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“It’s 10 o’clock, do you know where your children are?” This was a brief TV spot I recall from childhood every evening just before 10 p.m. (of course my Mom didn’t have to worry about where I was because I was always at home, but I digress). I would like to take a spin on this phrase and apply it to something near and dear to me, domain names:

“It’s right now, do you know where your domain names are?”

In the last couple of weeks, I personally heard of 2 cases where owners of domain names realized they no longer had control of their domain names as they had expired and were in the hands of other entities. As a result, their Web sites and email accounts were disabled.

How do you avoid this? There are 2 ways to do so – take steps to properly manage your domain names yourself, or hire a professional to do so. As a full service Internet consultancy, this is a service I offer through Dunkirk Systems, LLC. However, if you have the time and interest to do so yourself, here are a few basic steps you can do yourself to manage your domains.

Know what you own

This may seem obvious, but it is vital not to overlook. As it is easy to acquire multiple domain names, it is just as easy to lose track of them. Maintain a list of the domain names, and add to it as you acquire others.

Know when they expire

Next to each domain name on your list, note their expiration date. I recommend to my clients to extend their registration to the maximum 10 years in advance, so you don’t have to worry about it every year. You can also put alerts in your calendar software to remind you to renew them, ideally well before they expire.

Know where they are registered

Ideally you should have all of your domain names together in 1 or maybe 2 registration accounts – it’s always good to have a backup account. Add the registrar’s name to your list, and store the login and passwords in a safe location.

Ensure contact information is accurate

Lookup your domain names in your registration account or with a 3rd party service like Domain Tools and see if your contact information is completely accurate. If not, update it. All of your information, especially your email address, should be correct, as to this email address you will receive renewal and other notices from your registrar.

These are basic and vital steps to managing an important asset to your business. Follow them, and then you can go back to worrying about your kids.

Business • Domain Names • (5) Comments • Permalink

What makes a great leader? The answer is surely not quick or short. Commonly it is discussed if someone is a born or made leader. But what if it is neither and you or someone discovers you are a leader, and what kind of leader are you? This is the premise of Your Inner CEO by Allan Cox.

Your Inner CEO takes the reader through this discovery – literally. Stories of Cox’s own personal experiences with leaders he has met, know and consulted to are married with exercises throughout the book that take you through this journey. They are broken into 9 steps, each one building on the previous to paint a picture of the kind of leader you could be, the kind others desire to be and be around.

My greatest takeaway from this book is leadership is not just about you. Where the model has been and continues to be where workers follow what the leaders does solely to make the leader succeed, in reality we all gain from all of us gaining. The leader brings out the best in all of the team so that all of the team, including the leader, succeed. If it fails, the team fails, learns from its experiences and moves on. This is something I have always followed myself – and anyone reading who has ever worked with me, feel free to comment on that statement! As a sole proprietor transitioning my business to a true company, I need to shed the role of control-freak entrepreneur and be a true leader and mentor.

Speaking of mentoring, another takeaway is mentorship is not dead. In a world where it seems being a contractor is the way to go and all we should hire, mentoring people pays for both the mentee and the mentor, and this book gives several examples of how to do it well. Many leaders and managers and people in general do not follow this - they hired a specific set of skills where the reality is they hired a person.

A final takeaway is leadership may be in all of us. We need to want to and try to seek it. As I have written before that entrepreneurship may be in us already the same goes for leadership.

I recommend Your Inner CEO to leaders, people who are about to be leaders as well as people who work on teams. Read the book through once then go back and complete the exercises, which is what I am doing now. There are accompanying online resources to it, including a Web site, wiki and Facebook group, the latter is how I connected with the author and learned of the book.

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This is from The Hot Iron, a journal on business and technology by Mike Maddaloni.

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(The following was written a few weeks ago, and I present it verbatim as I wrote it then.)

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed as I write this. I am crammed into a coach airplane seat heading cross-country to the DOMAINfest conference in Hollywood. Last night I was at the AFC Championship Game in Foxboro, MA watching my Patriots win another shot at a Lombardi trophy. This is being written on what I just found as the last piece of paper in my folio pad, along with other to-do’s and priorities for the week.

Last night I talked with my lovely wife who herself has been away for a week on business and shared with me what was going on with her, similar to how I whined in the previous paragraph. She then said something I have been repeating a lot since our call, “there’s never a best time for anything” and as I recite it over and over, I realize how right she is.

Wouldn’t it be great to take on a new project just when we get back from vacation after finishing another? Of course, but the phone rings usually when we are our busiest. Everyone and their pundits are saying now is not the time to buy a house or get a mortgage. But what if you need one? Both industries have not seized, and if you need a place to live, you can find one and a loan to live there.

I am writing this with the intent on publishing it after I return from home after the conference. Hopefully you will share my amusement in looking back on how I overcame a bit of overwhelmness!

Diversions • (1) Comments • Permalink