Dave’s posterous

I received a call today from a lady who wanted me to design some web pages fer her.  In the course of our conversation I learned several things about her.  One of the things I learned was that if I were to fulfill her request I might be doing her a disservice.  Here's why.

Like most of us, she is aware of the graph below.

However, this is altogether too simplistic with all jobs having fuzzy edges between boxes rather than the sharp lines indicated above plus the drawing does not give any value to the aspects of passion or variability with time.   Most of us have aspects of our respective jobs that cause us to vacillate between each of the boxes above.

This lady was fortunate enough to spend most of her early career in the green box, but not all of the time.  She was a very competent and successful businesswoman with a great command of the economics of situations and political climate..

Somewhere along the way she gave up being a part time green box person to become a full time green box person with a heaping helping of passion.  She became a very successful ballroom dance teacher which satisfied her emotional and financial needs for twenty years.

Not too long ago she felt the need to expand and refurbished a larger facility at considerable expense.  Things went well for a while until certain hidden shortcomings in the facility became a disaster until the space became unusable.  With the ensuing problems that arose out of this difficulty she lost the space, her students, her income and most of her savings.

She then found herself needing to develop an income and turned to one of her other very good skills; that of organizing.  She asked me to help her develop a site that could sell her organizing skills.

I try not to to do only what my clients ask me to do.  I try to understand where they are trying to go (goals) and help them achieve that outcome.  That sometimes supersedes what they asked for.  I'd hate to see her expend what few resources she has, at her disposal, on a web site that had little chance of success.

I believe that businesses that are well organized will all fare better than ones that are not but, that being said, I'm not sure that business are focusing on that issue at this time.  What do you think about her goal?  What other opportunities might she consider?  Are you aware of opportunities for her (San Diego)?

Thanks for any help, advice or insight you can provide.  My brain is too small and limited to address this well so please select "Comments" below to leave your thoughts (preferred) or you can respond to me directly less preferred).  Feel free to comment on what others might have said or come back to see what someone might have said about your remarks.  The goal is an optimum outcome for this lady.

We're all riding around on this rock together and it doesn't make sense to not help each other out if we can.

Sincerely,
Dave out