The official launch of the website was last Friday. Not exactly a gala affair but it did represent an important milestone in the business development. A sort of "and now we begin!" type of thing. These are very important for the psyche of the business, trust me I am a psychologist (almost) we know these things (sort-of). It is surprisingly difficult to get a website up and running, there are an amazing number of little things that pop up and need to be considered. Which brings me to the first point of this blog- time for a little giving kudos where kudos is deserved: Ashish Patel of http://www.itcutives.com/ work incredibly hard to put the website in order and is still working, even on the weekend (granted I am also working but I have no life and the promise of the final installment of my favorite zombie podcast- We're Alive that I have been saving for such a celebration..no much of a celebration I hear you say? see earlier comment about not having a life!). Ironically, despite the fact the website is officially launched we still have applications flooding in from potential teachers..sorry facilitators (They facilitate learning) so revisions will be happening for a long time- Lucky Ashish!
The brochure is also completed. Well, there are one or two minor changes which I am hoping to get done but in general it is coming together nicely even though there was a surprisingly hard time getting just the right pose for my photo. I was hoping for a young Lex Luthor (the cool one, not the early seasons of Smallville one) but that didnt really come across. Despite this, the job was done very professionally and I am happy with the final product. I must say that in regards to getting brochures designed the world really has come to a wonderful point for small businesses. Thanks to the internet and websites like Freelancer and so on- it is easy to find a young and hungry designer who can pull out all the stops and make quite an impressive product for a reasonable fee.
The business cards are now at the printers and hopefully will be shipped soon. I am using Vista printing despite some of my misgivings about the extra costs they add onto their "so-called" free cards. It seems a little wrong that they charge you a fee for uploading a logo and then for uploading text and so on and then the only form of free shipping and handling (as advertised) take over two weeks (yes I do feel better having ranted) although what really feels wrong is despite the fact that I did get all of these uploading fees and the expressed delivery it was still cheaper than most of the other options. But I am very excited because business cards are cool and these ones look the most professional I have every had. Especially compared to the business cards at one of my previous job where the head guy wouldnt even fork out the money for me to get some and so had to hand out generic ones with a sticker on the back with my details at the international conferences I went to representing the company- way to go looking professional there! (hmm, ranting online is addictive...). Why the cards look so professional is not due to the exceptional taste that I have but to getting the prototype reviewed by a professional business card..umm person (a cardologist perhaps?). Although at first I felt that this was a little too much, I went with it for a number of reasons- firstly, the person who recommended it also quoted American Psycho and I respect the opinion of anyone who uses movies as supportive evidence, secondly it was free (never look a gift horse in the mouth) and thirdly, a quick look thru the internet impressed upon me that business card design these days is now big business and also that my prototype was uncannily similar to the "what not to do" examples on many of these sites. I recommend anyone thinking of putting together business cards to do a little research (or find someone who already has) before designing it, there is alot of what could be considered counter-intuitive aspects that need to be considered but the final product really looks good.
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