market continues to dive!

[Bradley Miller]

At 04:28 PM 7/12/02 -0500, Marvin GodfatherofSoul Bellamy wrote:
>Wow, I can't believe how low the Dow is.  I saw that the bubble would 
>burst (probably as any techie knew), and I was laughing my ass off when 
>it did.  But, now it's getting scary.  To top it off, all of those 
>corporate used-car salemen are finally getting outed for all their dirty 
>backroom dealings and ridiculous salaries.  I'm half happy it's 
>happening, but at some point this is going to affect me just like a lot 
>of others out there. At my sister's wedding last week, an in-law 
>approached me about starting a business venture in my home town.  I 
>wonder if that's where techies should be looking nowadays, small 
>businesses?  I've had some offers come up recently, but that type of 
>work seems pretty risky compared to a cushy office job.

A small note -- in-laws can be ex-in-laws . . . and from the dealings with
one "soon-to-be" ex, they can be a major pain the arse . . . 

Anyway, there still lies a huge untapped market out there for small
business, but trying to get out there is a tough nut to crack.  I'm a web
designer/programmer and I'll pitch ideas and show people what a
professional site is and then they turn around and have the kid down the
street fire up Microsoft Frontpage to put up their corporate web site.
Ugh.  I expected during the dot-com craze to see large companies hammering
small business opportunities into the ground.  I expected a smorgasboard
"pick what you need and you'll have a site in 3 days for $500" to be pushed
through, but the big guys were too busy working on the other big guy sites.
 What usually ends up selling sites for myself, is just sitting down and
doing a site and saying "now isn't this better?"   Once reality sets in
they usually come back down to earth.

Which leads me to another small grovel -- why does everyone treat computer
type things as "you just punch a button and it spits out"?  There's like a
huge perception problem, because of things like "Frontpage" that devalues
what others do.  Nobody expects to be able to tear into their new bazillion
valve, ultra-expensive car with a Chilton's manual in hand.  Likewise you
don't go down to the local butcher because you're having chest pains, yet
when it comes to computers people will just about do anything else besides
what needs to be done.  

-- Bradley Miller