This is the third post in a series of three about my strategy to Ditch the Office in which I thought I’d share my projects.  As a quick recap, my strategy is three fold:

1. Objectives
2. Principles
3. Projects

My three projects in my race to Ditch the Office cover a number of different business approaches and products.  I’ve selected them for various reasons, not least of all that some will be provide me with the ability to get out of the office sooner rather than later.  So brace yourself, here they are:

1. Something small.

I’ve recently been introduced to the fantastic world that is  Internet Marketing.  Internet Marketing is really quite simple, it’s the process of identifying a niche market on the Internet and delivering a product tailored to that market.  This is the world of information products, websites, niches, mailing lists, keywords and, not least of all, Google.  The possibilities here are endless and I’m full steam ahead learning what it’s all about. There are benefits in me learning this anyway as it’s all about hitting the right market with online presence. This is a great possibility as it requires very little money to start and has quicker potential returns that either of my other two projects.  I’m finding it very interesting and I’ll write a post on this shortly with all the resources and my plan on this front.  This is the easy one!

2. Something of interest.

I’m a greeny at heart I would suppose.  I think people should take more responsibility for their consumption, from cars all the way down to plastic bags.  No one can be a saint when it comes to this, particularly as it’s difficult to know what the real impact of each convenience decision actually is.  Saying that, awareness is the first step.  It’s a bit like the current financial crisis.  It’s simply making people think before they spend.  In that way it’s probably helping the environment because if people are thinking twice about buying, there’s.  Anyway, that’s enough of that.

In these times of environmental awareness and, more recently, financial crisis there are opportunities to help people to get second-hand goods rather than buy something new.  Don’t get me wrong, there’s a time and a place for something shiny and new but there’s also a lot of unwanted stuff in homes around the world that could benefit someone else.  “furcle”, which I’ve mentioned before, is a project to try to do this.  This is a fun one!

3. Something I know.

By night, I’m a budding entrepreneur.  By day I work in Information Technology.  Unfortunately, technology is quite often not only complicated, it also complicates things.  Particularly for big business.

One of those complicated and complicating things is processing credit card information.  More specifically, having to do all the things that the credit card companies say you need to do to be able to process credit cards.  Not that long ago, the credit card companies joined forces (in a manner) to try to reduce the amount credit card fraud as a result of misappropriated credit card numbers.  Enter the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS).  The PCI DSS is complicated and complicates doing business.  In fact it costs a considerable amount of money to meet the requirements set out in the standard and maintain compliance (dirty word) over time.  We’ll I’ve got another project here with some partners to try to solve that complicated and costly problem for companies.  This is the big one!

So that’s the end of this series.  I hope it was useful to you.  It was definitely beneficial to me because, to be honest, I’ve had this stuff in my head for some time but haven’t written it down. Writing it down has helped to crystallise and reinforce it and in that light, I’d recommend you do it for yourself!  I’ll give a progress report on these projects from here on in.

Make sure you check out part 1 and part 2.

This is the second post in a series of three about my strategy to Ditch the Office.  My strategy is three fold:

1. Objectives
2. Principles
3. Projects

In the first post, I walked through my immediate objectives.  For this post, I wanted to run through my three principles in my race to Ditch the Office.  I have to keep reinforcing these to myself every day:

1. Just do it!

Or just f-ing do it for those with a language a little more colourful.  There are plenty of ideas out there.  Get moving on something.  Take the leap.  Take action.  Be prepared to learn.  Be prepared to make errors.  Be prepared to have a win.  Be humble.  Be this.  Be that.  Be proactive!  There’s no way I’ll find out if I don’t try.  And in this case I’m prepared to keep trying.

2. Commit.

I know the “C” word is hard for some.  In my case this is a commitment of time, sometimes money (as little as possible up front – this comes into the strategy), definitely in discipline.  The biggest commitment I currently have is my time.  I commit time after the day job to getting something started. At this point in time that is totally at odds with the longer term goals.  I don’t currently see any other way than to spend time at this point.  If you’ve got any good tips (no, Lotto is not an option) then let me hear them.

3. Remember the goal.

My goal is to have a flexible life where I can commit my time where I choose – family, friends, society pursuits.  I can’t do this by having to go to the office every day.  I can’t do it by having to work for someone else for most of my waking life. Focus, focus, focus.

And that’s it for part two in the “Ditch the Office” freedom strategy series.  There’s one left to come which I’ll post next week.  You should also check out part 1.

Do you have an idea of how you’d get out of the office to “do your own thing” or to be “free”? I’ve got a strategy. It’s not particularly novel as I’m sure other people are doing something similar, but it’s serving me well so far.  Originally I was going to write this as the one post but I think it serves better as a series of three so it’s digestible.  My strategy is three fold so I’ll do a post about each of the three elements:

1. Objectives
2. Principles
3. Projects

So for this post, I’ll run through my immediate three objectives in my race to Ditch the Office:

1. Learn.

This is the biggest investment up front. I need time to learn. Marketing, outsourcing, negotiations, pricing, advertising, public relations, people management, discipline. I need to experiment, fail, succeed, confuse, improve. I tried doing an MBA in the not to distant past and, to be blunt, I really really disliked (hated) it.  Now doing an MBA or something similar is not for everyone and I should have known before I started it.  Since then I’ve really come to the realisation that there is plenty of opportunity to try this stuff (i.e. business ventures) for yourself. I thinks it’s much more fun out in the field learning from experience.  I’m enjoying experimenting much more than traditional study.

2. Multiple ideas.

I’m pursuing multiple ideas at one time. This is challenging, mostly from a time perspective but it’s necessary as not every idea is going to be successful. Not every idea maintains momentum either so it’s good to have multiple things on the go so that one can slot in if another is a little slow.  I did find that once I started looking for ideas and speaking to various people about them, more ideas flow so now I’ve got a list of ideas that I can experiment with in the future if one falls by the wayside.

3. Replace the salary.

This is where the rubber really hits the road. I need to apply the previous two “folds” to replace my salary as a starting point. Find something that takes off enough that I don’t have to go to the office every day. Once this has happened, it will be a case of trying out further ideas that I’m gathering on the way to see if they are more effective in allowing me to Ditch the Office.

As with all good strategies I’ll be continually re-evaluating it so that I can make sure I stay on target. It’s serving me well so far but I’m still sitting in my office chair five days a week aren’t I?  Time will truly tell if this approach is going to work.

So that’s it for part one of the series.  Here’s part 2.  Part 3 is to follow shortly.

I spoke with Andy, a friend of mine, over the weekend during a downpour of rain while camping* and he was giving me some feedback on Ditch the Office.  He wasn’t sure if some of the posts were relevant to how I was going to ditch the office.  I think I’d agree with him to a certain degree.  I suppose I’m struggling on two fronts:

1. I struggle with creative writing.  It takes me forever to write something that I’m happy with so it takes forever to get content up on Ditch the Office.  I really want to get better at this.  A glass of wine is helping this post.  Enough said.
2. I’ve got a list as long as my arm about the lessons I’ve learnt so far through my experiences so I’m also struggling to work out in which order I should publish them.

So in line with Andy’s feedback, I’m going to make a greater effort to make the posts here relevant so that they’re both inspiring and informative.  Here’s my request.  The following is my current list of posts that I plan to write.  If you’ve got any preference on the ones you’d like to see sooner rather than later, let me know and I’ll prioritise them.  I’d also be grateful for any other topics that you’d be interested in.  I’m sure that I’d at least have an opinion on whatever it is

• The Bookshelf – I think this is pretty self-explanatory.  I plan to list out the books I’ve got on my shelf.  It’s really to provide a list of the books that I’m interested in reading that will eventually become reviews on Ditch the Office.
• To Prototype Or Not, That is the Question – I want to run through the experiences I’ve recently been through with ‘furcle’ and the thoughts I have about another project that I’m currently working on in relation to developing a product prototype.
• Show Me the Money – I hate Jerry McGuire, especially that cute little kid with the glasses that wins over Tom Cruise.  Anyway, this post is about a discussion that I had with Ajay the other day about pricing relating to the aforementioned other project
• Let’s Do the Congo – Anyone familiar with the congo chain?  It’s sure to appear wherever there’s a large gathering of happy people who have usually had a couple of vino’s and are hitting the dance floor – the logical thing is to grab some hip and Da Da da da Da Kick!  It’s just one after another and it’s the same with the business ideas.  You need a pipeline of ideas I’ve been told so that’s what I’ve got.  I’ve found that I’m struggling with working on four concurrent projects and planning many more ideas besides.
• What Am I Really Doing? – Believe it or not, I am actually working on Ditching the Office AND doing something for myself so I wanted to give you a better idea of what I’m actually working on.  I’m still a little sensitive about what I’ll publish until there is a business operating (hey, I’m being honest) but I do want to give further details and one thing I have learnt is that you can’t start a business without talking to as many people as possible.  And speaking of which…
• Poker Face -
• Inspire Me! – What is it that is worth working on?  I’ll humour you with my approach to identifying what it is that inspires me.
• Can’t Someone Else Do That? – Outsource baby, yeah!  Don’t let a lack of skills, time or desire to do something hold you back – I’m not!
• Lifestyle Guru – The end game for all of this.  I’m trying to design/engineer/architect my lifestyle (and my beautiful wife’s).  There’s plenty of things we want to do in our life and working for someone else is going to take up too much time.

I’ve got some other topics as well but if you’ve read this far then you’ve done well!  Either way, this is a request for you to let me know if there’s ideas that you’re interested in reading about.

What I also plan to do is try to post my activities and achievements for the week gone by.  I’m also going to try and provide some more information about my different streams of activities.

* We went camping at The Basin located in the Kurringai Chase National Park.  It appears that it rained the most there across all of Sydney over Saturday night (check out the rainfall for Avalon).  Needless to say there was some tent flooding that resulted in some weary people the next day.