Lichtman Consulting

I did something completely idiotic this afternoon.

While assisting one of my staff with a problematic installation of some open source software on a server, I decided to clean up certain files that we no longer needed with “rm -r *”.

Only to discover that I was in the wrong directory.

It didn’t help that we had been working directly on that computer for several days.

I was saved from losing a week’s work only by the fact that the backup from the morning was good (you never know with backups). We still lost a few hours of work, but that’s much better than it could have been.

Moral of the story: a) backup even more regularly than you think necessary, b) keep a local copy of your working files, c) don’t use “rm -r *” unless you’ve double checked what it will do.

We’re currently building a number of community based “social media” website. Obviously I’m interested generally in what makes a good online community, but this time there’s a practical aspect to this – I want my customer’s sites to succeed!

Let’s throw this open for comments.

What do you think are the critical factors involved? Is it specific functionality? Great moderators? The initial “link bait” content that gets people there in the first place? One or two really sociable users?

I finally found the time to update the appearance of this site. I originally planned out what I wanted several months back, and then never got around to it somehow.

In case you are wondering, the template started out in life as the free WordPress “inove” template, and then diverged.

As usual comments (and of course criticisms) are welcome.

I’ve been receiving a number of questions lately regarding Lichtman Consulting that go something along the lines of: “Why is your company website a blog?” or “Why don’t you have business cards?” or (in one case) “Why don’t you have a nice company logo?”.

Its a funny thing. I (and more so my staff) spend a lot of time helping companies either put together corporate-looking websites, or helping them market them.

On the other hand, Lichtman Consulting generally keeps a low profile.

There are a few answers I’ve thought of, ranging from glib to strategic.

Basically what it boils down to, though, is that I receive most of my business through a handful of partnerships that I’ve built with other companies. I value those partnerships, and I go out of my way to avoid competing with them (or even the appearance of competing with them).

Honestly, I’d rather get a steady trickle of work from a handful of really good clients (in this case mostly other tech-sector companies that have a use for my services) rather than run around like a lunatic blowing my own horn. Its sufficient basis for building a business.

As I said to one of my programmers the other day, my goal is to be a reliable junior partner to the world. If that means keeping a stealthy profile, so be it.