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I was pleasantly surprised when my Internet service provider responded competently and quickly to a technical crisis. And, we can learn to communicate more effectively by studying its response. The crisis occurred when hackers attacked its system at the same time that the company was upgrading its systems to meet increased customer demand. And while customers experienced no dramatic shutdowns, some customers faced delays and difficulty getting online. In response, the company quickly sent out a newsletter containing a single article, an open letter from the president. First, the president acknowledged there had been a problem. And, the company took responsibility for the problem. While it attributed at least some of the problems to malicious hackers, it nonetheless took responsibility for the system's integrity. Most of us find it refreshing when a company steps up and does those two things. It communicates self-confidence and it communicates sincere concern for customers. All too often, organizations make poor excuses or point fingers at suppliers and customers; that just makes customers more dissatisfied. Second, the company apologized. In the first sentence of the article, the president said he was sorry for disruptions that subscribers had experienced over the preceding two weeks. By doing that he allowed his readers to get through the rest of the letter with less resistance. They weren't mentally concocting rebuttals - they were reading what he had to say. That's crucial any time you want to make an important point. Third, after taking responsibility and apologizing, the president explained what the company was doing to fix the system. His description of the fixes also took the right tack. He made no attempt to describe the technical nature of the fixes, nor did he try to impress us with how hard he and his people had worked. He simply explained that backup and warning systems were being put into place, and should prevent further outages from the same sources. Fourth, he promised that the affected customers would get two weeks of free service, to compensate for their inconvenience. That's an excellent way to communicate a company's sincerity. While the apology and acknowledgment would satisfy many customers, the offer of compensation underlined a genuine interest in customer satisfaction. So, this effective communication strategy had four parts: first, it acknowledged the problem and took responsibility for it; second, it offered an apology; third, it explained what it was doing to fix the problem; and fourth, it offered compensation to those who had been affected. Of course, simply communicating in a crisis situation won the company some recognition. And having communicated well made the initiative that much effective. In summary, crisis situations make special communication demands on organizations. This company rose to the occasion by not only fixing the problem, but also by communicating effectively with the people who were affected.
This is a guest blog post written by Dave Kawula, a Senior Consultant with 1E. Dave was the guest on our January episode of the AlignIT Manager Tech Talk where we talked about how IT managers can take the risk out of their Windows 7 deployment projects. Here Dave outlines a key strategy to employ at the very beginning of your project and some of the tools that you can use.
As the clock keeps ticking towards end of support for Windows XP we need to find ways to accelerate our Windows 7 Migrations. Just because you accelerate your Windows 7 Migration you don’t have to increase your budget. In fact what if you could do the opposite…accelerate the project and reduce cost. Wait a minute – this is an IT Project. The words “reduce costs” don’t really exist in a typical IT Project. Well maybe they can… Most Windows 7 Projects I have seen project over 80% of the costs for that project on Application Packaging and Remediation. What if there was a way to have an organization quickly rationalize their deployed applications. What if there was a way to remove unused software from a desktop prior to the migration. I can sum it up in one word: “Rationalization”.Well there are a couple of tools out there that can help us out with this. One is the Application Compatibility Toolkit “ACT” from Microsoft. It is a great tool that allows us to gain insight into our organization. This unfortunately requires an agent to be deployed on the workstations and requires us to scan them to see what is installed. Then pull the information back to a central database and try to analyze what is deployed. The second tool is one that many of you will already own and have probably deployed. Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager has a software metering component that will allow us to use simply scan the machines using the Configuration Manager agent. One problem this requires a lot of configuration and won’t automatically pull back unused software to keep licensing in check. The third tool is one from 1E Software call AppClarity. You can checkout a link to this product here: 1E AppClarity I have personally seen AppClarity give money back to an organization in less than 60 Days after the acquisition of their software. Think about it…why waste money getting shelfware or unused software ready for your brand new Windows 7 Desktops. Once again “Rationalize” not only the amount of software that needs to be migrated to the new platform but also the amount of work. Checkout the screenshot below of this software package. It has revolutionized the way I approach Windows Migrations.
So in my perfect world that I live in I need a tool that will do the following for my Windows 7 Project:
If you can drive cost savings at the start of this project you will be well on your way. Gartner has estimated that it costs on average between $1000.00 to 3000.00 + per desktop to migrate to Windows 7. Most of this cost comes from the work required to migrate unused applications. What if you could get back all that time and save hard dollars by removing shelfware before your projects starts. This makes your project sponsors very happy and allows you to accelerate this project. Deployment costs reduced by 30 % simply by “Rationalizing” the number of applications that need to be ported to Windows 7 and automating the delivery mechanisms for the images. You could easily save over $90,000 in soft costs out of the gate. Reduce the amount of Software Renewals, Support, Deployment, and licensing costs. Once again we “Rationalize” all of our apps. Assume a 50% savings for your organization what does that return? How about an estimated 1 /mil + savings in hard and soft costs. By the way – now that you have a tool that helps rationalize this – think of the savings the next time the licensing police come visit you. I hope you have enjoyed this post and I welcome any feedback or if you want to share your experiences with your Windows 7 projects thus far. About Dave Kawula
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Dave Kawula is an MCSE and CNE with over fifteen years of experience in the IT industry and a senior consultant with IE. His background includes data communications networks within multi-server LAN/WAN environments. He has experience with project management, network strategic planning, network design and integration. He has led the architecture for NT, SMS/SCCM, Exchange and Internet Gateways, including managing migration paths and issues as well as implementation. He has supported a variety of network infrastructures as well as architecting and defining technical standards.