this!)

This got me to thinking: What if I had one of those Internet/TV/Phone packages? Lose the cable and everything is out. Single point of failure. What would be my Plan B?

Years ago I was laid off from my job at a Fortune 100 company. Rather than looking for another job I started my own business. It’s guiding principal was to have multiple clients so that they’d all have to “lay me off” before I’d be out of work.

How many backup plans do you have? For example, if your car dies do you have another way to get to work? What will you do if your power goes out for several days? If your house burns down, where will you live?

What are your Plan Bs?

It’s that time of year – gifts have been purchased, wrapped, and distributed, I’m finished stuffing the turkey (into my belly!) and now there’s a brief pause to look back on the past year and forward to the year to come.

2009 has been really tough on everyone, but it feels like we’re beginning to get back on our feet. The surviving small businesses are all looking for ways to become profitable in the new, tight-money economy.

While I was Christmas shopping I came across the book The 100 Best Business Books of All Time, by Jack Covert and Todd Sattersten. It has a long (100!) list of business books and a one- or two-page review of each, stating why they think it’s a book worth reading. Looking through it I realized that I have some of these, and I often quote the ones I have.

It inspired me, so my first resolution for 2010 is to put together my own list of best business books. I’m going to try to read a book a week, and write my own review here in this blog. I’m a voracious reader, so the reading part shouldn’t be too hard – it’s writing the reviews that will be tough!

My second resolution is to extract one good idea from each book and act on it. I’m sure I’ll be struck by more than one idea in each, but the goal is to actually make changes in my life and not just think “Gee! That’s neat!” and then do nothing.

I’ll highlight the good idea here in this blog, too. You readers can help keep me on track!

One thing I’ve learned over the years is that having a long list of New Years Resolutions is a bad idea, so I’m going to limit myself to just these two. Yes, I have other goals for the year, but those are typical “increase sales” and “cut expenses” type business goals. I’m going to limit my life-changing goals so that at the end of the year I can still recognize myself. It’ll still be me, just a better version (not to mention more handsome, too!)

After years of inactivity on this site, I’ve finally decided it’s time to set up WordPress and start blogging.

Having a blog here will give me an opportunity to post about more topics that interest me than I can do at Urban Village Scooters. That site is, and must be, focused on scooters and the world of two-wheeled (well, sometimes three-wheeled!) transportation.

Here I expect to post more about using the Web and business matters. Gee! I wonder where that subtitle “On Using the Web for Fun and Profit” came from?

If you feel like commenting on something I’ve said, feel free! I encourage comments. I’m even willing to argue with you if you like, but remember, I control what comments get published. Get insulting or spammy and out you go!