Content Management

KM.Content™ uses JOOMLA™ to implement interactive, rich-content web portals like PickTheRightCollege.com.  This technology provides a flexible, low-cost web content management environment with ample templates available from third-parties. 

With JOOMLA, a full-service web protal can be developed efficiently and professionally with minimal resources.  While it takes some time to learn JOOMLA (typcal for open-source tools), it proves to be robust, extensible, and powerful enough for normal applications. 

Contact us for a quote to develop a JOOMLA-powered site for you.

Creating a new web portal is a multi-step process, from initial requirements acquisition and analysis to implementation and deployment.  PickTheRightCollege.com is being developed by KM & Cie.'s KM.Content™ unit to provide educational services to adults returning to college.  The site is live as of November 1, 2009 (some functions are still in development).

Using JOOMLA™, JavaScript™, HTML, and photos from IStockPhoto™, KM.Content has developed a professional site that hosts college search functions provided by the market-leading CollegeSearch link provider.

KM & Cie. offers these development services to you at reasonable costs and with assured professional results.

Offshore Resources

On one hand, a number of companies are pulling back from their high-tech offshore commitments. 

On the other, we at KM & Cie. find that offshore work is feasible if you work with trusted, proven, and personally known partners. 

We have close associates who can field highly qualified software engineering and SEO resources, in India and in China.  In both locales, the available project teams have proven track records and meet or exceed the highest standards of world-class education and best-practices.

Offshore teams require (1) very detailed specifications and models; (2) ongoing, thorough, meaningful, and critical communication; and (3) excellent project management.  It is important not to have excessive expectations or sign up with the lowest bidder.  Not all offshore resources will be superstars: it is therefore important to insist on detailed profiles and the right to obtain the dismissal of a less qualified contributor.

Marketing in Tough Times

In times of falling revenues and shrinking customer bases, it is often tempting to cut marketing budgets and circle the wagons.   When extreme cost-cutting is unavoidable, this is an understandable strategy, but otherwise, marketing (and sales) are the tickets to your success in tough times - not inhibitors.

In good times, and especialy in bad, your existing customers and contacts are your low-hanging fruit: go back to what you do best, and go back to the people who know that you serve them well, and remind them what you have to offer.  If they are not buying, they will work extra hard to recommend you to their contacts.

And continue to maintain - or even increase - your marketing/advertising budgets and leverage the reduced competition to push yourself into the upswing you so desperately need.

Sometimes the true and tried is the more elegant solution. But the more "experienced" you are, the more likely you are not to admit that you don't know much about some "newfangled" things ...

Do not hesitate - regardless of age, position, or experience - to freely admit, "I do not know what you are talking about!" - and often you will find that your counterpart doesn't really either, was trying to pull one over on you ...

Be truthful to yourself and the world by admitting when you do not know something. And at the same time, make every effort to stay up to date with the latest events, trends, technologies, and solutions.

KM & Cie. Consulting Services are readily available to help you with these education efforts.

Predictable Software Development - A Contradiction?

Software development projects are plagued like no other engineering endeavors by cost overruns, late deliveries, and last-minute requirements changes and feature reductions. The following diagram illustrates the tensions between the three main logical constraints affecting software projects:


Making software projects more predictable along these three axes is a key strength of KM.Soft Engineering, the software consulting unit of KM & Cie. By applying industry best practices and our 25-year experience to the planning, execution, and deployment of software projects, we help our clients attenuate and control excess variations in either of these three factors, while ensuring that the project remains on track and flexible to feature corrections (within reason) along the way.

New Restaurant

When someone wants to open a new restaurant, their friends and relatives often warn them of the high failure rate of restaurants. This is true, but probably less often because it is such a tough, competitive, low-margin business, and more because the new owners do not apply good business principles to their operation.


Here is a short list of important considerations:

- It is crucial to develop a repeat clientele: the owner and staff must therefore carefully cater to early visitors and win them over for a return visit, or even better, for a recommendation to their friends.

- Staff must be properly selected and trained. They must be clean, polite, articulate, smart, attractive, and responsive. They must know the menu (even if the dishes are in French). People come back for the food - and the people.

- The decor must be inviting, comfortable chairs, the tables set, the dishes clean.

- The devil lies in the detail: bathrooms clean? toilet paper? Kleenex? clean glass, fixtures? no dust, no bugs?

- The available space should be properly configured: too much/too little bar/restaurant space?

- Promotion, promotion, promotion: do not run out of take-away menus, business cards; provide comment cards; advertise in all local media; weekly flyer campaigns (make sure to use a reliable distributor). Have a strong, search engine-optimized Internet presence.

- And of course, food and drink must be super-fresh, excellent, good value, consistent, delivered as soon as prepared. Do not skimp on ingredients - use gourmet services.

- The chef, owner, or manager should check on patrons during the meal, and greet them on their way in and out.

- ... and desserts should include Chocolate Mousse ... :-)

KM & Cie. Management Consulting can help your fledgling restaurant business succeed.