Do It Yourself? - the Enthusiastic Entrepreneur

Do-it-yourself is as American as tailgate parties. So are young, growing business do-it-yourself networks. All too often, however, do-it-yourself networks turn into an expensive nightmare.

Some of our clients are like Enthusiastic Entrepreneurs Inc, headed by no-limits, bright people with a great idea for a business. They read up on setting up networks. They chat informally with friends and relatives in the information technology business. They think they get great deals on hardware by bidding in auctions for it. They cut a "deal" with the vendor who set up Internet access for their home computer.

Then their great business idea takes off. Staff is quickly recruited and hired. The demands on the network quickly outstrip the network they've put together.

The Internet access setup they got for a single computer at home doesn't work in the office. Workstations die. None of the new staff can print to the new printer with its USB port (what's that?). The secretary discovers that the tape backup has not been working since three days after they got it. The CEO gets a call from his best customer complaining about having received a nasty virus from our hero.

It's no surprise.

How was EE Inc. to know that Internet access for one computer does not turn into access for several computers simply by connecting them all on a hub? (You've never heard of TCP/IP?) How was our hero to know that the weekend spent pulling cable through the walls of the office was time down the drain because the cables were positioned too closely to devices putting out RFI? (Never heard of RFI?)

How was EE Inc. to know that the latest and cheapest printer was the end-of-model selloff that just barely passed quality control? That it was not going to be supported in the very near future? Or that the advertised help line was now no more than 24-hour elevator music?

EE Inc. had no clue that very often computers pre-loaded with software also come with special software known as device drivers for printers and other input-output devices. This software may or may not be on a CD that comes with the computer. The new administrative assistant had stashed the CDs in the CEO's in-basket and they were history after the CEO took them home for his laptop.

Viruses? Didn't the workstations come with anti-virus software? Well, yes they did -- dated sometime before the I Love You bug hit. EE Inc.'s plan to make everybody update their own anti-virus seems not to have worked.

EE Inc. will probably survive this experience. But it will cost a bundle in consulting fees and in productive time lost. Front end planning -- we call it Smartsizing the Enterprise -- would have saved EE Inc. a lot of grief and cash outlay for having to do some things twice. Our hero is an expert in his field. What he needed to do was retain an expert in our field rather than setting up his technology environment himself.