BobLeland.com » Business

IYP’s to LSP’s

Bob — Fri, 01 May 2009 18:57:31 +0000

Ah, the Yellow Pages. A term that brings up memories of the plastic wrapped goodness that graced our front porches every year. As a yout I remember coming home and seeing the unwrapped yellow book on the counter. My mom would leave it for me to open knowing I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. The difficulty in breaking through the iron like wrapping was entertainment enough. After an hour or so (And finally resorting to scissors) I would have it fully removed from its plastic cocoon. We received two books every year. One for the larger part of Massachusetts we lived in and a smaller refined regional version for the Metro West area which covered Concord, Acton, Carlisle, Sudbury, Boxboro, Bedford, Lexington and a few others. It was enjoyable to learn about the different zip codes in the area and dive through different phone exchanges as well as the other basic local information it provided (I was a geek). In reality though it wasn’t really local. When I looked up a sporting goods store I would find a tawdry list in small type that was barely readable (My mom actually went out and bought a pair of magnifying glasses at CVS … Read the rest

What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been – Part 1

Bob — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 00:30:12 +0000

As iconic as the Grateful Dead are my reference to their classic compilation has more to do with my business adventures than it does with the hazy resemblance of cross country concert tours. The last seven years of my professional life have been hectic and daring with a sprinkle of urgency to say the least.

It began with an ending. It was 2001and I ran a marginally successful web design company that I started in ’97. The reason I call it marginally successful is because I had a decent dot com client base and was able to charge an abnormal amount of money for a service that is now commoditized by template engines and cut rate service providers. Back in the mid to late nineties websites were a new and unknown territory for businesses who typically relied on print advertising for getting their message out. Newspapers and magazines were how people kept up with news, pop culture and niche verticals that were specific to their tastes. The idea of digital media was foreign. I will go into more detail about “the web design fad of the ’90s” on another post but wanted to give you an idea of the shift … Read the rest