About the OSC Manuals author, Kerry Watson

USERS ROCK!!!

I have been an advocate for users for many years, more than I even care to admit. I've always loved and worked in technology alongside technical people, but when I asked myself why was Microsoft so successful the answer was that they put the user FIRST. Technical people could debate about "elegant code" but ultimately that didn't matter. Microsoft's code was reputedly horrible and sloppy, but the people who made the company the #1 in the world was not IT people, it was USERS.

I worked at Netscape in the mid-90's as the producer of the second generation of the Netscape Communicator website. The first generation was heavily developer-oriented, laden with technical terms, and while they were loyal customers I saw that there were millions more possible users out there - beginners. Those were heady days when people slept under their desks and brought their dogs to work so they never had to leave. A running track around the building and gourmet cafeteria meant we never had to leave for food or exercise, either. We believed we were changing the world by bringing the Internet to everyone. I pushed for and wrote beginner's documentation such as "Netscape for Newbies" and "Netscape for Internet Explorer Users" but it was too little, too late. Microsoft won that round and Netscape became a footnote in Internet history. I opened my own web consulting business in 1999, Pithy Productions Inc. just as all businesses realized they needed a website like they needed business cards.

I started writing my first book on osCommerce back in 2001. I had a growing web consulting business and my main client at the time was in New York City four blocks from the World Trade Center. When the twin towers were attacked my client was unhurt, but their business was disrupted for several months and I was out of work. I watched the smoking towers on TV with horror. I lived far away in Texas, but it brought my business to its knees at the time.

What could I do to stay in business? I had a daughter in school to support. I had written some brief instructions for another client on how to use the osCommerce store I had installed for them, so I took the time to flesh that out into a book. At the time there were no books on the subject, only a forum and brief Wiki documentation, and the forums were welcoming to programmers but hostile to beginners. I installed another osCommerce store for myself so I could study it as I wrote, and that store became my first OSCmanuals website. The book was my first osCommerce User Manual.

I was surprised when I got my first sale shortly after I had finished my website and uploaded my book. Wow, it really worked! Quickly my sales started growing as word got out.

I called Harald Ponce de Leon, the head of the osCommerce Project in Germany, expecting him to be excited about the possibilities, the many new users I could introduce to his program. Instead, he was angry! Remember the web was still pretty young then, and I think he believed that all documentation should be on the web and books would disappear. As he did to many dozens or maybe even hundreds of desciples who displeased him, he arbitrarily banned me from his forum. His stranglehold control on his project impelled many people to leave and create their own branches of osCommerce. Thish was totally allowed under the license he used, the GNU Public License, but at the same time angered him more and put even more people on his blacklist. Ponce de Leon also ruled his public forum with an an iron fist, banning any discussion of people or branches of osCommerce that displeased him. Despite his dictatorial rule, my book flourished.

I was soon contacted by Sal Iozzia, another former osCommerce disciple banned from the group, to write the first book on his branch of osCommerce. His program was called CRE Loaded, and it was osCommerce but loaded with a bunch of add-on contributions installed, hence the name. I had already played with CRE Loaded and really liked it even before we ever talked. I upgraded my store to CRE Loaded and wrote my first book for them, CRE Loaded 6.15 User Manual.

Soon I was writing books on other osCommerce-related programs and getting to know lots of people both in and outside of the osCommerce circle. I met Michael Sasek in Phoenix, the owner of osCmax, and soon after published the first osCmax manual. Michael had been instrumental in creating the very first website documentation about osCommerce. My website was called, appropriately, osCommerceManuals.com, because all the books were related somehow to osCommerce. Later I branched out into programs that were not based on osCommerce, though they certainly were inspired by it, and my website changed to OSCManuals.com. All my books are about Open Source eCommerce (OSC) topics.

I also began writing a column for Jupiter Media's SmallBusinessComputing.com and Internet.com. Later I moved over to the dedicated online magazine PracticalEcommerce.com where I continue to write a monthly column about my passion, important to small online businesses.

At first I lived in Texas, and went to a villa in Mexico near Guadalajara when I needed to concentrate so I could finish a book. After a while it became summers in Mexico, and today I am living in Mexico officially as a non-immigrant resident in a writer's and artist community. I know Mexico gets a lot of bad press but it's sensationalized: if you compare crime stats to any other large city in the US it is far better here.

Today I live in Mexico with my horse and two dogs, riding almost every day around the lake and mountains, and writing the rest of the time. I've got great Internet service! Just remember, if you've got Internet, you've got almost everything, and you can live and work anywhere.

I look forward to hearing from you, your stories about how you started your online business and what got you going. I hope I've helped in some small way! Please let me know.

Kerry Watson
Author, OSCManuals.com