Chatter

Ideas for Angie's List

Ideas for Angie's List
By Erik Murphy – VP, Operations

I have been through 2 home remodels and an extensive landscaping project.  These experiences showed me that not only am I “not handy”, I am negligent about home maintenance. This got some business ideas brewing in my head. I thought wouldn’t it be great if I had a website for my home.

On the site I could keep an inventory of my major appliances.  I could have links to the owner’s manuals for those appliances.  There would be a scheduling feature for annual or semi-annual home maintenance with reminders and a list of service providers to perform the maintenance.

Finally I would be able to certify that home maintenance had been done so it would be an asset of my home when it is sold.  The next buyer could assume the home profile.

The part that always hung me up was a reliable list of service providers.  It seems like that would be hard to maintain and verify.  Then I stumbled across  Angie's List. They seem to excel at creating a user-reviewed list of service providers.  I sent them my ideas as a suggestion to improve their site.

I wish I had the energy and gumption to start this website myself, but between Murphy & Associates and a young family I keep pretty busy.  Maybe Angie’s list will make use of the ideas or maybe someone who reads this will.

If you have a suggestion to improve our site, please send us the feedback.  If your suggestion is to improve the blog, I am humbly with you.

Where are you storing data?

Where are you storing data?
By Erik Murphy – VP, Operations

I read a Wall Street Journal article back on 11/27/07 about Google’s plans to offer a service to store user’s data.  This article triggered a huge ah-ha for me.  It started me thinking about how many of my computing problems would be solved by storing my data out on the internet accessible from any PC with an internet connection.  Not only would I have a central place to store all my photos, music and media files but I potentially would not have to worry about doing any kind of offsite backup.

Based on the article, I am not sure how Google actually plans to implement this data storage service, but if it were as easily accessible as another mapped drive from windows explorer that would be optimal.  I would also like the service to include version control software to help manage files that I may want to download locally to my PC in case I did not have an internet connection.  This would all be available after authenticating you have access to this data.

I have an inkling where Google is going with this.  It doesn’t take a genius to figure out the next step would be to create a platform within the browser to build applications that would access this data.  Then you wouldn’t even need to have any more software on your PC than a browser to do a large amount of work.  The MSFT shareholder in me hopes that Microsoft is working on something similar because this certainly seems like a direction away from Windows-based computing.

While I know that there are several issues with security and privacy to work out, I am also certain this is going to happen someday.  As web apps get better and better we are going to be more free to do our computing anywhere we want.  I have Spain in mind or perhaps the British Virgin Islands.

I Am Linked In

I Am Linked In
By Erik Murphy – VP, Operations

Yes, I have unwittingly joined the social network ranks and have become Linked In. So now what? I am still not sure what I am supposed to do with all these connections. It is not like I didn’t already know these people’s email addresses or important details about them.

As far as I can tell, so far, is that it is an online popularity contest. Who will acknowledge me as their friend and how many people can I get to do that? I admit to getting caught up in that, although even with my competitive nature I have only amassed 31 connections.

In brainstorming ideas to improve our Murphy & Associates systems a few years back I came up with an idea we eventually called “Six Degrees of Joe Bales”. I basically wanted to create a Murphy & Associates social network and track who knows who and how. I thought this might be useful for people when looking for a new job or a referral. We could even tie it into the skills that people had to create a forum where people could post question and rely on the M&A network to offer solutions.

We have a priority list for our development tasks. A special priority has been created for many of my ideas: “9 – Cool Idea”. Six degrees of Joe Bales remains at the cool idea priority, but from my standpoint this would be a social network that would be useful. Perhaps we can leverage Linked In in some way to accomplish the same thing. In the meantime if you are looking to boost your number of connections, I will probably respond yes if I know you, but don’t expect much after that.

Gadget Freak

Gadget Freak
By Erik Murphy – VP, Operations

I wouldn’t call myself a gadget freak, but I do love to get new technology toys and figure out uses for them to do cool things. I was very excited about hooking my laptop with a subscription music service up to my stereo and streaming most of the music we listen to in my house. The accessories such as a Bluetooth integrated phone connection and parking sonar were main criteria I used when buying a new car. I have an iPod which I use to listen to audio books downloaded from Audible when I am in my car.

The iPhone really got me wanting to replace my brick of a Nokia cell phone. I have been to the Apple and ATT stores many times playing around with it to see if my fingers are too fat for the touch keyboard and to figure out if you could do M&A web time collection from the browser. I opted for the Blackberry Curve instead; I didn’t trust that the iPhone would work well with our Exchange server.

After a bit of a ramp up getting used to the new interface (I still think Nokia has the best cell phone interface), I am very impressed with the power of this phone. Everything from the expected Blackberry features of email, contact and calendar syncing and access with Exchange to the way it is smart about how you want to use the device. I have been surprised more than once that it seems to anticipate what I want to do and makes it easier for me to do. The best example is it is able to know what folder I want to file an email into about 80% of the time.

I wasn’t sure about being more connected, but I have found it actually puts me more at ease to know that I can stay on top of things while I am not at my desk. I have been able to import information that we use when we do payroll delivery into Outlook which automatically syncs with my Blackberry and makes it much easier to contact everyone when I am delivering paychecks. I look forward to the many different ways to use gadgets and devices in the future. It is only going to get cooler.

Future So Bright

Future So Bright
By Erik Murphy – VP, Operations

This is a bit of an embarrassing memory. I remember my father stating at an annual holiday party in the late 80’s “Our future is so bright we have to wear shades” quoting a popular song from Timbuk 3. He then proceeded to put on sunglasses and tell everyone how our company is only going to get better and more successful. The premise was at the time that with the increased adoption of personal computers and information technology services by companies our company was in a prime position to service those growing needs for services. He certainly was right.

I am not going to put on my sunglasses to tell you the same statement still applies today. You don’t have to look very far to see how computers and technology has infiltrated our work and lives. With the idea of making life easier, technology often makes life and work more complicated as we become more reliant on it. The services our consultants have supplied for over 25 years have evolved as technology has and we are in a prime position to help make those complications easier to manage and leverage our experience to solve our clients’ business problems.

The future is still bright.

Check Us Out

Check Us Out
By Erik Murphy – VP, Operations

What a long way we have come. I remember back to an article I wrote in our basically defunct newsletter about dreams and visions of online interaction we could incorporate into our website. At that time even doing the time collection function seemed pretty daunting. It is amazing to me how that simple but critical process has evolved in the short time I have been on staff at Murphy & Associates. We have gone from collecting people’s hours over the phone and an answering service when nobody was available to answer the phone to having people enter their hours through our website. There were a couple iterations of answering machines and emailed hours in between.

If you are reading this then you have discovered our updated site. We have recently introduced new and improved time collection functions with what is hopefully a more intuitive user interface. With this upgrade it should be easier for you to add, edit and delete people you many want to receive an emailed copy of your timesheet. You will be able to easily notify us when you are taking time off so that you do not have to worry about entering your hours. You will also be able to create reports of the hours you have worked in the past and get a total of those hours as well as an average per week.

There are many ways in which we want to improve our interaction with you through our website and make your job as easy as we can. Stay tuned, but be patient as we roll out different ideas we have to accomplish that.