Where my ideas came from…

From service through to project manager and writer

After selling a successful car detailing business in 1996, I began working for a major computer retailer and I took advantage of every training program offered by the manufacturers and repair companies, thus giving me a good grounding in computer repairs and servicing  from a variety of sources.

But sitting in a cold room staring at screens all day was not my idea of a career. To me technology is only as good as its ability to help people and this is only done when that technology is easy to use. I couldn’t see the humour, when other computer techs always blamed the person using the computer: to me that was a cop-out for us not teaching them well, isn’t that what we should have been doing?

I decided to talk to local businesses near the store and found that, without exception, they were frustrated by the lack of stock on hand at the store. Oh they bought their computers from us, but it was the consumables like the printer cartridges, which they needed on a regular basis, that simply weren’t on the store shelves when they needed them. Some of them were only a 2 minute walk from our store, yet they purchased cartridges from a store 15-20 minutes drive away!

I approached the management of my store about an idea to create a register of the local businesses, keeping track of their use of consumables and keeping the right stock on hand, using system cards in a simple filing system. By knowing their needs, we could order in bulk and pass the savings on to the local businesses. Everyone won!

Simple right?

The stone wall that met me was my first inkling of how much we all hold onto rules at the risk of good reason. The answer was an unyielding NO.

So I started my small business from home two months later. We bought our first shop eight months later and expanded from there.

The Internet

In our first year in our first store at Banksia, the Internet was an expensive system that was only good for sending emails and maintaining an online ‘business card’. Domain names were $500 and Internet Access was limited to a few hours for $20/month! Hard to believe eh?!

But within two years the Internet blazed into every office. Competition from local ISPs brought prices down and we started reselling website hosting and hired a website designer.

more to come…