Extension 437

Telecom questions

Here are some questions I want answers to:

1. How many phone lines are required per employee? One line per employee? One line for every five employees (this kind of thing obviously requires a PBX)?
2. Is it more cost effective to buy or lease a PBX? What about hosted PBX?
3. At what point is it more cost effective to use a PRI for voice instead of having analog lines? Or a T1 with half the channels for voice and half for data?
4. Can a very small organization with only one site save money with Internet telephony?
5. Can a small organization with multiple sites save money with Internet telephony?
6. When is frame relay a better choice for intersite data transport than a VPN over the public Internet?

Please comment if you have any answers for me. If I find my own answers I will add them here.

Changepoint Outlook Tools

What are these "Changepoint Outlook Tools," and can we use them?

Customer Support

I was dreaming about work again. It doesn't happen often, but this morning I woke up thinking about it.

What I was thinking today is how I have suggested that we need a tool to help us keep customer requests from getting lost. I periodically hear how we have taken a long time to get back to a client or prospect about this or that. Or sometimes we fail to get back to them at all. I don't think that there is a technical solution to every problem, but good tools can help.

In Consulting Services we have been talking for a long time about how we need a helpdesk tool to help us track requests for technical support from clients for whom we are providing direct technical assistance.

Within CompuMentor we use the Support Request features in Changepoint to track these sorts of things. I realized today that the version of Changepoint we are using includes a Client Portal. I'm not going to spend time looking into it right now, but I'll wager there are customer support tools built right in to a product we already have deployed. We just need to turn them on.

Remote Administration for Scheduled Support Clients

All clients signed up for Scheduled Support can be remotely administered via remote desktop. Which means that if they call us for support, we don't have to trot over there in order to diagnose or even solve the problem.

The next step is to implement Remote Assistance for those clients which run Windows XP exclusively (there aren't many of these). That will enable real-time remote control of individual desktops on demand.

Redistributing custom software installers

In our discussion of Healthy and Secure Computing, there is talk of preparing software for deployment, to save consultants and nonprofits time. For example, we could apply all the security patches to a copy of the  installation files for Microsoft Office XP, and deliver this "administrative installation" ready to deploy.

How would we do this? Would we burn copies to CD? Or permit downloads over the Internet? If we were not engaging directly with the clients, would we require a contract asserting that they have a license for Office XP? Or would we need to see a copy of their license agreement?

If we could do this sort of thing it would save a lot of hassle and money for nonprofits. But we have to figure out how to do it correctly.

Things that go wrong

What difference am I making with my clients? I consider this question often. Sometimes it's difficult to discern what impact I'm having when the purpose of the engagement is maintenance. I'm there not to move some big project forward, just to keep things from backsliding.

So how can we measure the impact I'm having? The answer: by what's not happening to the organization. What hasn't broken? What problems have not arisen as a result of my participation?

What goes wrong with IT in small organizations?

• Somebody orders the wrong software or hardware.
• A virus breaks out and productivity drops while it is eradicated.
• Data is lost and reduces productivity.
• Confidential information is exposed to unauthorized parties after a hacker intrusion.
• Software or hardware breaks.

These things tend not to happen to my clients. For example, since I started providing scheduled support services, I have not had to deal with a single virus outbreak. Whether I am making a difference can only be determined by comparing the incidence of these events with organizations that do not have access to regular visits by a system administrator.

Now how could we get information from such a control group?

More on local user groups

In a comment on my earlier post on user groups, Marnie writes:

"Pushing a little harder on your list of benefits: how would those benefits manifest?"

As an example, she suggested: "story ideas for TechSoup could be measured by the number of stories that TS published which germinated in those user groups. Or, better yet, the number of other user group participants that published stories."

In response, I suggest the benefits I mentioned can be measured thus:

Benefit: Access to communities with technical ability.

Evidence:

• Compumentor subcontracts or refers work to a firm represented in a user group.
• A client comes to CompuMentor through a user group contact.
• User group participants respond to requests for volunteers.
• When a CompuMentor consultant asks for help from a user group participant outside the setting of the user group, help is granted.

Benefit: Raise CompuMentor's profile as a partner in the local technology scene.

Evidence:

• CompuMentor is asked to participate in an event or project as a result of a user group contact.
• When asked "where did you learn about CompuMentor" clients, partners, or Web site visitors mention user group participation.
• CompuMentor is approached by a potential partner through a user group contact.

Benefit: Opportunities to interface with marketing representatives from software vendors.

Evidence:

• Discussion with a software vendor about product philanthropy begins as a result of a user group contact.
• A new software vendor offers a product on TechSoup Stock as a result of a user group contact.
• Product demos or NFR software for evaluation are obtained from user group contacts.
• A TechSoup article is written about a software product after seeing it demonstrated at a user group meeting.

Benefit: Learning about the latest technology (vendors visit and demo products).

Evidence:

• A consultant is able to answer a question or solve a problem as a result of learning at a user group.
• CompuMentor chooses to use or recommend a software product after encountering it at a user group.

This is just what I came up with off the top of my head. More/different benefits and corresponding evidence of benefit may result from additional thinking.

Marnie also wrote:

"On another note, I also think that it would be interesting to understand what user groups don't already exist and that we could facilitate -- groups for npo specific applications."

This is an excellent point. Nonprofit-specific software is often produced by smaller software vendors. A smaller vendor for whatever reason is less likely to have a user group. Product-oriented user groups might help provide mutual support on one or more of the following products:

• QuickBooks NP Edition
• The Raiser's Edge
• Blackbaud Fund Accounting
• MIP Accounting for Nonprofits
• FileMaker Donations
• eBase
• Donorperfect
• Microedge GIFTS
• eTapestry
• Kintera Fundware
• Volunteer management software

I can imagine a user group that is focused on software specific to nonprofits. Maybe not a single title, but any software that is exclusively for nonprofit use. A sample agenda might look like:

Agenda

Soup buffet
Introduction of tonight's topic
Demonstration of QuickBooks Premier Nonprofit Edition 2005
QuickBooks Q & A
General Q & A

Now that I think of it, this looks very similar to our brown bags. Except I imagine it taking place in the evening instead of lunchtime. And our brown bags as they stand are not necessarily designed for peer exchange. I also imagine our brown bags to be one-off events. The participants at one meeting may not come to the next meeting. But with a user group I imagine a core community that comes back time and again for the meetings.

Client community

Periodically my clients email me for tech support. I'd like to change this one-to-many relationship to a many-to-many relationship. I could set up a Google Group or TechSoup forum where my clients can post their problems. The way things are set up now, they're guaranteed to get an answer from me. But if other clients and consultants are subscribed, they could get an answer faster. My clients can learn from each other's questions and answers.

By doing this CompuMentor moves from a purely "doctor" role towards a facilitator role. Clients get responses faster. They learn from each other. Together we create a community of practice. And the ongoing conversation is archived and searchable.

This is just a raw idea and deserves additional thought.

Free training from Microsoft

These Web seminars are free to Microsoft Partners. Hands-on labs are also available.

Proactive Security Patch Management
January 06, 2005

Deploying Windows XP SP2
January 11, 2005

TS2: Windows 2003 Server Troubleshooting & Disaster Recovery
January 20, 2005

Real Life Lessons: Managing a Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Network
January 24th, 2005

 

 

 

Local User Groups

In Consulting Services we're talking about integrating community participation into our work. One example might be to assign a staff person to attend local technology user groups. The user group liaison becomes known to the group and trusted as a partner in that community. When it comes time to ask for volunteers or technical assistance, the group will be more likely to respond. The liaison also learns about technology of interest to nonprofits and brings that knowledge back to CompuMentor.

Here is a list of interesting user groups in the SF Bay Area:

PC-Related

EBIG - East Bay Information Technology Group. The East Bay I.T. Group is the East Bay's leading technology forum. Connected to the best and brightest developers, entrepreneurs, and start-ups in the San Francisco East Bay, with strong ties to industry experts, major technology corporations, and local municipalities, eBig is the East Bay's premier resource for information, education, and personal networking for people seeking connections and technology resources.

NTEA - NT Engineering Association of Silicon Valley.

SFNTUG - San Francisco Networking Technologies Users Group. For Computer professionals interested in Active Directory, NT / Win 2K / and Win 2003 Server design, implementation, administration, networking or maintenance.

Linux Related

BALUG - Bay Area Linux Users Group.

CABAL - Consortium of All Bay Area Linux.

Mac Related

BANG - Bay Area NeXT Group - The Bay Area NeXT Group is a longstanding support forum now focused on issues relating to Rhapsody/PPC, Rhapsody/Intel, YellowBox/PPC, YellowBox/Intel, BlueBox, WebObjects, EOF, the rumored Apple NC, as-yet-to-be-announced OS permutations, OPENSTEP, NEXTSTEP and the Macintosh computing environment.

ebMUG - East Bay Macintosh Users Group.

MILMUG - Milpitas Macintosh Users Group.

MUCHO - Macintosh Users Computers Hands On. MUCHO is a Macintosh User Group of senior citizens based at Little House Senior Center in Menlo Park, California.

PlanetMUG - Online Mac user group.

SLMUG - San Leandro Macintosh Users Group.

SMUG - Stanford/Palo Alto Macintosh Users Group.

SVMUG - Silicon Valley Macintosh User Group.

TMUG - Tri-Valley Macintosh User Group. The Tri-Valley Macintosh User Group, serving Livermore, Pleasanton, Dublin, San Ramon, Tracy, Stockton and the Tri Valley Area.

UCSF Mac OS X Interest Group - Open to students, faculty and staff, but their website says they're interested in community outreach.

Other User Groups

BAWUG - Bay Area Wireless Users Group.

Mobile Computing SIG of San Francisco.

I also ran across this interesting online users group.

The Macintosh Guild - The Ultimate Apple User Group for Corporate America.