Practical Technology Tips & Techniques - October 2002 Newsletter


	EZINE - mde.net - November 2002 Mike Sisco's Practical Technology Tips & Techniques Newsletter You have received this monthly edition of Practical Technology Tips & Techniques Newsletter by subscribing to it or selecting the free tools sample while visiting my web site. For reference to all past issues, go to www.mde.net/ezine. If you cannot view the graphics, go to http://www.mde.net/newsletter/nov02/index.html . This month's articles include: MDE News ------------------------------------ Announcement: IT Management-101 eBook is now free New column planned for HP's IT e-Report Newsletter I. IT Manager Tips ------------------------- Develop your IT staff education plan for next year II. Web Development Tips --------------- Scrollbars Color Customization III. Product and Service Review -------- Overture "Pey per Click" Search Engine Service IV. Entrepreneur Thoughts --------------- Stay with your strengths V. Special Offer of the Month --------- IT Project Management ebook and tools.


	Mike Sisco


	MDE News IT Management-101: Fundamentals to Achieve More eBook is now free For months I have been thinking that every IT Manager should have a copy of IT Management-101. I wish I had something like it 25 years ago when I started my management career. My Internet business has done exceptionally well so I decided to make the book available to anyone that wants it - for free. This book was the second book written for my IT Manager Development Series and sets the foundation for the other 9 books in the series. It is the most popular single book seller in the series and has received excellent reviews. It is also the only book of the series that has been published in paperback form. At only 102 pages in Adobe PDF eBook format, it is a quick read full of insight from my 20-plus years of managing IT. The book includes real life examples and tools to help you implement the discussion points quickly. Why would I give away my most popular single selling book? Simple. Every IT Manager should have a copy so I'm removing every barrier so that any manager that wants it can have it simply by subscribing to my newsletter, another free IT manager resource provided by MDE Enterprises. Knowledge is key to being successful at anything. You will find this book to be packed full of substance written specifically to help you improve your IT management capabilities and to achieve more. Managing technology resources can be difficult and complex. With insight and know-how, it can be much more fun and rewarding. To download your free copy if you are already a Practical Technology Tips Newsletter subscriber, click here. The ebook is zipped along with 7 tools from my IT Manager ToolKit. Free ZIP software is available from www.winzip.com. Tell your IT Manager network (or anyone that can benefit from the book) about this free version and direct them to the web site that allows them to download their free copy. Send them to http://www.mde.net/it101. Better yet, forward them a copy of this newsletter and tell them about the free material. With their subscription, they will receive: - Free Practical Technology Tips & Techniques Newsletter published monthly - 7 free tools from my IT Manager ToolKit - Free IT Management-101 eBook from my IT Manager Development Series It is said that "nothing is free in life". The success of my Internet business has allowed me to make a difference by reaching thousands of IT managers. With the free ebook, I hope to reach many more in my ongoing efforts to help others in their IT management pursuits. Thank you for helping me spread the word.


	New column planned for HP's IT e-Report This month I was selected to write a column for an HP sponsored newsletter titled IT e-Report. The first article will be published in January and discusses the merits of making more IT investments during a slow economy. Four articles have been commissioned for a new column targeted to IT managers. I will also be providing my first articles to Gantthead, an Internet project management community. So far, four articles have been commissioned and will be published soon. In the past year, I have provided more than 70 articles and free downloads for TechRepublic newsletter communities. I write for their CIO, IT Manager, and IT Consulting segments. For a complete list and access to published articles, visit my web site ARTICLES section often. I update it monthly.


	I. IT Manager Tips Develop your IT Staff Education Plan for next year One of the strongest reasons IT employees stay with a company is because they are challenged and have an opportunity to learn. Money is not the primary driver for people leaving their company as many would like to think. Even in this softer economy, you want to do the things that protect your organization from employees leaving prematurely. In any economy, it is difficult and downright painful to replace star performers. In a soft economy, training and education are usually the first budget items to be cut. Unfortunately, this may be the most important tool you have to develop a stronger team capable of achieving greater results for your company. Even so, there is a lot you can do to provide your employees opportunities to learn and to develop their capabilities. Two key tips are to keep everyone busy and focused on tangible activities that have real value for the company. When people are busy, they have a lot less time to complain. Plus, most of us like to be challenged and busy. The second tip is to develop a focused education plan for your staff. A good IT education plan addresses two key needs of the IT organization: 1. Fills expertise gaps 2. Develops bench strength in key skill areas How do you go about developing an effective IT education plan ? Define your needs The first step is to define what your organization's capability needs are. In any IT organization, there are gaps in specific expertise or experience that are important to support the company to the fullest. You don't need experts in every area; many skills can be outsourced if necessary. Take a look at the company's core competencies and be sure you have experts in all key areas that support these core competencies. In addition to filling skill gaps, determine where you need additional capacity in important skills areas of your organization. Critical skill areas need backup in case your expert employee leaves, gets sick, or has to be out for an extended time. Don't be the team that can't move the ball down the field when the starting quarterback gets hurt. Quantify what you have Determine where you have experts and where you have sufficient backup capability. One way to do this is to use an Employee Skills Matrix that I developed years ago and is part of my IT Manager ToolKit. An article was published on TechRepublic that provides additional insight. Click here to read it and to obtain your free download of this tool. The differences define the education needed After you compare what your organization needs with the skills and capabilities you have, the variance will tell you where you need to focus an education plan. Make a list of specific training classes that address the skill gap. After you have this list, start listing classes for specific employees in your organization that make sense. When done with this part, review each employee to define an educational plan designed to help him/her improve skills for the benefit of the organization and the company. Don't forget soft skills such as communication, client service, leadership, and organizational skills. When completed, every employee should have a defined plan of education for next year. Creating a culture that shows your employees that you are interested and committed to their professional development goes a long way toward creating a team that is committed to your company. You don't always have to send employees to formal training classes. Other options that offer excellent benefits include bringing in a speaker, self study classes, books, and other educational materials designed to address the areas of training you need. You can even provide some of the training yourself or use resources within the organization. You might be surprised at how economical a comprehensive plan can be. The key is to develop a targeted training agenda that helps improve the organization's capabilities.


	II. Web Development Tips Scrollbar Colors customization Customize your web site by coloring your document's scrollbars. Visible in IE5.5+, every aspect of the bar can be colorized, from the arrow heads, bar background, to even the bar's shadows. Just add the appropriate color code at the end of each line item below. Three of the items have been completed to give you an example. Just add the following stylesheet into the <head> section of your page: <style> <!-- BODY{ scrollbar-face-color:#75EA00; scrollbar-arrow-color:brown; scrollbar-track-color:#EEEEEE; scrollbar-shadow-color:''; scrollbar-highlight-color:''; scrollbar-3dlight-color:''; scrollbar-darkshadow-Color:''; } --> </style>


	III. Product and Service Review Overture "Pay per Click" Search Engine service Anyone with a web site knows that generating traffic to the site is key. You can have the best web site in the world but without people visiting it, it simply doesn't matter. In June of this year, I was about to conduct a mass mail campaign to try to generate new awareness of my IT Manager Development Series. The plan was to develop a postcard and send it to a mailing list at a cost of about $500 per thousand mailings. If you figure a good response rate on mass mail to be 3%, that would generate 30 visits to my web site for every thousand postcards sent out. The final cost calculates out to be over $15.00 per web site visit. Enter Overture.com ! Overture allows you to bid on key words to list your web page url at the top of a search. An example might be that someone searches on the key word "IT manager" using Yahoo.com. If I have placed a bid on that key word phrase and willing to pay enough for the top position, my web site description and url link will be displayed on Yahoo.com's resulting search page at the top of the list. So far, I haven't spent any money. When the person clicks onto my url link and actually visits my site, an automatic payment is deducted from my money fund maintained by Overture. I can control how much money I'm willing to spend on a key word, and the total expense I'm willing to incur for the month with Overture. Their setup is very flexible and protects the customer (me). At this point, I have bids on about 80 key words that I pay for when a visitor goes to my web site from a search. Overture supports several search engines today including MSN, Yahoo!, InfoSpace, Lycos, AltaVista, and Netscape. The bottom line is that the cost for advertising is significantly less than that for the mass mail example described above. My cost runs around 26 cents per visit. It doesn't get much cheaper than that for targeted traffic that you know is interested in your web site material. Not only is it inexpensive, I know that it produces sales results that more than pay for the service expense. For more information about Overture, go to www.overture.com.


	IV. Entrepreneur Thoughts Stay with your strengths We all have our strengths, , , and weaknesses. It is hard to be good at everything. I learned early as an IBM salesman that sales was not my 'cup of tea'. Little wonder that my career has been absorbed in technology management versus sales. It has been a great career and one that I'm proud of, but it probably never would have happened if I had not had the sales exposure early in my career. We all need to take an objective assessment of our strengths and weaknesses. I've mentioned that one of my weaknesses is sales. Selling internally to the CEO, CFO, or the Board of Directors--no problem. But, put me in a convention where I need to find interested prospects and initiate conversations--forget it !! One of the things that I'm trying to do more and more is to trade services. My skills are in assessing, organizing, prioritizing and planning. I'm also a strong employee motivator and have developed an excellent model for building an Internet business. Currently, I'm testing a program where I pay for networking focus for my company. I find that my time is better spent finding people that can drive the marketing awareness efforts while I focus on developing more material for my IT manager clients. Everyone has core competencies and being able to understand what they are and keep yourself focused on your strengths tends to have better results, in my opinion. Don't get me wrong. I know the value of marketing and selling, but you have to use your resources wisely, no matter how big your company is. Companies that find arrangements with other companies that lead to mutually beneficial results have more success, and it's always more fun working on the things that you truly like to do.


	V. Special Offer of the Month IT Project Management ebook and tools I wrote IT Project Management for my IT Manager Development Series because implementing project initiatives is a critical part of any IT manager's responsibilities. Without sound project management discipline, the IT organization falls short of the company's needs and expectations. Companies need IT to deliver projects on time and within budget. They want a predictable and reliable delivery process. Project management doesn't have to be complex. I wrote my book from a practical vantage point and from a perspective that I know works from experience in managing hundreds of projects in my 25 year career. The book discusses a few tools that are simple and easy to use. These tools are included in the special November offer and include: - Excel Project Management Template - Systems Conversion Project Template ( a detailed plan that will get you started quickly) - Project Kickoff Meeting Agenda - Project Status Meeting Agenda Get the ebook and all four tools for $24.00 through 11/30/02. Click here to learn more.


	Thank you for subscribing to my Practical Technology Tips & Techniques Newsletter. Feel free to share it with others in your network. Mike Sisco Mike Sisco is the author of the IT Manager Development Series and President of MDE Enterprises, an Atlanta based IT management consulting and training company. This newsletter is free and intended to provide a variety of practical technology insights to help you improve your business. All material is copyright protected and is available for your personal use but is not available for resell purposes unless specifically authorized by Mike Sisco. To subscribe to MDE's Practical Technology Tips & Techniques Newsletter, sign up here. Past editions are available at www.mde.net/ezine.