Regrouping - - - Installment 9

http://pollingpoints.blogspot.com/ .

  Ok, July 9^th 2009, and we are almost back to square one. The search for a another website design company was the first order of the day. In short order we identified and met with a new web design company and scheduled a meeting to plan the design with the people they had assigned to our project.

  On July 14^th 2009, we contracted with the new web design company and set the proverbial clock to ticking. The design company would have our web site up and running and provide 4 four hour blocks of instruction to whoever we designated to represent us. Tentative completion date was to be September 1, 2010.

  We had that warm and fuzzy feeling. You know the one that you get when everything looks like it is going according to a plan. We checked with the company after a few weeks for a progress report and were assured that everything was coming along fine. We were also told that they had assigned a new project manager to our account. Cause for concern… Nah., well ,maybe.

  Our initial concept was to have a main domain, with several sub-domains that would be used to support the professional categories we were going to develop. It was our intention that each of the categories would have a moderator that was an expert in their field or at least worked in that field at a bare minimum. While the web design company was busy for the planned 4-6 week period , we decided this would be the perfect time to start identifying moderators, and get some of our internal operational procedures worked out. It was time to get out and start pitching the concept and see what happened.
It was during this period , my prior U.S. Army training had prepared me for well. Hurry up and Wait. Talking about waiting, there will be a 4-5 week haitus for this blog. Many other projects are requiring an enormous amount of time. Must concentrate efforts to where they matter the most, or in laymen’s terms, do work my wife wants done. Next post will be tentatively around the middle of November. Want to see some of the work that is occupying so much time…. Go to:　


Rebwithacause

Regroup - Installment 8

  Ok, this installment will detail the events that occurred between the last part of June 2009 and the end of July 2009.

  During this period of time, the concept and operational concerns had been pitched to the family and with some reservations everyone was “ onboard “ as long as it didn’t conflict with the bread and butter business of the family (commercial cleaning company). Two family members would volunteer a few hours a week in supporting me with predominately graphic design and IT work, in return for future considerations. Future considerations - think mega bucks if successful; a firm handshake and a pat on the back if not.

  On 26 June 2009, we tentatively contracted with a local web design firm and we successfully registered the domain names we wanted . The official start of www.thepollitbureau.com and www.thepollitbureau.net had been launched. Sidebar- The dot. Net domain is not currently considered to be necessary by us and we have let it lapse, although , when we started , we thought we needed it for some reason. The old adage live and learn applies here. We laid out what we thought was our concept for the website to this web design company and scheduled the 1^st follow-up meeting for a couple of days latter, which they had to reschedule to the 8^th of July 2009. July 8^th arrived with a high level of excitement and anticipation by the family. We had been hoping to see the beginnings of a workable plan and a schedule as to when we would be trained and the website would be designed and finished. We arrived at the Web design company upbeat and energized. We would not leave in the same spirits.


  Within the period of 25 minutes we found out we were back at square one, as far as the website was concerned. It so happened that many internal changes had happened at the web design company and after a cordial explanation of what had happened ( several of their employees had quit) they notified us that they would not be able to satisfy our needs and returned our down payment. Great, another 2 weeks shot and the only thing to show for it was a registered domain name.

  Time to regroup. Regroup would become a word soon to have many meanings within the family. Many times regroup would become very similar to punting in football. Now its time for me to regroup and end this installment..

Rebwithacause