For entrepreneurs looking to assemble a home office, there’s no longer a question that a computer can be an affordable part of the equation. Now there’s a whole range of choices an independent office needs to make, including everything from how best to connect to the Internet, to what software platform makes the most sense.
Anne Marie Marshall, director of the Rhode Island MicroEnterprise Association, said such decisions can be highly individualized. She mentioned one local company that uses the Internet to send design diagrams to potential manufacturers as well as for the bulk of its communication and research. Other companies use computers strictly for their word-processing capabilities.
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“Some people are very tech savvy and are going to know how to resolve those questions on their own,” Marshall said. “But for most people starting out, the smartest thing to do is to go attend a few classes themselves and get up to speed or either hire someone or seek out a knowledgeable family member.”
Dave Ehlke, one of the founders of Geek Housecalls, said his business has grown to seeing more than 4,000 customers, of which about 600 work from home-based offices. Based in Lexington, Mass., the company has a second office located in Providence and employs about 40 people.
For people working out of a home office, Ehlke said one of the first things they may want to do is move from a dial-up connection to a faster, more reliable high-speed connection, which is available in Rhode Island either through cable modems (with Cox Communications or Full Channel), or a DSL connection from Verizon.
For homes where people have more than one computer, or people want to tie a laptop into their setup, Ehlke said his company often networks those systems using a router, allowing the machines to share an Internet connection and create a firewall for added security protection. Such a mini-network also allows for easy data backup.
With most technology so affordable, Ehlke said for most job functions it makes sense to go with a more robust system, especially if someone is dealing with transporting photos or other graphic images. A salesperson looking to keep tabs on contacts might want to invest in a database management system and there’s a variety of software options for people who regularly have to prepare presentations. For anyone doing back-office work, such as loan or insurance processing, Ehlke said it only makes business sense to have a faster computer.
People simply working from home might also want to have the ability to connect to their office server, which can be done through the installation of a virtual private network connection and will cut down on most security issues. In that case, the technology they use is usually dictated and provided by the larger company. However, people striking out on their own is a whole different ball of wax, said Andy Trask, who co-founded the business with Ehlke.
Trask said many of Geek Housecalls’ customers have had a technician in to talk about what their business needs will be early on and determine the level of technology a startup company needs to invest in, as well as what kind of software can make their work easier. If a company is only going to be using their computer strictly for e-mail, Trask said they may be able to get away with just a dial-up connection. But if they plan on having any sort of an Internet presence or regularly transmitting larger documents, he said there’s no question a high-speed connection makes sense.
A bigger question for many home offices, and one that has been around long before personal computers, is how best to keep your home life separate from your work life, Trask said. He often deals with the effects of kids commandeering a home office computer at night, or a personal computer that comes with “baggage,” and is regularly asked to un-install incompatible programs or the hidden “spyware” that may slow a machine down.
“There’s a lot of sort of imparting wisdom,” said Trask, of the house calls he’s made since starting the company in the summer of 2001. “We try to do that as un-geekily as we can.”
Trask said the biggest difference for people working from home is that they no longer have access to a company IT professional, or any other sort of technical support. He said things such as updating Windows or anti-virus software often make a huge difference in keeping a computer – and a business – up and running.
“It’s a universal truth that people, unless they’re working in a computer field, are not really focused on their computer until it’s not working,” Trask said. “Computers are a complex thing, they’re not like other electronic devices. They don’t have the stability of other hardware.”
