When Worlds Collide (Finally!)

My former boss at Saint Gobain Abrasives left the company to start his own consulting and product business after I left. He is a world reknowned expert in coolant technology for grinding applications, as well as general process improvement for grinding processes. That probably means very little to most of you. However, in his world, he is famous. And his world is actually pretty big. Pretty much everything you see around you including your disk drives and your shoes couldn't have been made without grinding wheels and sandpaper. Saint Gobain Abrasives, our former employer, is the world's largest abrasive product manufacturer with about $2B worldwide sales. They are also one of the largest employers in the state of MA.

John is also one of the coolest guys I know and the coolest boss I ever had. He's also British and fits the mold quintessentially... right down to the incessant use of lame puns.

Anyways, I offered to build his website for him when he went out on his own. He instead had a friend's son put something together for him while he got his business off of the ground financially and figured out what his focus was going to be. The site is definitely a candidate for sitesthatsuck. But, it did the job for him.

I am in the middle of putting up his site and we've built it on top of wordpress, so that he can manage the content and because it is easier than starting with notepad or visual studio. In fact, the ease of putting up pages on wordpress was amazing. I wouldn't hesitate to use wordpress to manage content for almost any small business's website. It makes the process extremely simple. In a few hours last night, I put up this. (It isn't done yet, by any stretch of the word. I plan to have Eric rework the graphics and color scheme and I still have to massage some of the content pages and a bit of the css layout.) Nonetheless, by starting with wordpress and having the ability to choose from 1000s of already built layouts, the process of building a sharp looking website that is easy to manage couldn't be much easier. Dreamhost, like a lot of other hosting companies, makes it even easier by enabling the wordpress install process through a web interface.

And the coolest part about this whole thing is that I've convinced him to start a weblog. I believe it is the first weblog on this subject. Imagine that, the first weblog to address a multi billion dollar industry!!!!! The way I see it, there is huge room for niche weblogs.  Gawker is just getting around to launching a gambling weblog. That means, there are millions of HUGE industries in need of a weblog, or that could atleast benefit from a well designed one with expert writers. Although there is opportunity for me to start and write on any topic, I am looking forward to contributing to Ask Dr. Cool. I am not a world renowned expert like John, but it be a shame to let 6 years of product design, process design and sales engineering experience in grinding go to complete waste. If anything, I'll be getting him off the ground and proving to him that a blog can help build a business.

Next up, I want to build a site like this on drupal with bryght to compare the ease of use between drupal and wordpress. One thing is for sure, blogging and open source is starting to effect geeks beyond the "tech geeks". It will soon even matter to the grinding wheel business.

Comments

[Mark]

I've had a go with Drupal before with no luck, mainly getting stuck on getting it access to the /tmp directory (which is outside of my control on the server). I'll be interested to see how you get on.

[Roger]

If you ever want to try out websites on WordPress, you can set up a blog at Blogsome in seconds. We already have some business blogs on it (as well as over 10,000 other personal blogs) and of course it is at no cost.

[Chris]

I know a company that will build you a complete website and even market it on the internet for you so all you have to do is have a product and they will do the rest complete turnkey business websites

[Zmajrqq]

http://sexxarab.info x

[Zmajrqq]

http://sexxarab.info x

[DEKARONデカロン-RMT]

RMT rmt とはis currently constructing the Kahuku Wind facility located on the island of Oahu in Hawaii. リネージュ2 rmtThe 30-MW facility will feature 12 wind turbines and will generate enough clean energy to power about 7,700 homes each year. アトランティカ RMT RMT is providing engineering, procurement,Atlantica RMT and construction of the civil and electrical infrastructure, rmt ff14including roads, crane walks and pads, turbine foundations, tower erection,aion rmt a 23-kV underground collector system, a 23/46-kV step-up substation, and a 7,000-square-foot operations and maintenance buildingrmt リネージュ2.

[RMT]

RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp
アラド戦記 RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/alado.html
FF11 RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/ff11.html
メイプル RMT :http://www.rmtking.jp/maplestory.html
マビノギ RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/mabinogi.html
巨商伝 RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/kyoshouden.html
アトランティカ RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/atlantica.html
アトランティカ RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/atlantica.html
RFOnline Z RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/rfonline.html
女神転生 RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/imagine.html
大航海時代 RMT :http://www.rmtking.jp/daikoukaijidai.html
ドラゴンネスト RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/dragonnest.html
FF14 RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/finalxiv.html
アイオン RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/aion.html
ラテール RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/latale.html
デカロン RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/dekaron.html
リネージュ RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/lineageone.html
リネージュ2 RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/lineage.html
ネクソンポイント RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/nexonpoint.html
三國無双 RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/saonline.html
新 天上碑 RMT:http://www.rmtking.jp/sinnta.html