Daniel's comments

Romeo & Juliet

In his initial meeting with Juliet, Romeo made sure to lay the groundwork for the next meeting - he proposed marriage!

:-)

Hi Laura and Corbin, Thanks for your comments!

Corbin, managing multiple channels of communication is a challenge for everyone here, I'm sure. I think it comes down to choosing the right tool for the right task. I use phone/fax/email/IM but I try to manage expectations for each.

For instance, email is by far my favored form of communication - it's searchable, archivable, and ascynchronous.

For quick back and forth communication, especially among project members I love IM (especially the Gmail flavored IM - it's archivable and searchable within the Gmail interface).

For intense conversations, though, there's usually a point at which the best possible IM response is simply "Call me". I most often use IM with my project partners. I don't push IM on clients unless they ask.

For phones, as the article mentions, I use Grand Central to centralize my office phone and cell phone. I also get email messages when there's a voicemail.

I try to gently steer clients away from phone calls for non-urgent matters by responding to them with an email instead of a phone call unless they've specifically asked for a return call.

As much as I wish fax would go away, for getting contracts and proposals signed by non-tech clients, nothing beats it.

I use the fax-to-email solution offered byFaxaway. They provide a free fax number, unlimited free incoming faxes delivered as PDF or TIFF. Outgoing fax prices depend on the country you send to, but for the US it's .11/minute, with a minimum of 1 minute per fax, along with a $1/month account charge. Their support team is top-notch too and ultra-responsive.

I have almost no use for snail mail anymore except for receiving checks from clients who don't want to pay by credit card. In fact, as soon as we make our move we will probably be taking advantage of one of those mail filtering companies that scan your email and deliver it as PDFs and then recycle the dead trees.

Yeah I've never really been much of a Dreamweaver an cause of the bloat. I like a quick to load text editor ready to be launched at any time without choking my system.

I know a lot of people swear by Dreamweaver, though. To each their own.

Thanks for tip on WinSCP, Seth. FileZilla does that too, but I was looking for something that combined text editing and FTP in a lean way.

Since writing this tip, I actually found that in the latest version of Notepad++, there's a FTP plugin that opens up in the sidebar of the app. So far it's worked fairly well and I'm back to Notepad++ as my everyday text editor.

Thanks for your comment Joanne. Unfortunately, iChat isn't much of an option on my end, as I work in a Windows-based environment. I'm not anti-Mac by any means. I used to own a G4 iBook, but it didn't have a built-in webcam.

My current laptop, a Sony Vaio, has a built-in webcam that works pretty well.

Anybody know of any good iChat alternatives?

I mostly agree with you, Daniel (I worked as a barista for a few years after high school). However, there is an incalculable benefit to having people spend time in your cafe. People are attracted to people. People in the cafe attract more people to the cafe.

That said, I think most of us Biznik-ers are pretty aware of the freeloading factor. Personally, I'm a coffee-hound and most of the cafes I've spent a good deal of time in I know have appreciated my business. I've brought new customers and have talked up my favorite ones (eg - this article).

I think of it kind of like a parking meter. After an hour or two you have to refill it. I usually don't spend much more than 3 or 4 hours working in any one place due to appointments, so I'll make sure I get an espresso drink and a treat, then get another drink if I'm there after a couple hours.

Do you think that's a good rule-of-thumb?

As in most things, balance is the key word here. Cafés provide wireless, because they want to attract customers who want wireless. Customers come to the wireless café. Customers buy things. Customers use wireless. I think everyone's happy except in extreme cases.

That's a good question, Michael. It's one I've been thinking of lately too.

Ultimately, I think your remote clients will have to be OK with the fact that you're not there in the flesh. For clients that really need personal face time, I don't if there's much that will get them beyond that.

However for clients that don't need face-to-face, in-person attention, I think a mix of phone/web conferencing/video chat would work.

I've toyed with the idea of purchasing a decent web cam for some of my best clients and offering to install it and show them how to use it to get them set up for web-based meetings, but I haven't found a killer web-based video conferencing solution yet.

Has anyone else? I'd like to find one.

In the meantime, Michael, I think just being responsive by phone and email and staying ahead of the needs of your clients will go a long way towards building up your client's trust enough that they don't feel they need you there in person to know you're working hard for them.

Thanks for the referral to Highrise, Ryan. I hadn't seriously looked at it - I'll check it out.

Hi Elizabeth - funny you should mention Motore, I used to work from there quite often when I had a contract job downtown. I get a kick out of the owner there. I forget his name, but he was pretty funny.

Thanks for letting me know Allan and Hannah ... if Monday/Wednesday/Saturday seem to be better days, perhaps we can move the event to one of those days. I'll leave up the event as is for a few more days to see if consensus says to move the day.

Hi Ruth, Earthclassmail.com sounds extremely promising, and I think my partner and I will be using that service once we make the move.

My partner and his wife are the ones that have their eye on Peru. They're thinking Summer of 2009, I believe, as the move date. My goals are slightly more modest and a little less defined at this point. My wife and I love Vashon Island, but we also want to travel quite a bit in the next few years - for extended periods of the Tim Ferris/4 HourWorkweek variety - except I'd like to actually work from those locations because I enjoy what I do.

Also, as my partner and his wife settle into their expat lifestyle, my wife and I will be eager to know how they like it, because we're not ruling out a more permanent move either.