Neworking & Marketing Yourself During Career Transition

Posted by Jessica Borsits    

Thank you to the Southside Career Prospectors for having me in to talk about ways to effectively market yourself during career transition through networking events and social media sites. Below are some online resources that can help you find the right networking events and get yourself prepared to build your network.




The (Unnecessary) Cost of Doing Business:
What line of your budget can you really cut to $0?

Posted by Jessica Borsits    

With the year-end paperwork wrapping up, now is a good time to review last year's expenses and project a realistic budget for 2010. By now, it's pretty clear that spending on marketing, travel and client relations are key, and this year the situation stands to be the same, if not more so. This is true for every business, large or small, that wants to regain lost revenue and see some growth.

For small business, non-profits and start-ups where cash-flow is tight and every dollar impacts the bottom line, cutting one line of basic overhead can create a much-needed boost for other areas. The cost of basic software purchases and upgrades has become one of those line items that doesn't budge from year to year. However, few business owners realize that an open mind, and a few minutes can eliminate these costs for good.

For everyday business functions - word processing, email, spreadsheets, photo editing, document layout, financial management, multi-line phone systems, etc - there are Open Source alternatives that are just as powerful and useful, with the added benefit of being created for the love of the work more so than profit.

The open source movement has a long history of encouraging designers to openly share the source code for their projects. Under this philosophy of community-based development, open source software is published under a public license where the source code is made available for anyone to copy, modify and redistribute, and use for any purpose without paying royalties or fees. By eliminating the typical proprietary licensing of commercial software, open source projects are continually updated and improved based on direct input from the people who use it, and like the initial installation, those updates are available to everyone at no cost.

Everyday business depends on some basic software packages, no matter what the industry or service. Large, commercial providers like Adobe and Microsoft would like us to believe that keeping up with the latest release is simply the cost of doing business. Instead of spending hundreds or thousands of dollars to keep up this year, migrate to open source alternatives for free, and put your money back in to your business.

For more than five years, first for free-lance projects and now full-time, I've used open source software exclusively to replace my Windows operating system and applications, and have not missed the cost, head-aches, or vendor lock-in of commercial packages. Most non-technical types are leery of switching software, and I had some of the same concerns. The files won't work on other people's computers....I've used XYZ for so long I couldn't learn a new program....It won't work as well as the commercial version. All of these are simply myths. These programs work, they are easy to use and in some ways more powerful than their counterparts.

Below is a comparison of just a few commercial software packages with their open source counterparts. These are packages I use routinely, and rely on to service my clients. Each of these are available for free and can be downloaded and installed on your Windows or Linux PC. Not sure if you're ready? Install one along side your existing software and compare for yourself!

These are just a few examples. Even with OpenOffice and the GIMP alone you stand to gain up to $1,300 per workstation by switching. Open source alternatives are available for a number of common business programs, including MS Project, MS Outlook, and more. Spend a little time thinking about your needs, and your budget and see if reducing your software costs will be good for your business.

For more information, or to discuss your specific marketing and business development needs, please contact us by email or phone at 804.300.6810.

Consulting services are available on hourly, retainer or project basis. References and samples of work are available upon request.