Everyone on your team can be and should be strategic to your organizational objectives. Period.

After meeting with a few of our key people and members of our Client Experience Team (they're much more important than simply calling them "admin"), I'm finding schedules and activities full of good, well meaning stuff, but missing the mark strategically in their roles.

5 quick things:

• Much of the stuff on your to be delegated to someone else list should simply go away. Don't push your garbage to someone else on your team.
• Make sure everyone on your team understands the answers to these 3 questions:

  1. What is our organization trying to accomplish?

  2. What are the top 3 components of my role that best moves our organization to its goals?

  3. What's on my plate now that doesn't have any effect on these top 3 components?

• Most people on your team will need help in knowing what to stop doing and pruning their activities. Schedule a meeting with your team members to review their top 10 tasks and bring out the hatchet.
• Sometimes the boss or owner is the biggest problem. People tend to "drop everything" when the owner speaks, your managers/owners may need some coaching on how they communicate their needs. (Yep, tread carefully...)
• Good employees are artists at keeping (or looking) busy. Pull the plug, chop the list, and refocus the bullseye.

The Employee Junk Drawer: Busy activities that seem to be important, often delegated by others, but simply cause drag to your organization.

It's been said that one great employee is more valuable than three good employees. Agree?

We've got some great employees on our team, here are some of the lessons I observe from them:

• Seek accountability rather than run from accountability. Good employees have good reasons why things don't get done.
• Embrace Change. With good employees, you find yourself having to invest more time to sell the change.
• Understand the goals of the organization and align their activities to them. Good employees get a lot of stuff done, but regularly the wrong stuff.
• Great communicators and fill in cracks within their teams. Good employees know their jobs pretty well but miss opportunities to keep others in the loop.
• Have integrity and build others. Good employees have integrity and build themselves.

You probably know who these people are at your organization. Your stress level goes down when they walk in the room, they're a breath of fresh air, and you find yourself thinking he/she has it covered... Got great?

Sidenote: The "metrics" on this works as well... Think profitability over a fixed cost, not revenue.

Imagine a broadband Internet network that is 100 times faster than anything you've ever used at home.  Download videos instantly. No more waiting.  In Michiana, this is a real possibility, but we can't do it without community-wide participation.

We received an email from the Associate Vice President for Public Affairs at Notre Dame University with information on this opportunity, and a call for the community to participate. 

The email is below, and here's the breakdown:

• Google is looking for a community between 50,000 and 500,000 homes to test a one-gigabit, fiber optic broadband network
• Local leaders believe that due to factors already in place, South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County can be moved to the top of that list
• Part of Google's RFI (Request For Information) includes wanting to know a community's Internet needs and interests
• Project Future developed a survey to gauge the current service and interests of the community
• Results of the survey will be included in the RFI sent to Google
• The deadline for filling out this survey is tomorrow, Friday, March 19
• You can access the survey here:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ProjectFutureGoogle. 

This would be an amazing opportunity, not only in technology, but to help boost our economy.  So please spread the word and take the opportunity to fill out the survey if you can.

Dear Faculty, Staff and Students,

Google recently issued a call for cities and towns across the country to be considered for a planned test of one-gigabit, fiber optic broadband service to communities between 50,000 and 500,000 homes. South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County are answering the call, coordinating a regional response through Project Future, the local economic development organization.

Google is looking for local governments willing to facilitate installation of a broadband network that will provide speeds averaging 100 times faster than those commonly available to residential customers. This will be a highly competitive process with hundreds of communities trying to win Google’s attention. Local officials and community leaders believe factors already in place can move South Bend, Mishawaka and St. Joseph County to the top of the list.

A portion of the Google RFI (Request For Information) focuses upon a community’s Internet needs and interests.  Project Future has developed a survey to gauge the current service and interests. The results will then be included in the response to Google.

We encourage you to help in this community effort by participating in this brief survey anytime between now and Friday, March 19.   It should take you less than 10 minutes to complete it.  To find the survey, just click on this link:  http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/ProjectFutureGoogle.     

Thank you for participating in this exciting opportunity for our community! 

Tim

Timothy D. Sexton
Associate Vice President for Public Affairs
University of Notre Dame
405 Main Building
Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

Want a sneak peek into tomorrow’s presentation on Getting Your IT Together?  Check out this short vlog (video blog) shot with Eric Huggins (Director of IT Services) and I chatting about the event…  This is our first vlog on our site so thank you for being gracious as we jazz these up a bit in the future…  :)

On March 18th, Eric Huggins will be alongside Craig Sroda giving an inside peek at some of the new technologies that have come out, or are coming out in this next year.  

We'll be touching on:

• IT Strategies and finding the real value for your business
• New technologies, such as Windows 7, Server 2008 R2, Office 2010 and Sharepoint 2010
• How to get beyond installing new technology and getting to the cool stuff that can actually help your organization.
• When and why should I upgrade to Windows 7? How should I plan for it?

The event is free, and breakfast is included.  For details, and to RSPV, go to http://pinnacleit.eventbrite.com/ or call 574-235-8100.

Disclaimer:  Yes, we know there is a mysterious reflection in the background on that video.  If you can identify the reflection, we might even give you a door prize when you come.