Industry and the World

Attending a seminar today at a local university I observed so many interested parties at the event. This program was started to reach out to the business community and connect education and business partners. Samford University is an elite small university with a pristine group of students and excellent teaching staff. As part of their curriculum they have a Business School with undergraduate and masters programs. Another unique program within the Business School is an Entrepreneurial coursework for those wanting to become small business owners. This year and perhaps before we are offered an opportunity to attend International workshops. Today the workshop was on Guanajuato, Mexico. In the center of Mexico, this state has started an international reach bringing industry of all types into a eager, young and willing workforce. Technology is, of course, one of the focuses for this area. COFOCE headed by Luis Ernesto Rojas Avita, Director, helps through partnering , connecting and mentoring companies interested in this type of environment. Two railroads as well as highways intersect there for transporting goods and services as well as raw materials. COFOCE assists companies in all ways to connect with partners for the successful development of this area and the incoming organization. Blogging about this as information for interest of any readers.

Rip or Replacing Telephone Equipment?

How secure are the servers, passwords, and access into systems? When replacing equipment, make sure your vendor tests everyway hackers can break into your systems.
This can take hours of time, however, the loss of data via a security breach can cost millions. Losses can cost months of time to replace critical mission information. The costs of possible customer database information, customer information loss impact revenue, employee time and employee personal information impact security, database security, human resource damage, just to name a few. Even training material can be lost...proceed with caution and diligence.

IT and Telecommunications Again

OK, it's your departments money, allocation of corporate funds, 2009 budget, projections into 2010 budget, whatever you name the source, it is the allocated funds, use them wisely. IT and telecommunication are not the SAME! They do shakehands, they touch, the analogy is a brush. It is not a complete embrace, ask IT if they understand access or even know what the word means? Does IT even get close to your accounting department? Who pays the bills, IT or accounting? Who makes the decision IT or C level management, it so, who reads the contract to know the quoted price? Is IT checking the contract for telephone expense? Is cellular costs lower or raising? Mr. C level, please stop assuming IT is the place to throw telecommunication, it's a handshake not a marriage. Be smart, give telecom a department head that knows telecommunication and can help your bottom line. IT is not the place. Sorry to shake your world but that is not good management of money, time or decisions. While you're in the thinking process, who is asking you to be certified and locking you into their revenue stream, FOREVER...THINK, that's why you have a brain.

Connecting the Dots Between Effective Communication and Productivity

This isn't a new topic but an important one with the correlation between human effectiveness, accurate and simple communication plus what we spend on technology to help us make money, spend money and be effective in our organization. Whew, that's a sentence. Making technology work for you, your company, your employees as well as return on investment. Sounds simple when in practice it is a difficult measurement.
When implementing new equipment from a telephone to an expense piece in the lab, are you getting what you need? Are employees using the equipment the way it is designed to be used? Was training good without industry jargon confusing instruction? Is there savings projected and who is measuring the savings? How often are reports compiled and received? What were the predictions on savings; productivity or money or both? Is there an effective motivation for proper use?

We spend billions each year for the biggest and best in every profession. Are we getting the hard or soft rate of return promised by the manufacturer or the vendor?
Answers to the questions on the front end may help with buying decisions in the process and evaulating impact along the way as well as strategy on capital outlay then measurement for validation 6 months down the road, recurring every 6 months for long term validation. Measurement is simply impact on productivity or business improvement.

Training on telephones

Whether you're buying soft phones, desk top phones or new laptops ask for some training to go with the purchase for the corporate environment. Someone may question why I occasionally touch personnel issues. Because corporations are not closed environments. All departments just like a family, impact on one another. When we start thinking we're a closed environment is when you might as well lock the doors and throw away the key. There are times this is difficult to remember especially when things are going very well or not so well.

Our youth is great at training especially on new technology. Their entire life has been spent with gadgets, maybe they don't have expertise in a lot of ways, but they are savvy with our e-environment.

Understanding New Fangled Technology

Understanding how technology can save time and money, increase productivity, reduce spend for assets, helping internal departments communicate better while improving productivity. Isn't that what everyone wants and needs in today competitive environment? Helping organizations and corporations grow whether profit or non-profit is a demanding job. Understanding the hard ROI and also the soft ROI. Are your employees healthy, happy and motivated versus bogged down by difficult financial decisions, poor or no training, not motivated to win new clients, take care of renewing clients and making work easy. Sometimes I wish I had named my company "helping others grow" but I didn't so I can help by applying lessons learned from the big boys in from the corporate world in the "what not to do" category. Make sure your vendor is applying good business with the basics for your spend.

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Basic Communication Skills are Needed to Make Technology Work

New satellite offices, relocating any office, or building a new location from scratch need refined communication skills. Make sure along the way of the finishing the building or project the communication with workers, internal departments, and vendors is accurate. So often corporations fail to communicate making sure all aspects of the project are on go. Installing fiber for large corporations myriad projects were delayed for months due to the failure to communicate.

Fiber does not drop out of the sky. Engineering can take months of planning for infrastructure and outside plant. Downtown areas to remote distribution centers can run out of fiber. Allowing enough time and excellent communication between all concerned parties can ensure success during the scenarios mentioned in the first sentence.

Ok, today it is not about technology, well sort of....

During the current economic static, I spend a few hours, usually during lunch, to use the time for educating myself via webinars on technology topics I do not know. Even after 27 years there is always something else to learn. Having spent a lifetime reading, learning, educating myself so my brain is wired for wider focus. This world is not about me and my ego; It's about us, together. So today I log into a three hours presentation by three different experts from three different companies; Pretty wide perspective. Today even the big guys screwed up, I couldn't log on...it happens, even for the big guys, things happen. As a colleague said today, essentially, when it comes to computers, not really, things break, it happens. Wider focus, we do have control over our life, our time, the economy will turn around, it may take awhile, things break, our economy is broke. We can continue to care for one another. Learn as much as possible because the more we know, the more we can help, one another.

Technology and Cabling Information

Pictures of scrambled cables in data centers when cabling servers or other electronic devices costs money. If four feet is needed, why is there ten feet between devices resulting in spaghetti
cables protruding from server racks? Data center floors are crammed with excess cable when logically this only adds to waste and cost. Over cabling also impacts stranded footprint, danger for those working in the room, poor isolation of what cable goes to what port plus making it more difficult to trouble shoot as well as increasing down time? With cable colors resembling rainbows making a data center cleaner only enhances all aspects of IT business.

Understanding the Flow of Internal Orders

Companies do not understand how billing errors happen on telephone bills. These are the reasons: 1 Orders between companies do not have correct information 2 coding on electronic order is incorrect 3 people make mistakes, we're all human 4 engineering misunderstands the instructions 5 someone makes a decision based on capacity 6 construction in infrastructure has limits 7 someone makes a decision that impacts the order if mind reading occurs 8 billing goes into the electronic billing system and what is billed or invoiced is not what was quoted. One for all of these can happen and 9 communication between companies involved goes awry. End users especially those with new construction are vulnerable to project management missing a install date. 10 contact on the order, who is responsible for allowing on sight permission to entering the physical premise and other construction issues from the manhole into the building must meet the criteria and codes of the industry. Names given are incorrect or the employee on site is not good communicator 11 Engish and clarification should not be a problem but that alone is 99 percent of the problem.
12 telephone calls are not returned or not responsively, this along is huge in our working day and is getting worse. Clarify, clarify, clarify.

Toll Free Service & Local Calls

Please webmasters, designers and do it yourself designers, when publishing a toll free number on a website please include the local number also. Companies are paying for local calls without local numbers on the website. With the advent of cell phones and some people using them exclusively, both parties, the caller and the company being called are both paying for the call, not good business. Do you service or sale to local customers? If not stick with the toll free service.

Companies selling toll free service, especially the big ones will not even look at the an organization's website, even if they know enough to care and advise on such issues.

Ideas for Qualifying Employees on Telecom Knowledge

As all professionals are aware, industries come with jargon. Telecommunications has literally thousands of words and acronyms which are listed on the FCC website. Making sure employees are qualified to make suggestions, decisions, and assigning tasks pull a list from the FCC website during hiring process. Have Human Resources put together a simple test for validating the knowledge of employees for employee. In fact, this could be done for any department allowing a reasonable amount of acronyms and words to be unknown. Because corporations have their inhouse lingo, it would not be fair practice in the hiring process especially for the younger employees. Keep the verbiage to industry specific applications, features, functions etc. Remember a fresh college graduate would be the most vulnerable with this process so make it select for experienced workers only. Validating knowledge would lead to a good hire, less money wasted and just solid logic. Speak ease for industry specifics getting the best bang for the dollar invested.

CEO, ROI, Save Money, Save Energy, Intelligent Choices

Who is tracking the telephone bill? Who is tracking the power consumption? Who is approving the checks? In changing out systems, upgrading, buying new capacity in computers, network, and telephone equipment, make sure your vendor and the manufacturer being used is making GREEN equipment and the features are what your company needs. Lastly, check with a respected and ethical source for validating energy consumption. Assign one person first to make sure the equipment invoices reflect the quote, second, verify that the energy/power bill does not increase drastically. I am not talking about hot summer months or cold winter months. Plan IT and telephony changes in non-seasonal impacting months when change will not impact your energy budget. Glitches happen! When I was in direct sales years ago, I told my clients, "if you want to screw something up...in this industry, hurry it up". Another thing to remember is "things break, it happens". Finding out during the research stages can save hundreds of thousands of dollars in so many directions. Just know the facts from an objective, ethical source.

Harping on Energy Use Again

If replacing electronics, make sure there's a need to scrap the entire system before spending money on new equipment. Chemicals are prevalent in electronics. We need to reduce consumption and verify with a reliable source before busting the budget on gadgets and energy while reducing the harmful chemicals not recycled properly. Consider supporting a recycle program. There are 7 deadly chemicals in electronics. Another example is that copper is expensive. Does the equipment have copper for conducting electricity? Copper can be recycled. Some corporations are backing GREEN movements. Being socially responsible by supporting this will only be positive for the corporate image too.

Understanding separation of technology and why.

Why do companies lump departments together like they do not understand what C level VP or Director to assign the tasks or employees too?...because "we've always done it that way?" Putting IT and telecom together without really evaluating the difference is not a good decision. Telecom needs someone from the industry to at least oversee and have input into access and equipment purchases. Telecom needs separate traffic reports, separate technology and sometimes separate lines from data applications. Some resources can be shared but not necessarily. Applications, technology and methodology all play a role in decisions for access and equipment. Just because a company is given as a referral for one or the other, does not qualify applications, etc. for your corporate departments. Respecting a corporation is not a qualifying decision process. Why did they buy from a vendor and how the vendor did the needs assessment is totally unique to your firm. After 10 years of pricing, project managing and solving problems for some of the US largest comporporations, it blows me away to find some corporate ways of decision making so sophomoric.

IT, Websites and Geeks

Today, upon logging into email, the provider managed to screw up our method of accessing our account. Finally after about 7 minutes, I logged in to find a utility bill due. Since I had been out of town I wanted to pay the bill immediately. Logging into the utility web site to pay I my bill, I was told via the program my account payment was declined. Knowing full well money was in the account it took me a minute before I realized the debit card had been canceled due to a breach of my bank's data base. Attempting to change the account number via the company's web site denied the transaction. This meant more time to log into email...again, several minutes go by, finally I research the utility company via google, find their customer service phone number, and then attempt to call and report the issue. After listening to the VRU unit and not having a way to contact customer service. I went to the corporate site. Just a little insert here; thanks so much corporate America for providing me with great blog information. But I do not thank you for wasting an hour of my time this June 15th, between email and on-line payments. Some corporations must be taking lessons from doctor's offices.
Anyway, when I finally reached the utility company's customer service, Ms. Poole was a very sweet and very helpfulperson. But the VRU, the websites, and the providers are idiots when it comes to customer loyalty and being sensitive to a customer's mind reading capability. After 27 years in the field of technology, I believe I know good applications when I experience them. Corporated America, "you are not being smart by not having someone and I do not mean the geeks in IT, looking at the application and beta testing is to make the site user friendly." We may not have alternatives to utilities or some utilities, but respecting for customers time will go far.

Energy & Technology Conundrum

Wondering about the statement the smaller the chip the more energy used. This again was on a recent webinar. Now if this is the case is there a matrix of earth friendly information on power violators regarding e-manufacturers? If so how do we validate an un-biased source that will guarantee the information is correct? Who has paid for the information to be compiled? Is the information clean from special lobbyist groups? Lots of ethical related questions and then I started thinking about information that is printed, inserted into product packaging, yes even the big equipment. Is the writer biased, is the product information correct? Does someone validate the information prior to printing? Questions in my head.

Social Responsibility & Energy Drain

Blogging on http://www.greenchatter.blogspot.com/ the title was Engage the Brain before the Drain. Someone much smarter than I will hopefully come up with a solution to the drain technology is having on power grids. So often listening to my own grandchildren or listening to stories about others children, it amazes me how smart are these little people. Maybe there is hope for the world if we haven't already damaged it too much. On a recent webinar the narrator said the power drain on energy by data centers is the same 11% as the airline industry. Other forms of fuel much be seen as critical. Talking with a consultant yesterday, we were discussing his fathers at age 86 he has seen a drastic change in climate this his youth. Living in northern Georgia he has observed a change in the mountain air. We continued to discuss how some of the older generation a discounting global warming and environmental issues. How can anyone deny the ocean garbage from man? How can anyone deny the rivers trash from man? How can anyone seeing a land fill question the impact of plastic? Questions, only questions.

Interesting Industry Webinars

Listening yesterday to a webinar about an organization in Canada, I was struck by the intelligence of educating children and how needed the information was in today's environment. The statistics were scary to say the least. The vendor co-presenting on the webinar was attempting to show how using some technology and some technical equipment can reduce carbon footprint. When replacing servers, telephones, or any network piece make sure the person responsible has all the information at hand for earth friendly convergence as well as intergration. There are more and more options available today. Manufacturers are getting smarterand wiser about energy consumption but not all are even trying. If staff is low and research is not possible due to failures or time or both, please go to someone that knows how to save you money. It will only protects your budget, saves you money on energy costs and yes the correlation is significant between equipment and energy use.

Amazing Statistics From Non-Profit Organizations

Corporations rarely have the resources to research equipment, ways to save money on equipment and the handshake between equipment costs, equipment energy use and how these components cost thousands and millions in revenue. Leaving these components out of the equation is not good business nor smart business. Understand how architectual design, real estate/construction, equipment, energy, location, distance and energy can impact negativity on a corporations budget; profit or non-profit.
Relying solely on vendors or relying solely on employees including high level management can put revenue at risk. Being smart about research and reliable resources is critical for rate of return on corporate dollars. It will only cost more if not researched thoroughly.

Hand Shake Between Electronics, Green, Construction

New Construction will start to increase in the months to come. Crawling into a cave is not the answer nor is living in an economy of fear. Continuing to support the construction industry is important. What a great time to invest in preparation for growth? Deals on supplies for adding square footage, equipment, even furniture now is a great time to buy. While buying also add some green plants to cleanse the office air, yes, plants can do that. Understanding the handshake between environment or energy use, electronics with its' consumption of energy and if adding make sure you have space in conduit for adding more electrical power, space in cabling conduct for more cable to be pulled. Building especially those beautiful older ones that are refurbished? Make sure while refurbishing someone check out the conduit run and capacity. If the building is gutted, or partial renovation is taking place this is the time to add conducts too. Making sure the ventilation is there for cooling servers and other heat generating equipment is important also. Or you may be spending plenty of these.

Reducing Access Costs

Earlier this year an insurance company shared a story about buying VOIP and having such a time with the quality they had to "throw the system out" was their exact verbiage. Speaking with a VOIP vendor this morning the representative with the VOIP vendor spoke of customer expectations in knowing there will be some latency issues, a power outage will take you down unless you have battery backup. Large institutions can not be vulnerable. Hospitals and other critical care related industries can not be left vulnerable in any way or people die. It's that simple. We witnessed that during Katrina when New Orleans suffered in every way and people were helpless for search and rescue efforts. For some it was too little, too late. Be cautious when hopping on the latest and greatest bandwagon. Check out like industries using the same technology, get references, call and ask about specific applications. Make sure you know not all vendors and not all equipment is comparable.

Diverse Routing on Local Loops

After many New York based corporations or corporations in the Towers were lost during attacks, many companies became more aware of protecting data and communications. Little could have been done during that destruction unless all data had been stored beyond the reaches of that devastation. However the demand for fiber increased and has continued to grow as organizations demand higher levels of bandwidth. Route diversity is one alternative to having cuts in fiber as is ring topology an alternative. Diversity as always is expensive. Rings however give the best protection and unless distance in design or real estate location is the impact on cost, rings can be quite economical. Verify, specify, shop costs and do not look to one vendor for all information. Vendor representatives can be brainwashed, many think they are the best because a vendor's training, marketing message and corporate dictum all focus on sales, ROI, savings. That's great. Let's focus on what's best for the client, the clients' issues, needs, market, employees needs, customer's needs, etc., instead of me, me, me and what I can sell you, vendors. Put the client first, helping lends to credibility.

Efficient IT and Current Social Impacts

Tonight as a few times in the past I refer to two web sites: The first is Gary Audin at

http://www.nojitter.com/ page 2 which references an article called Efficient IT referring to web site http://www.thegreengrid.org/

Knowing most organizations are non-profit organizations this information is critical for all professionals, professional organizations, and all industry. These are valuable resources.

Gary and I spoke Friday and he spends a large amount of time researching subjects and web sites for adding tools for all organizations, profit or not profits.

Saving Energy, Saving Money

Save corporate dollars, know the threat is energy consumption to sap the utility bill and the IT department isn't watching the power bill. Guess time was short on this one...but think about the connection.

Technology, Electronics & Energy Handshake.

This was a conversation today with a IT consultant. Gary said and I quote "soft phones are energy hogs". The other quote of Gary's was one square foot of a data center will cost 60-70 dollars a year. Data centers are huge so the energy cost for a large organization such as hospitals, banking institutions, universities, educational institutions of any kind, insurance companies and any corporation with massive data needs. Saving 25% on energy bills will amount to millions in a given year, not to mention the long term ROI. Electronics eat as much fuel in one year in fact 11% of fuel usage which is the same as the air line industry.

New Buildings and Technology, Data Centers

Cable vendors, AC vendors, Fiber Access for voice and data, room layout, overload trends, monitoring heat, monitoring power, security from hackers, security, stranded capacity, balancing cooling and power, less weight, increased energy efficiency, spread the load, eliminate hot spots, reduce room high density, reduce lease space, migrate to specialized, integration, virtualization, cost effective racks and portability. It's all about saving money, power, energy costs. Need staff help, need extra source for information? Help is on the way.

Back to Real Stories

So often professionals in the same industry as I surprise me with the type on information either not investigated to ignored. When demand for voice and data reach the point of needing fiber vs. copper remember the distance from the SWC is critical. The longer the distance, the more expensive the local loop. Rural real estate value may make the decision comparing the distance vs the savings in land.
Major distribution centers, industrial or manufacturing facilities definitely need to be out further from retail centers or restaurants. Just realize distance equals spend on access (lines/trunks) for data and voice services. One such wireless provider put a tower 15 one half miles from the serving wire center. Big Bucks for
fiber even if it's ring topology.

Ethics, Energy, Sustainability

Today the stories stop but only for recognizing some professionals in our beautiful community of Birmingham, AL. During the spring when Birmingham is alive with spring colors the beauty in our neighborhood is astounding, literally. I wish the entire world could see this beauty. Yes, we have some politicans that are not very wise but our image should not be tarnished because some one is running their mouth. Birmingham has some of the smartest, nicest people as Silicon Valley, California, I know my nieces husband started his own company there and Michael is smart. So read my Green Chatter Blogger for a glimpse of more reasons Birmingham is wonderful. This place is brimming with integrity, intelligence, ethics, doing it right, not just when someone is looking but every day making a quality effort to improve our business, our community and caring for one another. If you don't believe me let me introduce you to some of my friends and business colleagues.

Federal Contracts

When I was in wholesale the customer had a government contract. What that meant to me? Everytime the government needed fiber my job was to get the communication right.
Seems like sales people thought the government knew the information needed to install fiber at some military installation or the justice department or the FBI office in tin-buck-too. Well, that would not be correct. Example: How about the right address, right contact name, correct telephone number to call? No matter big or small the company this industry takes a lot of knowing how to make it all work.
Not knowing can cost big bucks; energy bills soar, non-working system, non-working ancillary application, security breach, hacker heaven...I could go on a while.

Telecom stories from Fortune 500