What’s my first useful skedsheet?
Now that we’ve got a working skedsheet (even though we’re still hiding it for a while) I’ve spent some time playing to see how (and if) things work. I’m really excited about the way it’s shaping up – and despite the fact that it’s really ugly, it actually does a big part of what we want to do.
I’m starting to feel good because skedsheet is going to bring value to the people and companies we know well – construction subcontractors. And, I think it’s more widely useful than that.
So, I want to figure out a way to use it for myself – I guess the entrepreneurially correct phrase is “eat our own dog food”. For JobTracker, we ended up using it almost immediately as a CRM system, even though that was a bit of a stretch…it turned out that using our own software on a day-to-day basis was very useful, especially early on. What can I do?
1) Marketing calendar. I have a spreadsheet of things that need to be done marketing-wise. Trade shows, ads, articles, mailings. One of the problems I run into with my marketing spreadsheet is that it’s hard for me to follow what needs to get done today or this week. I think having a calendar would help.
2) Supporting customers. I’m wondering if there’s another level of detail that skedsheet could help with in managing some support tasks. Probably not, since we already have an system for managing this. But maybe, a calendar spreadsheet would be good in helping our JobTracker customers plan their implementations. “here’s a schedule with dates, who’s supposed to do what, and what are the milestones or prerequisites.”
3) Personal stuff. I’ve got a spreadsheet for a workout schedule, and a spreadsheet of some of my kid’s activities. I think the kid activity spreadsheet would be really cool if I can convince some friends to read, edit, and add to it, too.
