Sunday, March 18, 2007

Use Your Talents!

Every individual must identify their own unique talent. This is something that we all take for granted. Often you will hear someone saying that they do not have talent. Personally, I disagree. We often overlook our talents.

My story goes like this...In elementary school, my family gave me a computer for Christmas. It was a Commodore Vic 20 and far before the personal computing era. I would spend hours typing in the Basic programs from the manual to create the simple video games. Eventually, I wrote my own programs. My first program was a BlackJack game. This may not sound special to someone in the computing field. The program consisted of random number generation and simple math. The special part was that I was in third grade.

In college, my first major was Engineering. Engineering was not the discipline that I expected. I am a free, creative thinker. I changed my major to Mathematics and landed a job into computing. I now work as a Software Developer. This all started one Christmas many years ago and I thank my family for fostering my development.

In life, we simply have to put together the pieces.

I have spent this weekend finalizing the new website. I have approached this project as though it was a formal project. I have put forth the same dedication and effort that I give when I perform at work. It takes this level of dedication and I readily admit that I recently adopted this approach.

The results are truly amazing!

Cackalak Clothing Company

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Filtering

As owners of The Cackalak Clothing Company, we work a 9-5 and then put on our entrepreneur hats at in the evening. It will be this way until Cackalak becomes a household name. During the day, we squeeze in as much as possible.

For example, my lunch break was spent on the phone with the bank finalizing the setup of the new accounts for the website launch. I initiated the process online and finished it by verifying some financial information with the bank today. We were previously using PayPal to process our transactions. PayPal is a wonderful option to accept credit cards for first time merchants. The setup requires a checking account and some light HTML integration. They charge a slight fee per transaction, but the account is Free with no monthly fees. You also earn interest on the funds in your PayPal account. Customers will have to leave your site to purchase, but can be redirected at the end of the transaction. When dealing with all financial institutions online, beware of the phishing scams.

We check the email and the MySpace account a couple of times throughout the day. Most people think of MySpace as a social network. We use it as a “networking network”. There are tons of people who work in fashion, merchandising, advertising, photography, website design, etc. Creative searches and contacts go a long way. The barter system is alive and well.

One of the most important things that you can do in life is learn how to filter information. In the beginning, everyone wanted to give us direction and input. After about 20 people, I found myself not listening when I heard the phrase…”You guys should..”. You can lose very valuable information with this approach. Listen to everyone and then filter the information. There may be something very valuable hidden in that suggestion, the 15 minute conversation about a two year old idea, or that website with millions of users.

Cackalak Clothing Company

Monday, March 5, 2007

Research And Development

For this to be a realistic chronicle of the growth of The Cackalak Clothing Company, we will make a more conscious effort to keep our blog current.

Let’s start from this point forward.

The months of January and February were dedicated to research and development. We put into effect some free useful tools to help manage the flow of information for our staff.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

Embrace Change!

This post marks our transition from BlogSpot to WordPress. WordPress provided some inherent features that made it easier to manage and update our Blog. The right tools enhance productivity. It’s even better when the right tools are FREE!




Cackalak Clothing Company