Stuff from Inc., December 2007

Before launching an overseas charity, ask yourself these questions:

What do I want to achieve?
Identify your cause narrowly. Instead of trying to eradicate hunger in Africa, focus on a water project in one village.

Who else is doing it?
Don't hesitate to build on the work of others. Western philanthropists often undervalue local efforts already under way.

Where do I go?
Existing business contacts may make it easier to operate in some locations. If you worked with great lawyers and accountants in China on an outsourcing contract, for example, they may be willing to do pro bono work there.

Do I do this alone or with a partner?
You'll need help from someone on the ground. Sean Downs, CEO of technology start-up Enclarity, launched the Sumba Foundation to provide healthcare and education to residents of a small Indonesian island with help from Claude Graves, an American expat. Without Graves' help, Downs says, he couldn't have negotiated the maze of culture and bureaucracy.

How do I overcome distrust?
Don't discount the local culture. Villagers were reluctant to visit a Sumba Foundation-sponsored clinic until Downs and his partner recruited a local shaman to refer patients. "He gets paid a referral fee now," says Downs. "It's not unlike the US health care system."

At a time when products are being recalled and consumers are wary, managing your Chinese contractors is more important than ever. Here's how:

Meet your maker
Go to the factory. Meet the management. Tour the facilities.

Drive a hard bargain
Negotiate for copious product testing, and put together a written quality control and ethics agreement. Set the rules on subcontractors, and insist on a transparent supply chain. Use carrot and stick, rewarding factories that deliver high-quality goods, shunning those who don't.

Communicate clearly
Know the ethics and compliances standards for all your customers, and make sure your factory knows them, too. Let your contractors know that the penalty for failure will hurt not only you but them as well. Put all necessary documents in Chinese.

Diversify
If possible, have two primary suppliers. That can reduce the likelihood of supply interruptions should faulty products or recalls force a factory shutdown. If it's too expensive, spend more on testing to minimize the potential for problems.

Be prepared for delays
The spate of product recalls has thrown the entire China supply chain into a state of chaos. Testing labs are backed up. Big recalls can seriously affects container traffic and shipping schedules.

Understanding geeks: A field guide to your tech staff

Habitat
If there's one common characteristic of an ideal techie workplace, it's darkness. It's not that geeks are depressed. Multiple monitors bombard users with a lot of light already; adding overhead fluorescents or superbright halogens would be a recipe for migraines and madness. A small desk lamp, perhaps, is all the light most geeks can comfortably handle while at the keyboard. A dim, cavelike environment also helps programmers focus and tune out distractions; often, headphones are used to get even depeer into the zone.

Developers are particularly fastidious about their setup, but other techies also like their desks just so. Whether that means a pristine work surface or a desk that looks like the site of a bombinbing, non-techies should keep one thing in mind: do not touch anything.

Psychology: some common geek character traits
Perfectionism. "Good enough" really isn't for most geeks. The tendency is mostly a good one, but a well-oiled tech department needs a combination of perfectionists and "incrementalists", willing to crank out necessary improvements right now, even if they aren't perfect.

Lust for gadgets. The shinier, the better. Possessing the latest gizmo from Tokyo is a badge of honor.

Intellectual curiosity. Put a "regular" person in front of a computer, and he'll just sit there. A geek will dig in, figuring out what's inside and how he can tweak it. Not because it's his job, but for fun. This curiosity may manifest itself as NADD (nerd attention-deficit disorder), a compulsion to consume as many streams of information as possible at a seemingly impossible rate.

Systematic thinking. Geeks see nothing magic about technology, only problems to be broken down and solved.

Wrong? Never. Geeks often have a powerful intellectual vanity. That makes it hard for them to admit mistakes. Hence, the plethora of expressions that blame the victim.

Competitive nature. Being smarter than their peers is really important for geeks. Developers are constantly honing their skills with the aim of doing something that no one's been able to do.

Dos and Don'ts
DO try to gain a basic understanding of the technology. Though the techies will always know a ton more than you, you need to be able to evaluate the level of truth coming out of your team. Having a good translator (in the form of an IT project manager with strong communication skills) is a big plus.

DO provide context. Executives what short answers: "Is it going to work?" To an engineer, it's never that simple. What do you mean? Is it going to work here? Is it going to work for a million users? For 10 million users?

DON'T add a "little" last-minute feature and expect to hit your product deadline. Nontechnical people often don't understand the code-checking and debugging process that even small additions require.

DON'T let your employees bypass the proper channels for submitting IT requests. If you interrupt a programmer who's deep in the zone because you need help with your email, you deserve his wrath.

DO cross-pollinate IT with other departments. Going out on a sales call, for example, can be revelatory for a developer. Being reminded that there are real, human customers is also good for geeks, who don't deal with them often.

DON'T wait to befriend tech support. Sudden sucking up followed shortly by a request to help move your iTunes library to a new machine is transparent and will backfire.

Motivation
Geeks like money as much as everyone else, but there are other ways ot make sure they do a stellar job.

Give them props. Nerds like recognition for what they've done and want to talk about it. Take your tech stars to lunch and get them to tell youwhat they're up to. It's about the relationship and building trust.

Let them play. Giving geeks time to work on their own projects is another great incentive. Google's developers are allowed to spend 20% of their work time working on projects of their choosing - with the caveat that anything they produce belongs to the company. The tinkering is rewarding for the techies, and even if most of the work comes to nothing, the 10% that yields valuable new products makes it worthwhile.

Earning More From Your Website
Google AdSense (www.google.com/adsense): Best for making money with little effort
-Display text, image, and video ads based on your site's content
-Pays from 5 cents to $15 a click, depending on the content in the ad

AdBrite (adbrite.com): Best for selling ads to your customers
-Serves text ads, banner ads, and interstitials
-Expect 10 cents to $10 per 1,000 views

AuctionAds (auctionads.com): Best for keeping rivals at bay
-Delivers ads that feature random items being auctioned on eBay
-You get about half of the fee sellers shell out to eBay, which is typically from 3% to 4% of the sale price. You can also collect about $25 if someone clicks on your ad registers for the first time at eBay and bids on an auction within 30 days.

Chitika eMiniMalls (chitika.com/mm_overview.php): Best for promoting ancillary products
-Serves up image ads that hawk consumer products. Each ad contains up to four products as well as a short description, pricing and links to retailers.
-20 cents to $2 per click, depending on the product.

Vizu Answers (vizu.com): Best for keeping visitors on your site
-Conducts market research by placing polls on websites. You get paid when visitors see a poll on your site.
-For every 1,000 people who view the poll on your site, you get from 50 cents to $10.

ValueClick (valueclickmedia.com): Best for displaying banner ads
-Offers banner ads from national advertisers
-25 cents to $2 for every 1,00 people who see the ads.