Managing Ideas
One of the biggest challenges is prioritizing ideas. This applies to both business and life. Personally, I never buy anything on impulse. If I see something that appeals to me, I will make a mental note of it. If I still want it in a couple months, then I’ll buy it. The vast majority of things, I forget. Eventually, you get fewer and fewer purchase desires.
At NIMONIK, we apply this to content and technology features. When a feature is originally proposed or thought up, we let it sit for a while. If it is still an appealing idea after a month or two, then we put it on the priority list. We then watch other ideas to see if the original idea should stay on the priority list, if not we move it to a backlog list. That backlog list usually grows and grows as we archive ideas. Eventually, the backlog gets trashed.
Published on
January 10, 2009
My Business Venture – Enterprise Web 2.0
Many people have recently asked me what I am doing, by which they really mean are you employed, getting dressed in the morning, and abiding by the rules of upper-middle class society. So here is my rough explanation of what is occupying my time these days.
Until recently, I worked for
EEM, an environmental consulting group. As a small portion of their business, they sold an online database of Canadian environmental regulations and simplified explanations. The product,
NIMONIK, was originally designed as an enterprise (web-based) software for large multi-jurisdiction corporations. It was a break-even operation.
Some of the shortcomings were the high price structure, the old web 1.0 technology and the static 800 x 600 design – ultimately boiling down to the product itself. Since May, we have purchased the product from the consulting group and started renewing it as a more dynamic, simpler, and richer website that will (we hope) become a community hub for Canadian environmental managers. We want to build an affordable web 2.0 application for companies –
not currently a common sight.
On this project, I am working with Yves Faguy, a lawyer who was at the consulting group, and Paul Maclean, the president of the consulting group. We also have two fantastic people working on the content and the software with us.
Part of our strategy is to reduce membership fees, allow users to import/export ISO 14001 information, and upload corporate documents. Furthermore, users will be able to add comments, rate articles, and generally speaking – participate in the content to create institutional memory for their companies. The great thing about the project is that it comes with cash-flow (not much), a reputation and a lot of rich content – more than what 90% of web start-ups can claim.
Published on
July 25, 2008