[Coco] Cloud-9 Tech

[Boisy G. Pitre]

Mark really should address this since Cloud-9 is his business and I  
sell my products through him, but since he's on vacation, I'll respond.

I think your message doesn't convey a sense of disrespect as much as  
it does an ignorance of how Cloud-9's business is handled.

Cloud-9 order fulfillment works this way: Mark buys software product  
in bulk from me and stocks those products at Lab North.  As orders  
come in, they are evaluated.  If it's a purely software order, I'll  
fulfill it here at Lab South, since I have the capacity to make the  
software products.  If it's a mixture of hardware and software, Mark  
will fulfill it at Lab North.  We do this to prevent having to ship  
from two different locations for the same order.

That's why some folks get packages sent from Minnesota, others from  
Louisiana.

When Mark is away (he and I stay in touch regularly, so I know his  
schedule), I will fill orders that I can.  For those that I can't,  
I'll inform the customer of the delay.  When Mark gets back in zone,  
he takes care of those orders.

Sometimes we go an extended time without getting orders, so it's not  
unusual to have quiet periods without emails. As a result, when things  
break, like the email seems to have, we don't notice it right away.   
Since Mark handles the IT stuff (email routing, knows passwords, etc),  
he will have to return before the situation becomes rectified.

Aside from all this, Mark has a busy life these days, and he's given a  
glimpse of what's going on in his life in prior messages.

Now from this point onward, I'll speak for myself.

Between managing and running my own successful business, attending  
graduate school, running a household and seeing after all of the other  
goings on in my life, the CoCo is really way down on the list of  
priorities.  Sorry if that hurts, but that's the facts.   I have less  
time and more commitments  on my plate than ever, and the revenue that  
I obtain from Cloud-9 is infinitesimal compared to my other sources of  
income.

There's an equation that I derived some years back that describes my  
philosophy on how I spend my time.  I call it "Boisy's Formula of  
Probability of Continued Effort." This is my formula; it works for me:

P = V / (E*T*H))

Where:
	P is the probability of continued effort for a given task;
	V is the value that I obtain out of doing the task (value can be in  
the form of money, food, or even something as intrinsic as happiness  
and fulfillment);
	E is the level of effort required to generate that value;
	T is the amount of time I have to spend doing the task;
	H is the hassle factor that comes along with performing the task.

The goal is to maximize V while minimizing E, T and H, thus keeping P  
at or above 1.  High values of P are very, very good.

For everything I spend my time doing, I apply this formula in my  
head.  And it answers a basic question: "Is this worth my time?"  For  
my work in the CoCo, V, E and T are pretty much constants, with the  
large majority of V being enjoyment of the hobby and the positive  
interactions I get with the majority of our customers and friends.   
Very little of V is in the form of monetary compensation.

Without a doubt, Mark and I have built a great network of friends and  
customers through Cloud-9, and I appreciate their business and  
support.  They keep the value of V pretty high, but it's the value of  
H that I watch carefully.  It increases when I have to write long  
emails like this one when I would rather be doing something else on a  
Saturday morning.  It increases when people wrongly assume that we are  
ignoring them and then send nasty emails.  It increases when my time  
gets taken advantage of by others without fair compensation or under  
false pretenses.

Thanks for listening!

On Nov 7, 2009, at 7:31 AM, Derek wrote:

>> Remember Cloud9 is not Mark's prime source of income. It is done  
>> for a love of the Coco
>> and the community.
>
> I mean no disrespect to the folks at cloud 9 and have even purchased  
> my 512K Ram upgrade from them but if you going to run a business  
> there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. If there are problems  
> with filling orders you should at least post on your web page about  
> possible delays or reply back to your customers about how long the  
> delay will be. It sounds like a few folks have emailed but got no  
> reply back and they have had to post here or on coco3.com to get an  
> answer.
>
>
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