Earlier this week we launched The Board. And now we’re looking for as many business owners as possible to join our Facebook Page.

The Board is an exclusive support structure for your business delivered in the form of monthly board meetings. These meeting are chaired by a trained facilitator who controls the meeting, ensuring that everyone gets a fair share of the allocated time.

This is an exclusive club. So it’s not for everyone. We want entrepreneurs, innovators, natural sales people, people with boat loads of experience. We want the very best people, so the advice they give is of the very best quality. If this sounds like you, then The Board needs you.

To find out more, visit The Board website and apply for an information pack or you can visit us on Facebook at our fan page.

We’ve also compiled at quick Q&A, addressing many of the questions we’ve received about The Board so far. If you’d like to know more, then reading these will be a good place to start:

Is my information confidential? Confidentiality is a key area. All members sign a non-disclosure agreement as part of the sign up process. Only members can attend meetings and a member must sign an NDA in advance of attending a meeting.

Will my competitors be at the meeting? Each meeting will be made up of members from non-competing sectors. Actually it is expected that members’ services will compliment each other and there may be market opportunities from within the group.

Do I have to stay in the same group for 6 months? No, if you are not happy with the expertise in any particular group we will facilitate you in joining another group which is directly suited to your needs

Define what I receive for €200:

• A three-hour monthly meeting with four fellow experts.
• Access to emergency meeting to discuss any urgent business issues.
• Online 24-hour confidential forum to ask members advice based on their experiences (launch date tbc).
• A structured environment to focus on your business.
• Procedure to set goals and continuous monitoring to ensure goals are achieved.
• Complimentary negotiation service on behalf of your business. You only pay if we save you money and what you pay is a percentage of the savings achieved.
• Internal Meeting Management Software (available in June 2010). Our software makes it easy for our members to implement their strategies.
• Discounts – Members qualify for exclusive discounts. Our boarding card will be updated monthly. We will add a new discount every month.
• Our monthly fee will not increase but we will continually add to our services

Is this like BNI (business network international)? This is a not a networking service. However by its nature it will offer networking opportunities between members. Our service it to allow business owners to step back from their business to focus on and grow their business in order to increase profits.

You should be paying me for advice! I am in business 12 years and I have no issues. All businesses evolve. To be the best business in a sector, owners must continuously be in tune with the market and customer demands. Our meetings gives members an opportunity to discuss cash flow, banking, taxation, sales, staffing issues or any other issue a business owner may have. By joining The Board it will help you secure your business for another 12 years!

I am a one-man band, is this suitable for me? This is a perfect structure for you. Business can be a lonely place. We are offering you a virtual board of directors. We are giving you a soundboard to use to bounce ideas off, to share their experiences with you. You will never have to make a decision on your own again.

I already have a board of directors, so I don’t need another? Using The Board can help you to impress your directors. You will go to your internal board meetings focused, with clear thought out strategies and solutions. You can use the board to solve operational levels that your directors will not be sympathetic towards.

How will I know there will be other members equipped to help me? Every member is a business owner like yourself and an expert at running a business. They like you have extensive experience and their experiences mirroring your advice will be very beneficial. At any stage if you have a specific area of expertise required we can arrange an extraordinary meeting to deal with that issue specifically.

35 minutes seems short, how will this sort my problems? This is a three-hour meeting and we plan to launch a 24hours Q&A online forum for members. Our members to date have found that by giving advice they are actually learning themselves. All the advice given around the table is generic to all business so everything that happens in the meeting is relative to your business.

What is the negotiation service? We can negotiate a deal on your behalf. You can always do your own negotiations but our results speak for themselves. We saved one company €18,000 on rent alone in the last 6 weeks. You only pay for the service if we achieve savings and our fees is only a small percentage of the savings you achieve.

What is the PA for a Day? This service is optional and is very much on a need only basis. You can register for it at no cost and then if you ever need a PA it will be available. We can book flights, tidy your office, type letters, record minutes of meetings etc. Our philosophy is to offer a solution to fit our members needs. If you need something tell us, if we don’t offer it today, we will strive to add it to our services.

Where’s the catch? There is none. Join The Board to focus on your business, in order to grow your business, in order to increase your profits.

Can anybody join? No, this is an exclusive club and we have a strict application process in advance of granting a new membership. We want entrepreneurs, innovators, and natural sales people, people with boatloads of experience. We want the very best people, so the advice they give is of the very best quality to fellow members.

Further information can be obtained from The Board website.

We’re excited to be introducing Writecamp today.

It’s a startup project we’ve been working on behind the scenes for a little while but now we’re ready to tell you all about it.

Writecamp will turn your Basecamp Writeboards into a powerful content management system for a normally static website. It’ll be ideal for web designers who want to give their clients some control over the content of their website. If Joomla, Drupal or even WordPress have proven too complicated for your clients then you should definitely check out Writecamp.

We’ll be blogging our experiences in detail over on the newly launched Writecamp Blog. We’ll also be updating our new Twitter account dedicated to the project.

We want to hear from anyone who has something to say about this concept. Drop us an email here as usual or on hello@writecamp.com.

More details to follow on the Writecamp Blog.

I was recently asked what I love most about my job and as tends to happen, I fluffed my way through the answer, not really doing the question any justice.  So I thought I’d write a post about it.  I’m well over a year in Webstrong now and have gotten to do a vast array of different things such as websites, content management systems like WordPress and Drupal, old school email marketing templates, forums, SEO work,  e-commerce websites and most importantly for me, breaking into the development side of things. I thought recently how different it could have been…

I think that’s one of the great benefits of working in a small company, you have to be able to throw your hand at anything or have an idea how to do a bit of everything.  If starting off I had of gotten a job with a big company,  I probably would have been pigeon holed into a particular task and not been given the chance to do anything else. “Oh you know HTML, CSS, bang….you’re our frontend guy, sit over there do the same thing all day over and over again.”  I’d go on to frequent murky bars like a lost soul, destined to lead a life of ordinariness and un-fulfilment.

Whereas in a small company it’s the complete opposite. You get exposure to everything, the learning curve is much steeper but as a result you grow a lot quicker. Yeah this can happen in a big company too, but the chances are a lot less of it happening for you, you’d have to be ‘in’ with the right people, do a bit of brown nosing, show a bit of leg maybe, all that politics stuff that I would never have the patience for myself (or the legs I’m told).

So to answer my own question, what do I love about my job? The fact that everyday I come in I can be working on something different, I’m always learning new things along the way and becoming better at what I do, each project undertaken throws up fresh challenges and I can apply new things I’ve learned from previous projects and constantly fine tune and tweak them in the never ending search for perfection. You have to love what you do or what’s the point? The repetitiveness of a 9-5 was my worst nightmare, one nightmare I’m glad to say I’ve awoken from.

So what do you love about your job?

We started exploring CSS frameworks a bit last year so thought I’d share what we’ve learned. Overall I’m very happy and delighted we made the move. I must admit at first I didn’t give them much thought, “I don’t want to be using someone else’s code, I want to write my own” I’d think. These are the ramblings of a foolish man.

With projects ever growing in size and scale, when starting a new project you want to be hitting the ground running and using a good framework plays a huge hand in this. Within minutes you have the whole skeleton of your site up and running and ready for the trickier more unique elements.

I first looked into Blueprint, but was put off by the unsemantic naming structure. So after that we cast our shadow over OOCSS and decided to give it a try. Out of all the files you get in the download, there are 3 in particular that I use constantly now in every project. I’ll link to the files and you can Firebug the hell out of them, then I’ll go through each of them.

• template.css
• grids.css
• content.css

Template

The template is obviously the frame of your site. In here you have eight main classes, throw these onto your page and you’re instantly ready to start focusing on the unique parts of your site and skip past all the repetitive parts. The classes are…

• .page (your page container, which is 950px wide, if you want a narrower / wider page you just extend this with a nicely named class of your own ex. “.myPage”)
• .liquid (takes up the 100% width of the screen in a liquidy fashion)
• .head (your header)
• .body (for clearing floated properties, for instance your leftCol or rightCol)
• .rightCol (yep)
• .leftCol (that’s right)
• .main (this takes up the full width of your container)
• .foot (exactly)

The left and right cols are great and easily changed, if halfway through the site the client decides they want the sidebar on the left instead of on the right, it’s just a matter of renaming “rightCol” to “leftCol”, without ruining the structure of your site. By default the leftCol is 250px and the rightCol is 300px, but like the .page if you want a custom width you simply extend it with a class of your own.

Grids

The grids I was most impressed with, they’re just so handy and flexible. I could explain them in grave detail, but simply study this page a bit and it will explain it perfectly, with great code examples under each section. You can have complex pages laid out in no time. Again if the structure of your site changes halfway through, these scale beautifully and are easily changeable. No more sleepless nights worrying of sudden changes from awkward clients.

Content

Finally there is the content.css file, the best part of this is I rarely ever have to bother worrying about sizing h1-h6 tags. They’re all sized in perfect proportion to the rest of the content on your site. For instance your h1 is 196% bigger than your normal font-size, your h2 is 167% bigger and so on it goes down the chain.

Benefits

So these three files I found enormously helpful in speeding things up. One of the main differences was less cross browser issues, at the end of building a site before using a framework, I’d always check it in Safari and Chrome, “yeah, that looks fine”, then check it in Explorer, “oh for the love of god…”. Now when I check it I rarely ever have any issues and if there is they’re pretty minor. Also I don’t have to keep checking to see what I named things, I know of the top of my head what everything should be called, you have the consistency factor across all your projects. There are much more in the download, but I’ve just covered the main one’s I found most helpful.

Check out the whole package yourself here and check out the creator here.

Today we’re quietly launching a new client site aimed at people wanting to do a bit of entertainment at home this Christmas.

PoshPuds.ie is a simple site that lets you browse and order fresh cakes and other desserts from the Mardi kitchens out in Deans Grange. These desserts are all hand made and use the same ingredients that you’d use in your own kitchen so they taste totally amazing. Believe me, I know!

We’ve grouped the desserts into different categories that reflect the event at which they are probably most appropriate. These include Dinner parties, weddings, birthdays, christenings and even afternoon tea, but you can mix and match whatever you like.

You can order these desserts and they’ll be delivered out to you. And feel free to take the credit for them with your guests as well!

There will be a more formal launch in January, but we couldn’t wait until then. Feedback welcome and please remember to tell your friends!

We have always provided email marketing services, it’s an area in the business that’s received constant growth over the years, but lately we’ve seen some exceptionally strong demand for this service so we decided to launch a dedicated site to give it the presence it deserves.

Mailbag is the new name for our email marketing service, and it has been built exclusively for our email marketing customers. It shows people exactly what we provide, explains all the costs involved and gives examples of previously sent campaigns. There’s also a simple sign up form and a direct link for existing customers to login.

We’ve got some great software to send the campaigns, manage subscribers and track all the open rates & click throughs, but for the customer, the real value is in the service and the quality of the email designs we provide. That’s the difference between us and the next guy.

For all you web developers and designers reading this post, relax, this isn’t for you anyway. Mailbag is a service we provide to non technical, non geeky people. There’s huge value in this software and in the design and support services that surround it. It’s been a great source of business for us in the past, and we’re really excited about launching it as a dedicated service.

The website URL is http://mailbagmarketing.com

Comments and feedback welcome.

Every day on Twitter we see people with the same problem. They can’t send direct messages to people who don’t follow them. Do a search any time and you’ll see dozens of people complaining about this every single day. We wanted a way to help these guys, and came up with Relayto.

Relayto is a message relay service that passes on any direct message it receives to another Twitter account. Getting started is easy, just follow @relayto and you’ll be sent instructions on what to do next.

We believe there are a lot of legitimate cases where a Twitter account would want to receive direct messages from people they don’t know. For instance, a business listening to customers and receiving negative feedback, or answers to an account that’s running a competition or a raffle. This is the target audience for Relayto to begin with.

How Do You Use It?

Using Relayto is simple, and best explained with an example. Say you want to send a relayed direct message to @shortdotie, you would write “d relayto shortdotie Hi there! I really like your site.”

The Relayto service will receive your message, figure out who you want to send it to, then forward your message to that account. And, if it’s successfully delivered you’ll receive a delivery report in much the same way that you would with a text message on your phone.

What’s The Catch?

There’s just one catch. The recipient must be following the @relayto account for it to work. We like to think of this as akin to any other opt-in service. And we believe there are some genuine benefits to a service like this. For example, it’s a silent account, so you won’t be bombarded with tweets from all those people you don’t want to listen to, and you’re opening your account up to receiving private feedback or private messages where a public message might not be suitable. It’s just another option.

Promoting The App

Last week I made a short presentation at The Connector Launch Event in Kooba on Leeson Street. I got some really good feedback on the night and I think it went down quite well. A lot of people can relate to the problem we’re trying to solve and that’s why we decided to build it in the first place.

Here are a few shots from the night. Many thanks to Conor for giving me the opportunity to launch Relayto at his event.

Check It Out

Relayto was something we built as an answer to all the Twitter folk who have had an issue with this in the past. So every time you hear somebody complain that they can’t DM you, and you’re not that bothered following them, why not follow @relayto instead?

So please, tell your friends, tell your colleagues because this app needs a critical mass before it becomes useful. Right now though, we’re just getting started, and when you think that everything big was once small, it doesn’t seem like such a crazy idea to give this a go.

We’re always looking for new opportunities to meet other people in business. In the past, networking has been a key factor in winning new business and meeting people who can help us. So when we heard about the new networking and collaborative program aimed solely at businesses in the creative sectors, we jumped at the chance to join them.

Creative D is organised by the Dublin City Enterprise Boards and aims to bring businesses in sectors like Advertising, Architecture, Crafts , Cultural Tourism – Festivals and Events, Culinary Arts, Tours , Design , Designer Fashion , Digital Media, Film, Video and Photography, Publishing , Software Applications, Computer Games and Electronic Publishing, Television and Radio, The Arts – Music, Visual, Literary and Performing Arts together in a way to offer help, collaboration, advice, training and networking.

So far there have been two events. The first was held in The Digital Exchange and included a keynote speech from Chris Horn – a strong voice for innovation in Ireland who’s currently working alongside The Government on their Innovation Taskforce. Damini Kumar – the European Ambassador for Creativity and Innovation spoke passionately about the need for innovation in Ireland as a means to rescue the country from it’s economic woes.

The second event was held last week at the new Wood Quay Venue in Dublin City Council offices. Entitled Meet Your Future Financier, it included senior reps from Bank of Ireland, AIB, Ulster Bank, BES, Enterprise Ireland, and the local enterprise boards. Keynote on the day was given by Paddy Dunning, who’s entrepreneurial ventures include The Temple Bar Music Centre, Grouse Lodge Studios, and more recently The Wax Museum Plus.

I’ve got some notes on this event that I’ll try and share later in the week. But overall it was an inspiring and hugely optimistic event, with all of the lenders on the panel stressing that there is money there, and that funding is available.

Here’s a couple of videos produced by Regenerate Media, filmed at the event in The Digital Exchange.

Every day people like you waste hours of the day doing stuff that’s unnecessary and unplanned. You’re wasting your time doing things that don’t matter.

You probably work 9-5 and find ways to fill the day just so you can go home at the end of it and tell everyone you were really busy.

But what did you get done? What did you do that day that actually brought you closer to what you want? Could you have done it in less time? Could you have been more focused on the important stuff and gone home early instead?

We’ve had the same problem here at Webstrong, working on stuff that doesn’t pay, doing jobs that don’t help us reach our goals, while all the while making us busier then we’ve ever been before.

It had to stop. We had to find an easier way.

Having recognised this, we’re now finding ways to cut through the bullshit, get more done, and make ourselves a lot less busy, doing the more important work first. The stuff that’s enjoyable to work on and the stuff that pays. But we’ve had to go through a very tough time before we got there. A few months ago, we nearly went bust. Not from a lack of work, but from a lack of cash. In this post, my first in a long while, I’ll try to explain how it happened, and what we did to fix it.

The Moving Target

People ask me all the time “how’s work Iarfhlaith, you busy at the moment?” and the truth is that we are always flooded with work and we are always busy. But up until recently, we’ve been busy in an uncontrollable way. Too many projects, too many people looking for progress reports, not enough resources to get it all done. We simply couldn’t handle the work that was coming in the door. For every project we finished, two new ones would land on our desk, and the pile just got bigger and bigger.

Now this isn’t some excuse to boast about how well we’re doing, in fact it’s quite the opposite. Being too busy is a very serious problem and working on a lot of projects simultaneously can kill a business.

The Cashflow Problem

This business should be simple. It should be a piece of cake. You get a project, you work on a project, you deliver it completed, and then you get paid. Sounds simple, and it is, but only if you work on one project at a time. In reality, what can happen if you’re not careful is that you take on a project, then halfway through you take on another project and start it immediately, making the first project late. You are now juggling two projects at the same time and taking calls from two customers looking for updates, wondering why the work isn’t getting done on time.

Now take that scenario, and add on another 20 projects into the mix. All going  on at the same time, all with estimated timelines based on an imaginary clear schedule. This is where we were a few months ago. Obviously, problems arose. Deadlines got pushed out, projects got forgotten about and very little got delivered.  And very soon, because projects weren’t getting delivered, we began to run out of cash.

Up to our eyes in work, with no money coming in the door.

Active Project Management

Obviously, we had to change fast or we were doomed. I took advice from some close friends in business and I began to restructure how we manage ourselves and our clients.

We identified a few key areas that needed attention, and we made our first big change:

• We started to really manage our client’s expectations. They needed to know when we would start, when key milestones would be delivered and how long the project would take.

And, we couldn’t realistically give that information accurately unless we knew how busy we already were. So we made our second big change:

• We started scheduling our time, in advance, in a very strict way.

These two changes seem so simple, but actively managed, they turned a struggling business into a profitable business almost instantly.

I come from a technical background, and in all honestly, until recently the extent of my client management skills extended to saying ‘yes’ to almost all of their requests. Now however, before saying yes, I’ll check when we’re available to start the work before I make any promises.

You would think that by telling the client that you can’t start their project for another three weeks would be an issue for them, but I’ve found so far that it isn’t and they’re just happy to know when it’ll be started, and when it’ll be finished. Provided you deliver on those promises of course, you’re doing yourself and your client a huge favour by knowing how busy you are before you take on more work.

An Added Benefit

There’s an added benefit to this simple approach to project management. It reduces the risk of growing your team.

For instance, if your existing team is booked out two months in advance, then taking on another coder or designer is far less riskier then if you didn’t know what you’d be working on in a weeks time or a months time.

So, with a few simple changes, I’ve managed to turn this business around. And with the bit of free time I have now, you should expect to see a little more of me on the blog.

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If you’ve had a similar experience and have any wisdom to share on the subject, please leave a comment on this post, because I’m certain there are a lot of folk in this industry still making those mistakes.

It’s been almost two weeks since we launched TrackPath and it’s been amazing to hear all the great feedback and comments from people checking it out.

In our rush to make the July 6th deadline, we spent absolutely no time on the logo and just put up a simple but meaningless icon. But now since we’ve had time to work on a few extra bits and pieces like the daily email reminders, we’ve also managed to design a permanent logo for TrackPath too.

I wanted it to have a similar look to the Footprint logo (above) but I also wanted it to have meaning. So we settled on what you see here, a central circle surrounded by a ring of smaller circles. This arrangement was originally used by trackers in the wild, leaving trail signs for others behind them. It’s the sign for ‘home’, which we think is pretty fitting.

I’m happy with these two logos now because they use a similar theme, but are obviously quite different and have meaning.

Hopefully it’ll be the start of a set of logos covering all of our future app releases.