Adam Sewell

Sysadmin, WordPress Developer and Entrepreneur

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tinyShield.me launched… a while back

April 28, 2019 by adamsewell Leave a Comment

Introduction

On August 20th, 2018 I committed the first version of tinyShield, a new security plugin for WordPress, to the WordPress repository. Since then, the plugin has slowly increased from version 0.1.3 to 0.2.5 in just a few short months. Development has been steady both on the plugin and backend and more is coming in the way of marketing and partnerships. Below you will find the article I wrote on the tinyShield.me website giving the back story on how the idea came about and what the plugin does.

I’m proud of the little plugin and I whole heartedly believe it will grow quickly and bring together the protection of WordPress sites through the cloud sourcing functionality. Read more below!

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, WordPress

So what happened was….

February 19, 2018 by adamsewell Leave a Comment

Tomorrow night, I’ll become the Board Chairman of the Lexington Area Chamber of Commerce. This is a first for me. This is actually the first official board that I’ve served on and that just happened just last year. In preparation for the evening, I had to write a speech. For historical purposes, this is that speech. You know, just in case.


There have been several times in my life that I have inherited the reins of an organization from others, and every time that I stand in front of a group of people and accept those reins, I am reminded of the very first time. It was my senior year in high school that I was chosen to lead the Central Davidson Spartans JROTC Battalion as the Battalion Commander. Imagine a 17 year old version of Adam Sewell, no beard, no salt and pepper hair; standing in front of a large group of strange people, with absolutely no preparation of a speech – nervous, and standing in front of podium just like this one. With nods to Winston Churchill, George Washington and other famous public speakers, I started blurting out what I could pry out of my mind at that time. Unfortunately for me, the only thing I could come up with was…. “Let’s Do Great Things”. That was it. That’s the entire speech. I mustered a chuckle and stepped away from the podium. Fortunately or possibly unfortunately for you all tonight, I’m better at preparing now and can also wing it just a hair more efficiently.

So starting out tonight, I would like to thank those who thought it a good idea to put me into this position. All I can say is, let’s see what happens. Secondly, I would like to thank everyone who has ever served and is currently serving on the Chamber Board of Directors and as Chamber Ambassadors. These people are those who made this organization what it is, a beacon for business progress in this community.

As we start down the road that is 2018, I want to continue to build upon the work others have already started. I want the chamber to continue to play the role it always has – to be a champion for the small business owner. To give opportunities to people like myself in ways of networking, to engage in the community, to help others, and all while attempting to make Lexington a better place to live, work and play. However, for some, it may not be clear what the chamber actually does.

Before ever stepping on the board last year, one of the questions that I struggled with myself and heard others state was “What does or what can the chamber do for me?”. I probably have heard more people than I have toes and fingers ask this very question. I have made it one of my goals this year to answer that question for the members of the chamber, potential members in the community, and for the general public. There are a few ideas in how we can accomplish this and we will be working on this in the very near future. I want it to be easy to say, “This is what the chamber does for me.”

Furthermore, there are so many small jewels of business here in Lexington that are members of our Chamber. Companies that some may have heard of or may have seen their logo but have no idea what they do, who they are or exactly how far their reach is. Companies that have clientele from around the world, have won awards in their industry, have wonderful, friendly people working hard to make their own path in the world. And we just simply drive by these buildings, day in and day out. Everyone, including myself, should pull out their Chamber directories and find two or three businesses that are located or operate within Lexington and learn more about them.

I am in a unique position with MyGeek Technologies, that we have the honor to work with a lot of these businesses on a daily basis. We see what these companies do, we see who works there, we see the value that these companies bring to our community. I want to give these businesses a platform to stand on, a group of people that are at their backs, and an organization that they can be proud to be a member of. We need to shed light on the businesses that make our community what it is.

That is my goal as chairman.

Thank you all for attending tonight – now Let’s Do Great Things!

 

Filed Under: Business

Troubleshooting Basics

December 29, 2014 by adamsewell Leave a Comment

I’m sure this has been covered numerous times around the web but it seems that the art of troubleshooting or even basic logic is no longer being taught in colleges. I have ran into several techs right out of college who have four year degrees from some fairly well known institutions. It seems that what is taught is essentially just theory and not actual application, that is at bachelors level. I will admit that it seems the community colleges are at least a step ahead of the four year programs in that regard. In any case, I wanted to put together a basic troubleshooting guide for any aspiring network or desktop tech. Even the do-it-yourself home enthusiast might could benefit from this.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, Sysadmin

How we handle backups

December 25, 2014 by adamsewell Leave a Comment

In the computer tech and IT forums that I frequent, it seems there is always discussion about backups. What works best, or someone asking the questino to the community on how they personally handle backups; do you use onsite backups or offsite, tapes or disk. The list goes on and on.

While the backup market is huge with a number of players in the game including extremely large companies like Symantec down to really small open source guys like duplicati. It’s an ocean out there in regards to this topic and each backup solution is a fish. Each varying in characteristics and abilities but one thing remains the same; you need to catch a fish.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, Sysadmin

Marketing: Let me get that cup of coffee for you

August 1, 2014 by adamsewell Leave a Comment

Late last year, I was driving around and passed one of our local coffee shops here in town and the idea just hit me. The idea sprang from other brain-storming sessions on business growth and marketing. I personally am not a fan of the buzz words “growth hacking” or the like because it all boils down to marketing. The trends in marketing change just as they do in any other industry and depending upon that, it more or less dictates what marketing methods you can use to grow your business.

For example in the business-to-business arena, traditional marketing does not have a decent return on investment (at least not in my experience.) Traditional marketing would include things like newspaper ads, radio commercials, billboards, etc. What we’ve had to do is find other methods of marketing that stick out from the normal methods used by other competitors or rely more heavily on word-of-mouth marketing to push us forward. The book “Guerrilla Marketing” reflects our approach much more than any traditional marketing method..

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Advertising, Business

Clients: Needs verses Wants

July 26, 2014 by adamsewell Leave a Comment

Our clients range in size from a one person shop up to 100+ devices, and we like it that way. In starting the business, it was a goal from the start to only work with the smaller clients. The theoretical maximum number of devices and users we will support is around 200.

There is sort of an invisible divide in our clients though, one that only a company like ours would see. It’s a divide that affects how a contractor deals with a business.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Business

Client Retention: Dealing with difficult clients

May 31, 2014 by adamsewell 1 Comment

This is sort of a follow up to a couple of other posts I wrote about picking your clients and doing pro bono work. In those posts, I talked about how to avoid bad clients and how to avoid getting stepped on in general. Even if you try to avoid those clients, some will slip through the cracks. In this post, I want to talk about how to handle those “bad clients”.

bad client, bad

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Filed Under: Business, Freelancers

QuickTip: Offboarding Clients

May 22, 2014 by adamsewell Leave a Comment

Just a quick tip in when offboarding clients, be sure that you are professional and helpful to clients who are offboarding from your services. You never know when the new provider will not work out and they’ll come back to you. Making things difficult and being a nuisance is not going to help you win back clients. Always be supportive of your client, even if they are making a bad decision.

 

Filed Under: Business

Marketing & Advertising: Networking Edition

February 21, 2014 by adamsewell Leave a Comment

Marketing and advertising are not the same. Advertising is like throwing shit at the wall and seeing what sticks. Marketing is building relationships, and relationships sell services. People typically like to work with others that they know or trust. This is why only certain people make very good salesmen; that is, they have the personality that people just gravitate towards. Now if you’re like me, you may have a good personality but are a tad introverted. We are developers and computer geeks over here but we don’t naturally make good salesmen.

[Read more…]

Filed Under: Business, Freelancers, Marketing

Pick Your Customers Through Price

February 1, 2014 by adamsewell

When I first started my IT business, I set a table in the back of my in-laws store in the evenings when I got off work from my day job. When I came in, I would pull out a table, put my signs up, and run my power cords. At the end of evening, I would put everything back up. I had this setup for roughly two years and it worked well. I learned a lot during those first two years but nothing more important than my customers.

Online shopping on white background concept

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Filed Under: Business, Freelancers, WordPress

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