When I was in college I had a professor, Mauricio, ask me what I wanted to do when I graduated. I loudly and enthusiastically exclaimed that I was going to be a Project Manager for a software consulting company. I remember him saying "Why in the world would you want that job? A software PM is a person responsible for everything in a project with no control over any of the project resources! You should TEACH people how to Project Manage instead." Admittedly, now that I'm living my dream at 5 AM when a client inevitably has a question or runs into a workflow that I never thought of (i.e. I've trained my pet terrier to make blog posts - can you make it so the web pages post with everything translated into audio for small dogs?) I sometimes wish I had decided to take his path instead.

 I've been getting a lot of feedback from people lately in the sales process that it's really hard to find adequate comparison tools for SAP versus other products.  This has led to my own quest for knowledge about how to find out how to compare the best ERP systems for a business.  Here is what I've found...

On a cold December day in Portland, Brad Windecker and I embarked on a journey into the heart of Texas to spend a few days with one of our partners, DI Central. While we were there, we had the chance to talk to their management team about their solutions, fulfill my lifelong dream of visiting NASA in Houston, attend a spectacular company party, and enjoy some southern hospitality. It's great to do business with a firm that provides a great product and knows how to throw a party.

It is one thing to use open source software and evangelize it's capabilities to a marketplace. It is quite another to actually attempt to contribute to that software.

ASUG California - Northern Chapter Meeting
Friday, November 6, 2009
Crowne Plaza Hotel
777 Bellew Drive
Milpitas, CA 95035

Register Today

As registration is only open to ASUG members, you must be logged in to the ASUG Web site to access the registration page.

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Orchestra is a Business Technology provider in Portland, Seattle, and Sacramento. We help small and mid-size businesses solve problems. Whether it be software, hardware, the web, or services, we have it in our tool belt. We understand small business and can help increase revenue or reduce cost through our wide range of products and services.

From the best business software in the world, SAP Business One, to open source websites built on Drupal and Ubercart, Orchestra can help. Ask us How.

Orchestra invests heavily is social media marketing. We invest in projecting our image online via forums, Twitter, LinkedIn, and various other social media sites. We try to craft posts that are well thought out and don't always sound like we're trying to sell something. We also don't write by committee here, so our individual personalities are visible and even controversial. This is good, and here is why.

I was clicking through my Google reader today on beer and found this article about the populartiy of Pabst Blue Ribbon beer.

Now, I drink a PBR once in a while (especially since it comes in convienent river-friendly pint cans), but Pabst is looking at a 25% increase in sales this year! That's more than just selling a few cans. I've also heard from several folks (no sources) that PBR actually outsells all other beer here in Portland. Anyone care to weigh in with a source? Here is the opening article text:

Pabst Blue Ribbon Now More Popular Than Ever; Sorry, Hipsters

In twist of irony, alternative drinkers pushed beer mainstream

By MATT BARTOSIK

Updated 4:32 PM CDT, Thu, Sep 17, 2009

Pabst Blue Ribbon

Sales of Pabst Blue Ribbon are up a whopping 25 percent this year, according to Information Resources Inc.

"Well, of course," you say. In this economy, consumers are looking for low-cost options, and cheaper beers are going to do better than more expensive ones.

But Pabst raised its prices last year and now it isn't as cheap as you may think: The beer now costs $1.50 more than MillerCoors' Keystone, $1 more than Anheuser-Busch's Busch and Natural brands, and 50 cents more than Miller High Life, Crain's reports.

Yet, despite being more expensive, PBR is doing remarkably better than all those brands in profits.

Thanks to everyone that has responded to our search for talented people with Drupal know-how. We are actively reviewing each and every one of your submissions and will be responding to each next week.

Note: The sites built by people in this area are astounding. Innovative, creative, functional, user friendly, and outright cool. We're lucky to have the opportunity to select from a group of talent like this.

Happy Friday.

P.S. Sorry about the title. The sales guys make me do that.

SAP Business One users have a company on their side to keep up with tax law.

The folks over at Sabrix never cease to amaze me, what with their obsession with everything taxes. Why would intelligent people do that to themselves? I better not ask too much, or they could realize it and stop doing all the dirty work for us.

Sabrix puts out a great newsletter and blog that provides updates to tax law changes and general information about taxes.

If you are a company selling on the web, and are unaware of the changes happening in Congress, checking out Sabrix's blog would be a good idea.

Here's a recent excerpt about Nexus, an always misunderstood concept that is sure to be at the forefront of many E-commerce site issues in the future.

Nexus:
A company is headquartered in State X and manufactures a product sold all over the country. It has a salesforce (most of whom are manufacturer’s reps) that have territories throughout the U.S., and all the sales force does is take orders. This company, through its sales force, sells to dealers and retailers in State Y, who in turn sell to the public and collect the sales tax at the time of sale. The company sells a small amount of accessories to it main product via the internet or by phone. It has no physical presence in State Y, no office, no warehouse, etc. Should it have to collect sales tax when selling these accessories via internet or phone I mentioned above?

To check out the full post:  http://blog.sabrix.com/blog/sabrix/0/0/nexus-in-arkansas

Thanks to the folks at Sabrix for helping all of us out in following the tax law.

I was checking my Facebook account the other day and ran into a post from the Oregon Brewers Festival page. The link led me to this article about beer in cans - something I've been touting an necessary for some time.