IT-wise, prior to terminating the employee, you need to figure out a few things:

Communications

• Email: Will you forward their email? if so, to whom? if not, what will you do with that mailbox? (delete it, archive it, etc.)
  • Recommendation: If you’re running an Exchange server, which many businesses are today, we recommend changing the password to the account and adding the mailbox to another employee’s Outlook.
• Voice Mail: Pretty much the same options as email, depending on the features of your phone/voice mail system
  • Recommendation: If you’re running a newer voice mail system or some kind of unified communications platform, where the voice mails are emailed to the recipient, then our email recommendation above handles this for you.
• Faxes: If you employee happened to have a dedicated fax line, you will need to adjust where those faxes go based on the technology used to receive faxes.
  • Recommendation: If you are using a fax-to-email service like myfax.com or efax.com or are on a unified communications platform, then my email recommendations handle this. If you have a fax line going directly to the user’s PC, you’ll either want to grant access to that PC by another employee or move the fax modem and management software to a different employee’s PC. (It would be easier to just get a fax-to-email service from here forward).
• Mobile Phones: Assuming they are using a company-issued phone, you need to be able to wipe their handheld of email, contacts, etc.
  
  • Recommendation: If you are running Blackberry Enterprise Server or Windows Mobile and the devices are provisioned correctly, this should not be an issue. If not, make sure the device is in your hands before termination
    

Access

Aside from any physical access, you’ll want to make sure that the terminated employee no longer has access to any network resources.This includes:

• Windows Server – Active Directory: Provides login access to Windows domain servers and Exchange email – most small to medium businesses use this
• Remote Access / Virtual Private Network (VPN): Changing their password on their Active Directory account may resolve this (you can also turn off VPN access from here if the server is providing it through the Routing and Remote Access service) otherwise, you will need to disable their account whatever appliance (e.g. firewall or SSL VPN appliance) or service (e.g. Himachi) is providing the remote access.
• Line of Business Applications: Examples include: QuickBooks, SalesForce.com, etc.

You should have someone (your managed IT services firm, or IT manager for example) prepared to make these changes just before calling the employee to be terminated into your office. Make the necessary communications and security changes and have the employee escorted back to their desk to gathering their things. Do not let them touch the computer again.

Depending on the complexity of your company’s network and your technology skill level, you may need help from a qualified IT consultant to knock all of this out. Don’t be afraid of asking for help. Missing an important email.voicemail or fax could cost you revenue as you well know, and, leaving any points of access open to terminated employees is a scary proposition as well.

Again, don’t forget the HR side of terminating en employee. If you want to avoid having to pay unemployment over a technicality or steer clear of discrimination claims, then I strongly suggest that you engage an HR consultant. I have used Carrie George of George HR with great results.

Leadership & Goal Setting in 2010

Accountability – From Resolution to Reality – How Will You “Get It Done” This Year?

Now that we are 1/2 way through the year, how much have you gotten done? Are you on track to complete all of your company’s goals this year?

I can safely say that Carceron is not? Why not?

We moved offices in Q2, which is still in progress with various capital improvements like a new air conditioner for the server room, conference room furniture and other amenities, etc. Somehow, something as big as an office move never made it onto our original list of goals when we planned everything last year. Needless to say, moving into a new office is something of a time sucker. Consequently, this, along with a wave new business opportunities (certainly no complaints about that), has delayed some of our other goals that we had set to complete – especially the ones due for completion at the end of Q2.

So what happens now? Do we pout about that fact that we are behind schedule? Of course not! Things happen! Life happens! You simply adapt. If a few things get pushed into Q1 of next year…  so be it.

What I would recommend doing is going over all of your goals with your staff or at least your management team. You may find that some goals are no longer relevant and can be removed. Other goals may need to have their completion dates changed because of the unexpected life events or just because you realize that goal A is really dependent on goal B and you only just now found that out.

Don’t give up. Reassess, adapt and execute. Get everyone back in alignment and march forward!

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The concept of Time Compression was recently introduced to me by a client at the conclusion of a recent meeting. I was so enthralled by what he taught me that I did some more research that night and found several articles that further elaborated on the concept and what it means for business.

The first article I found, Technology’s Time Compression, is an excellent primer. At the bottom of that article are links to several other articles, all worth reading, but the two that were most interesting to me were It’s Time for Zero Time and We are Literally Trying to Stop Time.

What I got out of the latter two articles is that, at a minimum, we are trying to reach zero time, preferably negative time. The analogy of a track runner is quite appropriate. Track runners are constantly trying to reduce their times, with the ideal time being zero seconds. But can we achieve negative time? I don’t think a runner could, but we might able to as business owners. This is why business intelligence (BI) and dashboards are so hot right now. Dashboards are more than being able to see real time performance – they are about predicting the future and being ready to adapt to it instantly. You might argue that adapting instantly would be a definition of zero time. However, without proper business intelligence, you won’t be able to make the necessary predictions and subsequent preparations for that instantaneous switch. Negative Time is about being able predict when the change will come and changing at that precise moment (because you’re ready for it), versus reacting to the change once it has come to pass – where the first phase of the reaction is planning (what are we going to do?) and execution (doing it) both of which take time and make you late to the race.

Think about how this translates to business in terms of things like response time, resolution time, order time, processing time, or any other operational task where time is “consumed”.

In my business, Carceron, we monitor servers, networks and desktops in attempt to predict failure. These articles tell me that we can probably be doing a lot more with our monitoring and other business processes.

How can you achieve Negative Time in some of your business processes?

While these tips and tricks can be used by anyone, for almost any reason. I am going to explain how I use them from the perspective of a business owner. Why the distinction? Because business owners are generally juggling many responsibilities at the same time: business development, operations, administration, short and long term projects, serving on non-profit and association boards, etc.

In the digital age, a lot of management is done from the inbox. For many business owners, the inbox serves as both a communication repository as well as a t0-do / follow up list. The problem with this approach is, that given how many things the business owner is involved in, the inbox can fill up pretty fast – to-dos get mixed in with communication follow ups, etc. Here’s what I handle it: (all of these tips are based on Outlook 2007)

Organize Using Subfolders & Categories

The most commonly used method of organizing email is to use subfolders. I have several just under my inbox. I have one subfolder that acts as my GMail inbox, so those emails stay separate from my Carceron email (I use my GMail account strictly for personal stuff). Another way that I use subfolders is to store important emails relating to any association management that I am involved in. For example, I might have one subfolder called “Corporate Connections”, one called “Kiwanis”, etc.  – anything where I am on a board of directors or serve in a management capacity outside of my company, Carceron. It is important to note that I do not archive all of my business emails in my personal subfolders, but in Public Folders in Exchange – this way everyone in my company has access to them. To create a subfolder in Outlook, simply right click on the Inbox (or whatever folder you want to create the subfolder under) and select New Folder. Name the folder and you’re ready to go.

Many business owners and managers use their inbox as their follow up repository. An easy way to organize your inbox is by Categorizing email. To Categorize email, simply right click a message and click Categorize. You can create your own custom categories and colors by selecting “All Categories” at the bottom of the Category menu. Once you start categorizing, then you’ll want to sort your Inbox first by Categories and and then by date. This way, newer and un-Categorized emails is always at the top and  email is always together bundled below. The end result should come out something like you see below. Note that the “Categories: (none) (1839 item, 2 unread)” is my unread and or unprocessed email.  The email in the Category containers below are for follow up (e.g. CARCERON Accounting – which I will open when meeting with my book keeper or CPA)

Prioritizing & Email That Needs Your Attention

I get a ton of email from a variety of sources: my staff, clients, the associations I belong to, social media, vendors, etc. Obviously I want to prioritize my staff and clients. To do this, I “re-color” their message in my inbox so that I can quickly identify them amongst the hundreds of other messages in my inbox. To do this, simply click on any message from a person that you want color coded in the future, then, from the top menu bar, click Tools –> Organize; select the “Using Colors” options and then simple select your color. Here’s an example:

If you have a very full inbox, a more effective way to get to the emails you need to respond to faster is to use Search Folders. If you look just below your Tasks folder, you will see the Search Folders section. To create a new Search Folder, simply right click “Search Folders” and select “New Search Folder”. A window will pop-up that will allow you to configure the your new Search Folder (which is really more of an inbox filter). There are many ways to configure your Search Folders. The primary way that I use them is to filter by people. For example, I have one folder for my company, Carceron. When I click this folder, it will display all emails currently in my inbox from everyone on my company (assuming that I have specified them in the search folder criteria). I have similar folders setup for various Corporate Connections chapters, clients, VIPs, etc. It also comes in very handy for voice mail. I use YouMail for my mobile phone’s voice mail. This service emails me a transcriptions and MP3 file of all voice mails that I get. Using a Search Folder customized to view only emails from YouMail is a very fast and effective way of processing voice mails because I can just “read” the voice mail as an email message and respond to it or delete it without having to listen to every single voice mail.

Automate Email Sorting

Using the Rules, you can automatically sort emails a variety of ways. I use Rules to route all of my GMail correspondence to a separate subfolder, to route all e-newsletters to a separate folder (I can get to those later when I have time), routing electronic faxes to other folders, Google Alerts, etc. To setup custom Rules, click on Tools –> Rules and Alerts. You can do a great many other things with Rules, like create different sound notifications based on the sender, or automatically flag messages for followup base on sender. Have fun with it.

Some Other Strategies

Do It, Delegate It or Delete It

If you want to really take your mastery of Outlook to the next level, purchase the book, Take Back Your Life with Outlook which is chock full of tips and tricks to make Outlook really work for you as well as how to better manage your time. One of the core teachings of the book, as it relates to inbox management, is “Do it, Delegate it, or Delete it”. Basically this means means do whatever needs to be done at the time you are reading the message, or, delegate it (forward it to a staff member, convert it to a Task and assign, etc.), or, delete it (junk mail, unimportant FYIs, etc.). If you follow this to the letter, than you should have a very small inbox. This philosophy does not work for me as well it could, because I keep so many categorized follow up emails – but it is essential to keeping my Inbox much slimmer than it could be. Delete is especially useful when your checking messages via a mobile device like a Blackberry – as long as you remember to do it. I get tons of FYIs and CCs  (e.g. FaceBook notifications, etc.) that I have no need to keep that clutter up the inbox. If I remember to delete these messages that become useless once read, then they will not be waiting on me when I open Outlook later on for some real email processing.

Schedule Email Checking

If you are trying to focus on a particular task, like writing a proposal or SOP, it can be very distracting to have emails continually flow into your inbox, making noise and popping up notifications in the lower right corner of your screen. The solution is very simple, yet surprisingly hard for so many people who have the need to always feel connected: Set Outlook to Work Offline or close Outlook down while you’re working. When I have an admin day where I need to get a lot done, I check Outlook 2-3 times a day: 1st thing in the morning, after lunch and, perhaps, late afternoon. In between those times it is set to Work Offline. Incidentally, this is also a great way to catch up on email without being interrupted. How many times have you been working on trimming down your inbox only to be stalled by new incoming emails as well as ongoing email back and forth from what you are working on in your inbox? When I process my inbox, I have a goal, usually in days, of email that I want to process using Do It, Delegate It or Delete It. So I set Outlook to Work Offline and I process, for example, all email from the previous 3 days. Anything that I send, will hang in the Outbox until I set Outlook back to online.  To set Outlook to Work Offline, simply click the the area in the lower right corner of Outlook that says “Connected to Microsoft Exchange” and then select Work Offline.

I hope that this returns a little sanity to your life.

First and foremost, you will need to get your communications up and running. This means moving the telephone and computer systems and having them hooked backed up by professionals. In the Atlanta market, for telephone systems, I recommend Robert Brock’s company, Square 1 Technology. For computers and the network, I obviously recommend my company, Carceron.

As far as moving your office is concerned, you can do it yourself of course (that’s what we did, along with an army of youth volunteers). But you may want to outsource that part, especially if you’re a bit bigger (2000 sq ft. or more). In that case, Debbie Ponder from Suddath Relocation Systems is who I would use in the Atlanta market. Regardless of who you use to move or how, you should have a space plan for the new office. A space plan is a layout map of the office that shows where every piece of furniture is going to go and how it will be positioned. It’s especially helpful to have measurements of your furniture relative to each room’s dimensions. also be mindful of the position of the door into the office relative to your desk. “L” shaped desks may not be able to go into the office just how you want it based on the position of the door into the office. If you’re getting any additional new furniture for the office, make sure to coordinate with your furniture rep on the move in as well.

You also might have a lot of loose ends to tie up here. Such as:

• Getting office and server room locks re-keyed and disseminating those keys to relevant employees
• Signage (reception area, parking, etc.)
• Touch painting after move in (hopefully not)
• Security system operational
• Interior Decoration (hanging plaques, awards, etc. – adding some plant life to soften the place up a little)
• Stocking the kitchen / break room
• Commercial Insurance is updated for the new property and you have a certificate of insurance into the landlord / lender

If you brain storm with your staff over everything that needs to get done from the very beginning, then put that list where everyone can see it (in LifeTick or SharePoint for example), you should have a very successful and relatively pain-free move.

• Change of Address:
  • Utilities like phone and power
  • E-Commerce Sites
  • Vendors
  • All online directories (Chamber of Commerce, Google Local Search, Trade Associations, etc)
  • All Federal Agencies (IRS, DOL, etc.)

• Old Office Prep
  • Create a task for the packing of each area / room (thanks to Carceron employee Jim McKinney for heading up this grueling task)
  • Office deep cleaning and repair (after the move)
  • Turn in Keys
  • Get any deposits back

• Transfer Operations & Communications
  • Email (only matters if you run an in house server for email, such as a Small Business Server or Exchange)
  • Telephones  & Internet (this is a good time to shop your service, I recommend using a telecom broker like Elite Telecom Services who can shop it out for you and get you the best deal)
  • You’ll need to time this carefully and make sure that you involve your telephone system and computer support vendors who will need to disconnect from your old office and reconnect you at the new one on the same day
  • Core Network Infrastructure: Servers, Switches, Firewalls should all be up before anything else – especially if you have remote users.

• New Office Prep
  • Buildout completed to your specifications prior to move in (thanks to CKW & Associates taking care of our needs)
  • Certificate of Insurance from your commercial carrier
  • Security System installed (we used LOUD Security)
  • Lock in any maintenance agreements required by your lease (e.g. HVAC)
  • Keys copied and distributed (recommend distributing (DO NOT COPY keys to employees and keeping a couple of copy-able masters in a secure place; this prevents you from having to re-key every time you lose an employee)
  • Signage – meet with your signage vendor early to discuss your needs
  • Furniture – engage a commercial furniture rep regardless of whether or not your are expanding or shrinking. They can help you get rid of stuff if you are shrinking and can get you deals on anything from new to used. (special thanks for Preston Barnes of Provident Office Environments for helping us out)

Moving an office is a process accompanied by so many possible emotions: joy, dread, relief, stress, and more – that it can seem like you need a therapist just to deal with the move… for everyone in your company. After all, you still have a business to run, and if you’re reading this, you’re most likely not a Fortune 500 company that can outsource all of the planing and execution that goes into it; you’re most likely doing it all yourself. So how do you run a business while moving somewhat painlessly -  change the oil while driving car, per se? I am about to tell you.

Timing and the Tenant Rep

You need to give yourself as much time as possible, 6-12 months ideally. The less time you have the more likely you’ll be forced into something you don’t want due to less time to search for vacant properties and less time to negotiate the deal. And let’s talk about negotiating that deal. Two Words: Tenant Representative. You’ve most likely used a residential real estate agent to purchase and home, it is doubly or more important to secure a tenant rep for your commercial space. Here’s how a tenant rep benefits you directly:

• They are free (they are paid a commission by the landlord)
• They have access to commercial MLS (multiple listing) systems that provide real time information on vacant properties which helps you narrow your search based on pre-defined criteria like:
  • Access to interstate(s)
  • Power & Data Cabling
  • Office Layout
  • Class A vs B vs C (think quality)
  • 1st Floor vs any floor
• They are master negotiators (or should be), protecting your interests from the landlord and negotiating the lease for and with you.

We used Bob & Rob Hill of Hill Corporate Partners. They walked us through our 56 page lease in painstaking detail and knew things that needed to be changed right away that I would have never know to ask for. That is the biggest reason you need to use a tenant rep.

Some other notes when considering properties:

• When you walk through your final choice of office to develop the “buildout and refresh” scope of work for the landlord, make sure to so in full lighting. When we did ours, the power to our unit was turned off due to small flood in the adjacent office suite. So we viewed the space with our BlackBerry video lights. While this did not really affect the buildout that we needed done, it did significantly impact what we asked for in terms of bringing the unit back to an acceptable move in condition (refresh). In our case it was painting walls, peeling wallpaper in the bathroom, carpet stains, and other cosmetic blemishes. No worries. We handled it ourselves. It was just a pain that could have been avoided.
• If you need any buildout work done, make sure that you have you, your tenant rep, the landlord and the architect (usually hired by the landlord) in the room and go over precisely what your recommendations are and arrive at a consensus on the final total square footage. In most offices this might be pretty straight forward, but because our new office has a curved front, many of the of the interior walls are at weird angles which made calculating square footage accurately a challenge.
• Be extremely detailed in your scope of work for both the buildout and refresh. Insist on meeting with the property or construction manager personally to go through each item so that there is no confusion.
• Check the functionality of everything mechanical, like:
  • Doors fully closing and latching
  • Sinks work correctly and don’t leak
  • Toilet Flushes
  • Light Fixtures all work
  • Ceiling tiles are all intact and not cracked

What it taught me about myself:

It confirmed in me that I have the ability to lead my company through a crisis. Having started Carceron during the 2001 recession and surviving a 2nd one is no small feat and one that I am proud of. Hell, if anything, it has been invigorating.

What it taught me about business:

That all of the sales rhetoric about selling on value versus price is null and void during a recession. We had several clients with whom we thought we had very strong relationships that put our contracts out to bid and switched  to the competition for as little as a $100 difference per month. Put more simply, fear trumps value.

What it taught me about the world:

That money can truly brings out the worst in us and I fear that it will only intensify. I find it somewhat ironic that we all discovered a new found sense of unity and patriotism after 9/11 happened, but when the economy melted down we did little but get very angry and very afraid.

It reminds me of something I read long ago about the window and the mirror. The less evolved will tend to look out the window for the source of their problems, thinking that it could not possibly be from the outside. However, many people have a hard time looking in the mirror (even me sometimes) for the source of their problems.

It also reminds me of a dysfunctional family (of which I have ample experience). You accept your family members (in this case the banks and government) flaws and all, no matter how often they screw you, but when someone outside the family strikes a blow we become enraged. No one picks on my dysfunctional brother but me damn it!

Perhaps I’m being overly harsh. After all, what could have us little people truly have done?

My business partner (Jeffrey) and I got into a disagreement regarding this the other day and I thought “Let’s see what the rest of our small world of FaceBook friends and blog readers think”.

Jeffrey, had found a forum post on a product review board on the Dell web site which slammed some new tiny computer that they had recently put out. He emailed me the link saying that transparency was not good in this case. Having read about Dell Hell in Jeff Jarvis’ What Would Google Do?, I was inclined to immediately disagree because Mr. Jarvis made a very good argument to the contrary – that publicly calling Dell out had resulted in him getting what he wanted and that his small set of the articles spread very quickly over the web, becoming a PR nightmare for Dell. Dell finally reacted and learned their lesson and made many other customer service related corrections as a result of this.

However, I have given it some more thought and I have to say I’m not totally convinced that 100% transparency (much less 75% or even 50%) is good for every business, especially small business. Dell is a very large company, many people had never even heard of the Dell Hell incident – I had not until reading his book. Despite the bad PR, Dell remained relatively unblemished. I’m not sure that I could say the same if it were to happen to my small business. They could lose 10s of millions of dollars, perhaps 100s of millions, and remain relatively unscathed. For small businesses that operate in a smaller market those results might be catastrophic.

So ponder on this:

• Would you publish a publicly viewable forum where anyone could write what they wanted about your company and anyone could read what had been written?
  • How would you handle negative commentary?
• How would you react to web site that are erected for the sole purpose of discrediting your company by having users share their negative experiences (e.g. www.dellhell.net)
• Is the concept of transparency more relevant/practical/necessary for big businesses and government than small businesses?
• Does this even matter for service-based businesses?

By the way, what do you think about the transparent canoe? Cool huh?

When I sat down with our customer advisory council about this, we were told our biggest distinction was our customer service. However, I am finding that difficult to market because I want the message to rise above the status of a platitude. When is the last time you went to a networking function only to hear people say the same old crap:

“We pride ourselves on customer service”

“We the most reliable, dependable, etc.”

blah, blah blah. It’s all talk unless you can prove it.

What I want to market, the story that I want to tell the world, is that we are the best at what we do. Something like:

“Everyone claims to have great customer service, but we can prove it!”

Some of the ideas I have had are:

• Promoting that we are the most recommended IT consulting firm on Linkedin.com (already using this)
• Customer Service Award from the Better Business Bureau or some other type of entity (we have a competitor that has done this

I’m not thrilled with the idea of awards because I think people today realize that many such awards are shallow victories. The chance of you winning an award these days seems to be more about who you know than actually possessing the merit to deserve the honor.

I need a way to prove that Carceron is the best at Customer service and I need a way to spread the word. Can you even market customer service?

P.S. If you have any other ideas around differentiation for a managed IT services business such as mine, I am all ears.

P.S.S. I’m not looking for a marketing consultant, so please don’t reply with a solicitation.