By now, you have the message that our guys work HARD. Everyday, all day. These guys are working for you, in your best interest. Two separate incidents brought this to mind today. Both involved our Iron Man - Tim.
Tim is the guy we can always count on. He puts his head down and works, and works, and works. Those of you who know him, know this about him. Those of you who have not had the pleasure of seeing Tim in action, have to take my word for it. You should also know that he is funny. Really funny in a dry way. Here is what happened today:
Tim was on a server upgrade project today which involved changing DNS records for an Exchange Server. You don't need to understand the details here. (Remember, this is the un-tech blog.) The point is that he was on the phone with several tech support analysts from several outside services. He finally gets in touch with the support analyst that should be able to help him. Tim starts to explain his situation and the tech support analyst says:
"Can I put you on speaker phone so that the class can hear your issue?" The class?
You would think that's the worst thing a tech can hear when he is on a job and trying to get a problem solved. I certainly would have been upset. Not Tim. He was fine with it. He explained his situation and the tech support analyst said: "Well, I don't know if I can help you". Worst thing? Still no. Here's the worst thing:
"I know what the problem is . . ."
That's the worst thing, because it came from the student in the back of the classroom. Poor Tim.
Thursday, April 19, 2007
Friday, April 13, 2007
They Let Me Out Occassionally
Well, I'm a bit late on the posting. Sorry. Mark, Dean and I went to the N-TEN Conference in Washington D.C. last week. We call it "Geek Week". It's the only place left on earth where I'm one of the cool kids. . . Imagine combining tech nerds with non profits. Oy.
If you work for a non-profit and have anything to do with using technology to run your program or meet mission, then I suggest that you become an N-TEN member and definitely go to the conference if you can. The hallway discussions alone are worth the trip.
Here is how it went for us. We traditionally go to the conference on Tuesday for an "affinity" meeting with the other NPowers on Wednesday morning. Because the conference was in Washington DC this year - and because we are a non profit - we decided to drive to DC on Wed morning to save one night's hotel expense. OK. Don't do this. Big mistake. Pay for the extra night.
I was up and out of the house at 4:15 AM (which my sister refers to as 0-dark-30). I was at Dean's house before 5:00 in Conshohocken, then at Mark's house in NJ before 6:00. Did I mention that this is AM? Well, we didn't count on traffic at Baltimore. Who goes to Baltimore? We did count on major traffic on I-495 around DC and were not dissappointed. We never made it to the hotel until 9:30. Our meeting started at 9:00.
We didn't stop for coffee or food or bathroom. I assured the guys that there would be some sort of muffin and coffee in the meeting room. Nope. We showed up and found our peers giving their presentations in a room with only pitchers of tap water. Mark and Dean were not happy. I had a splitting headache. Our colleagues fed us gummy bears and life savers out of their conference bags to hold us over.
The day got much better. I did something that I have NEVER done before. I ate Indian food - some kind of spinach and chicken thing in a cute little tourine - for lunch and Sushi - some little rolled up somethings that I had to eat with chopsticks - for dinner. Honestly, I never had that much exotic food in one day before in my life. The most exotic thing I usually eat is pizza with feta cheese. We consider vinegar a "spice" in our house. I'm blessed with a wonderful Pennsylvania Dutch partner. Rivels, Pot Pie, Snitz and Knep, Hog Mal. Yum.
Then we went out with the NPower gang for drinky-poos at lots of interesting places. It's really funny to us to see people drinking Yeungling beer and paying premium prices. They think it's fancy. HA. They are really good at "spin" in DC if they can sell Yeungling for $5 a pint.
The next day I was threatened with bodily harm if I didn't promise to get the guys some food that "used to moo" and could be eaten with a fork and knife. Needless to say, we took the Metro to the District Chophouse for steaks. Really good and expensive steaks. We deserved it.
Anyway, back to business. Mark and I learned about "Managed Services" from a few of our colleagues. Managed Services are a way to deliver routine desktop and network services without actually being on site. Mark and I are interested in using this type of service to save our Scheduled Support clients some money and allow our technicians to work on the non-routine tasks that crop up. You know it as "the list". Stay tuned for more soon. We think we found a solution that will work for us (and by us, I mean you).
Meanwhile Dean was digging into data management systems and open API sessions. Web based applications are definitely NOT a fad. Each year there are more choices for non profits in this area. Dean learned alot about Salesforce.com and their non profit offering. We are all really excited about this system at NPower. Not only does Salesforce.com Foundation donate their web based Client Relations Manager (CRM) to non profits, but they also have a dynamite open API that allows us to customize the program for various uses. NPower Seattle and NPower NY have already become leaders in deploying Salesforce.com for their members. Dean is excited to ramp up this offering for our members in PA and Delaware.
So you see, it wasn't all about eating and drinking. . .
If you work for a non-profit and have anything to do with using technology to run your program or meet mission, then I suggest that you become an N-TEN member and definitely go to the conference if you can. The hallway discussions alone are worth the trip.
Here is how it went for us. We traditionally go to the conference on Tuesday for an "affinity" meeting with the other NPowers on Wednesday morning. Because the conference was in Washington DC this year - and because we are a non profit - we decided to drive to DC on Wed morning to save one night's hotel expense. OK. Don't do this. Big mistake. Pay for the extra night.
I was up and out of the house at 4:15 AM (which my sister refers to as 0-dark-30). I was at Dean's house before 5:00 in Conshohocken, then at Mark's house in NJ before 6:00. Did I mention that this is AM? Well, we didn't count on traffic at Baltimore. Who goes to Baltimore? We did count on major traffic on I-495 around DC and were not dissappointed. We never made it to the hotel until 9:30. Our meeting started at 9:00.
We didn't stop for coffee or food or bathroom. I assured the guys that there would be some sort of muffin and coffee in the meeting room. Nope. We showed up and found our peers giving their presentations in a room with only pitchers of tap water. Mark and Dean were not happy. I had a splitting headache. Our colleagues fed us gummy bears and life savers out of their conference bags to hold us over.
The day got much better. I did something that I have NEVER done before. I ate Indian food - some kind of spinach and chicken thing in a cute little tourine - for lunch and Sushi - some little rolled up somethings that I had to eat with chopsticks - for dinner. Honestly, I never had that much exotic food in one day before in my life. The most exotic thing I usually eat is pizza with feta cheese. We consider vinegar a "spice" in our house. I'm blessed with a wonderful Pennsylvania Dutch partner. Rivels, Pot Pie, Snitz and Knep, Hog Mal. Yum.
Then we went out with the NPower gang for drinky-poos at lots of interesting places. It's really funny to us to see people drinking Yeungling beer and paying premium prices. They think it's fancy. HA. They are really good at "spin" in DC if they can sell Yeungling for $5 a pint.
The next day I was threatened with bodily harm if I didn't promise to get the guys some food that "used to moo" and could be eaten with a fork and knife. Needless to say, we took the Metro to the District Chophouse for steaks. Really good and expensive steaks. We deserved it.
Anyway, back to business. Mark and I learned about "Managed Services" from a few of our colleagues. Managed Services are a way to deliver routine desktop and network services without actually being on site. Mark and I are interested in using this type of service to save our Scheduled Support clients some money and allow our technicians to work on the non-routine tasks that crop up. You know it as "the list". Stay tuned for more soon. We think we found a solution that will work for us (and by us, I mean you).
Meanwhile Dean was digging into data management systems and open API sessions. Web based applications are definitely NOT a fad. Each year there are more choices for non profits in this area. Dean learned alot about Salesforce.com and their non profit offering. We are all really excited about this system at NPower. Not only does Salesforce.com Foundation donate their web based Client Relations Manager (CRM) to non profits, but they also have a dynamite open API that allows us to customize the program for various uses. NPower Seattle and NPower NY have already become leaders in deploying Salesforce.com for their members. Dean is excited to ramp up this offering for our members in PA and Delaware.
So you see, it wasn't all about eating and drinking. . .
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