Last week I wrote about Oddpodz IT learning in our early days. If you missed the post, See How Two Websites Almost Killed a Baby.

I promised a follow up after the panel discussion.
It was a great night, a full house and lots of solid conversation on how to build a site with the help of the right professions.

Beyond my points, here other highlights from the panel including:
Allen Clary of www.Jibidee.com
Brian Burridge of Agile Nomads

And from event sponsor: Ian Ippolito of Vworker

  • Karen’s nightmare is not unique in the IT industry, when you don’t know, what you don’t know
  • Call references, not that the vendor gives you, but that they list as clients or that you uncover
  • Get referrals from your network, your CPA, your law firm
  • Always have someone leading your IT efforts (who really cares about your success or has a vested interest), especially if you don’t come from technology
  • Don’t just sign a 20-page contract, especially on projects over $10,000. The devil is in the small print
  • Companies like Vworker provide project based IT support and programming and guarantee their work Contractors from around the globe bid on project specs, provide transparent reference checking, thus reducing nightmare like Karen experienced.

I promised to share a good template for A Business Requirement (I found this on DocStoc, a great resource for documents, some free, some for a fee) and the outline of the RFP Oddpodz used in our second site build. If you any any questions, please post them in our Oddpodz Linkedin Group so everyone can learn from the discussion.

Business_Requirement_Document

Oddpodz_2007_IT_RFP_FINAL

Also view: Frequently asked questions about customer win-back.

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