Franchises are all around us. Everywhere we look. Thousands of brand-name restaurants, gas stations, muffler shops, and coffee shops operate as franchises. And hundreds of thousands of business owners in North America are making money by running someone else's business model. Is this a business paradise, or an unnecessary drag?

What does a franchise give potential owners? Well, for starter's, you get a brand name. Everyone knows of McDonald's. Everyone knows what to expect when you order a meal there. Most people even know the McDonald's slogan by heart. If I opened a restaurant named Duffy's, noone would know what type of food is served there. Needless to say, opening traffic at my restaurant would be significantly less than at McDonald's...

You also get an established business system. Some franchises provide training to owners. Some provide the products to sell. And some provide everything, from the real estate to the equipment to the start-up financing. In short, these are often turn-key operations.

But there is obviously some trade-offs. The first one you'll likely encounter is the up-front cost. Franchises can cost as much as $500,000. Businesses need all the start-up capital they can get, and paying a franchise fee takes away money that could be used to keep the business running. There are also sometimes ongoing license fees, which can cut into profits as well.

There may also be restrictions on the products you purchase and sell. So for example, you might be able to get a great deal on coffee, but your franchise agreement requires you to buy all your foods from the head office at a higher price. There are many things like that outside of your control.

Since you are subject to the rules and restrictions of the head office, who is really in control of your business? Are you your own boss, or are you really just the “manager” of the franchise with a profit-sharing plan?

Of course, not all franchises are that restrictive. Some simply let you use their brand for a fee. And some fees are quite low. Ultimately, whether a franchise makes sense is up to you. Find out the details and run the numbers. Franchisors are supposed to be there to help you get your business up and running successfully... after all, they have a vested interest in your success as well. You may be running your own business for the first time, but the franchisor has (presumably) done it many times before.

My name is Scott Duffy, and I am a software developer that lives in Toronto, Canada. I work on contract, which means I generally design, develop and implement an application for a company, train their existing IT staff on issues relating to ongoing support, and then move on.

Well, it's that time of year for me. I have recently completed a contract at a financial firm in Burlington, Ontario, and am now looking for my next contract. If you are looking to get a project completed (on- or off-site), please feel free to give me a call.

Here's what I can do for you:

• I can interview all of the business stakeholders, to determine the business requirements
• I can write up those business requirements to get client sign-off on the project
• I can convert business requirements into written functional specifications
• I can develop comprehensive and accurate time estimates based on those specifications
• I can convert functional specifications into a robust application design
• I can develop software using almost any programming language or platform
• I can work with project managers, testers and users to ensure testing is completed
• I can implement and support that application with minimal post-implementation issues

I have successfully performed all of those tasks and more over my 13 years of professional IT experience. Although not a project manager, I have lead projects in the roles of team leader, lead developer, architect, and project leader.

Here is the MS Word version of my resume. Here is the HTML version. I look forward to hearing from you.

Update: I am now working. My resume will be updated around October 2004, and be posted again.

Today, I spent the afternoon at the bookstore. I was able to grab a sofa-chair, so I had a fairly comfortable afternoon reading books. I ended up buying a couple of books relating to Zen.

Technically speaking, Zen is a branch of Buddhism. Now, just in case my mother is reading this, no - I am not converting to Buddhism. But I may start practicing a bit of Zen. What does that entail? Well, I am planning to do a bit of daily meditation, clean up my home office (remove the clutter), and just generally get into a daily routine of discipline.

Do I expect to reach enlightenment? Well, honestly, no. At this point, I can't imagine going all the way down that path. But the principles of Zen intrigue me:

• Want little
• Know how to be satisfied
• Enjoy peace and tranquility

I had an interesting vacation in Cuba. I think the best part about it was the Cuban people - they were warm and friendly and did not resent the special treatment tourists get at all. It was not what I was expecting. We'd definitely go back.

The fact that Cuba is a communist country was quite well hidden from view. Aside from the fact that Cubans are restricted from visiting the island where my resort was located, I did not see much evidence of socialism. There were no statues of Castro, no giant posters. This was not like Saddam Hussein and Iraq, or Ferdinand Marcos and the Philippines... the people of Cuba are not forced to worship their leader. They had no trouble discussing politics openly, and were not afraid of “secret police” or any other totalitarian authority.

Anyways, it's 9 degrees and raining here in Toronto. Man, what a let down. I had hoped that in the week I was gone, things would have become more spring-like here. Oh well.

My wife and I are already planning our next sunny getaway - maybe even in the next month or so. Unfortunately, our social calendar is full the next two or three weekends, and so it's hard to find a free week.

As a Canadian, I'm going to do something next week that very few Americans have ever had the chance to do. I'm going to visit Cuba.

I'll admit, my trip to Cuba scares me more than any of my other trips to foreign countries. I have so many preconceptions about the place. Many of them may be misconceptions, but I am sure some of them are true.

My brother in law told me a story about his trip there. He and his family brought a couple of baseball gloves and a baseball, with the intention of giving it to some worthy Cuban child. It kind of brings a tear to your eye, thinking about how happy some child is going to be going home with a couple of baseball gloves and a baseball. Well, my brother in law ended up giving it to the bartender at his hotel, so that he can get access to the better alcohol they hide behind the bar. Oh, so that's how Cuba works...

Frommer's has an amazing web site - if you're planning a trip abroad, it's well worth a read. Geez, I still can't believe a company like that would put all that information up on the Internet for free.

From Frommer's Cuba:

One of the most disconcerting aspects of contemporary Cuba is the government's creation of exclusive "foreigner-only" tourism zones where Cuban nationals aren't welcome. Effectively, there are two Cubas, a reality that reeks of something akin to tourism apartheid, as many observers have noted. One Cuba is the gritty and sometimes grim country where things don't always work and consumer goods are hard to come by. The other Cuba is tailor-made for tourists at beach resorts and tourist-friendly draws like Habana Vieja.

This is one of my main objections to travelling to Cuba. It has limited access to certain resources - electricity, clean water, medicine, etc. And the Cuban government has adopted a policy that tourists get priority access to those resources. I'm going to adopt a policy of being a big tipper while there, since I will be carrying this guilt with me.

I don't wholly support the American embargo against tiny Cuba, because really, who has it hurt? Castro? He's living in luxury, believe me. It's hurt the people of Cuba. Don't get me wrong, the best thing that could happen to Cuba is if Castro is overthrown or dies. But still, this country is stuck in the 1950's in terms of technology and it seems downright mean to deny them access to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that we all enjoy.

I went to a birthday party yesterday, and guess what movie was playing on the TV? The Passion of the Christ. The party host downloaded it off the Internet. The room was full of devoted Catholics, almost in tears at seeing the last hours of Jesus. Mel Gibson did a masterful job.

Sadly, not many people appreciated it when I mentioned the eighth commandment, “Thou shalt not steal.” Someone should call Alanis Morissette. That's what I call ironic.

Dear Blogger,

I have to be honest with you my friend, you're really starting to get on my nerves.

The thing is, I don't understand why you're treating me like this. What have I done wrong? I thought we had a good thing going over the past couple of years.

In case you don't remember me, I signed up with you almost two years ago for your free blogging tools. Man, those were good times. I had four blogs going at once, do you remember?

Things were going so well, I signed up for your Pro service. I had never purchased a subscription on the Internet before - you were my first. Ah yes, the Pro service gave me so many more features with big promises of more to come.

And then you married Google. I didn't mind, Blogger, really. I loved Google too. You, me, and Google - what a team we all were together!

But lately, you have been cold and distant. You cancelled the Pro service (but you did send me a free sweatshirt). There have been no more new blogging features in the past 12 months. I've been waiting for things like categories, comments, referrer tracking, and trackbacks. But you've really fallen behind in that area.

But what really proves you don't love me any more is how you've disabled my blog's RSS feeds on a few ocassions. You promised those of us who were previously subscribed to the Pro service that our existing RSS feeds would be unaffected. But the quality of your RSS service has decreased significantly.

I'm not even talking about the fact that you don't offer RSS feeds to any of your free users. Although I disagree with the tactic, you are free to run your business as you see fit.

What I am talking about has affected me directly over the last two or three months. A couple of months ago, several of my Blogger RSS feeds stopped working one day. When I logged in to my Blogger account, I noticed my site preferences had been changed to Atom. Now I hadn't changed them, so I assume you accidentally overwrote my previous settings. Now here we are again this morning, and one of my Blogger RSS feeds has stopped working. How am I going to keep any regular subscribers if my RSS feed is sometimes unavailable?

Is this a sign of things to come? Are you going to slowly break my RSS feed until I relent and use Atom? Atom is not even a stable spec yet. Why are you forcing me to use it? Blogger, why hath thou forsaken me?

If I don't hear back from you, I will know that you don't really care about me. That's OK. I've found dasBlog to help me get over you. But I really wish we could remain friends.

Best regards,
Scott