Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 11:14AM Aric Bandy Agosto's CEO visits Google's Campus in Mountain View, California to participate in a discussion with Google and Connectwise (a leading IT Professional Services Automation Tool) about how Google Apps is changing the way businesses collaborate.
Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 11:58AM 
Front of shirt
Back of Shirt
Aric Bandy recently went out to Google to work on a tv spot and further collaboration. We did this as a sign of our appreciation to the Google Engineers and related staff. We made some gift bags with products from the clients we migrated to Google Apps. Instead of the usual "swag," like a branded cup we went with some "unique swag." The logos being swatted down are the usual suspects in mail platforms. Whenever we can, and if it makes sense, we continue to help our customers move to the cloud for mail and collaboration.
If you want one a shirt let us know, there are a few left.
The model in the picture is Dylan, one of our unwavering engineers.
Friday, May 22, 2009 at 11:05AM While consulting I’m often asked about the applications and tools I use.
Here’s a list of the tools I use:
Get Dropbox (online file storage): www.getdropbox.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com
Google Apps: www.google.com/a
Short URLs: http://bit.ly/
News: www.digg.com / www.fark.com
Teleconferencing: www.skype.com / Google Chat / www.tokbox.com
Blogging: www.wordpress.com / www.squarespace.com
Universal Instant Messenger: www.digsby.com
Credential Management: http://keepass.info/
Intranet: http://www.backpackit.com/ Google Sites
Thursday, April 23, 2009 at 6:04PM I recently had an opportunity to present at the Rotary Club of Minneapolis. I presented an overview on two topics that continually arise in my IT Steering Committees and consulting engagements: Cloud Computing and Social Networking. These are two trends that are drastically changing the way business is done today.
Click here to download the presentation:
Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at 9:47AM 
This is the day many of us have been waiting for - Google mail (Gmail and Google Apps) can now be accessed offline. Many of the organizations that we've helped implement Google Apps have retained Outlook for a subset of their users simply because they need to access email offline. Those users need not wither any longer under the bloated, resource-intensive restraints of Outlook. In an era where we've heard a lot about choice, we finally have a true choice. - Aric Bandy
From Google's Blog: We're making offline Gmail available to everyone who uses Gmail in US or UK English over the next couple of days, so if you don't see it under the Labs tab yet, it should be there soon. Once you see it, just follow these steps to get started:
Sunday, November 23, 2008 at 7:40PM Google and the Enterprise from Irfan Khan on Vimeo.
Here is the slide presentation that Tom Mills ran through. If it's hard to see Tom's slides in the video, you can click along using the presentation below. We had the opportunity to spend some time with Tom Mills the night before the event and left impressed about the direction Google is taking. I also got a overview of the Google Search Appliance, I can't wait to get my hands on one. Tom Kelly of 2nd Wind Fitness also joined us that evening and shared his Google App experiences. You can see a video on 2nd Wind and Google Apps here: The next Executive Luncheon in our series will have a featured customer who uses a VoIP service we helped implement. Kevin May, CIO at Catco Parts and Service, will be presenting Managed Voice: How to eliminate the headache of telco providers?. There is limited availability for this event so sign up soon. Like the last two events, lunch is included. A good hearty meat and potatoes kind of meal. The event will be on Dec 17th, at 11:45am, hope to see you there. Register here for this event: Register More detail about this event: Executive Luncheon: Managed Voice -- DetailsSaturday, September 6, 2008 at 12:16PM Saturday, September 6, 2008 at 10:44AM Is a server-less IT strategy possible in the mid-market / enterprise space? Can an organization leverage SaaS and outsourced partners to effectively remove all premise-based IT? No one doubts the success of SaaS / ondemand applications for specific functions like CRM (Salesforce.com, Rightnow.com), Financial Modeling (Adaptive Planning), ERP (NetSuite, Plex), etc. But few mid-market and enterprise companies are attempting an entirely SaaS / ondemand strategy.
One of obstacles is file storage and management. As an IT Director, file storage and management is a crucial part of a healthy backup, disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity plan (BCP). Untill recently, I have not found a decent SaaS storage solution that could replace the local server or storage appliance. The ideal would be a solution similar to offline files and folders, the ability to sync local files and folders with a server or storage appliance. Getdropbox is one such solution that could replace the local server for file storage and sharing. I'm beta-testing www.getdropbox.com and it functions almost identically to offline files and folders. I drop files into a local directory and they are sync'd almost immediately. I loose my Internet connection or I'm on an airplane and I can access all my local files. When I come back online, the directories sync. Additionally, all my files are backed up in case my laptop fails or is stolen. Best of all - no servers are required. The solution is still in early stages of testing and presently you're only allowed 2GB of storage but if this is any indication of what's in our future we may one step closer to an entirely server-less IT solution.
Aric Bandy
Friday, August 29, 2008 at 9:30AM Implementing a SaaS based employee appraisal system will enable achieving your strategic goals and tactical objectives.
During the famous Apollo 13 space mission in 1970, the astronauts on board the ship and Mission Control personnel on the ground at NASA were faced with one of their worst nightmares. An explosion had left the crew with a dwindling oxygen supply and failing power, making it not only impossible for the crew to complete their mission to walk on the moon, but also very unlikely they would survive the trip back home on their crippled spacecraft.
When astronaut Jim Lovell spoke the famous words, "Houston, we have a problem," the scientists and engineers at Mission Control did not form committees, hire outside consultants or schedule off-site meetings to discuss the situation. The team knew that it had one goal – bring back the astronauts alive. This goal guided every action the Mission Control team took, and ultimately they were successful (even if the space craft was a little worse for wear).
While today's business environment is usually not as dramatic as this, many organizations struggle to practically align their strategic objectives with tactical elements to meet their overarching mission. They may have several distinct and unrelated goals that create organizational confusion, or they may have one goal but no clear idea of the types of initiatives and projects they need to get them to their destination. One way that some organizations are resolving challenges such as these is through the implementation of a Business Alignment Model (BAM) combined with a tool to provided each and every employee with feedback on how the activities they perform aid in the overall goal or mission of the company.
Business Alignment Model
A BAM is a performance measurement system that provides a pragmatic and actionable way to translate an organization's strategy into operational terms, improving upon some of the basic concepts of a balanced scorecard model.
A BAM serves as a tool to convert the strategy of the organization into a form that everyone understands. It provides a method of setting goals and measuring and tracking performance, as well as a report card for the organization. A BAM is a flexible tool designed for adjustment and growth as organizational learning, strategic feedback, and communication improves.
Similar to a balanced scorecard model, a BAM tracks financial metrics as well as the intangible factors that create value within an organization. Where the two models differ is in how the components work together. A BAM is not predicated entirely on several components that may have their own distinct goals, objectives and measurements. Rather, a BAM is built upon a single, financial goal that each component in the system feeds up to.
A BAM does not place equal emphasis on measurement of intangible elements of a business and financial objectives. Rather, intangible measures are implicitly reflected through the success in meeting the overall goal of the organization.
The relationships between a company's core mission/vision and other components of the model are shown in the attached BAM PDF.
BAM Process
A BAM process begins with executive management taking the steps to set the organization's agenda. From a broad sense, those steps include: - Engaging leadership to describe the high-level business strategy for each of their areas.
- Identifying the financial gap between the organization's current position and targeted goal. - Setting the target for what is possible.
- Identifying initiatives that can be launched today to improve operations. - Understanding and synchronizing interrelationships between initiatives.
- Prioritizing initiatives and pulling the trigger when appropriate.
As shown in the attachment, the plan developed from these steps is structured in a rough pyramid format, creating a top-down, linear relationship between the overall vision of the organization and tactical projects. Every action within the organization is designed to play a part in achieving the mission of the company– from the high-level strategic objectives down to each employee's annual performance goals.
The goals are reviewed from the strategic items to the tactical projects quarterly. This is where Halogen is a perfect fit for enabling strategic and tactical success. It will allows a company to quickly provide feedback down to the individual level, determine if goals and objectives are attained, or if continued focus is necessary or in the case where additional objectives need to be added it can be done in a very structured, concise and efficient manner. So "Everyone" in the organization knows how they are doing on an individual basis as well as how their actions are helping or in some cases hindering the Company's ability to achieve its mission.
Each component in a BAM includes a qualitative definition, such as “Our mission is to be the industry leader in widgets,” combined with a quantitative metric, such as “Improve operating profit 8% by end of fiscal year,” that will help leadership understand if the goal has been achieved or not.
Structurally, the model consists of four basic layers — the organization’s vision, strategic objectives, broad initiatives and projects – enabling a management team to view their organization’s performance in a holistic way.
Vision
Like the Apollo 13 example, every company must have a vision or overarching goal that guides their actions. Without a vision, a company is wandering aimlessly through the marketplace, waiting for something to happen to it instead of taking a proactive stance to create its own path. Again, vision drives all of the metrics in a BAM system.
Strategic Objectives
Strategic objectives set by the management team center around three core business areas: business processes (such as financial operations), learning and growth (focusing on employees), and customer experience. Each of these core areas help executives prioritize what key issues need to be addressed to achieve the organization’s primary goal.
Strategic objectives in a BAM should be set based on a long-term timeframe, such as three to five years. Doing so helps the organization approach a BAM initiative as a process, not a quick fix to larger business issues.
Broad Initiatives
Broad initiatives serve as the framework for tactical elements, that as a whole, help to meet the goal of each strategic objective. The measurements of success for these components are generally set on a shorter timeframe, such as one year.
Projects
Projects are the base components within a BAM that feed into the broad initiative level of the hierarchy. For any particular broad initiative, there may be one major project designed to achieve the goal set forth in the broad initiative, or several depending on the complexity of the goal.
Development Feedback
As part of a BAM process, employees visit with their managers each quarter and review goals set at an individual level. These individual goals, the most basic building blocks in the BAM hierarchy, are designed to collectively strengthen the organization’s efforts in achieving its mission. Whether it is a janitor’s goal to decrease the cost of cleaning supplies used in the facility, or a marketing manager’s goal to consolidate its outside advertising and public relations agency relationships, the objectives set at the individual level allow the employees to understand how they fit into the larger BAM picture.
BAM Benefits
To be clear, there is no such thing as a perfect BAM. Business conditions change, and businesses must change with them to survive. But a well-executed BAM will help a company realize several benefits.
Clarifies a company’s vision and ensures strategies are aligned with one another. A BAM allows an organization to understand what it is trying to achieve, how and when it will do it, and how it will measure success. A BAM maintains an end-to-end holistic business view that will synchronize projects and initiatives with business strategy.
Ensures critical business goals are clear. A BAM provides explicit “key operating criteria” to the organization, giving context to project prioritization.
Establishes a broad framework for performance improvement. With the guidance of leadership’s strategic directions for the business, a BAM helps define a vision for “how we will operate in the future.”
Combines long-term, strategic objectives with short-term improvement projects. Projects can address their specific issues as well as create new opportunity and enhance the overall infrastructure.
Conclusion
Without an actionable, strategic plan with a single goal, the Mission Control team at NASA would not have been successful in their objective to safely bring the Apollo 13 crew home. The same general principle applies to any company wrestling with issues such as addressing internal inefficiencies, enhancing the organization’s employee development process, or winning market share.
A BAM is a powerful tool that translates the strategy of the organization into a form that everyone understands. A BAM is a report card for the company, giving management a flexible tool to set goals and measure and track performance at every level of the organization. While similar concepts exist between a BAM and balanced scorecard model, the main difference lies in a BAM’s focus on a single, overarching goal that each component in the system feeds up to.
Friday, August 29, 2008 at 9:30AM