That being the case, we should always be on the lookout for ways to add to our existing funding streams. Grant funding is one way to do that. Oh, don?t roll your eyes. I know that while some departments live and breathe because of grant funding, technology departments don?t often seek them out because of the work involved ? and they are work!

However they are certainly worth the effort and can provide a significant boost in your funding stream ? often for years.

So what kinds of grants are available?

There are numerous kinds of grants and sources of grants.  Some of these are:

Higher Education, Grants for Non Profit Organizations, University Grants, Non Profit Funding, K-12 Grants, School Grants, Education
Grants, Science Education Grants, Vocational Education Grants, Federal Grants, Government Grants, Corporate Grants, Technology Grants, Technology Funding Grants, and the list goes on.

What specific grants within the categories listed above can be had?

This is where research comes into play. My first visit would be to your organization?s grant coordinator (if you have one available). If you do, make them your friend! They can be invaluable in navigating the myriad of possibilities out there. If you do not have a resource such as this, you can make use of the thousands of resources, paid and free available on the Web.

http://www.fedgrants.gov/Applicants/
http://www.ntia.doc.gov/top/grants/grants.htm

Before you start looking or making an appointment with your grant coordinator, make sure you have your list of needs/projects in hand. In
fact, one of the questions I always ask when evaluating a potential project is:
“Is there any grant funding available?” That way,  if the request is from a department, they will have done some of the research and perhaps used their inside information to determine grant-funding availability.

Also be prepared to answer whether you have “matching
funds” available. Some grants require you to put up half the funds in
order to get the grant.  So don’t go looking for a $5 million matching grant if
you don’t have millions to put up as a match. However, be aware that your match
does not always have to be in the form of dollars. In-kind contributions, such
as value for work performed, employee’s salaries, hardware and software, can sometimes be used as all or part of your match.

Things to know.

Once you begin searching, keep an open mind. Acquiring grant funding is as much an art as a science. Know that while being super analytical
can help you as a technologist, it is a drawback when evaluating possible
grants. Know that grantors often give grants to programs/projects that in your
mind are “loosely” connected to the purpose of the grant. That’s
where the art of grant writing comes in. I am still boggled by some of the
grant awards I have seen over the years and those were a testament to the “creativeness” of the grant writers.

Also know that partnerships are highly valued when awarding grants. Grantors look kindly upon partnerships, especially public/private
partnerships. So it is worth your while to foster good relations with other government organizations – local/state/federal as well as not-for-profits and even for-profit organizations.

Understand the strings attached. Many people assume that grant money can only be spent for the express purposes of the grantee and that no one else can take advantage. This is expressly false. I have had grants that were for a specific department but purchased enterprise-level hardware because by doing so, I was able to provide the specific services to the department required by the grant. The fact that the rest of the organization benefited from the purchase was just a plus.

The point is you will need to understand the caveats of the grant. Some grants assume you never actually own what you purchase with the funds and they expect that you return goods back to them when you take them out of service. Others offer much greater flexibility. Understand the grant to maximize your flexibility! Gray areas can be your friend.

Make sure you are prepared to be a diligent record keeper and can show exactly where, when, and how grant funds were expended. You will be required to do so.

Lastly, under the category of things to know, be prepared to spend the money! You will drive your finance department and the grantor crazy
if you get funds allocated to you and then do not move forward with spending the funds at hand. So if you get a grant, make whatever projects associated with  them a HIGH priority. Trust me, I speak from experience on this and being cautious and frugal is not what the grantor is looking for. In their minds, if you are not using the dollars in the time allotted, they may as well have given the funds to someone else.

When you finally choose one or more grants to go after, it is then time to put on your writing hat. If you haven’t written one before (and
even if you have), it often pays to get a model of a grant submission that was
awarded funding in previous years. It can also be worth your while to take a grant writing course to learn some of the ins and outs. Additionally, if you made friends with your grant coordinator you might get lucky enough to be able to work with a grant writer who can write the majority of the grant and let you fill in the technical parts.

In any case, being able to bolster your funding via grants can go a long way in giving you the ability to meet the technology needs of your organization. Like anything worthwhile, there is an investment to make in order to get started, so forget about easy money. But know that your hard work can provide dividends for years to come.

—————————————————————————————–

Wouldn’t it be nice if consulting work magically continued to flow our way, and the only thing we needed to focus on was solving the next problem for the next client? Unfortunately, consulting life doesn’t work that way. If you’ve been doing this for any amount of time, you know that consulting and being in business as a consultant are two different things.

I’ll be honest; when I first started out, I had no Web site, no business cards, and no real marketing strategy other than to keep my clients happy. I was fortunate in the beginning that I was able to coast on reputation and referrals, but at some point I needed to get serious about running a consulting business.

Regardless of your tenure in consulting, if you don’t take the business aspect of your consulting seriously, you’re putting yourself at great risk of finding yourself cemented to the bench with no idea about how to unglue yourself.

To avoid this unfortunate predicament, I exhort you to view your business as a process, and employ the disciplined techniques found in quality methodologies like Six Sigma to build and improve your practice. There are two basic applications to Six Sigma, each with its own acronym to guide practitioners through implementation. DMAIC (Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve, Control) is for process improvement; we’ll get to this in the next article when we discuss improving your consulting practice. However, you can’t improve what you don’t have, so DMADV (Define, Measure, Analyze, Design, Verify) was created to actually build a product, service, or process with quality in mind. We’ll follow the DMADV sequence when systematically building our consulting process.

IT consultants should ask themselves these questions before advising clients to change the software/tool/programming language they use.

———————————————————————————————–

TechRepublic reader Francois Bezuidenhout asked about my policy on getting customers to change out the software they use. In Francois’ case, his client was using an antivirus package with which Francois had no experience, and the product was reporting apparent false positives. This package has a good reputation, so Francois thinks the problem is probably a configuration issue, but he has no idea where to look. He is much more familiar with other antivirus products, and wonders whether he should get the customer to switch. Would he be placing an unfair burden on his client to learn the new product for his own convenience, or would he be saving them time and money by making them easier to support?

I’ve run into similar situations when it comes to programming languages, tools, and standards. You’re not going to get your client to rewrite their existing VB6 application, even though future development would be more efficient and trouble-free in just about any other language except Whitespace. The cost of conversion is just too great. But you might be able to convince clients to try a different language for a new project, even though they’re more familiar with VB. It all depends on what they get in return.

Before you ask a client to change the software/tool/programming language they use, here are some questions to consider:

• How much more productive will you be? Can you confidently say that using a different product will make you more valuable to your customer? If so, how can you measure that? Are you sure you’re not just making yourself comfortable?
• Shouldn’t you learn what they’re already using? The more products you learn, the better consultant you’ll become. Should you invest some of your own time to come up to speed, or should you get the client to pay for your education? In my experience, if you put in a good faith effort on your own time to become familiarized with a product, the client will be willing to pay for your extra time spent using it as you learn the finer points. But make sure that your client understands and agrees to the arrangement. (Note: This question doesn’t apply if you already know the product, but you think it’s a bad fit.)
• How much will changing products cost them? Although I prefer free solutions where available, even the cost of proprietary software licenses is usually negligible compared to the costs of implementing anything new. Consider not only the cost of training your client’s people, but also their reduced productivity as they ramp up on actually using the product. You should also acknowledge their investment in their existing solution, but beware of the sunk-cost fallacy.
• What else will they gain from it? Will a different product make the client more productive in the long term? Does it provide demonstrably better features, performance, or compliance? Will the product prevent them from becoming obsolete? Will it enable them to attract better employees, or widen their potential hiring pool? Does it provide a bridge to opportunities they’ve never been able to consider before?

So, instead of answering Francois’ question, I posed over a dozen more. Hopefully they’ll help him figure out how he should advise his client.

The ultimate answer should be based on the net result of all of the answers to these questions. In the end, you are part of the customer’s business, and you have your own costs and benefits. Any change intended to improve your cost:benefit ratio to them must be weighed against other costs and benefits of making that change. The decision to change what they’re using should ultimately be theirs — but it’s your job to advise them on what decision to make.

Get weekly consulting tips in your inbox
TechRepublic’s IT Consultant newsletter, delivered each Monday, offers tips on how to attract customers, build your business, and increase your technical skills in order to get the job done.

But someone has done it, and done it well. That someone? The Linux Box. The “Box” was established in 1999 in order to provide regional, national, and international customers with support for open source technologies. On top of that, they commit 20% of their budget back into open source software development (to projects like OpenAFS, Moodle, Drupal, dotProject, Jobby, Squid, and more). Located in Ann Arbor Michigan, The Linux Box works closely with the community and has built its business around close collaboration with customers.

In other words – they get it. They get what it means to be a successful IT firm as well as a contributer to the open source community. And now…their hard work and dedication is paying off big. Recently The Linux Box announced a partnership with Canonical to market, sell, and support the Ubuntu operating system. With the help of Canonical, The Linux Box will help businesses in the U.S. to embrace Ubuntu Linux and help with large-scale migration.

I am sure there are many out there who think this model will fail. But it hasn’t yet. It’s been successful for nearly twelve years and now they are taking it up a notch with the help of Canonical. From my perspective this is big. Canonical has done amazing things with the Linux operating system. In fact, I would go so far as to say Canonical has done to Linux what Microsoft did to PCs in the early days. I say this because I hear Ubuntu (or Ubuntu Linux, or just Linux) heard in more places than ever, from people you wouldn’t expect, and almost as casually as you would hear Windows (my favorite sitcom, “Big Bang Theory,” even makes references to Linux). Linux has grown exponentially since I first started using it in ‘98.

And now, what people said couldn’t be done, is being done. People are making money with Linux. I have been doing so for a decade as a writer. Red Hat and Novel are making profit with Linux as Enterprise-level makers of competing distributions. Oracle has MySQL and will most certainly capitalize on that. There are Linux magazines, Linux conventions…Linux is just about everywhere now and people are making money from it. And now, an IT consulting firm has stepped into a tiny point of limelight showing the world it’s possible to make money as an open source consultancy.

Can a Linux-only IT shop survive?

1. If you’re flying and don’t have enough room to place your wide-screen notebook on the coach-class tray table, consider investing in Aviator Laptop stand, which positions your notebook at an angle to make the most of the available space. Visit www.laptopbatteryb2b.com/ to check it out.

2. Don’t be tempted to place your notebook PC in a plane’s overhead storage area; it can easily get knocked around or even stolen by your fellow travelers. Instead, store it under the seat in front of you, where it’s always in sight.

3. Some long-haul flights provide power ports that supply 15V direct current to power your notebook and other devices. Your best bet for finding such power ports is on cross-country and international flights on American, Delta, United, and US Airways.

To use a power port, you’ll need a compatible DC auto/air power adapter. Keep in mind that power adapters are device- and model-specific, although you can always go with the laptopbatteryb2b.com’s  power cord, an all-in-one power adapter that connects your device to any AC or DC power source.

4. If you’re a mobile professional who likes to check in with the office during driving breaks, consider investing in a mobile notebook desk that provides a good resting surface for your laptop. Some of these mounts attach to the passenger seat, some mount permanently to the floor of the car, and others just sit on your lap. Do not use the computer while driving, of course.

5. If you travel by car, use a cellular data card for roving Internet access. You’ll find lots of Wi-Fi hotspots when you stop your car at rest stops and hotel parking lots, but not on the highway. To connect from anywhere you get cellular phone service, invest in a broadband cellular data card for your notebook, and the accompanying data service.

6. If you can get Internet service, use your notebook to help you navigate—and find gas stations, restaurants, and hotels on the road. I like to use Google Maps (maps.google.com) for these tasks, although any general-purpose mapping site will do the trick. These sites make it easy to find your favorite places to stay and dine.

7. If you’re traveling with kids, let them use your notebook PC for in-car entertainment. It can function as a mobile game player and a portable DVD player. For long trips, you might want to consider a seat-back notebook mount.

8. For the safety of your notebook PC, mark it with some form of identification before you take your trip. Try taping a business card to the bottom of your laptop; if it gets lost or stolen and found, you can identify it as yours.

9. Take an extra battery. It doesn’t hurt to travel with a second fully-charged battery. When your main battery runs out, replace it with the auxiliary battery and you will not have to worry about locating an electrical outlet.

10. Want to keep your nosy seatmate or the guy at the next table from seeing what you’re typing? Use a privacy screen filter. It fits on your notebook screen and uses microlouver technology to reduce off-angle viewing. You can see what’s on-screen, but people on your left and right can’t.

Switching to rechargeable batteries can save significant money! Until technology reaches the point of no-batteries-needed, rechargeable batteries fill the need at less cost than disposable batteries, and rechargeable batteries also help reduce toxic waste in our landfills.

Toss out the disposable batteries!

Take the plunge! It is really well worth it. When those disposable batteries quit, do not even think about buying more of them. Dispose of them in accordance to guidelines for your area.

Of course, rechargeable batteries also have life-spans. In other words, after repeated rechargings, many rechargeable batteries lose their ability to receive and hold a charge. Thus, rechargeable batteries are also ultimately disposed of; but not nearly as frequently as disposable batteries.

Take inventory of your devices:
Make a list of all the electronic devices you have that use batteries. Of course, cell phones and some other devices have ’specialized’ batteries, so those should not be on the list. Include items that you typically use disposable batteries for, such as flashlights, cameras, toys, remotes, computer mice (wireless), clocks, powered headphones, radios, cd players, smoke detectors, carbon monoxide detectors, and so on. Be sure you jot down what kind of batteries, and how many each one needs, too (9Volt, AAA, AA, D, C, other).

Make a small investment:
Go out and pick up a decent rechargeable battery kit, which typically includes the following items:
-Multi-functional, multi-charging slot battery charger (charges various sizes; many at once).
-A quantity of various sized rechargeable batteries.

There are many kits available, and they vary in price by how many batteries can be charged, how many batteries come with the charger; and other options.

For under $20 you can get a pretty good starter setup that should accommodate the most commonly used battery sizes.

Find a suitable place for your battery charging center:
I think it is a good idea to designate a specific place for your rechargeable battery storage and recharging station. Be sure to follow all manufacturers’ instructions for setting up, operating, and maintaining your battery recharging station.

The benefits:
Each consumer will save money on batteries by switching to rechargeable batteries. Savings will vary, depending on the number of batteries involved, and how quickly batteries are consumed in the given devices.

Suffice it to say that the relatively low cost of rechargeable batteries, coupled with the benefit of shrinking your carbon-footprint, makes rechargeable batteries a worthwhile choice all around.

The future:
I like to think the day will come when the devices we use and carry will not need any batteries at all. Instead, I believe technology will advance to the point where the energy needed to power the devices will come from a variety of sources; including solar, body motions, body heat, sound vibrations from voices, wind, ambient atmosphere, earth’s magnetism, and others. Very likely, power will come from a combination of these, and will provide device energy by capitalizing on the ambient energies at work at the atomic level all the time; all around us! Then, we will really save money on batteries!

Until then, using rechargeable batteries is a step in the right direction to save some money and help to save the environment, too!