How I can help you

So, now that you’ve checked out my skillset you’re probably wondering “What can you do for me?”. So glad you asked imaginary person reading this! Below you can find a list of examples of who you are and how I can help you. You will see that in today’s world IT is not a seperate industry, but is rather core to every aspect of our productive lives so having somebody that knows what’s going on in the space is paramount.

Startup 🏗️ Link to heading

Starting any venture is hard - trust me I’ve been trying for years to get this going. In today’s world more often then not that business is going to require some sort of technological input be it a website, some sort of hardware (like laptops) etc. That input might even be core to the business, say if you wanted to start your very own online shop. For start ups to work one must be able to initially spend the least amount of resources to confirm their vision is commercially viable, but IT professionals are highly paid becauce they are picked up quickly by large corporations.

So what is a budding entrepreneur to do? We’ve already established that during this pivotal stage technology is critical so that the venture can flourish, but that usually requires a large amount of financal resources. The usual solution would be to look for freelancers on sites like Fiverr or Upwork. Hiring a professional from such platforms requires a specific aproach and work can often take months to have simple tasks completed and wasting time is almost worse than wasting money. Another potential pitfall that is common in my experience is that start-ups tend to underestimate their technological requirements (“We’ll just build an app!") and try to outsource that through the previously mentioned platforms. This again does not work as even building a simple site requires technical skills and knowledge to make it perfect, leaving you annoyed that what look like easy tasks take time or aren’t feasable and nobody can tell you why.

We’ve already established that this time for any business is critical and building the proper IT foundations is key to that. This is where my capabilities can be a great asset. Just share your vision with me and I’ll ensure that we get everything operating as you want it, all while keeping you appraised on ETAs, roadblocks etc, in ways that you can understand. Your future self will thank you in 5 years when your sucessfull business is on the verge of it’s IPO 😉

Small/Family Business 🏡 Link to heading

If you operate a small business such as a store or provide some service, weather you are a professional like a lawyer, accountant, consultant, yoga instructor or whatever your venture may be, you need IT. Think about how daunting it is to know which laptop to choose, set it upand ensure it doesn’t get hacked. How about setting up your business mail, buying a domain (or choosing one for that matter), standing up a website to show your business to the world? What about keeping your records digitized and backed up somewhere - do you buy a local storage device or store it in the cloud and how would you start with configuring that?

As a small enterprise, we have a conundrum:

IT can enable you to keep abreast of the competition and be as useful as possible to your customers. Unfortunately that requires resources that keep you away from actually doing what it is that made them choose your service in the first place.

That’s where I come in and resolve this issue. My vast experience with small businesses gives me all the tools I need to handle your IT needs, while you do whatever it is your business does best. Worrying about your laptop, e-mail setup, backups or site security is up to me, while you keep your customers happy!

Medium/Large business 💼 Link to heading

At this scale seemingly small problems or tasks may take quite a while to address. Finding a dedicated member to join your team may take months between several interview rounds, their notice periods and then they need more weeks of training, after which it might end up that the project no longer has funding approved or has already failed. Larger enterprises' plans need to get off the ground and determine viability as quickly as possible. Essentially a large business is like an incubator for smaller ones where individual projects are the startups.

So your project is ready to launch, you have funding approved, but you have to wait months between posting a position and actually having it filled in some meaningfull way. It sounds like you need my help then.With my vast experience, I can help with your team’s needs in:

• DevOps
• SysOps/System administration
• System and Infrastructure engineering, SRE
• Automation
• And more

That way you can get your projects of the ground and start analyzing their viability rather than spending time vetting, interviewing, proposing and training candidates. What is even better is that when the project is done you don’t need to worry about wasting resources or finding me new projects, as you can only budget for the given tasks and have our contract reflect that. Overall it sounds like a win-win to me!

Governmental/Educational organization 👔 🎓 Link to heading

People often think that if you work for some sort of government you’re an all powerful G-man that can solve any problem. If only that were the case we’d have a very different world. Throughout my years I’ve worked with many local governmental institutions - social service, police and fire departments, schools, universities, libraries, municipal services and more. I’ve seen first hand how hard providing these vital public services actually can be and I know for a fact that IT enables you to do this work. Afterall the internet was first developed for use by the US Department of Defense, while much of it took shape throughout the years afterwards through the work of people at various colleges and universities.

I also have been around long enough to know that such organizations are heavily reliant on budgets and often have to share some overworked IT department (or single person in many cases). I can alleviate that pain. Here are some examples of problems I can solve for your institution:

• Setup, configure and administer PCs.
• Deploy and manage location wired and wireless networking
• Configure file sharing, printing and other servers
• Assist with organization’s online presence (e-mail and website)

Of course these are just examples and I would gladly assist in any other information services your organization might require!

NGO 🕊 Link to heading

Non-governmental organizations are a vital part of civil society and sometimes are the only ones speaking up for those who can’t speak themselves. After having worked with volunteers from such organizations there is little doubt in my mind that there are more dedicated, motivated and caring individuals out there.

All that said, in order to get your message across, you need information infrastructure - be it computers for volunteers, secure communication channels or maintaining a web presence. People with expertise in those fields, unfortunately, are more often than not already engaged with working for for-profit enterprise. So you are left with a difficult problem to solve, rely on volunteer work from these same individuals, which are often strapped for time given the crunch culture prevelent in the industry, or risk not getting those services at all.

Well, there is another way - reach out to me and I can assist in:

• IT infrastructure in individual offices - from networking to the individual PCs and any type of server that might be required.
• Online presence - I can create a simple page for you or put you in contact with web designers, so we can customize your organization’s site further, while I help with general administration for it.
• Communication channels - keeping them secure is of utmost importance of course. I can help with choosing and setting up the best possible e-mail solution per your requirements.

Oh also don’t worry about budgeting - I know NGOs often rely on donations, so I’m willing to be flexible given the noble cause being served!

Creative 🎶 Link to heading

Creative professionals have always existed but it is only in the past few decades that technology has really enabled these fields to flourish even more. While that means it is easier than ever to start music production or doing online video production, it also means there are a lot of caveats and pitfalls you need to avoid. I’m a fan of the 10 000 hours rule of mastery, even though it has a lot of issues the overall conclusion is the same - if you want to be good at something, no amount of natural talent is going to make up for practice. Ideally you’d want to spend the largest amount of time possible daily doing that, rather than learning what type of hard drive and chassis to buy, how to set up your home network, build and configure a NAS, just so that you can back up your portfolio of photos, videos or music. I’d assume you woul also rather be promoting your work, tutoring or spending time with loved ones rather than setting up a web site and keeping plugins up to date.

Well my creative friend, I can help you! If you are an:

• Artist, painter, designer
• Musician, Audio engineer or technican
• Video creator or streamer
• Author, poet, writer
• Photographer
• Chef
• Educator
• Actor
• Makeup artist
• or anything else that is a creative endevour

then you already know that your work can benefit from the right IT equipment. If you need help with assemling a PC for example, setting up back ups for your work, configuring your work e-mail, setting up a website for your work and anything else technology related, then I am here for you!

In conclusion Link to heading

I love enabling the production of goods and services or create content through technology - I know it sounds like it’s generated from a corporate speak generator) but I swear I made it up myself (which is probably worse) …

Anyway, what I mean is that if any of the situations I’ve described sound familiar to you and you want to hear more about my solutions to your IT woes, then don’t hesitate to contact me Don’t hesitate to do so even if I haven’t mentioned your particular case above. Novelty is spice of life as they say and solving new problems is what makes all of this worth it!