Bay Area IT Management
Where technology experts at Endsight share their expertise on IT Management, the issues that arise for clients, and the benefits of technology for medical practices, biotech firms, law firms, financial services and other small businesses in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Aug 24th, 2009
by Jason Clause Filed under: Business & Management, General, Marketing, Media
I received this e-mail from the San Francisco Business Times last week.The publisher is taking applications from Bay Area firms for the publications list of the bay areas most admired CEOs.
If you admire your CEO, I suggest that you give this a look. Accolades are always nice and this is an easy way to bring your business leader and your business to the attention of the San Francisco Business Times’ readership.
After the year that we’ve had I think that completing this application is a great way of reminding ourselves of how hard we have worked and the admirable decisions we’ve made. If you are the CEO and you are too modest to bring this to the attention of one of your teammates, send me a note and perhaps I could nominate you. The application process is web-based and seems easy enough. I’ve re-posted the announcement here and have included a link to the original message from the San Francisco Business Times.
The San Francisco Business Times will honor 12 outstanding leaders of Bay Area enterprises in a special report, and at a gala awards dinner recognizing the Bay Area’s Most Admired CEOs Thursday, November 19 at the Hilton San Francisco.
We will honor CEOs in 12 categories, including public companies, private companies, emerging growth companies, a non-profit CEO, a small-business CEO, as well as an Innovator and a Lifetime Achiever.
This is a celebration of leadership at its best. It is an opportunity to recognize the CEOs who give the most to their companies, their people, their industries and their communities.
Which CEO deserves the nomination from your organization?
NOMINATION DEADLINE: September 4, 2009
Honorees will be selected by an independent panel of judges. Judges will evaluate these qualities: leadership, values, vision, company financial performance, work environment, community contribution, innovation and overcoming adversity.
Nominees must be present November 19 to receive the award. Nominees will be selected from the SFBT coverage area, including the counties of San Francisco, San Mateo, Marin, Alameda, Contra Costa and Solano.
The “Bay Area Most Admired CEO Awards” is presented by the San Francisco Business Times and Accenture.
Don’t miss this chance to recognize your most admired CEO!
About Jason:Originally from the great state of Ohio Jason Clause relocated to the Bay Area to work in high-tech. A veteran of the dot com boom and bust, Jason has more than 10 years experience helping small businesses apply information technology to improve business process and increase revenue. Jason lives in Dublin, California with his wife Jennifer and enjoys hiking, cooking and quiet time at home. His hobbies include golf, snowboarding, creative writing and performing amateur stand up comedy.
Tags: Bay Area, CEO Awards, CEO Nomination, leadership, NOMINATE, nomination deadline, san francisco business times, small-business, Technology
Aug 18th, 2009
by Jason Clause Filed under: Software
One reader is locked out of a brand-new copy of Microsoft Office. Will the folks in Redmond help him?
Microsoft wants its customers to believe that installing software is as simple as loading a disc into the CD drive and clicking okay. Sometimes it’s that easy, and sometimes it’s not. When it’s not that easy, what are customers supposed to do?
Here’s the Reader’s Digest version of the article. A remote user needs to upgrade from Office 2003 to Office 2007. His IT department ships him the Office 2007 disk and a licensing key. The user is instructed to put the disc into the CD drive, enter the licensing key, and cross his fingers. The installation doesn’t go the way that it’s supposed to, and he needs help. The end user calls Microsoft and gets the runaround.
Microsoft is in the business of developing software. They offer support, but that’s not one of the businesses that they make money on. Instead, Microsoft works through an immense network of partners to provide support.
EndSight for example, is a Microsoft Gold certified partner that specializes in, among other Microsoft titles, Microsoft Office 2007.
The EndSight team knows software like office 2007 inside and out and that experience allows the us to sidestep known issues in a deployment. But on the off chance that we get stumped, we know how to navigate the Microsoft support apparatus. As a result, our clients experienced smooth deployments that are frustration free.
At EndSight, we make it our responsibility to manage our clients licensing. This includes the requirements planning that determines the necessity of the new software in the first place, the purchase & life cycle management of a particular software title and the organizational deployment of that software.
There’s rarely such a thing as a flawless deployment. Computers are temperamental and there’s always going to be problems that creep up. To address that issue, Endsight builds ample time into the deployment plan to assure the resources are there to help users, the day after the deployment is completed.
“This kind of problem would never happen to one of our clients. We would take ownership and work it all the way through.” Says,
Will Lee, Endsight’s Response Center Team Lead.
Will joined Endsight in 2005 after graduating from the University of California San Luis Obispo. A Microsoft Certified System Engineer, Will is in charge of the day to day operation of the EndSight
Response Center.
Endsight’s Response Center is fully staffed from 7-7 Monday - Friday and supplemented by off hour pager support. This allows Endsight to provide their clients 24×7 reactive support. Each team member works out of the firms Berkeley office, has a four year college degree, and maintains various Microsoft Professional Certifications.
About Jason:
Originally from the great state of Ohio Jason Clause relocated to the Bay Area to work in high-tech. A veteran of the dot com boom and bust, Jason has more than 10 years experience helping small businesses apply information technology to improve business process and increase revenue. Jason lives in Dublin, California with his wife Jennifer and enjoys hiking, cooking and quiet time at home. His hobbies include golf, snowboarding, creative writing and performing amateur stand up comedy.
Tags: Endsight, installing software, it management, Jason Clause, Microsoft, microsoft office 2007, microsoft support, microsoft titles, Office, outsourcing
Aug 10th, 2009
by Jason Clause Filed under: General
Chances are that the last two years have not given your small business many opportunities to improve company morale. A quick cruise around Facebook reveals a lot of employees are concerned about their jobs, unhappy with their working conditions and / or are looking for a new job.
Employee morale may not seem like a Bay Area IT Issue at first blush, but when you’re running an outsourced IT organization employee morale is of the utmost importance. It’s an intangible asset. When Endsight employees are feeling optimistic about the business, good things just start to happen. When employee morale dips, it can be really hard to catch a break.
For a small business, poor morale is kind of like a fire raging inside the wall. We can smell the smoke and feel the heat from the fire, but it’s hard to find the flames.
A great idea:
Alicia Kallander, Endsight’s human resource manager, came up with an idea that I think has a real impact on the morale of Endsight’s employees.
The third Thursday of every month, EndSight sponsors a fun activity for the employees. In July for example, the company had a pizza party and played miniature golf. The event is not mandatory and the point is to try to have a little fun.
Activities like this don’t cost a ton of money, but I think they can have a big impact on employee morale. It’s a tangible way to show employees that the company is committed to creating a work environment that they want to be a part of. I think it also is a subtle way to demonstrate a little optimism about the future.
If you’d like a few ideas to start your own Third Thursdays.
Shoot me an e-mail and I’ll send you a list of the events EndSight has planned in the past.
About Jason:
Originally from the great state of Ohio Jason Clause relocated to the Bay Area to work in high-tech. A veteran of the dot com boom and bust, Jason has more than 10 years experience helping small businesses apply information technology to improve business process and increase revenue. Jason lives in Dublin, California with his wife Jennifer and enjoys hiking, cooking and quiet time at home. His hobbies include golf, snowboarding, creative writing and performing amateur stand up comedy.
Tags: Bay Area, company morale, employee morale, Endsight, outsourced, Outsourced IT, poor morale, small businesses, Technology
Aug 3rd, 2009
by Jason Clause Filed under: Electronic Medical Records, Medical, Software
Health care and health care reform are in the news a lot these days. Much of the discussion is around changing the way we structure insurance and pay for the rising cost of health care. While it doesn’t seem like any of us can really agree on how we solve the issue. It seems like most of us agree on the problem. As a people, we have the knowledge and the technology to prolonging human life, treat disease and ease suffering. But as individuals, most of us are having a hard time figuring out how to pay for that care.
United Health group Inc., the parent company of Pacific health systems and one of the largest health technology companies in the United States recently published a claim that they believe the domestic health care system could save $332 billion over the next 10 years if it updates its information technology. The San Francisco business Journal published an article on the report and I’ve included a link to it a here:
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2009/06/29/daily59.html?ana=from_rss
According to the report,”Much of the $332 billion in savings would come from getting rid of paper records of all types at providers. For example, UnitedHealth estimates more than $108 billion would be saved in printing, postage and administrative costs by shifting payments and remittances to an electronic format.”
The health care system has been trying to migrate to an electronic format for health records for some time. In fact, I saw a video, that I believe is from the 60s that IBM used to demonstrate the value of an electronic medical record system.
I’ve included a link here if you’d like to take a look at it. I’ve always associated medicine with technology. X-ray machines and MRI machines are great examples of technology employed to help doctors care for their patients. But while the rest of the world keeps track of their information in database driven computer applications, the bulk of the doctors in the United States still keep their information on paper charts organized in folders that occupy huge file cabinets in the back of their offices.
It’s a system that’s worked for many years, but just like any other paper-based process it is highly inefficient and error prone. I believe that’s one of the key reasons why the federal government seeks to incentivize the move from paper charts and records to electronic health records. In fact, part of the economic stimulus plan provides up to $44,000 per doctor in incentive payments to encourage the mass adoption of electronic medical records over the next five years.
Electronic medical records provides a doctor a 360° view of his or her patient, including demographic information, patient history, medications and allergies. Doctors that implement EMR will be able to more efficiently document encounters with their patients and features such as e-prescription will allow doctors to electronically transmit prescriptions to a patients pharmacy. In addition to being convenient, this feature also reduces errors.
EndSight has partnered with a company called
gloStream to help doctors move from their paper charts to electronic medical records system. The product is called gloEMR and we believe it has a number of advantages over competing solutions.
It uses Microsoft Word as its form editor. This allows doctors to re-create their paper-based charts in a Microsoft Word file, maintaining the format and look and feel of the original paper-based document.
It’s embedded with voice recognition software, allowing doctors to dictate directly into the Microsoft Word formatted note. This feature saves time and eliminates the monthly cost for dictation services.
Glostream only sells their software through local dealers. Moving from paper charts to electronic medical records is a huge undertaking. Having a local partner help you through this process and maintain your systems moving forward is a much safer approach than simply buying software, trying to implement it yourself.
If your a local doctor and are interested in learning more about the stimulus program and electronic health records,
let us know by clicking here.
About Jason: Originally from the great state of Ohio Jason Clause relocated to the Bay Area to work in high-tech. A veteran of the dot com boom and bust, Jason has more than 10 years experience helping small businesses apply information technology to improve business process and increase revenue. Jason lives in Dublin, California with his wife Jennifer and enjoys hiking, cooking and quiet time at home. His hobbies include golf, snowboarding, creative writing and performing amateur stand up comedy.
Connect with Jason: Blog, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
Tags: electronic medical record, electronic medical record system, Endsight, gloStream, health technology, Jason Clause, medical record system, Microsoft, small businesses
