So I’m a big fan of David Allen’s GTD System. For a long time, I’ve been looking for a personal information system that could help me get the job done.

I’ve been extremely impressed with the early versions of Things. I’m starting to get very excited about their iCal sync feature.

If you’re looking for an electronic version of David Allen’s system, this is the tightest app I’ve seen for it. I especially like the “Areas” feature, as most apps I’ve used lack this feature.

Once I have the ical feature, I will be able to sync this info with my PDA. That’s really the only problem with Things in its current build. Once I’m able to access this information on the go, I’ll feel a lot better about having an offline app for this type of organization.

Congrats to the people over at Gapminder for getting nominated for a webby. Check their site out because not only is their message so important, but their presentation is really impressive. I was particularly attracted to the interactive graphs in tools - it’s a great way of getting their message across.

I’m all about statistics, but I think what really grabbed me was the ability to manipulate the graphs to get the data displayed the way I wanted so that I could do “my own” analysis. You can think about this as it relates to your business development. This can function as a great lead generation tool. Do you have customers in different segments where you can plot their average income gains as a result of purchasing your product? What about investors that want to see the projected impact of your business on the market? Quantitative studies like this are great, and so is giving your audience data that they can play with. This has many implications. In general, you present your ideas to people with limited time - how quickly can you get your message across?

Data visualization and interactivity are two very important subjects in a world where information is constantly being thrown at us. Presenting it in a way where the user can quickly understand the message and easily manipulate the data is vital to effective communication.

I think the guys over at Quibblo are trying to get this idea across en masse. There are tons of sites where you can design surveys and polls, but they’re the only ones I saw that presents the data nicely.

I stumbled upon Administaff while talking with a small business client on Friday. It really turned me on to the whole idea of a PEO (Wikipedia Article). Essentially, as a small business owner you can contract a third party to be the employer of record for your employees. They manage your payroll, benefit packages, and other HR related functions you don’t want to deal with. What a novel idea. I’m sure it’s making a lot of people rich (Looks like 2006 was a good year). These are the win win relationships that make small businesses better. This is definitely something I’ll consider when I’m looking to hire employees.

The only thing I couldn’t find is how cost effective it is. I’m sure there’s a significant cost, but the convenience of the whole relationship must make it worth your money.

How do you do it? Do you prioritize it over other business activities? I was struggling with consistently getting good posts up - especially when I was going through my retreat. There was so much creativity going on I didn’t want to stop the momentum. I have now set aside two hours a week to review other people’s blogs and to write at least one post. I will let you know how it works out, but I really want to hear about how you handle blogging.

It can get chaotic as an entrepreneur and time is an extremely valuable asset - how much do you devote to blogging and why?

I did a bit of brainstorming today on my business plan. From my previous exploits, I’ve found that a company without a business plan lacks direction and guidance.

I’ve decided that I’m going to start this exercise in small chunks at a time. Doing a little at a time will allow for the consolidation of my ideas. So I took an hour today to reflect on where I want the business to go. I began with a very simple question - what will it take to support my own, full time salary?

For a long time, I’ve been consulting. I enjoy helping people on custom software development and IT project management. I’m looking to transition a full time job and a part time consulting gig into a full time business. I believe that this can be achieved only through the development of assets. While consulting can make significant amounts of money, time is a limiting factor. You cannot make yourself or your employees available for a limitless number of hours. Therefore, all you can do to boost revenue is to boost rates. This is not something that is fair to my customers, and it’s not a model for significant business growth. At some point, your rates are going to become impractical and your customers will seek business elsewhere.

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