Thank You to the Young for Motivating Me to Do Better

My friend is a young, female, Pakistani budding entrepreneur, writer, and software developer who works with me. I am honored by such words. It does make me want to try harder to have integrity, compassion, creativity and other such "must-have" qualities that are necessary in the world you and I live in today.

.. other blogs from our Super Technologies' team at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/, our online magazine at http://www.techistan.com, our iTunes channel, and DIDX podcasts. Find out how to bring new customers to your telephone company with local phone numbers from 70 countries. We are excited to be a part of helping 1000s around the world start a business, have success and connect with others via our Super Technologies' services such as DIDX, Techistan, Virtual Phoneline, CFMS or HVOIP white label business and more.

Good Bosses Like Carol Bartz Grow People

I used be heavily involved in local Northwest Florida business scene. I still am involved some, but in the last few years I've been traveling too much for Super Technologies, Inc., and when I say I am going to do something, I want to do it. Just read a quote from Yahoo!'s CEO, and it made me remember.

Some of my favorite work was as an ambassador for the Pensacola Bay Area Chamber of Commerce, chairman of ITGulfcoast and participating in Downtown Toastmasters and the Pensacola Bay Area Advertising Federation.

As ambassador, I got to personally meet each new member of the Chamber, usually at their business during their ribbon-cutting. As chairman of the technology group, I gained immense satisfaction by working with Maria Weisnicht, Alan Aldermann, Victor Rojas, Craig Hitpas, and Patrick Rooney in rounding up the hidden technology talent in S.E. USA to showcase at monthly meetings. The P.B.A.A.F.'s meetings were creativity-inducers. Ask my husband Michael Bowen about that.

At one of the last Downtown Toastmasters' meetings I was able to attend, I met a guy who owned a Subway franchise. What I will never forget that he said was, "We are in the business of growing people. We hire them to clean, cook, create, communicate, teamplay, and improve things at our Subway. We mold them. They mold us. We become better people. They become the best, leave, and start or get involved in something even cooler that us, or at least different. It doesn't upset me. I smile about it."

I remember the people, teachers, preachers, parents, and bosses in my life... the ones who suffocated, freed, nudged, squashed, pushed, and/or noticed me. Today, there is one I want to thank that I have not thanked publicly, Dr. Larry Morris, the oral surgeon, who brought his team to Pizza Hut every day for lunch, always asked for me to serve their table and then he hired me as an oral surgeon's assistant because as he said, "You've got people skills like no one I know. You'll brighten up our office. We'll train you. Don't worry."

Thank you, Dr. Larry Morris. I was only 17 years old and those words and your integrity throughout the time I've known you, still inspire me.

"There is a real difference between managing and leading. … Managing winds up being the allocation of resources against tasks. Leadership focuses on people. My definition of a leader is someone who helps people succeed.”

–Carol Bartz, Yahoo! CEO
 
... browse some of our team's other blogs and services at http://blogs.didx.net/ and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/, http://www.didx.net/podcast, http://www.techistan.com/. Find out how to get your telephone company to offer phone numbers from around the world. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

No trust equals less inclination for software team to bond and produce

Jeff Atwood of the Coding Horror blog is my kind of geek, funny, smart, eclectic but at least a little social. I recommend you read him regularly at http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/.

Lots of valuable thoughts such as ... "People who feel untrusted have little inclination to bond together into a cooperative team." This fits all groups. I'm not saying we should bow to our children, students, staff, and teams.

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net/ and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. Find out how to get your telephone company to offer phone numbers from around the world. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

Multi-Lingual Director of VoIP Service Ready for Career Change to Mobile VoIP

Looking to hire a new team member for your company in the USA? I can recommend to you a friend in the industry who has over 15 years experience in telecommunications with Exel Telecommunications, MCI WorldCom/Verizon, and a successful voice over Internet company. He has also worked for IBM and also did Microsoft Consulting in the mid 1990s, and worked with mortgage companies and accounting firms.

He is interested in working for a telecoms company with a growing VoIP and Mobile product offering.

His careers include, from most recent to prior, director of VoIP services, project and network manager, network design and consultant, systems engineer, certified netware engineer, and CAD operator. The gentleman's education is Microsoft Certified Professional SQL Server, Certified Developer, Solaris Administration, Certified Netware Novell Engineer, Certified Data Communications, and Computer Science.

Even though, he may sound like a geek, he is becoming a successful user of social media for business, has traveled and worked abroad and in the USA, and is fluent in Spanish, English and other European languages. His additional skills include network design, TCP/IP, Unix/Linux, routers/switches, VoIP, SIP, ss7, SMPP, UCP, SMS, GMS, quality assurance/process testing, php, c#, .Net, SQL (MS, Oracle, mySQL).

Let me put the right company in touch with him. Contact me on Facebook, leave a comment here with your contact information in the body (won't get published publicly, I promise), or email me suzanne at didx.net.


... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. Find out how to get your telephone company to offer phone numbers from around the world. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

Thank You to the Author of the Wakeup Call Email

"Failure to accept responsibility and quickness to blame" attitude and the dismal, depressing situations it can lead to ... I read this in an email just now. What a wakeup call! Thank you to the author of that email.

In fact, the more we accept responsibility for our actions and the less likely we are to so quickly blame another, the more successful we will be. This applies to Earth, country, state or province, city, province, church, synagogue, mosque, temple, club, organization, business and individual. Stop blaming someone else, and let's get up off our lazy, sniveling ... and buck up.

It's called integrity, truth, confidence and healthy belief in the power of self.

People like to be around those I will call "boomshakalakas" who are positive, confident, successful, not afraid to admit mistakes, find a better way, find and bring out the best in others, and collaborative in nature.

They prefer not to be around those I will call "woeismeeveryonepicksonmes" who blame others, complain, whine, and are always angry, full of pride, and insecurity. I hope 2010 will see you and me as the "boomshakalakas!"

This post is more for me and my reminder than anything else.

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. Find out how to get your telephone company to offer phone numbers from around the world. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

I Want QUALITY, Who Cares about QUANTITY?

First, this blog post is not targeted at one person. It is targeted at every person who puts QUANTITY ahead of QUALITY. It does not work, you all! It does not work.

Why is there this mad rush for quantity? Am I right? Large quantities of people surround you, pushing you, expecting you to amass large quantities of:

1. Twitter followers
2. Facebook friends
3. Multi-tasking at work and play
4. Cell phones
5. Social networking memberships
6. Sales leads
7. How MANY INSTANT MESSENGER WINDOWS can you have going at one time?
8. How MANY services and products can your company provide at one time?
9. Let's see how many projects you can take part in at one time for your company?

Results: NO QUALITY! This is my rant for this month. Those who choose QUANTITY. I am not sorry to say, I do not. I choose QUALITY.

I'm going to run a quality 3 miles in my neighborhood, I'll make a quality cup of coffee with just a little sugar, and I will dig into my quality calls, emails, projects, press releases, website debugging, award applications, HR training, new hosted rebranded client contracts, work for global conferences, etc. etc. etc.

QUALITY! Does everybody hear me? Love y'all. Gotta run!

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

My Boss is Me and I'm Not Slowing Down for Her

Age. What images are created in your mind when you hear that word? I recently heard someone say they were worried about what their boss was going to do as they age and slow down.

Age and slow down? Is there such a thing? I can't speak for others, but I can speak myself and my husband will vouch for me. I used to work Monday - Friday about 6 AM - 6 PM and then start back about 8 PM - 10 PM and I would work another 16 hours or so over the weekend, averaging 80 hours a week. I very rarely complained, and when I did, it only irritated others. But ah! yes! Muaah!

We finally hired more qualified personnel, and I was able to relieve myself of tasks that do not come natural to me and pass to those whom they do. More than ever, I am enjoying our work at Super Technologies, Inc. because I have more time for my family and friends. In addition, the work I do now is what I am good at doing: publicity, marketing, writing, speaking, developing business.

I am definitely not slowing down. The time I used to spend poring over financial records and trying to solve technical problems I didn't understand, I am now reading more, taking my time to *research before writing. I am getting to know the fantastic and inspiring entrepreneurs and businesses all over the world via podcasts, video interviews and face to face at conferences and as a result, delivering content people are actually interesting in!

I finally have the chance to do the things that I always thought are important in business: showcasing the utter veracity, innovation and intelligence among men and women who are our clients, suppliers and vertical or horizontal "partners" in our IP communications social media "industry." I couldn't be happier in profession and career.

When I'm not working, I'm running, biking, doing yoga, playing with grandchildren, discussing books with daughter-in-law, herbal gardening, experimenting with eBay, working on a couple books that I may never finish, checking on all my adopted sons and daughters who work with me.

*Regarding research before writing... people think that writing is not work. If you love it, it doesn't feel like working, but it takes work to produce a piece worth reading, content worth passing on. Which reminds me, I have two very important pieces of writing that are taking much research and thought so that I wish I could work with no interruption for at least 3 days in a row to get them done:

1. The white paper/case study on Fax over IP DID and the demonstrations of this at the ITEXPO West Sept 1-3, 2009 conference, specifically at the DIDXchange booth 125

2. The speech or presentation I'll give at ITEXPO West 2009 in Los Angeles where we are a media partner and exhibitor, basically about "The Natural Fit of Social Media and Business" or something like that

My boss is me, and I'm not slowing down for her. ;-D Next race goal is the Mardi Gras Rock 'n' Roll 1/2 Marathon in New Orleans on Feb. 28, 2010.

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

HR Nightmare Episode 2 and taking submissions

Wow, I already got a new HR Nightmare story. Names have been changed to protect the innocent.

A company in Whoville Commons, hired a thirty - eight year old MSSQL server DBA not from an advertised job but because she put her resume in at the human resources department. She was fresh out of a local college and had just become a "Certified Database Administrator" of her chosen application. While she had held one job part time in the past it was working for another firm in another town while she went to school. Unfortunately at this firm she really only was allowed to do low end workstation maintenance.

While she had been thru college and had a four year degree in computer science she really didn't have that much experience with MSSQL and while she had taken the tests she went to a training school that one of her teachers recommended and instead of going thru the book they basically handed her the answers and read them aloud in class for the time period she was in the training company's boot camp. They do this as they have a guaranteed 100% pass rate. She really didn't realize this was a problem or illegal as the training company presented it as authorized materials.

Since this woman had a fairly good resume and was certified, the company jumped at the chance to get her. It was an amazing opportunity for them as they had a twenty four hour seven day a week mission critical database that had been installed just two years before and they were paying a local company four times what she was making in salary to maintain it. The woman is extemely intelligent and actually had fully memorized the answers to all the test questions which basically gave her a good understanding of the system. She knew enough literally to maintain the system with little or no assistance.

Everything went well for almost two and a half months. After this period of time during a routine weekend morning maintenance the database server started experiencing major high process and blocking locks. The system was virtually crippled, she still apparently had everything under control. She verified what was causing blocking locks and killed the spid. She then ran queries and analysis to try and find out why this kept happening.

Unfortunately she had changed the logging mode of the database when she first arrived to simplify so no changes were recorded. She really didn't understand this as she hadn't read the books and was being kept so busy at work and home because of the company backlog that she couldn't do what ten years ago most people would have considered a normal amount of research for a computer or programming position.

Her backups which were being handled by tape and by the jobs previously setup before her arrival were filegroup and .bak files only to tape and were only backing up one section of the database which she didn't realize. Needless to say during her analysis because she really didn't know how to verify integrity of the data or the specific commands related to the MSSQL server system as they hadn't been test questions she decided to delete the data and readd records as a test.

Well in this instance she deleted over half the database by accident. When she went to do a recovery by restoring the database she had only one filegroup. The company was at a complete loss they relied on their database for multi-site inventory and customer maintenance. The employer called another outside company as she didn't have any other answer than a four or five month reentry of all data.

The outside company sent another certified individual to meet with her and try to look at the system for a possible recovery but it became apparent to the outside company and the owner after they talked that she knew little or nothing about the system. She was fired for the data loss and there was no recovery. The only reason that they knew of the school was because she encouraged the other systems administrators who maintained the system to go get certified thru this company because it was "super quick and super easy" and you didn't even need to read the book, see she had gone into detail with her supervisor and the Systems Administrators.

Because of this the company had to do a paper reentry of which some records were just lost due to age. They felt that since she was so knew that a lawsuit against her would not be profitable or much likelihood of winning. She also did not get turned into the certification company or Microsoft but she helped to make a worse name for the product and the company which had invested in it than anyone could imagine. Can you imagine calling a service company because they forgot to send you a monthly bill?

If you wish to post feel free to edit my horrible writing just don't use my name as one or two of the guys from Whoville would and I quote "never talk to me again" and he is still laughing at the situation. The customers and the poor half bankrupt company are still not amused.

Thanks to the guy from Whoville for submitting. The first HR Nightmare story is at http://suzanne.supertec.com/2009/07/hr-nightmare-episode-1-and-taking.html.

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

High Engagement Equal Better Revenue Growth and Bigger Market Share

What does this mean in every day language? No matter how cool your IP communications or other business mash-up, invention, business idea, or service is... if you do not think that taking time to talk and communicate with your team members, especially management, is important, via email, IM, voice, and video (a combination is best), you will not make as much as money nor grow your market as big and well as if you did take the time.

You cannot just dictate to everyone regarding every minute detail of work what will be done and how it will be done.

What was that again? "High engagement equal better revenue growth and bigger market share," says DHL's vice president of human resources Richard Hediger

In fact, leaders in a company who communicate with their team on a regular and meaningful basis, are the best of leaders. This is one of the best ways to keep GOOD employees. When you avoid voice conversations, face to face conversations and DO NOT allow any discussion of issues that will have an important impact on the employees, customers and suppliers, you are basically telling your team that they are do not matter, you don't care if they stay, and you are living in "La Dee Da" land.

Note to self: Think about this extremely important wise saying by DHL's vice president of human resources Richard Hediger and put it to work, Suzanne.

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

No Jealousy Among the Super Technologies Team

One of the many things that I have always admired about our Super Technologies, Inc. team (who work with clients on DIDX, Virtualphoneline, Super-phone, IP-pabx, etc.) is the fact that I have never seen anyone express jealousy toward another. It's more like everyone can't wait to see each other do well. When one person succeeds in composing the right words written or spoken that:

1. Helps an angry customer.
2. Solves a problem.
3. Sells in a soft enough way that does not turn off a client.
4. Settles a row among the team.
5. Debates an internal issue with a neutral third party point of view.
6. Responds in a kind and intuitive way to customers and suppliers who make prejudicial remarks about accent, nationality, religion or other characteristics of our team who have or are in many areas of the world: China, Malaysia, Mexico, Pakistan, Poland, Singapore UK, and UAE.

I can't help it. I really love our team at Super Technologies, Inc. from developers who know how to think like customer service representatives and CSRs who know how to suggest development improvements. I am a very lucky lady.

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

How to Treat your Over-achieving Team Members

Once upon a time, I worked for Kelly Services so that I could get new job experiences quickly and see the world in new ways. One of the places I worked at was Johnson's Supply who sold wholesale industrial supplies. Their one complaint to me was to slow down because they would run out of things for me to do.

When your hardest working, proactive staff do things like:
1. Try to talk to you face to face about major and crucial issues.
2. Try to suggest new ways to do things.
3. Refuse to write logs that list only five items when they do a range of 50 or more major categories of tasks.
4. Inform you that property the company gave them was stolen by someone else.
5. Get way more done in one day with high quality results that your other employees.
6. Try to work through team efforts, not always by themselves.
7. Try to discuss with you why they are unhappy working with you and that they are considering... leaving the company.
8. Ask why they have been making less than $21,000 USD per year for 6 years and would like a raise to say... $24,000 USD per year.

Don't:
1. Tell them that they should take care of this on email or IM. You are saying to them that they are of no value to you, not valuable enough to talk to face to face about the company.
2. Tell them keep their new ideas to themselves or argue each suggestion down as not usable.
3. Insist on the log when you will not read it and when you might start reading the first few lines of the emails they copy like they read all of your complete emails. Or start sending them a log every day also.
4. Lay them off or fire them. Instead, begin a police investigation and keep them on!! Of course!
5. Give them twice more to do and get upset when they don't get it done before 5 PM.
6. Tell them it is their job and not to involve anyone else.
7. Respond that they are dispensable, tell them you will replace them with someone at less than their current wages, and that, "I don't work for you. I don't even work for myself." Or... that your boyfriend has been good for the company. WT ... O?
8. Tell them you can replace them for less. Instead, thank your lucky stars they have not left you. You need them, and there is nothing to be ashamed of in admitting that.

Get a grip, CEOs, bosses, presidents, all the head honchos. You will lose your best people.


... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

Executive Level High Performance Experience Ready for Hire

Check this friend who is available for a new career with your company. If you are interested, message me on Facebook. Proper names are eliminated to keep this neutral while being publicly posted.

Suzanne's friend, a person with a great background of experience and a great personality
Somewhere in California

EXECUTIVE-LEVEL: Sales, Marketing, Business Development, Program Management

Seasoned leader with more than 15 years of experience impacting corporate bottom line through skillful orchestration of sales/marketing operations on national/international platforms.
Establish new revenue streams, develop/grow sales channels, drive new customer acquisition, and expand existing business.
Build top performing teams focused on achieving corporate goals. Continuously provide staff members with the training, support, guidance, and motivation to succeed.
Advanced communicator in English with knowledge of Spanish and Mandarin.


Project Management .. Target Marketing .. Telecommunications .. Policy Development
Business Development .. Contract Negotiations ..Client Relations .. Presentations
Product Marketing and Lifecycle Management .. Business Planning/Forecasting
Start-Up Operations .. Team Leadership .. Training/Development
Strategic Alliances/Partnerships .. Sales Automation


PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE

An Impressive Company in California - 2007 to present
Business Development Manager

Developed and built the “............” OEM and System Integrators strategy and tactics with focus on the introduction of the new Xmedia Media Gateway. Specializing in VOIP, SS7 Signaling Gateways, Soft Switches, IVR, SIP, and FMC for the Enterprise, Mobile, and Wire-line sectors.

Key responsibilities:
Know and contribute to An Impressive Company in California business strategy and competitive positioning, with a focus on product launch and establishing market share.
Work closely with potential and existing customers to identify requirements and establish how Xmedia products address their platform and multi-media services needs
Worked with the field organization to deliver An Impressive Company in California solutions to the market in the most relevant form.
Worked with sales, marketing and engineering teams to execute the sales strategy to ensure that sales targets are met or exceeded in marketplace.
.
A California COMMUNICATIONS in California 2006- 2007
Sales Director

Multimedia solutions for triple play/3G applications, providing NGN Voice/Video/Fax and Data processing for telecom equipment manufacturers including developers of media gateways, media servers, conferencing, IMS and CTI applications. Market and target account sales development

PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGIES, China/New York/California.. 1992-2006
Global provider of systems, platforms, components, and software solutions for communications infrastructures to client bases in the US, Asia, India, and South America. Annual revenues of $54M.



Vice President of an organization (2003-2006)
Commanded strategic development of Pacific Rim and South American markets. Led business development operations ranging from marketing planning, channel development, localization, and pricing to workforce training throughout Asian locations. Served as primary leadership force of 10 channel sales organizations, developing, supporting, and coordinating a team of 30+ representatives. Delivered pre-/post-sales support, account development, and proposal generation. Conducted technical presentations, client needs analysis, and establishment of customized plans to address individual business needs.

Major Contributions:
Boosted sales in Korea territories by 150%, China by 250%, and South America by 500%.
Pioneered the organization's first Chinese joint marketing, manufacturing, and IP licensing partnership.
Elevated organizational performance and recognition through successful development of localized brand awareness and corporate regional visibility.
Developed 200+ accounts through skillful targeting of China, Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and Singapore markets. Clients included CITIC, Huawei, Samsung, Evoc,China Unicom, Suntek, NEC, LG, Trunkbow, Citic1616, and Mitac.
Achieved start-up and development of the China office offering technical support services.


PERFORMANCE TECHNOLOGIES

Vice President-Business Development (2000-2003)
Chosen to drive development of Pacific Rim and South American markets focused on a special venture targeting the creation of North American carrier market for signaling products. Spearheaded sales, strategic market planning, business development, channel development, brand marketing, localization, pricing, and personnel training operations.

Major Contributions:
Opened new revenue streams with the development of a strategic partnership with Brightstar-a $1B distributor with 20 offices throughout South America.
Impacted bottom line through expansion of APAC channels comprised of 17 indirect sales offices and 100+ sales/support personnel.
Closed major deals with leading organizations such as Adlink, Uangel, Missouri Networks, Samsung, Sixbell, and NEC.

Vice President-Sales and Marketing (1996-2000)
Orchestrated global sales and marketing operations for a diverse line of products (networking, communications, and connectivity solutions), leading talented team of 25 specialists. Cultivated strategic partnerships to fuel revenue generation within competitive markets nationally and internationally. Directed market development, lead generation, trade advertising, trade show participation, account development, sales/marketing management, product management, strategic product planning, pricing, contract negotiations, and acquisition integration. Functioned as speaker and panel member at industry trade shows, seminars, and academic institutions.

Major Contributions:
Propelled revenues from $7M to $45M through turnaround of at-risk unit. Established sales management, field/in-house support, sales automation, forecasting, product planning, and sales agreement plans focused on achieving corporate growth at minimal cost.
Contributed to major enhancements in the areas of operations, finance, IPO, and MIS.
Vitalized sales units corporate-wide through creation/implementation of administrative, customer support, contracts, forecasting, product planning, and customer/sales management standards that are still in use today.
Played a key role in successful IPO PTIX (NASDQ) and due diligence of acquisitions.
Awards:
2 Awards that I Suzanne Bowen had to delete because it gives away too much. I'd rather speak directly to those interested in hiring my highly qualified friend.

National Sales Manager (1992-1996)
Directed sales operations targeting domestic and global platforms. Coordinated global network of regional sales managers and marketing specialists located throughout the US and Europe. Identified and addressed operational discrepancies through implementation of sales administration and management systems.

Major Contributions:
Increased European sales by 300% in 1 year.
Captured the largest single order in the company's history totaling over $13.5M.
Sharpened performance of embedded products through restructuring of sales plans/programs.
Maximized territory coverage and overall revenue generation through sales force expansion.
Grew profits by supporting the closing of key accounts with industry giants such as Sun, Lockheed Martin, Nortel, Qualcomm, Westinghouse, Lucent, and Hewlett Packard.
Successfully completed GSA schedule and negotiated all sales agreements.

EDUCATION/TRAINING

Pennsylvania State University, Pennsylvania, PA
Bachelor of Science in Business Administration

Training/Coursework:
Xerox Selling Skills, Frank Karass-Negotiation Skills, ADP/Telecommunications in the Federal Government, Dale Carnegie, GSA and Prime/Subcontractor Relationships, Labor and Employment Law, Learning International Account Development Strategies, David Sandler-Selling System


** Related and Reference Press Releases Available Upon Request **

Jim Collins is Right, Get the Best People

Me? I just cannot get over what a lucky person I am to be surrounded by family, friends, team members, customers and vendors who inspire, care about, and challenge me every second of every day. One of my goals for this year is to showcase the fantastic talent among the Super Technologies, Inc. team. Dan and I discussed his one year anniversary on the SuperTec team as of May 5, 2009 on the DIDX podcast area.

We take to heart Jim Collins' quote, "If I were running a company today, I would have one priority above all others: to acquire as many of the best people as I could. I'd put off everything else to fill my bus. Because things are going to come back. My flywheel is going to start to turn. And the single biggest constraint on the success of my organization is the ability to get and to hang on to enough of the right people."

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

Worst Way to Motivate Employees

Don't try to make your team feel sorry about the bottom line of the company. The best will LEAVE.

Our company has been really lucky since 1999 to have hard-working and extremely self-motivated/intrinsically motivated team and leadership. Our bottom line and number and quality of clients and partners and suppliers have improved each year also.

We would never try to motivate our team in the following manner: I read an email where I was cc'd by a CEO of another company to her employee. She used a threat of the fact that their company was low on money and wouldn't be able to pay bills to push her over-achieving employee to get moving even more.

Hmm... that would not motivate me at all. I think I might be looking for another job. Don't say things like that to your team, especially if that person is one of your top and over achievers.

Does Someone Keep Stomping on Your Ant Pile?

Ever know you and your team at work are just on it, pumping out great services and solutions so well together almost as if it were all choreographed by angels?

Like...



And then...



Talk with your team about why? And do you want to prevent it? Does it get in the way of progress or make way for new ideas? Do you know that the crazy people who stomp on your ant pile are actually maybe helping you to not get too comfortable? But if it is done too often, doesn't it take minutes, maybe years off your life and lead to high blood pressure and headaches? Do we all take turns doing it to each other at work? (I'm laughing here, sorry.) Ok, Suzanne! Back to work!

... browse some of our team's other blogs at http://blogs.didx.net and http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/. You're welcome to comment, contribute, and collaborate any time.

Sorry but EthnoFrigginCentrism Costs Big Bucks

There's a trend that I wrote about in my TMC blog at http://blog.tmcnet.com/monetizing-ip-communications/2008/08/ethnocentricity-de-tizes-ip-communcations.html.

You and I lose financial, professional, social and personal opportunities because of our prejudices. I get about 900 - 1000 emails per day that are not spam.

On average 10 per day have some racial, gender, geek vs marketing types, religious, ethnocentric slurs, or lifestyle prejudicial statements and judgements. I bite my nails, get angry, as I realize what is being lost because of...

the IGNORANCE.

I've seen quality people not get hired because they are Mexican, Muslim, Jewish, Atheist, female, Caucasian, German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese, and so on. Whiskey tango foxtrot, Oscar?

I've seen Japanese vs Chinese, Europeans vs the rest of the world, Americans who will stick with Palin no matter what she is found guilty of, Pakistanis versus Indians, Saudis and Argentinians perceived as stuckup; geeks versus people who are not included among the geeks because of the way they speak, where they are from, their gender, their religion; men looking at women in technology as fluff and background, women believing it...

Or just any homogeneous group so tight-knit who keep talking about innovation and wondering why it is not happening. FACE IT. IT's YOU and ME who ARE GUILTY.

Carlos Mencia's verbal noises say it all, "Dee dee dee." Or to borrow from my favorite tech geek, my husband, "If you're not offended, you're not listening."