The State of the IT Industry 2009 - Win an mp3 Player!

[Rick Savoia]

Last week I posted an article on the front page of theforcefield.net revisiting a series of podcasts about The State of the IT Industry in which four IT professionals predicted where their business and the industry as a whole would be in the coming year.

The idea is to find out if their predictions were true, what happened in their segment of the industry that made them come true in spite of current economic conditions and why.

Of course, not everyone has had the same optimism or success in their businesses, which brings up an interesting point. Why did some do well and others didn't?

I think there are a few reasons but there is one in particular that was discussed in all four episodes that became a common theme. Hint: It was discussed outright in episodes 31 and 32.

At the end of the article I challenged everyone to review the episodes for themselves and discover what I believe to be one reason discussed that can make or break your success in this market, especially in a difficult economy.

To find out if I'm right and what it is, we are holding a contest. I invite everyone to listen to all four interviews again and post your comments in this thread or send an e-mail to comments@theforcefield.net.

If you guess my answer correctly or figure it out I will put your name in a drawing to win an mp3 player similar to the one we gave away in the Summer of Podcasts contest earlier this year. (The winner was in Sweden).

This mp3 player will be shipped loaded with The Force Field Podcast Special Edition Volume 1. This edition, which is currently available in The Force Field Podcast store, is a collection of the first six episodes of The Force Field (when it was for OnForce Providers only) remastered with additional content and an additional segment in each episode written and produced specifically for the collection and never before released. The episodes are COMMERCIAL FREE.

Contest rules:

   1. Post your answer in the forum contest thread or via e-mail.
   2. You may discuss the topic in the thread but only one official posted answer per entrant.
   3. You must include a valid name/username or e-mail address in the post (you can spell out (at) instead of @ to prevent spamming. If you use username only make sure the e-mail address on your member account is correct.
   4. You must be 18 or older to participate.

A winner will be chosen from all correct entries posted in this thread or received by January 31, 2009. The winner will be announced on a future episode of The Force Field.

Rick

[Parrish]

The one thing that sticks out to me- and not just from your podcasts but from my own experience and that is diversification.  You can't just keep doing the one or two things you've focused on before and expect to survive.  You've got to have your hands in a few different ovens at the same time to make it all work.  That and being able to intelligently run your business- and to treat it as a real business (something that most people in this industry seem to have a major problem doing).

But I have a feeling the answer you actualy want is "open source"- but I don't necessarily agree with that.  I make a lot of money by selling and supporting MS and other "pay" applications. 

[Todd Hughes]

My employer was built strictly on selling nothing but open source (and is doing very well, thank you).  Of course, people have to purchase those open source products/services to protect all the proprietary M$ stuff that Parrish and others are selling.    

[Parrish]

My employer was built strictly on selling nothing but open source (and is doing very well, thank you).  Of course, people have to purchase those open source products/services to protect all the proprietary M$ stuff that Parrish and others are selling.    

Yes, but when you say "open source" a good 99% of the people that hear it immediately relate that to free.  The fact that you sell it will make most people think it's not actually open source.

I'm not disagreeing with you at all- heck, I sell IPCop boxes too.  It just needs to be pointed out what the overwhelming perception of what open source is/means.

[Todd Hughes]

Actually, it needs to be pointed out that you can sell "free" software and make a good living doing it.   

[Parrish]

Actually, it needs to be pointed out that you can sell "free" software and make a good living doing it.   

That's a much better way of putting it.  And I don't disagree with you in the least.  But, as I said, I also make darn good $$ on selling software from the "evil" companies like MS.

[Rick Savoia]

Keeping up with CES 2010 videos turned out to be more than I I expected and was not able to promote the contest as I planned, so we're going to extend it. The deadline for entries is now January 31, 2010. This will also give members who are having trouble logging in after the forum upgrade to have a chance to respond.

There are still a number of members having trouble accessing forums to post. Once again, I apologize for the inconvenience and will manually create temporary passwords for those who e-mail me so they can log in.

[Rick Savoia]

Today is the last day for entries. Contest ends Midnight EST tonight 1/31/10!

Winner will be announced in The Force Field Episode 40.

[Parrish]

Today is the last day for entries. Contest ends Midnight EST tonight 1/31/10!

Winner will be announced in The Force Field Episode 40.

Just curios- what kind of response have you gotten from the contest?

[Rick Savoia]

Today is the last day for entries. Contest ends Midnight EST tonight 1/31/10!

Winner will be announced in The Force Field Episode 40.

Just curios- what kind of response have you gotten from the contest?

We will know after midnight. 

[Parrish]

Whoa- I'm just now listening to episode 40- SWEET!!!!  

BTW, not sure if you've seen me post this in other areas- but business is going gangbusters this year.  I mean so much so that we are actively turning away new business (which I hate doing- but I can't afford to sacrifice the service level we give to our current customers) and I'm having a hard time just taking the time I need to go through this stack of resumes so we can hire a tech.  When I compare the first two months of this year to the same period in 2009 business is up 150% (yes, that's 150).  This February is our best month in the history of our company- by over $10,000.  And, the profit margins are huge- well huge when compared to all the time in the past.  We've already had more profit for the first two months of this year than we had for the entire year 2009.  

So, my optimism towards the end of 2009 is well founded- and is even outshining what I thought.  The biggest reason is because we are very conservative and smart with how we run our business.  We treat it as a real business and actively invest our time and money back into it.  That's why we were able to survive during the economic downturn- we had enough cash reserves to tough it out and cut expenses where we could without causing negative effects on our business.  If we hadn't always ran our business the way we do I don't think we could have made it through 2009 (or at least not nearly as well as we did- we actually showed a profit while our competitors were shuttering their doors).
We haven't gone the diversification route yet (well I will say we haven't done more diversification yet)- but that's because we need to add employees before we can take on anything else.  I did, recently, work with a contract tech on a big project and that went exceedingly well.  I'm sure I'll work with him again on other Cisco projects.  In fact, if he wasn't already employed as a W2 elsewhere I'd hire him as a W2.  
BTW, I just looked at my copy of Business Plan- it says "new for 1998" on the box- maybe I need to update it. LOL

[RoboGeek]

I'm enjoying a slow week finally!  Even thinking of going and getting a new desk tomorrow. Next week is already booked solid with 2 service calls and a bunch of bench work

I haven't seen my mp3 player in the mail yet....