Video Entrepreneur: Data's All, Folks

by William Ronat
January 1995

These days, you either own a computer or you don't. And within the group of people who own computers, there are more subgroups. One group could tie ropes to their computers and use them as expensive boat anchors for all the good they do. Another group might use the contraption to play a mean game of solitaire.

But one group actually uses their computers to the full potential of the machine. I want to encourage the rest of you to join this group.

With the right software you can do all sorts of things with computers. You can edit videotapes (see the desktop video column), create 3D animation, or if you own the appropriate hardware (such as a Saturn V rocket), you could control a manned expedition to the moon. But this column is about business, so that's where we'll concentrate. Those of you wanting to go to the moon will have to figure it out for yourselves.

Open the Pod Bay Doors, HAL
Computers are tools. You can use them as word processors, spreadsheets, schedulers, presentation programs, and expensive calculators. These programs can improve your life by checking your spelling or your math, and they can speed processes up by eliminating duplicated effort. In the old days, if you had to make some changes to a document, you had to retype the whole thing. But with a computer, you can just call it up onscreen, make the changes, and have the printer do the work for you.=

Unfortunately, a computer is not a magic wand. It can't write a letter for you (although it can give you a fill-in-the-blank template) and it won't balance your books, but it can make many tasks easier. Just don't expect miracles.

Some people fall in love with their computers. Many Apple Macintosh users become enamored with these spiffy machines (with good reason). I happen to use PCs (IBM clones). I have no more strong emotion for my PC than I do for my dishwasher. Both machines have a job to do and they do it. That's all I care about.

The Need For Speed
What do you need in a computer? Most of us want the hottest, hippest, screaming machine going, which means we are constantly upgrading (386, Quadra, PowerPC, Pentium, Silicon Graphics workstation, etc.). And if you plan to edit or create animation, you will want the fastest machine you can afford. But if you are only using the computer for writing letters and accounting purposes, you don't need that much muscle.

These days, you can get a very nice machine already loaded with much of the software you need for about $1000. This machine will probably be about eight times more powerful than the one I bought a few years ago for twice as much money.

Here is a decent configuration for a business computer: 486 processor, 33 MHz clock speed, 4 Megabytes RAM (or more), 200 Megabyte hard drive (or more), SVGA monitor, keyboard, mouse, MS-DOS 6.2 and Microsoft Windows 3.1 preloaded.

A comparable Macintosh machine would be an Apple 6100 PowerMac. For about $1600, this comes with a 250 meg hard drive, 8 megs of RAM, and system software.

You can ask your salesman what all that means or buy a book on the basics of computers if you're curious.

Caveat Emptor
From the outside, most computers look alike. It's all too tempting to simply look for the lowest price. This may mean buying a "no-name" computer from a vendor of similar anonymity. For a little more money, you can go with one of the big boys like Dell, Compaq, Gateway 2000 or even IBM. If your machine ever has a problem, big companies will take care of it with the least amount of pain.

Mac shoppers, on the other hand, may be tempted to buy less computer than they need to save a buck. Don't--if the next model of Mac costs a few hundred more, it may be the best way to go. Not only will you have a more powerful machine, but it will hold its resale value better.

In the last few years, I have bought three computers for my business. The first I bought at a wholesale club (I can't tell you which one, but the owner's first name was Sam). This machine has worked like a champ for about five years.

The second computer I purchased through a service and it was literally a "no-name" brand--there was no logo, no lettering, no nothing on the case. Although I've had this computer for a little more than two years, the monitor has already died (and been replaced at my expense). Also, the motherboard had a major problem early on, which meant I had to send the machine back to the factory. In lost work time and aggravation, I spent far more than I saved by the lower purchase price.

My newest machine is a top-of-the-line model from one of the major brands listed earlier. It has worked flawlessly, it came packaged with useful software, and I don't have to worry about it.

Now you might find a perfectly good "no-name" machine. You may already own one. You may have put it together from kitchen utensils like McGyver. Good for you. Personally, I don't want to do that. I just want the darn thing to work when I turn it on.

Mac folks don't have to worry about this, since an Apple is an Apple. Still, they should consider convenient support and repairs when choosing a dealer.

The Soft Sell
Many computers come bundled with software, which is a good thing because without software the computer is useless. In the bad old days, you turned on a PC and you got a black screen and this message, C: (and a blinking cursor). If you didn't know the commands for the computer's disk operating system (DOS), you were in trouble.

Then came Macintosh and the Graphical User Interface (GUI). With a GUI, you can perform many functions without typing a word. You simply click your mouse (a pointing device) on the pictures on the screen.

PC owners felt left out, so Microsoft developed Windows--a Mac-style GUI--to run on the IBM platform The next version of Windows (4.0) promises to be even easier and more useful than earlier versions, and it will also run programs faster. You don't have to have Windows to run programs on an IBM, but it does make the task easier for beginners.

For a business, I would recommend a good word processing program as a bare minimum. A spreadsheet program is handy for crunching numbers and doing graphs and charts, and I also use an accounting program to keep my books.

Some companies put several programs together (word processor, spreadsheet, electronic mail, presentation program, database) and sell them as an "office" package. This package is a good deal, but it may include some software that you will never need.

What's the Good Word?
A word processor will help you create professional-looking documents to send to clients and vendors. This is important. Everything that comes out of your office reflects on you, whether it is a finished video or a thank you letter. What if you scribble your invoices on a stained, ratty napkin? This will send a different message than an invoice clearly printed on letterhead.

The napkin will say, "I'm either too busy or too lazy to create a clean invoice and my business is so small and unprofessional that I don't need letterhead." The clear invoice will say, "I run a business in a professional manner. You can expect this level of quality on your project as well."

High-end word processors come with templates for creating business letters, brochures, fax sheets and other documents. You can use these templates and just plug in your information, or you can build your own.

Another handy thing about word processors is that they can check your spelling and even give you grammatical help. These functions won't make you a better writer, but they can catch mistakes that you might miss. Remember, a potential client might not hire you if he or she finds a misspelled word in your cover letter. If you aren't careful enough to make sure your letter is flawless, how careful will you be when you shoot your video?

Print It
Once you create documents, you need to get them on paper. Two types of printers that can do this for you are dot matrix and laser. Dot matrix printers create letters out of many tiny dots. If you look closely you can see them. Laser printers have a higher resolution (more dots per inch) and therefore look "cleaner". For most purposes, however, a dot matrix printer is fine.

To me, one of the most exciting possibilities of computing was the accounting program. It's not that I find accounting exciting; quite the opposite. What excited me was the possibility that there was a program that would do my accounting for me so I wouldn't have to. Unfortunately, this isn't how it works.

Most accounting programs are broken up into modules, such as accounts payable, accounts receivable, general journal and so forth. If you buy some blank videotape on credit from a supplier, you can enter this bill into accounts payable. Then when you get around to paying the bill, you enter the check number and date into the computer. The program automatically posts the entry into the general journal.

The program keeps an eye on you and makes sure that your debits always equal your credits (which accountants feel is an important feature). The program can also tell you when your bills have been around for more than 30 days (time to pay!) and when your invoices to your clients have also been out for this length of time (prompting you to send out a statement or call on the phone and demand payment--depending on your personal style).

So yes, accounting programs are handy, but they still rely on your input. As the old computer saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out." This means that if you put in the wrong numbers, post a cost as income, or otherwise screw up, your accounting program will let you. It's then up to you (or your accountant) to clean up the mess.

You also need a balanced set of books to input when you first start using the program (if this concept is foreign to you, join the club) and you have to assign numbers to your accounts. You have to structure these account numbers so that expenses go in one column and revenues go in another and... well, let me put it this way: I hired a bookkeeper to come in and set up my accounting program. I also send all my bank statements, checks and a printout of my books to a CPA to be checked and corrected every three months. This is not the cheapest solution, but it was either that or learn accounting myself. No thank you.

LAN Ho!
As your business grows, you will probably need more than one computer. You might have a salesperson on staff or another producer who will need to write letters or scripts or whatever. To be more productive, these people will want their own computers. But at some point you may need to access one of the documents that your employees created. Maybe the salesperson is out on a call and you need to see what they promised a client in a letter, or you need to make a change in a script. Where the heck did they put that document?

Implement a system early unless you want total confusion. Create a directory for each client and make sure to save that client's documents in that directory. Assign job numbers to every project as it comes in and use this number in your filenames. For example, 9401est.doc would be the cost estimate on job # 9401, 9401scpt.doc would be the script. Mac owners get to use nice, long names, but for the moment all us PC users must stick to the eight character limit.

What if you want to work on a document at your own computer but the document exists on a different computer? You have two options. The first is sneakernet. This is a cute computer term meaning you run to the other machine (presumably in sneakers), save the document on a floppy disk, run back to your machine, load it and work on it.

Your second option is a local area network (or LAN). In this type of setup, your computers are connected so that you can access files between hard drives, share printers and modems, etc. With a network, you can access your salesperson's computer (from your computer), find the file you need, open it, work on it, and then save it back to your salesperson's computer.

Setting up a network can be difficult. It involves special cards or cables for each computer, and special software for the computers to talk to each other. I hate to sound like a commercial for Microsoft (Bill Gates has enough money), but my computers are networked using Windows for Workgroups. The installation was simple and I did it myself. It works very well. End of commercial. There are plenty of other good network solutions out there, both PC and Mac, and not enough room here to list them all.

As business tools, computers are excellent. You format an invoice once, save it and it is ready to fill in with new information every time you send out a bill. You create a great cover letter about your business and then print it out personally addressed to your prospective client. You can even merge a list of prospective clients to such a letter and print any number at the same time, identical except for the client's name. (You, John Smith, may have already won a million dollars!)

And you might as well get used to computers now, because it won't be long before you will be using one to produce video right on your desktop. Operation of these beasts keeps getting easier, the hardware keeps getting cheaper, and the list of excuses for not buying one keeps getting shorter. So quit stalling.

Data's all, folks.

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