[CSL board] thoughts strategic: selling services

[Josh Harding]

I couldn't agree more about providing on-site (LAN) support to area
non-profits. IMHO, one of the greatest needs at small NPO's is affordable
tech-support. At least in New Haven, most have contracts with consulting
firms, and pay for-profit rates ($100-$200/hr) for the privilege. I also
agree the CMS's aren't the way to go.

In fact, I'd argue that independent of grant money, this would be a good
avenue to pursue. It could bring in a few dollars, would greatly improve our
visibility in the community, and generally engender a lot of good will. In
my experience, it's also fun to go out and help folks at their desks/offices
- though the work may not be particularly technically challenging, the
recognition for work completed is far greater than backroom work. The grant
would allow us to do it essentially for free, but if we charge (25<=$$$<=50)
for that kind of work, we're basically giving the service away compared to
market rates.

There are also some interesting possibilities in providing on-site solutions
to companies for things they may never have considered as a problem. A good
example of this is that with $300 worth of hardware and a day's
configuration, you could put together an extremely stable file-server for a
small office based on Linux. Using monitoring services could mean that we
would know if any of those systems were running into trouble, and of what
kind. Some simple VPN/SSH and network configuration would mean that we could
troubleshoot 75% of problems with a box of that nature remotely. There are a
variety of interesting ways that we could insure off-site backups of these
boxes, as well.

On another issue - this would be a great way to put enough money in our bank
account to give Dan the paycheck he asked for (and deserves).

On 10/13/06, Dan MacNeil <dan at thecsl.org> wrote:
>
> For some time Paul has wisely been suggesting that we do more pay for
> service work generally and particularly around CMS like Drupel or Plone.
>
> Since the optional invoices have worked out well and I've noticed NPOs
> are able to pay plumbers and lawyers without collapsing, I've relaxed my
> need for mortification of the flesh and generally think that getting
> paid for some services is a good idea.
>
> I still don't think that CMSes are the way to go at least to make money.
> Of the 39 organizations we serve, 3 have expressed interest in a CMS and
> with some small help from us, installed one. None of those three showed
> any willingness to pay for help. From my small experience, I don't see
> the overhead of CMS as being enough easier to use than static pages to
> justify the effort.  There are people already offering 1-click install
> of various packages as part of $10 per month hosting services.
>
> In another about-face, I do think LAN support is something that we can
> make money with and gain a lot of benefits from.
>
> Originally, I'd thought the CSL would exist to fill that niche between
> $10 month web packages and running your own server and that by visiting
> people we would be encouraging people to run their own servers. Now I
> realize that unless we spend time talking to people, they won't know our
> services exist and we won't know what they need.
>
> Almost by accident, we discovered cbacre.org about to hire a consultant
> to install exchange server so they could read email messages from
> multiple places. They were quite happy to switch to using IMAP instead
> of POP3 instead.
>
> One persistent problem with CSL morale, particularly VISTA morale is the
> relative isolation of our work. We are a small number of people who
> spend most of our time in a basement staring at a computer screen and
> work on hard problems. It is also hard for people to understand that we
> do work for people who's work is important.
>
> Doing LAN support gets us out of the office making new friends  and
> working on doable problems.
>
> From the point of view of making money, LAN services like connecting
> people's printer are by their nature hard to make a commodity. People
> are used to either suffering or paying through the nose for this kind of
> support.
>
> A possible downside is that LAN support is not particularly original.
> That's ok, We're not academics, we aim for impact not originality.
>
> I've been thinking along these lines for a while, but there is a 20,000
> grant [1] out (due Oct 25) for engaging baby boomer (50 to 68 year olds)
> as volunteers.
>
>         [1]
> http://www.mass-service.org/funding_opportunities.shtml#boomers
>
> Basically, I figure to:
>
>         1) Apply for the grant
>
>         1a) Get the grant.
>
>         2) Find 8 organizations that want 90 minutes of
>            LAN support per week.
>
>         3) find 2-3 boomer volunteers. (elder services,
>            uml alums, newspaper ads)
>
>         4) circuit ride for 7 months w/ the boomers
>
> The 20K will pay us. The baby boomers and NPOs will experience something
> like weekly speed dating and possibly make a connection after 6 months.
> People that want more than 90 minutes of support or support for more
> than 6 months will have the chance to pay us close to market rates.
>
> Potentially, 6 months of revenue and making support contract sales for
> some of the 8 organizations will allow us to provide 6 months of demo
> support for 8 more organizations.
>
>
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