Home Business Information

Last century, X10 was synonymous with affordable home control. This century's de facto control standard for the mainstream market has yet to be crowned, but various home control platforms are vying for bragging rights. Some use power lines, some use the Internet protocol, and others operate over the radio spectrum. In fact, the home of the future may use a combination of pipelines and languages.

As appliances and other household devices become more feature-rich--with the ability to communicate their operating status and coordinate with other devices-the need for simple and reliable control will be as important to tomorrow's home as structured wiring or Internet access.

allied approach

Few companies are in a position to go it alone, and most have realized that the best way to ensure compatibility and longevity with networked products is to join an alliance of established (and related) companies. Even LG Electronics, which has been developing a networking system called LG HomNet in South Korea based on a proprietary communications protocol, has abandoned plans to work independently. While the company continues to hammer away at the upscale appliance market in the United States, it has opened its once-proprietary control protocol to other companies. LG HomNet is currently installed in two controlled communities in South Korea and China. Plans for the U.S. market haven't been announced.

In the United States, Z-Wave and In2 Networks hope to become household names in home control. Both alliances are in the process of amassing rosters of star players looking to ride the next wave of mainstream home automation for control of lighting, HVAC, appliances, security, and other low-bandwidth command-and-control applications.

Leviton, Intermatic, and Honeywell are among the 100-plus companies that have joined the Z-Wave Alliance, which is headed by Z-Wave developer Zensys, based in Upper Saddle River, N.J. Z-Wave is a wireless, radio frequency based (RF) protocol that operates in the 906 MHz spectrum of the radio band.

Intermatic was the first to market, rolling out a line of do-it-yourself lighting and appliance controls in 31 Fry's Electronics stores earlier this year. The Home Settings line includes light switches, appliance and lighting modules, a handheld remote control, and a master controller with LCD screen to guide users through operation of single devices or groups of devices. The master controller can operate up to 192 appliances or switches.

With the help of a local gallery, Dan and Sue Sweeny have turned their Denver home into a photo homage to classic Hollywood and unique portraiture

The "guests" surrounding the dining-room table at Dan and Sue Sweeney's Denver pied a terre radiate the sultry sophistication of classic Hollywood and the smooth sounds of an era when a look was all it took to beguile.

Katherine Hepburn is draped over a chair, Lauren Bacall stands columnar against a wall, and Marilyn Monroe seduces the camera. Sarah Vaughn mirrors success; Nancy Wilson sets anguish to music. Leonard Bernstein is as intense as Frank Lloyd Wright is stoic.

These high-profile guests are found in the black-and-white photographs found throughout the Sweenys home.

"The beauty of black-and-white photography," said Dan Sweeney, "is that it captures the essence of a person much better than color, which has a tendency to overwhelm the characteristics of the subject. Especially in very interesting people."

If he hadn't discovered Denver's Gallery M, Sweeney believes he never would have begun collecting black-and-white photography.

"I didn't really have a collecting interest," he said, "until I came to Denver five years ago. I had rented a place north of Cherry Creek (a Denver suburb) and was wandering around the neighborhood shops when I ran into Gallery M. After that, I would stop in to see what's new whenever I was in town."

When Denver's Circle Gallery dosed in 1996, director Myrna Hayutin gave herself two weeks to decide what she wanted to do. She wanted to do art her way--"I knew I must stay in the art world."

Eight months later, she and son Mason opened Gallery M with a cadre of artists who spoke to her experience.

Five years later, Hayutin moved the gallery, this past June, to its present location in Cherry Creek. Opening with a street-level atrium, the gallery is an expansive 2,500-square-foot contemporary design on the second floor, which takes advantage of large white walls and northern light ideal for featuring photography.

One evening, Sweeney was dining in town when he and a friend, both jazz fans, wandered across the street to Gallery M while awaiting their reservation. His friend emerged with a black-and-white portrait of Duke Ellington, while Sweeney acquired the first of "his ladies" Sarah Vaughn and Nancy Wilson.

Steve Schilling's TeleCommute Solutions will handle your telecommuters.

Atlanta is a city in the throes of severe traffic-induced pollution problems. Its highway funds are frozen until it brings down smog levels. One of the solutions for such cities is telecommuting, and it seems appropriate that TeleCommute Solutions (TCS) is located there.

TCS somewhat uncomfortably calls itself a network service provider, but what it offers goes beyond the technology of delivering services over a network. Its stock in trade is a complete telecommuting package for large enterprises that takes care of every aspect of dealing with off-site workers, from access to training to support.

You'd think that city, state, and national efforts to encourage telecommuting as a solution to traffic and pollution, and as a way of saving on real estate costs, would be driving the current interest, but, in fact, that's not the principal reason, says Steve Schilling, president of TCS.

"The reality is people are doing this now for the job market," he says. "Because the market's gotten so tight, they need to retain and attract people. They need to expand the pool of people they get access to. And, companies are looking at telecommuting as an employee benefit, a retention tool."

Telecommuting can be a slippery term; it generally refers to workers who spend at least part of the work week at home--but the time can range from one day a week to full-time with only occasional visits to the main office. Link Resources, which has studied telecommuting for years, says the number of telecommuters is approaching 20 million. The Gartner Group projects that a quarter of the workforce will be doing some telecommuting by 2003.

This presents enormous challenges to the corporate network, as well as to the skills of management. In fact, says Don O'Hagan, vice president of telecommunications for the Pearson Technology Center, it's not even clear that telecommuters are the responsibility of IT departments. Pearson Education, with 11,000 employees, is aiming to be the largest education publisher in the world, and the technology center supports the entire operation all over the world. Right now, O'Hagan supports 4,000 remote workers.

Like most home-based entrepreneurs, Donna Perry has the freedom to take her job practically anywhere. Most of the tools she needs to run DPDesigns--an Internet-services company that designs, hosts and maintains Web sites--are right in her laptop. When she's not visiting clients, she may set up shop on the road or in a field near her Mesquite, Tex., home.

But like most home-based entrepreneurs, Perry pays a price for that freedom: Without a big staff or a big budget, it's hard to keep up with all the work.

Last summer Perry discovered a tool that helps streamline one of her most time-consuming tasks: billing clients. TimeBills.com (www.timebills.com), a time-tracking and invoicing service, lets her record her time and expenses for each client on the fly in customized client accounts kept at the TimeBills Web site. No more scribbling notes on slips of paper. No more attempts to reconstruct those scribbles in QuickBooks. In fact, being able to record her hours while they are still fresh in her memory has paid off in a big way. "I found that I had been underbilling by about $1,500 a month," she says.

Whether or not you sell products or services over the Web, you can use a slew of new Web-based tools aimed squarely at you and other small-business owners. Many are free or low-cost, and all are available anywhere in the world as long as you have a computer with a Web browser and Internet access.

With TimeBills, Perry doesn't have to be in her office at the end of the month to send invoices. She forwards them by e-mail from the company's Web site, which saves her the cost of the postage meter she used to rent just to send invoices. You can also fax them from the site.

Accounts are encrypted and password-protected, and storing data on a server outside the office acts as a backup in case her home computer flatlines. And the price is right: TimeBills.com is free for up to five employees (after that it's $3.95 per month for each additional user). SMALL-BUSINESS SUPERSTORE. Been putting off your business's marketing campaign or letting overdue accounts slide? DigitalWork facilitates those services and nearly 40 more in demand by home businesses. Many are provided by leading business-service companies, and most have starting prices of $100 or less.

A FEW DAYS BEFORE CHRISTMAS, I was scheduled to fly on the airline I have nearly 2 million frequent-flier miles with. Bad weather in one of the airline's hub cities had caused a horrendous backup, and there was such a mess at the airline's counters that it soon became obvious that most of us standing in line would miss our flights. After talking to the person at the counter three times, I finally asked to talk to a supervisor--one never appeared, and I missed my flight. I contacted customer service and was told it was my responsibility to make sure I got on the plane. (Should I have rushed the counter? I still wonder what I could have done without getting arrested.) I sent another e-mail to someone who I thought was a different customer-service person and received a reply which began, "I guess you didn't like my answer...."

Several weeks ago, articles editor Charlotte Jensen was eating out with a friend when she found a rather large, dead roach in her salad. Not wanting to make a fuss, she told the server, who removed the plate. When he returned with the dinner plates, he lied and told Char it was a root, not a bug. Unable to finish her meal, she asked for the check. When he brought the bill (the restaurant comped the salad but charged for the rest of the meal, though much of it remained uneaten) he said, "I'm so, so sorry. At least it was dead. You know we cannot control everything here."

I bet every one of you can recount a similar example of jaw-droppingly stupid customer service. Yes, I know this is hardly an original topic in this space. But as you can tell from the two anecdotes above, the sorry state of customer service hasn't improved much.

This is an area where you entrepreneurs can stand out. A few weeks ago, we decided to replace the windows and doors in our home. Still stung from bad past experiences at large home-improvement stores, we found a small, independent shop where the entire team--from Sean who showed us our choices ("We don't sell here.") to John and Julie, the married entrepreneurs who own the company, to the courteous and efficient installers--was not only helpful, but very pleasant as well. I have already recommended the company to several friends and neighbors.

Ten years after being formed in 1995, eBay has become the world's leading online marketplace for all sorts of goods. At any given time, 29 million items are available worldwide on eBay, with more than 3.5 million new items added every day and $1,000 worth of merchandise sold every second. The online auction site has 135 million registered users in 32 international markets, and more than 430,000 people in the United States alone make a full- or part-time living on eBay.

If you think eBay is just about bobblehead dolls and Pez dispensers, think again. While $2.2 billion worth of goods in collectibles were sold on eBay in 2004, antiques and collectibles ranked only No. 6 among eBay's sales categories. The five highest were: automobiles and auto supplies ($11.1 billion); consumer electronics ($3-5 billion); computers ($3.0 billion); clothes and accessories ($2.9 billion); and books, movies and music ($2.4 billion).

Real people are making big bucks on eBay--and thousands have even reached PowerSeller status by maintaining at least $1,000 per month in sales for three consecutive months. Case in point: Angle Cash, 37, a stay-at-home mom who started selling on eBay nearly six years ago because it was "something I could do and watch the kids at the same time." Today, her Kennesaw, Georgia, company, Cashco1000 Inc. (www. cashco1000.com), sells thousands of home-decoration and other items each month on eBay and expects to break $500,000 in sales on eBay this year.

Even owners of existing businesses have found success on eBay by using it as an adjunct to their brick-and-mortar operations. Dan Morphy, 33, runs the Adamstown Antique Gallery (www. aagal.com), a 10,000-square-foot antiques mall in Denver, Pennsylvania. After a few successful eBay auctions, he started offering the antiques vendors who rent space in his gallery the opportunity to sell five items a month on eBay, at no charge other than out-of-pocket expenses. Within two years, Morphy not only had a full gallery of dealers, but was also listing 700 pieces a month and had exceeded $2.5 million in eBay sales.

Balancing babies and your home business can be difficult. Set ground rules for success.

If you're like many home-based business owners, you have more than calls and customers to keep in line--you also have kids.

Darrin Wheeler, CEO of D.W. Leather Imports, has four children, but still manages to run his Philadelphia-based import/export company efficiently.

What's his secret? "Knowing when to take a break," says Wheeler, whose company imports leather handbags, briefcases and wallets from India and Thailand. "You must allot sufficient time to develop your home business, but by the same token you must not get so engrossed in your work that you start neglecting your children. Whenever I feel that I'm making headway, I break for at least 15 minutes to spend time with my kids."

Many entrepreneurs set up shop at home so they can spend more time with their children. But combining kids and a home business is not easy. Here are some ways to make the balancing act easier:

* Get your kids involved. If your kids are interrupting your work every 10 minutes, give them a small task to do within your business, such as getting lunch, faxing and copying documents, or filing papers. The young kids can open junk mail or flip through old catalogs.

Sally Cherry, a medical technologist and owner of Cherry Consulting Network in Joppa, Maryland, enlists the help of her 15-year-old daughter, Shervonne. "She has been my receptionist ever since she was six years old," says Cherry, who provides medical and laboratory training/ consulting for organizations. "She folds papers, answers phones, licks stamps and sorts mail."

* Take regular breaks with your kids. Set aside time that you will devote entirely to your kids. Give them your undivided attention. They will appreciate the time, and respect your need to work later on.

* Set a work schedule. Create a schedule that you'll follow every day (except in emergencies, of course). If necessary, set office hours and post them so family members will know when you're working.

* Plan telephone calls. If you have small children, try to schedule calls during nap time or when they are less active. Also, give them a toy or their favorite video to watch while you talk.

* Childproof your office. To avoid mishaps, make dangerous items inaccessible and safeguard important ones. Store sharp objects in hard-to-reach places and put papers in locked filing cabinets.

In 1995, when Vickie Clark voiced her desire to start a business transporting kids back and forth to various activities, some family and friends looked at her as if she had three eyes. Clark went on to prove that having a vision no one else shares doesn't make you crazy. Clark, the founder of Kids "R" Travelin', now runs a thriving family business out of her home in Stone Mountain, Georgia. Her business plan earned her $20,000 as one of five national winners of the 2001 Making It Real Business Grant Competition sponsored by Olde English 800.

Clark, 29, was convinced that her entrepreneurial idea was God's answer to her prayer for an opportunity that could get her out of a mailroom job at Wachovia Bank At the time, she worked the third shift, from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., so her baby wouldn't have to go to day care. "My original goal was to take the position for a year and move into customer service for a higher position and more pay," she recalls. "But I knew I couldn't last that long. Then I read an article in a local magazine about a lady transporting children in another state. That led me to researching the same idea here.

"Unlike school buses, my company would provide door-to-door service for kids to karate, piano, cheerleading practice, and school," she states. "I'd make sure the kids were in the house safely, the door was locked, and parents could reach me anytime on my cell phone."

Initially, Clark provided parents with a copy of her driver's license and had them fill out enrollment forms and information sheets, and had them review her company agreement--a form she developed by borrowing language used on forms at day care centers. "I went to day care centers and pretended that I wanted to enroll my daughter in their programs," she admits. "That's how I got the wording to include in my policy and agreement.... Two weeks before school started, I had 30 children registered for my program."

With registration up, she was in search of a van, but the $25 registration fee that the company charged wasn't nearly enough to cover the cost of a new vehicle. Their credit rating was low, so they opted for a used van. "I found a 15-passenger van with no tires or seats and in need of a paint job at a Buy Here, Pay Here lot," Clark laughs. "When I first saw it, I thought `no way.' But I couldn't afford anything else; the company allowed us to finance the van with a $500 down payment and school was about to start."

You've climbed the corporate ladder and put in the time and toil to achieve success. But perhaps you've wondered if there's something else for you, and you've ultimately resolved to purchase your own franchise. Your experience in the corporate world should be more than sufficient to prepare you for this new career, right? After all, what's managing 10 hourly employees when you've spearheaded multimillion-dollar marketing campaigns or overseen the operations of a global empire? Well, making the transition from executive to franchisee may entail a lot more than you think.

But don't fret. All your knowledge and experience can give you advantages as a franchisee. Take it from these ex-executives-turned-franchisees, who reveal what their previous lives prepared them for and what they had to learn along the way in their great franchise adventures.

New Territory

William Kosti got his first taste of El Taco Tote Real Mexican Grill while on a business trip to El Paso, Texas, working as director of business development for a consulting company. He thought the food was excellent and, in the back of his mind, he kept the idea of bringing the franchise to his home in North Texas, where TexMex was the closest he could get to Mexican food. When Kosti, 44, was laid off in 2003, he made his idea a reality and opened an El Taco Tote franchise in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.

His corporate background proved beneficial: Kosti had the savvy required to develop a business plan, forecast sales, create a startup budget, and secure funds for operations before and during the launch period. And when he was working on getting financing from banks and SBA lenders, his corporate background seemed to put bankers at ease.

One of Kosti's most important advantages was his understanding of how vital information is to a successful operation. By opting for very extensive point-of-service and back-office systems, Kosti can keep track of sales and consumer behavior in relation to sales. He says analyzing this information on a daily basis allows him to "anticipate any future problems and take corrective measures, whether internal or external."

In what seems like only a few short years, financial information systems (FIS) have evolved from simple, back-office support systems into fully integrated solutions that can handle everything from payroll to accounts receivable and revenue cycle management. But such increased functionality would not be possible without the ability to combine disparate databases into a single source of financial information that can be mined at multiple levels.

The importance of data mining quickly became apparent to corporate executives at Scripps Health in San Diego, who had been working with six separate databases before upgrading to a newer version of Sunrise Access Manager/Patient Financial Manager from Boca Raton, Fla.-based Eclipsys Corp. Scripps Health currently operates five acute care facilities totaling nearly 1,400 beds, two medical groups with 14 outpatient clinics, a home health agency and a health plan.

Today, yearly revenues average $1.35 billion, which is a big turnaround from a few years ago when Scripps Health posted operating losses in 2000 and 2001 totaling approximately $26 million and $22 million and respectively.

In an effort to bolster their bottom line, Scripps Health devised a number of key strategies, not the least of which was drastically changing their methods of billing and reimbursement. "A couple of years ago we moved away from capitated risk to fee-for-service risk," says David Cohn, vice president of patient financial services. Additionally, since each hospital had been running its own Eclipsys FIS, the organization made the decision to upgrade these 13-year-old systems by installing an enterprisewide FIS.

With the HIPAA deadline looming, Scripps Health had only six months to install and test the new system. In July 2003, they rolled out version 11.3, which was not only HIPAA-compliant, but was also the vendor's "multientity" product. This enabled the organization to merge multiple databases into one central database that now resides on the mainframe. "Prior to that, each hospital was operating in its own silo," says Cohn.

That presented problems of both access and efficiency, says Paula Pochodowicz, senior support analyst for information services. "Patient registration lives at the corporate level, but then there is an entity level." In the single-silo version, the user had to login to one entity, then logout before logging in to another facility's database.

We could be on the verge of the most important change in telecommunications since digital exchanges replaced Strowgers. I'm talking about the evolution of fully IP (Internet Protocol) next generation networks (NGNs), most visibly BTis 21CN (21st Century Network) though other operators in the UK may also have their own plans. There is no doubt that these changes will affect all the stages of the communications value chain. But it is vitally important to separate fact from hype. This is especially true in respect of how a particular business will benefit or be challenged by the coming changes.

NGNs will have fully packet switched, as opposed to circuit switched, network infrastructures. The exact details of how NGNs will work together in terms of interconnection and standards is still to be determined as demonstrated by the large-scale BT-industry interface in respect of working out the details for 21CN. The most significant aspect amid the mass of issues though can be said to be the change to the revenue model for telecommunications operators. At its simplest, a fully IP network allows for improved routing and wrapped services which consequently require a different way of charging to that of traditional circuit switched networks.

Under a fully IP network charging on a metered basis for voice will not be feasible; rather voice will be wrapped up in the service package and will effectively be efreei. So how will revenues be maintained if voice is free? This is where the other IP is paramount; the second IP of course being Intellectual Property. When revenues for switched voice disappear, a wrap of IP delivered services will attract customers on the basis of the quality of IP (Intellectual Property) or, in other words, content.

But here one must be careful of the hype and instead develop a subtle understanding of the impact of NGNs from a competition viewpoint. While IP networks mean a fundamental change from a service point of view, the reach to deliver those services will still depend on efficient interconnection with BT's network and a suitably competitive environment to encourage alternative network build. Therefore for businesses with an alternative network that is already data (not voice) centric, NGNs present a wealth of opportunity.

Interior decorator and small-business owner Deborah Wiener, 46, has carved out a special place in her Silver Spring, Maryland, market. She doesn't just help clients pick out colorful fabrics and comfy furniture--Wiener's work is much more specific and detailed than that. The entrepreneur's 4-year-old niche company, Designing Solutions LLC, specializes in creating family-friendly interiors for her clients' homes. This includes helping customers choose furniture that can stand the wear and tear of active children, stain-resistant fabrics, and lamps and accessories that are less prone to breakage.

Before launching Designing Solutions, Wiener did her homework to see if there was really a need for the niche enterprise she was contemplating. An interior designer by trade, she took various friends and acquaintances with children out to lunch in groups of three and four. She asked them what they thought of local interior decorators, and most said they were too "fancy," offering suggestions not practical enough for people with kids.

Wiener also began writing columns for and advertising in local publications, churches and synagogues to promote her skills. The mother of two boys, ages 14 and 9, discovered through her research and marketing that there was an unfulfilled need in her community for an interior decorator who understood the needs of clients with kids running amok through their homes. This niche business, which projects more than $2 million in sales this year and has four design consultants, was born in 2001 in Wiener's home.

Getting Started

Niche businesses like Wiener's--which offer a product or service focusing on one specific aspect or customer base within an industry--are growing at a rate of 20 percent to 25 percent per year, according to Ira Davidson, director of the Small Business Development Center at Pace University in New York City. Some popular niches these days include specialized pet products, beauty salons/spas, travel agencies, back-office services, technical/online support and business coaching.

"Niche startups are good in that they offer you a chance to focus all your branding and marketing in one area and expand on those core customers as you grow your company," says Davidson. "After all, when you try to be everything to everybody, you wind up being nothing to anybody--and that's the problem with ventures that are too broad."

Although government regulation of the Internet has been decried as undercutting free speech, the control of Internet content through capitalist gateways--namely, profit-driven software companies--has gone largely uncriticized. The author argues that this discursive trend manufactures consent through a hegemonic force neglecting to confront the invasion of online advertising or marketing strategies directed at children. This study suggests that "inappropriate content" (that is, nudity, pornography, obscenities) constitutes a cultural currency through which concerns and responses to the Internet have been articulated within the mainstream. By examining the rhetorical and financial investments of the telecommunications business sector, the author contends that the rhetorical elements creating "cyber-safety" concerns within the mainstream attempt to reach the consent of parents and educators by asking them to see some Internet content as value laden (sexuality, trigger words, or adult content), while disguising the interests and authority of profitable computer software and hardware industries (advertising and marketing). Although most online "safety measures" neglect to confront the emerging invasion of advertising/marketing directed at children and youth, the author argues that media literacy in cyberspace demands such scrutiny. Unlike measures to block or filter online information, students need an empowerment approach that will enable them to analyze, evaluate, and judge the information they receive.

According to figures provided by the U.S. Census Bureau (2001), more than half of school-age children (6 to 17 years) had access to computers both in school and at home in the year 2000 (57 percent). With some 17 million children using the Internet in some capacity, including email, the Web, chat rooms, and instant messaging (Silver and Garland, 2004, p. 158), the Census Bureau estimates that 21 percent use the Internet to perform school-related tasks, such as research for assignments or taking courses online.

The rewards of managing a growing business are obvious. For concrete producers, two areas where management challenges arise with growth are efficiency and safety. Perhaps nowhere is the challenge of achieving the optimal balance between these two ideals more obvious than in preventing mixer truck rollovers.

Every ready-mix producer has heard stories about, or even worse, been involved in, this type of mishap. But it often takes research to drive home the point that driving a mixer truck is one of the industry's most dangerous tasks. A recent NRMCA survey of 36 members showed that they averaged about three mixer truck rollovers in a little more than a year. Such information certainly can cause the producer to act.

But the power of information can solve problems as well as bring them to light. Solving the rollover problem is so important, that an information system dedicated to the issue has emerged within the past year after many years of research and development.

On the cutting edge

Al Benjamin, operations manager for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Maricopa Ready Mix LLC, and his employer were on the cutting edge of R&D for the system a few years ago. One of the first ready-mix suppliers in the country to adopt an Automatic Vehicle Location (AVL) system, Maricopa was approached by Trimble Navigation Ltd., which was seeking help from producers on product development.

Trimble had acquired a company in nearby Chandler and formed a division called Trimble Information Services. "We were the only ones in the valley with AVL," says Benjamin. The company runs a growing operation of five plants and 91 trucks.

After assisting in product testing, Maricopa also became one of the first suppliers in the industry to adopt the DriveSafe system. The company used the system last year and began running regular reports by the fourth quarter. Benjamin and other producers believe the system is a powerful management information tool, as well as an employee empowerment tool, because it documents driver efficiency and safety in a way that has never been attempted before.

The system, consisting of Trimble Navigation's DriveSafe application and its TrimView ready-mix platform, addresses efficiency and safety simultaneously as it measures driver efficiency while helping the producer manage safety exceptions. The producer can use the combined data to bring drivers to the apex: efficiency and safety.