Offline Isolation

The reality of my life in Sydney is that in the 9 months I've been here I really haven't made very many friends. That sounds very sad, but it's actually bearable, as slowly and surely I'm building good friendships. I have my lovely friend Kristin who has relocated from The States and is my wine-drinking buddy, I have a wonderful group of school mums who have looked after me since my first day in the school yard, and I have a gorgeous neighbour Melissa (also a wine drinking buddy - there's a theme going on). And of course I have my oldest and dearest friends in NZ.

However, being offline was a reality check for me. You don't realise how much you "chat" with people just by being on the e-mail circuit, I'm not going to stretch to The FaceBook community as those who know me will have seen how bad I am at it still! It's just like a form of being "amongst" people by being online. Even the school mums and I are only really on e-mail kind of chatting, which I love and am grateful to be part of it, but we're not at the pick-up-the-phone-for-a-chat kind of contact yet.

The Husband has been away all week, Kristin is back in the States, I'm offline, it's been a quiet, little bit lonely week. I didn't even go to the butcher, and he's been my friend through those dark days when I first arrived in Sydney (mental check: did I talk to anyone today who was older than 7....yes, the butcher - get my drift)
And to make matters worse, I did one of those e-mails to my "network" - just before my computer died, the kind when I say hi to people I haven't spoken to for ages, fill them in on what I'm doing with the business, and ask for feedback and input. My fabulous network, now that I can see, have been amazing and encouraging, but must now be a tad disappointed in me for not replying. I'd even coldcalled a totally inspirational philanthropist in Sydney and asked for a coffee - we hadn't quite got closure on coffee date and time, and the ball was left silently in my court before I went offline, she surely must be thinking what an oddball I am.

Anyhow dry spell is over, husband is back tonight, and I will now quickly work through my e-mails. And even more exciting, was there was a note from Art with some logos and designs attached. All good and back to work. More to come!

The Week The Computer Died.

About 3 months ago, Rafe in a mad fit of playing some age inappropriate Nickjnr game seemed to have done something to the sound on the computer, ie he successfully created total silence. We kind of lived with it, I watched my video clips of Britney on TMZ, in silence, we watched Youtube, in silence and we stopped using the video calling thing on MSMessenger. It was ok, until Dan asked that in the interests of cheaper trans Tasman communications, I should get onto Skype. Aah, I thought, need to sort the sound problem. So picked up the very local Manly Daily, looked at the 10 businesses listed in the classifieds and called the first one I saw. So it began.

Now I really hope that my very smart friend Selwyn who builds computers from scratch in his spare time, and who has given me many hours of guidance on IT related stuff over the years, isn't reading this, as it will make for some unpleasant reading.

Mike, computer man and I started chatting, I asked him to help get the computer all healthy again and answer my dweeby questions that I always have. He started, however a couple of hours into it, disaster struck. The computer got very sick, slow and pretty much collapsed. I felt an indignant case of finger pointing coming on, but Mike, bless, said he'd sort it, at his office. He left took the computer with him, and I didn't hear from him again, until I had rifled through the rubbish bin, found the Manly Daily and his ad, and called him. Things got worse, in the blur of panic I heard hope, then let down, then more hope, then the relief of "leave it with me I'll sort it". But I did hear the words, "motherboard...cheap....crap...failed..hard drive...backed up? 48 hours later, he was back on the phone, I was relieved that he'd committed to only 3 hours labour , even though he'd put many more in, the clock had been ticking a long time by now. This time, I started to feel sick, and maybe it was because I'd eaten potato chips and wine for dinner, or maybe it was because of the numbers he was now talking about . I was certainly stuck with Mike, he had my data and I had already spent a lot of money with him for nothing to show, it wasn't a simple case of pop to Harvey Normans for another, cheaper computer.
So long story, shortish. I now have a new computer, rebuilt by Mike, he has shaved a huge amount of due to the nature of my business (and I think he could see I was about to cry), I'm back online, I'm blogging again, I'm back on e-mail, and I feel great!!! Time for some catchups with e-mails and TMZ!

Some Hard Stuff

I had my first work conference call with Dan and my new project manager, who sounds really friendly and efficient (how does someone sound efficient?). Immediately I dobbed in Art and felt a little guilty for doing this, although she was quick off the mark to follow-up (which makes me think I wasn't alone in my client disgruntledness) . Sorted.

Dan did lots of lovely soothing handover stuff and has volunteered his services to me as a mentor. He seems to have similar ideas as The Husband, eg delegate, plan, you can't do it all yourself, you haven't enough time in the week, kind of mentoring, although I think I need the "aren't you amazing, what a fabulous youthful face, did you really do all that in one day and keep smiling" kind of mentoring, but I'll have to be swayed by the masses and listen to them instead. The Husband, when I mentioned Dan's mentoring asked if he wasn't there enough for me, I thought a quiet thoughtful moment was an appropriate response. And lets be fair, he works hard and long and he simply isn't interested in the "detail" that I can now bore Dan or Project Woman with.

So Dan left me two tasks for the next few days - ring two charities, ring two corporates. Cold calling. My blood ran cold.

Some people are good at making cold calls and some are experienced at it, I'm neither of these.

But this is the nature of my business, I have hundreds of charities I will eventually need to cold call, I'd better upskill quickly. I think the one thing I need to remember to do is close with a strong call to action, garbling goodbye with obvious relief won't achieve anything, except of course terminating the call.

Do you think it's cool to e-mail or text instead. I'm much better at that.

Mr Smith Reads a Book

Just thought I'd try putting a photo on - work with me here. I'd just made the mistake of looking at some other really smart and particularly clever blogs with people posting art, photos, poetry or other creative bits and pieces. In a moment of "can do" madness, I thought I'd innovate. I have just worked out how to download my photos off the camera onto the computer, so why stop there. I'm not sure how cool it is to put photos of my Beautifuls on my blog so thought we'd start with a photo of Smith going incognito as a book. I'd love to claim he was actually reading it, however it was only by sheer chance the book is actually up the right way.

Getting Organised

For me stress correlates with mess, ie the messier my stuff, my house, my anything is, the more I feel an undercurrent of annoyance and stress. So as things are starting to gear up a bit on the business front I have had a fit of organising and creating clean "spaces". I've started with some biggies...photos and taxes.
The Husband and I like looking at photo albums, the kind with black acid free paper and pages you can turn. No cyber albums for us suprisingly. I have two additional children and four years worth of photos to sort and paste into albums. I need to do it now, like a bad ivy, my photos have crept across tables, floors and other spaces, sorted into little plastic bags with black marker pen titles, awaiting pasteing into the soon-to-be-purchased albums. Now everyone is interested in the photos (as they have been hidden for so long), they are pulling the photos out of the plastic bags, I'm losing control. I need to work quickly. I'm starting to feel stressed.

And taxes. Through The Husband's work, we've had the opportunity to hand over the responsibility of all our tax kind of stuff to a chartered accountant. I liked this arrangement. I had passed the ball. We had delegated. But what I didn't realise was that they would "facilitate" us completing our tax stuff, they would tell us what blanks to fill. Disappointed.

So I've started, photos and taxes. Can you even begin to imagine how good I'm going to feel soon. Clean spaces equals happy me.

Hmmmm

OK, going a little crazy on the posts today, but just had a bad phonecall with Arthur (Art the brand guy). Bad bad service experience. I'd sent through my brand brief and arranged a time for a phone meeting which we just had. He had not opened or read the brief (sigh) and then kind of winged it...badly. I was not happy. He didn't get me or the brief. He said he'd get back to me by Monday with some concepts. Sorry "Monday'ish" - what does that mean? Reality when it's my own lolly not that of some corporate I've worked for in my previous life, I am quite, quite focused on best bang for buck, sloppy, sloppy service will make me ever so slightly grumpy, and more focused. Lift your game Art, lift your game.

The Brand

Dan has referred me on to one of his offsiders who in his spare time does brand, graphic design stuff for a good price. I made contact with him through e-mails and he sent me links to previous work and a pitch for doing my work. Compared with what I've just outlayed for the web development deposit, it seemed like loose change so I signed him up. he also works closely with Dan's company so the whole issue of how to get the design onto the website would be easy and seamless - that was one thing that stressed me - how to get Person A talking to Person B so it didn't have to come through me and get badly lost in the extremely poor translation.
So being a person who loves branding and clever brand strategy stuff, I prepared a brief for Arthur the brand guy. As a charity based business I talked about emotional connection, strong emotive imagery, positive not pity, clean, professional, credible. I was in home turf and it felt great. But how easy is it to find examples of brands you connect with - it's like a completely blank page - do I browse randomly or have I failed because I can't find any examples of the look and feel I'm after? So ultimately I thought, "I'll leave it to Arthur since that's his patch".
I rang him up to make sure he'd got my e-mail. I know I shouldn't judge, but having never actually spoken to him, for a moment I thought I was speaking to my 14 year old nephew.He sounded very young and when he said ring me at home later, I wondered if he meant after school. All thoughts of developing an iconic, memorable brand disappeared, as did the notion that I'd be able to leave it in his hands. I may be suprised by him yet, but I'm slowly rolling my brand sleeves up and am preparing to get dirty.

Blog Notes

My favourite blog that I read after I've checked out the NZ and Australian news sites, then of course a quick glimpse at TMZ is http://www.petiteanglaise.com/, a lovely blog about a brit living in Paris. In one of her recent blogs she had mentioned how she wrote blog notes in her Moleskin notebook. Always being one to jump on a band wagon, I thought "got a bit of a blog, need to get myself a "moleskin" now". So did some online shopping research and found out that a moleskin is not a fabulous notebook in a lovely soft moleskin, but rather a black, hardcover note book, made famous because hemingway or picasso or someone else equally as famous had used one. Completely stupid I'm not, so decided that instead of spending $30+ for what looks like a boring black notebook, I'd find myself a prettier, significantly cheaper version. I love stationery so looked forward to the idea of going blog book shopping. The reality (as always) wasn't as exciting as the idea. Hot Sydney day, sticky gym gear, Smith, crappy little Manly newsagent. But I had my heart set on one so I was not going to walk out without a notebook. Found the selection, by now Smith crying as I'd made him walk past the playground and fountain and he now wanted to go BACK and play please mum. He proceeded to pull out rolls of giftpaper, I ignored this and the questioning looks as it was keeping him busy (couldn't they see that?). My choices were limited, bad floral, kittens, or 2008 diary. So I now have a bad floral blog note book and a pencil and I carry them with me for inspiration and for businessy ideas and to do's. Unfortunately it goes in the same bag as the drink bottles and snacks and if the fate of my mobile phone is anything to go by, I soon will be shopping again for a new one.

It's all go!

I just pushed the green "go" button and we're off - Discount Dan, (now known as Dan) is my man, although I think he's going to delegate my project, he certainly was extremely prompt in sending me a very large invoice. Felt like celebrating, but off the wine now after my girls weekend and had to pick up the boyos up from school - I was lucky enough to bear the wrath of one of the pre-school teachers who complained about my Rafey's behaviour (and kind of mine at the same time) Felt grumpy and very teary and almost needed to call my clever friend Kate (who I always call if I don't know what to cook for dinner or how to identify mystery bugs or if I need to discuss hotel choices) but called The Husband instead. He was also a bit grumpy and extremely busy and suggested we talk about it over dinner. Dinner chat for me is about as strenuous as choosing what crap TV I'm going to watch, and kind of think I'll be over it by then anyway.

So, after all that - yay! Have also signed up Arthur, the brand man, to help with look and feel stuff. I'm on a decision making roll!

Don't....

...attempt a little detoxing before a weekend of anticipated wine consumption by consuming a large bowl of "Detox muesli containing three types of fibre for the Bowel and Digestive system", unless you can be sure you will not have to catch a long taxi ride, plane trip, bus trip and then have to share a small room with only one small bathroom, even if it is with your sister.

Simply don't.

Trip Advisor

Time to own up, as well as doing mum and wife stuff, I also have a serious relationship with a website called TripAdvisor.com. It was an instant attraction, I fell hard, I raved about it and was swept along in the heady heights of a new relationship. But then, as it can do, things took a turn for the worse. Reality hit that my "preference" for looking at reviews before I made any decisions about restaurants, movies, books, hotels...and really almost anything, was in fact...an obsession. I simply spent hours and hours and hours on tripadvisor trying to find a hotel for a weekend in Melbourne with my sister. I only shared this crisis with my clever friend Kate, who is clever enough to hear me out and support me without judgement. Although, when I'd told her that at the last moment, I'd cancelled a hotel in favour of another, she suggested that perhaps the original hotel may have been a little annoyed at me. I was only very slightly guilty for a second.

And as my sister and I lay on our twin queen beds looking out the floor to ceiling windows at the gorgeous Yarra River and Melbourne skyline, drinking cold NZ sav blanc and watching The Zen Master on MTV, I felt a little (ok a lot) smug that perhaps you have to go through the pain to enjoy the gain. Word of advice, approach Trip Advisor with caution if you have any symptons of an addictive personality.

Getting Advice

One thing I'm not good at is asking for help. Not sure why, maybe it shows that I have no idea what I'm doing or maybe I'm just too shy/gutless. Anyhow, still waivering a bit (lot), I had The Incredibly Smart Entrepreneur call me out of the blue. This gorgeous friend of mine is the entrepreneurial queen, she's done it all (or if she hasn't she's thought of it and will do it later), we are all very,very proud of her, and maybe now I didn't appreciate how hard it was for her investing her own money in her ideas. I have the backup of The Husbands income, she didn't at the time, it was her risk and she did it tough. I'm hesitating now because I have to spend money - this is a new sensation, because I've never usually given my random spending on junk toys, bad clothing or trash magazines, too much thought at all. And I'm hoping but not expecting to get much of that money back at least in the short term.

But this is called giving back, and that's what we're doing.

Entrepreneurial Queen had some very excellent advice, especially about my Discount Dan who she had used previously for a website build. I have questions, I have energy, I have focus. More soon.

Decision Time

I'm nervous. I'm thinking. I'm just not sure whether I'm cut out for this. This is our money we'll be spending. The Husband works very hard for this money. He has stopped buying coffees. This is where the rubber hits the road. I am stalling. I am waiting for someone else to make up our mind. I am looking at TMZ.com instead of working today. I am stalling.

The Quote

It's arrived. Desperate Dan has just talked me through the quote for my website build, and I have upskilled heaps over the last couple of hours. I now realise what an outstanding job The Sharp Impressives did with giving me an extremely ridiculously expensive quote. I now understand about Google Page Ranking, alt-tag images, linking campaigns, synergy branding....I feel very clever.

Discount Dan was even...discounting as we were chatting - he was throwing in blogs (I didn't tell him I had built this little whimsy as he may have gone and read it), knocking 40% off here and there, offering mentoring services and basically just being the Discount Dan that I am growing very fond of! And yes, I know that if it can be given up so easily that there must have been padding built into the quote to start with, but naive as it sounds, I kind of think it was a bit of that and a bit of believing in the giving back vision of the business, and well...giving back.

So now the ball is in my court. I'll chat it through with The Husband (who has started not buying his beloved coffees to help fund our wee venture - I hope he's not expecting me to reciprocate by giving up my diet coke). I'll probably then push go........

And yes, THEN I will call everyone else and deliver the news (I'm kind of sure they've probably forgotten me by now anyway!)

Righto, I did say brand strategy to develop today and I haven't even touched it. Mum duties are calling me soon .

The Speed Wobbles

So, I'm still waiting for my Discount Dan to come back with his official quote, we have invested a heap of time in each other - at least 3 hours by phone (him to me thankfully and very gratefully) - it sounds good, we're reaching for the stars, but it sounds scary and expensive and a massive commitment from me - it's the big show - bells, whistles, dancing girls - quietly I'm thinking to myself - how can I do this only only 10'ish decent hours a week. Gad, I might have to stop watching crap TV and folding my washing in the evening and do work instead. Infact, I think I will replace the "might" with a "will".

In fact, I'm so freaked out that I am now 100% committed to helping my eldest son do his school project. (I think there will be a "referred effort/pain" type of description for this). I am putting so much focus on trying to make his Jack and the Bean Stalk diorama not look as if Mum has done almost all of it - I'm even cutting the edges of the cardboard a little ragged to make sure.

Anyhow tomorrow is Thursday - my big work day - brand strategy and charity identification stuff, squeezed around swimming lessons and school pickups. Understand why I'm panicing a little.
Problem: Need more hours working
Solution - Find more (and cheaper) help, stop watching crap TV - there, easy!

The Web Build

As you can see from my blog, I kind of know zip about technical stuff and I kind of cringe when I think that my technically astute friends may be reading this and shaking their heads - "what is she doing?". Anyhow, I've gone to market in NZ looking for a fabulous web developer who can build me a stunning, professional and extremely clever website that I can be proud of launching with lots and lots of noise. I'd better be careful now, I basically trawled the web and yellow pages (almost) and kind of randomly approached a few. Started thinking about intellectual property stuff so cut and paste (almost on one embarrassing occasion) from one of The Husband's business non-disclosure agreements. So in short, I have 3 possibles - I'll give them some nicknames.
1. The Really Nice People - gave me a midrange quote, excellent customer service and a nice wee discount because of the non-profit aspect of the business

2. The Sharp Impressives - I fell in love with them and was completely bedazzled and impressed. I was the Yes Woman. They had me at "hello". Until I got the quote. I was too embarrassed to show The Husband.

3. The Discount Dan's - A sharp, sharp price, a mid range score for customer service (but quickly making up ground), great client lists and damn, did I mention the price? I could get the full whizz-bang wish list for the price of a few conversations with The Sharp Impressives.

Weighing most on my mind is the fact I now have to make a decision, and worst still - call them up, saying "sorry I can't give you my business coz I'm not feeling well" won't work this time. Nor will hoping that time will make my problem go away. I need to make some calls and sort of extremely quickly.

Some Business Stuff!

Ok, so part of the reason for this blog is to talk a bit about the process with setting up a non- profit business and how easy or hard it is, hopefully as a bit of inspiration for others thinking of doing the same. Of course, as you can see, I am extremely skilled at waffling about nothing in particular and now my friends will be breathing a sigh of relief that I have a new outlet other than e-mail, MSmessenger and phone calls!

So the business - it's all about giving back, and is therefore very subtley titled Giving Back. It's a web based business and ... actually, better consult my brilliant lawyer friends to find out how much I should chat about, I may be naive, but I'm also smart enough not to get on the wrong side of friends that are trying to help me by me doing something too trusting or STUPID. But I can say that it's about helping people to give back and feel emotionally fulfilled that they've done good and given something back. Stay tuned, I'll chat more later about what it's about. I do know that I totally believe in it, I feel awesome to be doing it, and even though we don't want or need to make a bean, the emotional rewards will be bountiful!