GoHuman Blog

The Roman philosopher Seneca wrote, “Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.”

In other words, those of us who don’t work hard and simply wait for luck will never have it.  Small business owners must ensure they put themselves in a position to take advantage of luck when it arrives. 

I just had my final tax assessment for the 2010-2011 tax year, giving rise to that perennial rhetorical, “What has the government ever done for me?”

Or, rephrased slightly to set up my current subject:  “What has the government ever done for small businesses?”

I’m pretty sure they could do at least a little bit more – and they should be able to do it without taxing us quite so much. 

Well, dare I say, there may just be a little bit of extra light on that horizon (please trust me and lay aside your well-earned cynic’s cap for the moment.  Don’t worry, I’ll let you put it back on in a moment).

In a few weeks, the White House will be releasing access to their new website : BusinessUSA.gov.

You can of course go and read what’s there for yourself, but I’ll just give you a few little tastes here.

“Looking to make our government leaner, smarter and more consumer-friendly, the President will call on Congress to reinstate the authority that past Presidents had, over decades, to reorganize the government.”

“…the President’s proposal … [is] … mandating that any plan must consolidate government – reducing the number of agencies or saving taxpayer dollars…”

“For too long, overlapping responsibilities among agencies have made it harder, rather than easier, for our small businesses to interact with their government.  Those redundancies have also led to unnecessary waste and duplication…”

“The President’s first focus under the Consolidation Authority Act would be to make it easier for America’s small businesses – which are America’s job creators – to compete, export and grow.”

“Small businesses often face a maze of agencies when looking for even the most basic answers to the most basic questions.”

“We will also be unveiling a new website: BusinessUSA.gov. This site will be a virtual one-stop shop with information for small businesses and businesses of all size that want to begin or increase exporting.”

Now, doesn’t that sound great?  Yes, yes, I know, most new initiatives sound great.  Don’t put that hat back on yet!

Although I live in England now, I was born in the USA and lived there almost half my life.  I started my long and overly-varied career-path delivering newspapers, and then did my obligatory spell flipping burgers before moving on to Safeway and a variety of other jobs working my way through college.  One consistency: taxes, and greatly resented they were, too.

Since then I’ve come to appreciate the role of government in our lives – and despite the negative factors, my conclusion is that overall, we’re better off (especially in the West) for having them.

However (ok, you can put that cap back on again), I’ve also seen multiple administrations come up with promises and guarantees and plans and political potions – especially with elections approaching.

But … I can’t help but hope.

At GoHuman one of our goals is to help small businesses cut through all the complexity of modern technology and provide a straightforward way for you to communicate with your customers.  We worry about the bits and bytes, so you can just post your services and recommendations from  your customers, and then get on with your business.  I see BusinessUSA.gov doing a similar thing.

What strikes a chord here is that the US government has decided to take advantage of modern technology to improve communications between agencies, and also with small businesses.  These efficiencies should translate through to all parties being able to do more with less. And although I don’t expect to see our taxes decreasing any time soon, I at least have some hope that they won’t be going up as much as they might have – or that we’ll see some real social improvements coming out of the spare funds created.

On the other hand, we might just see more corruption – but at least some of the difficulties of running a small business should be slightly alleviated as the information becomes easier to find.

Fingers crossed, this could be a good thing!

Barry the Plumber?

As a small business owner (or perhaps not-so-small), it is self-evident that technology provides endless methods for improving your business. That is, if it just wasn’t so difficult! 

GoHuman is an ardent champion of “the little guy.” We believe that the strength of a nation comes from the strength of its communities, and the strength of those communities comes from its relationships — including the many small businesses providing local services and local employment. But how can small businesses compete with huge corporations? 

In October I wrote an entry (“Google no evil”) about Google’s 10¹⁰⁰ initiative. I praised Google for trying to change the world by gathering the ideas, and committing $10 Million funding. I also wondered if Google would prefer those ideas which would bring them profit; perhaps not those which could change the world.

You can check progress on their Project 10¹⁰⁰ website. Or, I can just summarize it here … “Not a lot. In fact, nothing.”

Oh well, good intentions and all that! It’s just a shame that some of the 150,000 plus ideas which might now be helping change the world have been gathering virtual dust on Google’s cybershelves. Might I suggest that Google could at least have released those ideas they know they aren’t going to promote, so that others can? Maybe they have somewhere, but I haven’t seen it – so if any readers have, please let me know. There are plenty of others eager to be changing the world with those ideas right now.

But that’s enough sniping at Google, they meant well after all, didn’t they?

Let’s move on to the current moral high ground they have established, with their threat to shut down operations in China if they can’t reach agreement with the Chinese authorities regarding hacking of personal details, which could be as soon as next month.

We here at GoHuman firmly believe that civil liberties and human rights are worth standing up for – as followers of this blog will know! We’re all for reducing government (as well as corporate) power to the level where the government serves the people (and the corporation serves the customers). So, despite any reservations, my first instinct is to praise Google for this stance.

Let’s not forget others who are joining in: Yahoo and the United States Government are now involved.

And, in my personal hall of shame in this regard: Although Microsoft’s Internet Explorer was part of the problem in these specific crimes, Microsoft has made no statement against the Chinese activities – even though backlash against Internet Explorer has come from the highest levels. The German Government is ceasing the use of IE and has issued warnings against its use.

So, just like my previous blog about Google – I’ll raise a glass to their action, and try not to question their motives!

If you’ve read this far, you should join us at GoHuman. Sign up and start posting your services or requirements today! It only takes a few minutes, costs you nothing, and puts you on the track to finding reputable customers and service-providers in your community. You can take it further if you like, and even end up with you being a part-owner of GoHuman!

Hi Yo Silver!

The virtual bandits of the Wild Wild Web are at it again!

Consider this scenario – you want to check the balance on your hard-earned savings.

You’ve chosen to bank with a credit-union because of their reputation of serving members, rather than lining shareholder and director pockets.

And, so has your favorite search-engine, which you use to access your credit union’s website. You intuitively trust its reputation to reliably provide the link you need.

Your credit-union appears at the top, as it always does. You click on the link, log in to your account – but the service is temporarily unavailable. You decide to shop online, and check your account later.

Not so fast! You’ve been scammed!. While you’re browsing for pre-Christmas deals, your account is being plundered!

GoHuman believes reputation is your most important business asset. A quality reputation is worth far more than the tangible assets of your business, which is why corporations spend billions on brand. To compete, you must nurture and protect your reputation. James Russell Lowell wrote “Reputation is only a candle, of wavering and uncertain flame, and easily blown out, but it is the light by which the world looks for and finds merit.”

GoHuman.com was built to turn the “candle” of your reputation into a beacon, letting the world know that your customers recommend you. And best of all, GoHuman.com isn’t a mechanical search-engine that can be manipulated by scammers or billion dollar budgets, GoHuman.com is a community, where real customers vouch for your reputation, providing an accurate and trustworthy reflection of your service.

Post your services today, and request endorsements from those who know you best. It’s easy, and it’s free!

And if you’d like help leveraging the full power of building your reputation quickly and effectively, email Refer@GoHuman.com and ask us to put you in touch with a Local Marketing Consultant so you can get on with doing what you do best — providing that great service.

Come on Kemo Sabe, what are you waiting for?

There are certain occasions which are imprinted on our memories so strongly that we never forget where we were when they happened. For me, some of the dates which stand out are when Pope John Paul II was shot, when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded and the date Concorde came down in Paris. 9/11 goes without saying! There are good times too of course, such as the breaking through of the Berlin Wall, and that evening when I first met my wife-to-be (which can’t go without saying).

Today takes me back to December 3, 1984, driving my 1972 Chevy Nova back from seeing the governor of California at the cinema in the film Terminator. I turned on the radio to hear the news that at 10:00 AM California time, midnight in Bhopal, India, a pesticide production plant owned by Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical), suffered a release of large amounts of methyl isocyanate (MIC) gas. To avoid too much detail here about a horrible tragedy, I will just summarize with some facts. More than 500,000 people were exposed. The death toll from hospital records is put at around 20,000 – and that’s not even considering the destroyed families, lives, resultant diseases and birth-defects.

The court cases continue to this day, as does the suffering. Go and do a simple search for yourselves. Put the one word “Bhopal” in a search engine. I have purposely not provided a link to any article here because it is impossible for one link I might choose to properly convey the price paid by the victims. They aren’t the only ones who have paid of course – Union Carbide has paid out hundreds of millions of dollars as a result, and no doubt their shareholders have felt that pain very severely.

It is somewhat stomach-churning that we can use the words “paid” and “pain” to describe both what the shareholders felt, as well as what the local population felt – and continues to feel.

I don’t know all the facts of course, and I’m not in a position to properly decide specific blame and compensation. But it is obvious even to the most casual observer what the main problem is.

Why would anyone build a pesticide plant in a developing country, in a highly-populated, poverty-ridden area?

I think we all know the answer. The main price of progress is always paid by those too poor and powerless to stand up for their interests. The rich and powerful pretty much do what they want, when they want, and use Jeremy Bentham’s argument of the Utilitarian economists (“the largest benefit for the largest number”) as their excuse.

And there we have it. Large institutions pursuing the financial bottom-line, assigning some complex financial calculation to lives and health – in which the lives and interests of the poor and powerless are assigned a very low value indeed.

Here at GoHuman, we believe a life, or someone’s health, cannot be assigned a price. We recognize the sad fact that the human aspect of business tends to decline as the size of a business grows. That is why we promote our services to support smaller businesses. Businesses where a relationship with customers and community are critical success factors. Businesses where reputation is placed above immediate profit.  Businesses that GoHuman because they are human.  Businesses like yours.

Have a look at GoHuman.com. We think you’ll like what you see!

Today is Tuesday, November 10, 2009, and it is the 40th birthday of Sesame Street!

Sesame Street is one of the longest-running children’s programmes, and has spun off numerous films, the Muppet TV series, and one of everyone’s favourite Disney attractions, the 3-D Muppet Theatre. It has played host to numerous celebrities – Michele Obama has recently appeared in an episode.

Sesame Street broke new ground with its formula of appealing to both children with a mix of fun, friendly, cuddly and sometimes mildly-scary monsters, while also appealing to the parents with jokes and skits which played off popular culture and historical events. Sesame Street was an educational programme which found a perfect balance between entertainment and education. It related life-lessons about bullying, about being different and being proud of it, without playing the race or gender card. It managed to teach children facts and concepts – while also helping parents to understand how to deal with their children.

The writers and producers of the Disney and Pixar films we all love today must have been heavily influenced by Sesame Street. We can see the same formula of simultaneously appealing to both young and old with all the jokes which play on multiple levels. I would argue that your sense of humour, and how you see the world, has very likely felt that influence, and you are the better for it – even if you’ve never seen the show.

I grew up on Sesame Street – although I have lived in the UK for the past 23 years, I grew up in the USA, and among my best childhood friends were Oscar, Cookie, Grover and Snuffleupagus. We don’t have the current series here, but I’m constantly amazed by the number of Europeans who know and love Sesame Street as well. It’s one American export of which the USA can justifiably be proud.

Arguably, Sesame Street has changed the world.

So let’s all raise a glass of milk (or pickle juice) to Sesame Street – happy 40th birthday!

And, for any business or anyone offering a service – there’s a lesson here. Build a reputation of being decent and positive and delivering what customers want with a bit extra – and not only will they love us, they’ll celebrate our success. If you haven’t already, check out the GoHuman services, and see that is a huge part of what we’re about.