I spent this morning registering with Elance, an online virtual outsourcing broker. I think this is a positive step for North Creek. Most of the jobs on Elance are bite-sized, and I can build up my portfolio (from nothing) with a few well-done jobs (and develop a set of references for the business, not just for David Block, employee).

In filling out the profile, I discovered some things about myself. I am not too confident in delivering a beautiful, dynamic, functional website (using PHP and some CMS), but I am ready to compete on requirements gathering, architecture, design, data modelling, and back-end coding. So that is where I can make some money, and then as I develop a better toolset for graphical front ends (whether desktop or web), I can start competing in that space as well.

My goals are crystallizing for North Creek's architecture. I want to write nothing from scratch after a job has been won - even for the detailed customizations that every client will expect. I want to build a suite of generic applications that can be quickly modified to meet the needs of my client base. My goal is 18 hour turnaround - if you tell me in a morning meeting what you would like to see, I want to be able to provide a working demo (not a hack) by the next morning meeting. This provides me with a framework around which to make architectural choices.

In a surprise move, I am quite seriously considering learning C++. I now have two books (one on generic C++, one on building with Qt), and have downloaded the relevant frameworks from Qt that will allow me to write serious applications for multiple environments. I have spent my entire working life with multi-tier environments, but that doesn't seem to be a big factor in small businesses, so this evolution seems to make sense. I will keep this blog updated as I progress and make more choices.