GCC All Staff IT Presentation

Last Wednesday I had the privilege of unveiling our new GCC IT Best Practices document at our weekly all staff meeting.  I was also allotted a very short amount of time, 15mins, to go over the document and educate our staff on anything IT related they should all know or be reminded of.

It's very rare that IT gets center stage to present at an all staff meeting ... last time was when Indiana changed time zones back in March of '06!  Being so rare, I had to ensure I covered all the key items I've wished I could publicly address to our entire staff ... however, in such a small time space only the essential items would make the cut.

The actual presentation took 17mins almost to the second ... would have been a tad shorter but 2 people asked questions ... how dare they! ;-)

It's amazing how much prep time it took to maximize those 17mins.  Kem helped me filter the talking points down to 5 main areas.  From there I easily had 6 hours of time invested in the content development and rehearsal.  I rehearsed the whole presentation out loud a good 15 times ... timing each one and making notes along the way.  Our senior management team gave me a unique opportunity and I wasn't going to waste it on poor preparation. 

The presentation went off even better than I had planned.  I made it fun, lively, and memorable ... and wow did I get great feedback from many folks afterwards.  Several said "I didn't know anyone could make IT stuff fun!" :-)
I actually love presenting though I don't get to flex that skill very often these days ... don't forget I used to teach high school so I have a lot of experience being a "presenter."

I brought my laptop along to record the audio ... and for those interested you can listen to the entire presentation below.  Here also are the 5 talking points I landed on ... ENJOY!

· Standardization: allows for compatibility, knowledge transfer, decreased costs and downtime and improved response time. You decide to purchase, download or install something that’s not on the list and don’t use IT…you’re at the back of the line. If you want team support, play by team rules. 

· Purchasing: Centralization of all technology purchases leverages our church buying power and helps with support and compatibility. Even if you’re the one paying for it, IT is always a stakeholder. This applies to mobile phones, software, hardware, etc. IT doesn’t have to approve your every move, but it’s in the best interest of you and the ministry of GCC to include them in your decision making process. In other words, even if it’s a personal purchase, you’ll end up using it for work which makes IT a Stakeholder. Don’t cut them out of the conversation, it’ll hurt you and the rest of the team when you do. 

· Security: Your login is YOUR login.  Goodbye 'password' and hello 'passphrase'.

· File Storage: Server storage isn't cheap. Don’t store your personal music and photos in your My Documents. IT can help make recommendations on where to store your personal data. 

· Support reminders: Don't send support requests to Jason or Ed. Use our support system to make sure your request is captured and tracked to ensure you get the best service.  Also make sure you tell us when you're experiencing issues rather than letting it go for weeks until you're about to go postal.

UPDATE: by request here's the actual document: Download it_best_practices.docx or

Download it_best_practices.doc

* If the embedded audio doesn't work for ya try this

Comments

[CindyK]

Hey Jason, I've been reading your Blog since last year, and as usual this is great stuff. I took the time to listen to it, and you presented it in a way that made people feel comfortable and fostered an atmosphere of trust. I liked it.

Now... how much of this can I scarf? *grin*

I've been working on a Best Practices and Acceptable Use Documents for our Church. All the research I have done has lead me down a very narrow and legalistic path. I'm not legalistic in my Worship, I don't want to be legalistic in my IT policy.

We are of the same mind when it comes to a liberal computer use policy. I'd rather try and educate people what the risks are, then let them decide if their outreach programs on MySpace and FaceBook are with the risks.

I am very serious when I ask if I might take your outline from your Blog and the audio I listened too and mold it into our own personal policy for our Church? It would help me out a great deal. Thank you!

[Jason Powell]

Cindy,
I think I can hook u up :-)

[Mike]

Jason, A DOCX Document? I thought you were better than that! Tsk tsk tsk.. Can I get it in good old DOC format? :-)

[Matt]

Jason --

Thanks for sharing the audio of your presentation. I especially liked the analogy to Southwest with regard to standardizing. I've been trying to find a good way to present that topic at work and that should do just the trick. It's a real-world tangible thing that most people are familiar with, and that makes it great for presenting to management. Hope you don't mind if I stea-- er, um, borrow that idea...

Luckily that's not a problem at church. Being the one-man volunteer IT shop for a smaller congregation (relative to GCC anyway), I pretty much get to make all those decisions myself!

The Best Practices guide is great too. Thanks for sharing!

[Steve Lavey]

Any chance we could get it on doc format....still running old office products :)

[Steve Lavey]

Any chance we could get it on doc format....still running old office products :)

[Jason Powell]

DOC format added :-)

Looks like Typepad created a zip file of the files ... so download then unzip 'em.