Greg E. Harris will be speaking about contracts for the Computer Consultant. Bring your questions andIdeas.

• Assumptions
  • Contract for consulting/software development or implementation.
  • Limited engagement.
  • Specific set of goals/tasks.
• Contacting Overview
  • General Rules.
    • Be as specific as possible
    • Be reasonable. Don't scare your client away.
    • Use counsel.
  • General Checklist.
    • Parties. Who are you really dealing with?
    • Recitals. Why have the parties come together?
    • What is to be done?
    • When is it to be done?
  • Other Questions to Consider
    • Right of early termination.>
    • Does the agreement provide enough flexibility to allow you to make decisions later?
    • Is there a future fact pattern not dealt with in the agreement?
    • Ambiguities?
    • Gaps in protection.
    • What unanswered questions remain?
    • Who owns the work product?
    • Exhibits and Schedules
    • Allow easy modification of agreement
• Dealing With Different Clients
  • Small Operations
    • Generally dealing with owner - authority issues easy.
    • Lack of sophistication.
    • Lack of experience using professionals.
    • Collection issues?
  • Large Private Organizations
    • Authority is an issue. Who can bind the company?
    • Who are you working for?
    • Who will be paying you?
    • Are they going to use their agreement? Read it!
    • Beware of them trying to hire your people.
    • Who will you be training?
  • Public Organizations and Non-Profits
    • Make sure the bidding procedure has been followed.
    • Find out who cuts the checks and when. The billing procedure is important. Find a friend in the bureaucracy.
    • Authority issue important.
    • P.O. important.
    • Staffing - will it shift?
    • Who will you be training?

Greg Harris is a Portland Attorney

CURRENT POSITION: HARRIS & BOWKER LLP, Attorneys at Law

PRACTICE: Business, Corporate, Tax and Estate Planning forclosely-held businesses and their owners; Family Business SuccessionPlanning; Acquisition and Disposition of Business; Qualified andNon-Qualified Deferred Compensation; Real Property Matters; ComputerLaw and certain High Technology Matters.

EDUCATION: J.D. University of Oregon (1978)

PROFESSIONAL ASSOCIATIONS: Member, Oregon State Bar, Computer Law, Corporate Counsel, EstatePlanning, Real Property and Taxation Sections

FORMER POSITIONS:

• Former shareholder, Knappenberger, Poole, Cyr & Moe, Portland, Oregon (1980 - 1985)
• Arthur Andersen & Co. (1978-1980)
• Securities Investigator - Oregon Corporation Division Securities Section

Gregory E. Harris was educated in Oregon and graduated in 1978 from the University ofOregon School of Law. He has practiced in Portland since 1980. His practice emphasizes business, tax and estate planning forclosely-held businesses and their owners.

Mr. Harris has beenaccorded an AV rating by Martindale-Hubbell, as aresult of a survey of his peers by the lawyer-rating service.

He is a member of theOregon State Bar Computer Law, Corporate Counsel, Estate Planning,Real Property and Taxation Sections and the Multnomah Bar Associationand speaks frequently on issues related to tax law, corporate law andestate planning for business owners and individuals.

Dan Sweet will lead a discussion on current networking technologies and their uses for our clients.

Topics include:

LAN Technologies

• 10, 100, and Gigabit Ethernet
• Protocols
• What hardware makes sense in what situation?
• Sniffers

WAN Technologies

• Routers and Routing
• T-1, DSL and Cable
• VPN

Wireless Lans

• Differences between 802.11a, 802.11b, 802.11g
• Wireless security

Dan is the owner of Crescendo Research Group located in Portland,where his primary business focus is network consulting. He works withboth Unix and Windows, specializing in Windows, Sun hardware andSolaris operating systems. Dan designs, installs and troubleshootsnetworks and configures Cisco and other routers.

Randy Williams will give an overview of insurance and investments for the computer consultant.

Topics include:

Health Insurance

• HMO, PPO, or Traditional
• HAS, or High Deductible Standard Plan
• Group or Individual
• OMIP
• Why is it so expensive?

Disability Insurance

• Income Replacement
• Accident Insurance

Credit InsuranceLife Insurance

• Term and Permanent

Investments

• Annuities
• Mutual Funds

Randy L. Williams began his career in the insurance industry inPortland, in 1987. The major area of his practice has been working withsmall business owners, helping them keep more of the money that theirbusiness earned. These endeavors led naturally to employee benefitplans, such as pensions and Section 125 (cafeteria) plans, key employeebenefits, and investment products like annuities and mutual funds. Itis nearly impossible to offer all of the types of insurance thatbusiness owners need while working with a single company. This requiredhim to become an independent producer, so he could offer the bestproducts to meet the needs of his clients, regardless of what companysold them. He now represents most of the major insurance providers thatoffer coverage in Oregon and Washington.

An overview of the current state of Linux as it could be applied to business users and systems. Various distributions, tools and applications will be presented by OCCA members.

Moderator for the discussion will be Tim Chalmers, owner of Your Computer Guy. Tim has been supporting clients with Microsoft operating systems and networks, but has had a growing interest in using Linux wherever possible.

Tom Rich will bring a workstation based upon the Gentoo distribution. He will discuss the pros and cons of this particular distribution and whether Gentoo Linux is ready for prime time. He will research tech support and customer support issues and availability of software and ease of loading new software. Gentoo has a unique method for distributing applications that may be of interest.

Don Cummings from TTJ computers will discuss Novell's acquisition of Suse Linux and Ximian desktop, what it means for Novell's customers and its application in the business environment.

Gordon Ruby will give a demonstration of Mandrake Linux and Windows emulators and discuss the journaling file system.

David Cornelius will give a demo of two mature RAD (Rapid Application Development) environments for Linux. One, a commercial product by Borland Software called, Kylix (Delphi's Linux counterpart),compiles C++ and Pascal code natively for X Windows applications. The other is an open source web development tool called, Quanta. The goal will be to show consultants that if businesses need custom software,the feature-rich GUI tools we've come to expect on Windows platforms are here today in Linux.

Dave Kezziah will be showing a laptop with Redhat 9 installed and call also talk about the installation and the uses of it.

A word-of-mouth marketing campaign is the most cost-effective way to grow a consulting business and it doesn’t just happen on its own. To create a thriving word-of-mouth business, one of the essentials is to identify why your clients want to work with you. The next step is to find the right advocates for your network and prepare them so they can tell others about you easily and effectively. In a word-of-mouth business, business doesn’t happen if nobody’s talking. Join Bobbi Kahler to learn how to get people talking about your business so you can find and keep more of your best clients.

Key points:

1. Blockbuster word-of-mouth means that people won’t stop talking about your business.
2. How to qualify and attract your best clients
3. How to motivate your network to send you the business you want
4. How to keep yourself top-of-mind within your network
5. How to make sure your clients become lifetime advocates.

Why Bobbi?

Bobbi specializes in helping entrepreneurs and professionals build a steady stream of their best clients. She has been speaking and training professionally for over 10 years. She's trained thousands in the art of business through powerful language and her concept of making yourself referable -- why will people send business to you?

Bobbi is the author of Bring Your Business Into Focus. She is a professional member of the National Speakers Association, and the Director of Training & Development for BNI Oregon & SW Washington.

Bobbi is president of the Kahler Consulting Group and they specialize in helping consultants from a wide range of fields to find and keep their best clients.

Explore the best ways to have people find your product or service onthe Internet. Scott Hendison of Portland Technology Consultants, willbe presenting information about Search Engine Marketing and SearchEngine Optimization.

A highly targeted Internet advertising campaign is one of the mostcost effective forms of advertising in the world. Search EngineMarketing means buying your way to the top to get instant rankings.Search Engine Optimization is making your website "search enginefriendly", so they rank you higher in the results pages. Come andexplore the best strategies and tools to help your business be found onthe Internet.

In 1997, Scott Hendison started his own business called CyberExchange. It was a computer store that specialized in the trading ofnew used software and hardware. In 2000, after his landlords sold andtore down his building, Scott "evolved" out of the used market moving afew blocks away and rebranded his business as MPH Computing.

As MPH Computing, Scott and his employees were nominees inconsecutive years for the Oregon Better Business Bureau Business of theYear award. MPH built and serviced computers in the neighborhood,helping nearly 13,000 customers. As the price of computers continued todecline, and the cost of providing excellent service continued toescalate, Scott closed the doors of MPH Computing in April of 2002.

Scott currently runs Portland Technology Consultants, a computer consulting business specializing in helping small businesses.

The presentation covers three issues:

• General Security
• Improved Reliability
• Preparing for disaster

More specifically:

1. Preliminary Security: Approaches to checking your hard drive, maintaining virus protection, a software firewall, startup and browser protection.
2. Cleanup the mess (Improved Reliability): We clean up the files, programs and services which should not be on your computer. This includes unsafe Windows services, temporary files, startup programs and spyware and malware. Procedures and websites for researching unknown processes are given.
3. Doing Windows Updates. Why most people are doing them wrong and how you can do them more safely.  
4. What you need to know about users and passwords  
5. Backups: Four approaches. Why you should be using at least three of them.
6. What you need to know about using Email safely
7. What you need to know about Browsing Safely
8. Performing Scheduled Maintenance

Steve Shank started Oregon Computer Solutions in 1986 after years ofcomputer consulting and programming. He does general computerconsulting but has recently begun emphasizing workstation security. Hedoes desktop security checkups and also teaches a class in desktopcomputer security.

Join us for a round-table discussion dealing with different scenarioswhich might challenge your thinking on how you would deal with eachsituation. As we work with clients/customers, we all encountersituations that sometimes cause us to deal with the ethicalramifications of our decisions. We will look at the possible responsesand consider whether there is one solution or whether we are dealingwith "situational ethics."

Come and add your thoughts as we look at real-life business situations.

Our facilitator will be Barbara Cummings of TTJComputer Services, Inc. She and her husband have been in business for23 years dealing with PC repair and Novell networks.

A panel of experts will discuss how they acquire and manage the information necessary for running their consultancy. They will also discuss the systems they've put in place for clients and where different types of systems are effective. Among the topics which will be covered are:

Getting the information you need.

• How do you stay informed?
• How to educate yourself and your employees?
• What magazines and newsletters are important and most useful to you?
• Where do you get your knowledge regarding security patches, viruses and new technology?

How do you access your information after you've acquired it?

• How do you find or index the information you use?
• How do you access downloaded files, pdf files and articles, emails etc.?
• What tools do you use for information management?

Helping the Client

• How do you keep track of what you have done at a customer's site?
• Which clients need which upgrades and patches?
• How do you transport your personal knowledge base?

Who are the best vendors to purchase equipment from? Why? What arethe strengths and weaknesses of the local wholesalers? Three of themajor wholesalers have agreed to join us for a vendor's forum.Represented will be:

• Computer Technology Link (CTL)
• Able Computer Systems of Oregon
• SYNNEX Information Technologies, Inc.

Each vendor will make a short presentation and then we'll open themeeting to audience questions and feedback. After the generalpresentation, we will request that all non-members leave and we'll havea private discussion for members only.

Among the questions we expect to be discussed are:

• Dealing with your sales rep. What if you get a bad sales rep?
• Will they order stuff for you that they don't usually stock?
• Using quality products.
• Becoming an authorized vendor or service company.
• How do vendors warranty the stuff they sell? Will they warranty it or do you have to go to the manufacturer?
• What are refund / return policies?
• Credit card charges.
• When does the vendor sell returned products as new? Do they tell you or not?
• Shipping costs?
• Intel's IPD program and recent changes that make you buy from their vendors.
• When is it smarter to just buy from retail computer stores?