Concerns about bogus companies entering our market - TechHui2024-03-29T11:25:22Zhttp://www.techhui.com/forum/topics/concerns-about-bogus-companies?commentId=1702911%3AComment%3A84447&feed=yes&xn_auth=noNo offense to anybody that *e…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-06-08:1702911:Comment:844502011-06-08T22:08:08.648ZLance Furuyamahttp://www.techhui.com/profile/LanceFuruyama
<p>No offense to anybody that *exclusively* works with local vendors.....</p>
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<p>But I have very stringent guidelines with the projects that come out of my budget, and it all comes down to who has the best plan to deliver the goods.</p>
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<p>If my vendor is local, great....but competency trumps location every time. Phony companies are bad for everyone, but being busy does not give the client the right to feel ripped off, if they didn't do their due diligence.</p>
<p>No offense to anybody that *exclusively* works with local vendors.....</p>
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<p>But I have very stringent guidelines with the projects that come out of my budget, and it all comes down to who has the best plan to deliver the goods.</p>
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<p>If my vendor is local, great....but competency trumps location every time. Phony companies are bad for everyone, but being busy does not give the client the right to feel ripped off, if they didn't do their due diligence.</p> I think there is an aspect he…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-06-08:1702911:Comment:844472011-06-08T21:11:04.856ZJason Hoffmanhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/JasonHoffman
<p>I think there is an aspect here we are missing. I see the benefits to a "certificate" but that "certificate" is only as good as its publication. Would a simpler method be, educating buyers about the need to and how to verify a company. (A certificate or badge program would have to have a similar education effort to make it effective)</p>
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<p>As a routine part of business, we pulled Secretary of State filings (when I was not in HI) to validate that the entity we put in our…</p>
<p>I think there is an aspect here we are missing. I see the benefits to a "certificate" but that "certificate" is only as good as its publication. Would a simpler method be, educating buyers about the need to and how to verify a company. (A certificate or badge program would have to have a similar education effort to make it effective)</p>
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<p>As a routine part of business, we pulled Secretary of State filings (when I was not in HI) to validate that the entity we put in our contracts/NDA/etc was the appropriate entity. (A company offering credit to its francheses, for example John Deere, does the same thing to ensure that have legal grounds if a lawsuit results). I always verify the contact information of a vendor or a customer with a site visit. A list of things to verify (as Daniela did) as part of basic research on a prospective vendor, seems like an easy things TechHui can provide the community.</p>
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<p>My $0.02,</p>
Jason How about a "Locals Badge" pr…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-06-08:1702911:Comment:844412011-06-08T05:30:03.014ZAlex Salkeverhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/AlexSalkever
How about a "Locals Badge" program where the badges are clickable and comments are enabled on a secondary site. And those would deploy Facebook commenting - so no fakers. I am all for supporting strong local businesses. I am not in favor of creating a badge to support weak / incompetent local businesses (which do exist - perhaps even more so than in Mainland markets such as San Francisco where competition is more fierce). With any program should come accountability - not like Yelp, which allows…
How about a "Locals Badge" program where the badges are clickable and comments are enabled on a secondary site. And those would deploy Facebook commenting - so no fakers. I am all for supporting strong local businesses. I am not in favor of creating a badge to support weak / incompetent local businesses (which do exist - perhaps even more so than in Mainland markets such as San Francisco where competition is more fierce). With any program should come accountability - not like Yelp, which allows people to slam competitors and pump themselves up, but with transparency. Sign me up!tag:www.techhui.com,2011-06-08:1702911:Comment:843542011-06-08T03:22:54.576ZGB Hajimhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/GBHajim
Sign me up!
Sign me up! Note that TechHui has had a d…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-03-29:1702911:Comment:783502011-03-29T08:52:25.855ZDaniel Leuckhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/dleuck
Note that TechHui has had a <a href="http://www.techhui.com/page/directory-1" target="_blank">directory</a> that includes listings for <a href="http://www.techhui.com/page/web-design-development-1" target="_blank">Web Design and Development</a> with <a href="http://www.techhui.com/page/directory-submission" target="_blank">free and paid (featured) listings</a> for several years. We require that companies have a physical presence in Hawaii. The process of verification isn't as rigorous as what…
Note that TechHui has had a <a href="http://www.techhui.com/page/directory-1" target="_blank">directory</a> that includes listings for <a href="http://www.techhui.com/page/web-design-development-1" target="_blank">Web Design and Development</a> with <a href="http://www.techhui.com/page/directory-submission" target="_blank">free and paid (featured) listings</a> for several years. We require that companies have a physical presence in Hawaii. The process of verification isn't as rigorous as what people are suggesting for a badge system, but given the fact Hawaii isn't a big place, we can usually figure out who is legit and who isn't pretty quickly. We know 75%+ of the people in the directory and if another TechHuian suggested a company wasn't legit we would take a closer look.<br/> But I don't mind having me li…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-03-29:1702911:Comment:782502011-03-29T06:33:20.268ZSunny Bakhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/SunnyBak
But I don't mind having me listed on Local Freelancers though. ;) I don't think it would hurt to set up a yellowpage for local developers.
But I don't mind having me listed on Local Freelancers though. ;) I don't think it would hurt to set up a yellowpage for local developers. @Daniela You're trying to pre…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-03-28:1702911:Comment:780872011-03-28T09:37:57.236ZAlex Ghttp://www.techhui.com/profile/AlexG
@Daniela You're trying to prevent a situation where someone like your client gets duped into thinking that they are working with a local company. In the end they end up with a bad product and find out they've been cheated. I'm wondering, though, could a TechHui "Local Company" seal have made a difference? It almost sounds like your client took the sales guy's word and didn't do any checking on their own. If your client did not invest some time and money in verifying, what makes you think that a…
@Daniela You're trying to prevent a situation where someone like your client gets duped into thinking that they are working with a local company. In the end they end up with a bad product and find out they've been cheated. I'm wondering, though, could a TechHui "Local Company" seal have made a difference? It almost sounds like your client took the sales guy's word and didn't do any checking on their own. If your client did not invest some time and money in verifying, what makes you think that a seal from TechHui would help? I mean, if it was that important to them to work with a local company, why not to ask for references from local clients? Why not visit the office, ask to meet with the designers?<br />
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I'm sorry, I don't know the specifics of the situation. All I'm trying to say is that sometimes people go on blind faith and no amount of external help available will save them from their own foolishness. I apologize if I got this wrong, but I was left with the impression that your client simply talked to a sales person and went for it.<br />
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In addition, it sounds like what you're really saying is that a seal is needed not only to certify that a company is local, but also to vouch for the qualify of work that a company does. Let's face it - just because a company is local doesn't mean they do quality work. Nor does it mean they respect local culture, care about sustainability and buy local. So when it comes to certifying quality of work, that takes time and resources, and a very well defined criteria. Would TechHui be able to do that? Maybe if there are some very highly motivated volunteers with nothing else to do. But think about it - if TechHui came up with a seal program, and awarded the seal to a local company, and then that company did poor quality work and word go out, that would reflect negatively on TechHui. It would also undermine every other company that carries the seal. That's why seals sound good on paper but are very hard to do in practice.<br />
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I see two options here: First, there maybe be a business opportunity for someone to be a "business private eye". They would have to provide a service that thoroughly checks out a company, beyond just it's local or not. They would have to be able to provide a "dossier" of the company, sort of like Dun & Bradstreet but with a local flavor, with more details, and a little more low key.<br />
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Second, maybe TechHui (Ikayzo) can start a community driven web site that functions like the yellow pages. It be just a listed of companies that can provide local addresses and phone numbers, and provide local references, and would be focused on IT, software development, web and media. Then it would be up to each site visitor to vet the company for themselves. Once you get into seals and/or rating the quality of work you run into a number of issues that a difficult to deal with. Hope that helps! @sunny For some of my clients…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-03-27:1702911:Comment:781602011-03-27T23:26:08.732ZDaniela Stolfihttp://www.techhui.com/profile/DanielaStolfi
<p>@sunny For some of my clients like Kailua/Kapolei Chamber of Commerce, Malama Hawaii or North Shore Eco Tours whose mission and business goals completely center around supporting Hawaii, Hawaiian Culture and sustainability, local business and commerce, local art etc. it would not be a good representation of that message, if they used a mainland company to design their website. I find that most of our local clients felt very strongly about finding and working with a local web designer for…</p>
<p>@sunny For some of my clients like Kailua/Kapolei Chamber of Commerce, Malama Hawaii or North Shore Eco Tours whose mission and business goals completely center around supporting Hawaii, Hawaiian Culture and sustainability, local business and commerce, local art etc. it would not be a good representation of that message, if they used a mainland company to design their website. I find that most of our local clients felt very strongly about finding and working with a local web designer for this reason.</p>
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<p>Not to mention that it is very obvious when a non local business designs a website that is supposed to have a Polynesian feel. The designs look hokey or stereotypical, inappropriate. If a Kaneohe business wants a website that is appropriate for their business and Windward customer, how will a mainland company interpret that, how will they know what colors, angles of the Koolau, even flowers, will give that Kanoehe feel? You can research it but that does not always translate well to someone who isn't from here. We had a client come to us recently to redo a site because they asked for the site to have a tropical/polynesian look and the company literally used the pattern of some upholstery fabric because it had, what they thought, a tropical feel. It was actually Cuban and looked really bad, they made several attempts and just couldn't pull it off.</p>
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<p>Now a days, yes you can do most anything via email and phone and never meet in real life. I have a programmer that has worked for me for 3 years that I have never met in person. But for clients, it is a risk legally to hire anyone who is not in our state. A smart local business owner knows that if they hire a local business they can easily (and affordabley) enforce contractual agreements. And with a mainland company it gets tricky, most of their contracts specify that their state laws apply, and that means if you have a dispute you have to fly out there and fight it in their state. Using an out of country company is a huge risk because you have no recourse to recover money, you are pretty much SOL if someone skates out on you.</p>
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<p>Another thing to consider is optimization. You can tell when a non local company is optimizing a local website by the keywords they use ( or don't know to use ). Its just simply about terminology and cultural aspects that a non local company just can't know. </p>
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<p>There are more benefits, I actually wrote a <a href="http://bosshi.com/hawaii-websites-need-hawaii-webdesigners/" target="_blank">blog about it.</a></p> The concept of "Living Local"…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-03-27:1702911:Comment:775312011-03-27T19:41:13.964ZSunny Bakhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/SunnyBak
The concept of "Living Local" or "Buying local produce" makes sense because it is directly related to our land. But I don't understand how that applies to web development service someone is buying via websites. I understand your point of people falsely advertise as a local company. But I also have seen some local programmers who were irresponsible. If someone is interested in hiring a local company, it may be a good idea to meet with the person or with the company in person. If you are buying…
The concept of "Living Local" or "Buying local produce" makes sense because it is directly related to our land. But I don't understand how that applies to web development service someone is buying via websites. I understand your point of people falsely advertise as a local company. But I also have seen some local programmers who were irresponsible. If someone is interested in hiring a local company, it may be a good idea to meet with the person or with the company in person. If you are buying the service just via website, what difference does it make if the person is from Hawaii or not?<br />
As Laurence or Kevin recommend, word of mouth or getting reviews from reliable sources can prevent meeting unethical or irresponsible developers. good luck Quick follow up.... I've gott…tag:www.techhui.com,2011-03-27:1702911:Comment:775292011-03-27T18:44:29.215ZKevin Luttrellhttp://www.techhui.com/profile/KevinLuttrell
Quick follow up.... I've gotten several web projects because of people getting burned by others. I totally agree that these people that burn their clients undermine the trust of anone trying to operate at a high professional standard and it creats a bit of an awkward relationship if a new client is on guard from being burned in the past. However, once they realize that you do have professional standards and ethics and get the job done, they tend to become very loyal clients and tell people as…
Quick follow up.... I've gotten several web projects because of people getting burned by others. I totally agree that these people that burn their clients undermine the trust of anone trying to operate at a high professional standard and it creats a bit of an awkward relationship if a new client is on guard from being burned in the past. However, once they realize that you do have professional standards and ethics and get the job done, they tend to become very loyal clients and tell people as much.