Posted on Tue, Sep 07, 2010 @ 01:25 PM
Stakeholders Buy-In & Change Management
The iCompass Collaboration Series is focused on bringing busy professionals together to share and learn from each other on topics that drastically boost office productivity. This Month’s session on Stakeholders Buy-In and Change Management should not be MISSED. So join us on Friday, Sept 7 @ 10:00- 11:00am PST.
Register Now
This webinar will be presented by Stephen Orteza, Implementation & Training Consultant in collaboration with our Showcase Customer. Join Stephen as he and our Showcase customer provide insights into some of the benefits of Stakeholders Buy-In and Change Management including establishing:
- Clear success criteria
- Making a strong Core Team
- How to look and celebrate success
Log into the iCompass Customer Resource Center for upcoming webinars, dates & times, replay of sessions and much more!
- Stephen Orteza, Implementation & Training Consultant
Posted on Mon, Aug 30, 2010 @ 04:24 PM
According to Wikipedia, nearly 95% of all people have some degree of anxiety related to public speaking. Since my time at iCompass, delivering presentations about our CivicWeb & AcademicWeb services has been a big part of my responsibilities, whether those presentations were online, in person, to a small group or to a large audience. For me, the guidelines I follow to conduct the presentation rarely changes, but the message and the hooks you use to interact with your audience can change from meeting to meeting. For example, you would think that having a training session on how to effectively build your agendas using our Meeting Management Solution would be very different than a sales presentation to prospective customers on the benefits of the Meeting Management Solution, but in reality it’s not. Now I have read probably hundreds of techniques on what makes an effective presentation, but ultimately I have found that if you are knowledgeable and passionate about your topic, everything usually goes smoothly. People usually spend hours ahead of time preparing their presentations, but once you take your place in front of your audience, what you do next will ultimately determine whether your presentation is a success and your message is
successfully delivered.
Any good presentation is one that will deliver its message in as basic terms as possible and appeal to the emotions of your audience. Regardless of how formal your presentation is, always consider to following format when preparing your presentation, ensuring that the content has a beginning, a body, and a wrap up. The format of your presentation will help you maintain the structure of your message while keeping it interactive and flexible. The key to a good presentation is to ensure that you are interacting with your audience; the easiest way to lose your audience would be to start into a monologue for the duration of your presentation. I have found that whether you are conducting a training session or sales demonstration, I usually structure my presentations in the exact same way, using the guideline mentioned above, and that usually helps me keep on track during the presentation, while maintaining a certain level of audience engagement.
- Tara Holdbrook, Sales Rep
Posted on Fri, Aug 27, 2010 @ 09:30 AM
During the week of August 16th, the technical team at DATANET had the good fortune to work directly with iCompass at their office in Kamloops, B.C. As a new technology partner, we could not have been more impressed by the generosity, attitude and corporate culture of our hosts.
Our schedule was a healthy blend of technical theory and practical exercises with the CivicWeb Solution. We thought we were amazed by our first impression but the second, third and ongoing impressions remained with us even on the flight home.
The CivicWeb Solution is an oasis of functionality, usability and product intelligence in a desert of competing organizations. The iCompass product line really cuts the fat out of the workflow process to get you to where you need to be as quickly as possible. Design intelligence is evident in features such as real-time previews of formatting changes. You can’t possibly make a mistake! The CivicWeb services are designed to let your intuition guide you through managing agenda meetings, minutes, documents and Action Tracking. It is so easy to use at a first glance that ‘product orientation’ may be a more suitable term than ‘training’.
Through several social moments (and a fantastic dinner break at a mountain resort), we got to know the people behind the Meeting Management Solution. The iCompass team operates with the efficient devotion of bees to their royal product. It is no surprise to see that the minds behind the scenes are as sharp as the tools comprising CivicWeb.
It was a wonderful week immersed in the technical, operational and logistical streamline that is iCompass. It is easy to see why iCompass has become so attractive to municipal and educational entities – they are a perfect fit for any organization; especially us.
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-Daniel Johnson, Systems Architect, DATANET
Posted on Thu, Aug 26, 2010 @ 01:03 PM
How to Bring your Board/Council on Board
A big part of my job is to help staff at the hundreds or organizations we work with who are faced with the task of gathering information for a Council or Board and gain their support for an initiative to use the CivicWeb/AcademicWeb software in their offices. For many of the staff that I work with, communicating the benefits of a software solution which is targeted at improving efficiencies in the office can be somewhat of a challenge. While I have yet to come across a silver bullet, I have compiled a few success strategies which some organizations have found to work for them, hopefully something here might help you as well as you write your reports to justify purchases of any kind to your Council/Board/Management Team.
Frame successful technology purchases in much larger context
- Ex:“yes, this will allow us to produce electronic agendas, but it will also help to streamline our ENTIRE meeting processes to help save staff time and eventually save money for the organization”
Powerful ROI must be clearly established - spending tax dollars wisely is always welcomed by public
- To assist with this point, we do have a Return on Investment exercise we can walk you through should you want to approximate time and dollar savings with the use of the Meeting Management Solution
Focus on service delivery protections & enhancements
- Ex: becoming more efficient will help save staff time and assist in lightening workloads
Don’t over-spend on large, traditional, expensive enterprise systems or “In-House” solutions
- With an “in-house” solution there is the added long-term cost of the hardware upgrades & maintenance, hosted solutions not only save the District money but also reduce the need for internal IT resources to get involved
Frame ‘what’s in it for me’ for Board and Constituents
- Ex: Board/Council will get their electronic agendas, usually faster & more consistent
- Ex: Organization will be making information much more accessible to the public via website by posting of electronic information
- Improve customer service to your constituents by utilizing the technology to make the organization more accessible and attentive than ever.
- Tara Holdbrook, Professional Consultant
Posted on Wed, Aug 11, 2010 @ 12:18 PM
In today’s day in age, everyone is always so busy. Whether we are too busy to organize our kitchen cupboards, too busy to take that additional educational course, or too busy to learn something new... No matter what the reason may be, we all feel we are just too busy to consider adding anything new onto our plates.
I know myself, I have come across many of these “I’m too busy” reasons in my own life and it really makes you think, why are we always too busy to spend time on something that will help us in the future? For example, it’s hard to register for that online course to help you further your education and gain experience which could help you further your career. I know I always hear this same reason when working with customers as well, we’re too busy to learn about a new tool which could ultimately help save us time and money in the long run.
So what do we do to address this? One of the things we have been working through in our office is the implementation of time management best practices, and did you know they actually work!?! The trick is repetition, repetition, REPETITION!
A few of the best practices that have worked for me:
Plan your day – I actually have blocked out in my calendar specific segments of time for each task, and if you get off track, you know at least what you missed and it is very easy to reschedule.
Touch it Once – If you’re like most people today, you normally receive hundreds of emails a week and sometimes that can take you and entire day to get through your email. The ‘Touch it Once’ rule implies that you only read an email when you are ready to deal with it. I even go one step further and file or delete the email once I have dealt with it.
Top 6 Priorities – at the end of each day, plan the top 6 deliverables which you are going to accomplish for the next day and actually write them down. It also helps if you include devoted space in your calendar to accomplish these top 6 priorities.
These are just some of the best practices that work for me, give them a try for yourself but as I said, the trick is repetition.
Tara Holdbrook, Sales Consultant
Posted on Tue, Aug 10, 2010 @ 04:53 PM
At the end of May this year I attended the Alberta Small Communities Conference (ABSCC) in Mannville, AB. Being that it was my first time North of Red Deer, the travel to get to Mannville was an interesting experience on its own and it SNOWED the whole time!
The purpose of the ABSCC was to provide representatives from each of Alberta’s Small Communities with a population of 2,500 or less a venue to get together and seek solutions on common issues and share positive experiences and knowledge. I have to say, I wasn’t sure what to expect going into the conference but once there I was pleasantly surprised by how well the conference was put on and how friendly everyone was! This conference was a great opportunity for me to meet with a number of representatives from all over Alberta and I definitely gained a new respect for all municipal workers at smaller municipalities.
My conversations with the people that I met have gone long past the conference and with every new person that I meet with it becomes even more evident that the smaller municipalities really have many of the same responsibilities of their counterparts in larger municipalities. The biggest difference? The smaller municipalities usually have less resources and funds in order to help deal with these challenges. This definitely gives me a new perspective on the roles of municipal workers and I feel that further understanding the challenges of our customers, of all sizes, will only help me better serve the hundreds of organizations that I work with.
Tara Holdbrook, Sales Consultant
Posted on Fri, Jul 02, 2010 @ 03:39 PM
Life Before iCompass
Being new to the community and to the role of CAO, I had a steep learning curve ahead of me upon arriving in 2007. Thankfully, the prior CAO had scanned all the historical minutes and bylaws to FilePro which could be easily searched and reprinted to become familiar with past actions. My hope was that the future could now be my focus; however I spent most of my time in meeting mode. Between researching, compiling information, preparing recommendations, typing, formatting, gathering attachments, photocopying and distributing the agenda packages plus the editing of minutes, staff briefings and creation of action lists after the meeting, I was spending almost 20 hours per meeting in non-productive activities. In addition, the majority of this work was late into the night on Friday or on Saturday to try to meet the deadline and still be late. With two meetings per month it was frustrating and inefficient for myself and Council.
Why We Chose iCompass
Believing there had to be a better way, I made contact with at least two other companies from tradeshows, but neither was responsive enough to earn our business. When iCompass contacted me to propose a demo of the Meeting Management program, I was excited since it would be an expansion of services from a company with whom we were already satisfied. Including both my communications officer and recording secretary, we viewed the demo and saw how the software could address our needs and produce a better organized, more complete agenda package in much less time. It would also create more accurate, draft minutes sooner and could generate the action list with notification. iCompass seemed very intent on customer satisfaction and offered the expanded services at a reasonable cost.
How We Made the Purchase a Reality
Once feedback was gathered from all staff and the benefits understood, I began researching funding options. The Municipal Sponsorship Program through the Government of Alberta supported projects that facilitated improved governance at 100%, so the presentation was made to Council outlining how deadlines could be met, staff hours reduced and efficiencies achieved throughout the communication process. Council agreed and the program was ordered.
Life After iCompass
Now an agenda package can be prepared from start to finish in about 4 hours instead of 18. Items needing to go to Council can be prepared and saved to appropriate folders at the time it is first reviewed rather than searching and having to familiarize again. The packages include recommendations or more complex requests for decision, attachments as backup, descriptive footers, page numbers and double-sided or pdf print options. Meetings run more smoothly because Councilors are informed well in advance of meetings. I am also calmer and more confident and spend much less time finalizing the minutes after. The draft motions and back-up documentation are accessible by staff when they receive their action list. I wouldn’t give up my Meeting Management System and see many more uses for the iCompass services - such as for tracking Assessment Review Board requirements, annual performance reviews, and notice of decisions.
Our Experience in Dealing With iCompass
iCompass truly is there to serve the customer. The implementation was great. All training was done remotely at our site - no time or money lost travelling. iCompass provided a schedule of goals, priorities and homework to ensure we utilized the system. Every query was addressed promptly and training repeated if necessary. The trainers spoke in ‘everyday’ language and were responsive to make changes as more was learned about our particular process. The commitment to customer service was even more evident at the annual iCompass user conference I recently attended.
Thanks to Candace L. Dueck, Chief Administrative Officer for this Case Study!
Posted on Mon, Jun 28, 2010 @ 10:59 AM
North Valley Hospital - Case Study
Connie Maden, Director of Administrative Services North Valley Hospital, Tonasket, Washington, USA
Life before iCompass
Well, plainly put, I do not ever want to go back. The data we have to track from our healthcare admin offices has always been significant, and the administrative healthcare duties that I am responsible for continue to grow day by day. If I was to start a list of my responsibilities, I would still be here next week!
I gave a short presentation at a previous AHCAA conference on improving admin office efficiencies using Access for tracking policies and procedures and the beauty of the related reporting capabilities. As my Admin Assistant duties and responsibilities grew (I am now Director and on the Senior Management Team), Access was being utilized more and more for more detailed tracking for contract management and I was beginning the process to generate a foundation for tracking our strategic planning projects as well.
Then, several years ago, I stumbled across iCompass at a city conference (I am also on our local city council). After watching several demos at their vendor booth, I knew I had to have these tools in the admin office of the hospital district. I then arranged for a demo in-house and further negotiated a contract utilizing all of the modules that collectively form their Meeting Management Solution (Meeting Manager, FilePro and Action Tracking modules). North Valley Hospital became the pilot healthcare facility for iCompass Technologies.
Life After iCompass
When I implemented iCompass I soon realized that what I had gained was likened to an office assistant or two at a much reduced expense. I also determined quickly that I now had the ability to access and track important executive data and easily create reports on items that are not tracked through the more sophisticated software - whether within our hospital patient care, financial, or billing software. My research has shown me that separate software packages are very expensive (one firm wanted to charge me $20K a year JUST for a Strategic Planning Tracker). Smaller healthcare facilities cannot feasibly entertain that kind of price point.
Meeting Manager
The iCompass Meeting Manager module alone helps me to completely eliminate paper packets to the board – everything is now online at their disposal any time day or night. Additionally, I now provide that all important transparency to the community.
Action Tracking – General
The iCompass Action Tracking module contains a number of ‘Trackers’ which are highly versatile. They are usable for any department (not just Admin) needing to track any kind of data (such as HR, Plant Engineering, Laundry, Contracts, Strategic Planning, etc.) They also provide powerful capabilities related to keeping lists, producing reports and tracking historical data. These Trackers can be accessed via Meeting Manager or directly within the Action Tracking module. I have the ability to set up notifications and reminders for future timelines (great for contract management). Committee meeting and staff meeting minutes can now be created and funneled into one main depository. Log-in information is set up for all managers to be able to go in, update, access and create their own Trackers, all the while preserving a historical trail of who did what, when.
Action Tracking - Contract Management Tracker
I have over 250 paper contract documents that I manage with one of my Trackers I created - I call it my ‘Contract Management Tracker’. I now attach the pdf contract document to the Tracker item and put the responsibilities for managing the contracts back in the hands of the managers of the appropriate departments with the tracking, reporting, and reminder options. Just having the reminders set for insurance contracts in our billing department can mean hundreds of thousands of dollars of reimbursement if the contracts are negotiated at the appropriate time, ensuring also that they do not fall through the cracks and result in lost revenue.
Action Tracking - Strategic Planning Tracker
The Strategic Planning tracker is becoming a living and breathing tracker/document that will enable managers and supervisors to provide comments on detail of implementation of projects and objectives. I have been working with iCompass application engineers to fine tune this tracker and I am very excited about these capabilities. Imagine a transparent dashboard with admin able to extract data and managers/supervisors able to input comments and attach documentation as to the status of a project. Imagine the ability to track whether a project is on budget, below or over budget with the financial detail attached directly from the responsible staff. These are only a few of the capabilities available to us with this Tracker. At the end of the day, our strategic plan is no longer a set of papers with admin assistants running around to track down information prior to a Strategic Planning or board meeting.
Action Tracking - Employee Suggestions Tracker
This Tracker provides the ability to track when employee suggestions come in, and which Manager is responsible for doing the PDSA and further development. Employees can track the progress of their own suggestion.
FilePro - Document Storage & Search
With FilePro, I manage all of our policies and procedures from my office through the Internet. We had what could have been a real safety issue – nurses could search for policies on my old system but they would also pull up the old archived copies - this was a medication error waiting to happen. Now, everyone can access and search our documents safely via a secure site on the Internet.
iCompass Customer Service - The best!
In almost 3 years, I have not had one issue that iCompass has not handled as a top priority and with the utmost professional customer service. Highlights of their customer service include getting a person on the phone 24/7, a web-based incident reporting process, and their new Customer Advisory Board which will assist iCompass with further on-going functional improvements, new product development and enhanced customer service.
Big thanks to Connie Maden for this Case Study!
Nicky Plato, Marketing Coordinator
Posted on Wed, Dec 09, 2009 @ 03:51 PM
Did you know 1 in 6 men will get prostate cancer? Typcially there are no symptoms until it is spread beyond the prostate.
These statistics alone prompted eleven iCompass, a meeting management solution company, staff to register and raise money in the fight against prostate cancer this November. iCompass was part of a global movement of 255,494 Mo Bros and Sistas who joined together for 30 days to bring much needed attention to prostate cancer.
The cause commonly known as 'Movember' is a huge success and all proceeds go directly to Prostate Cancer Canada. Amongst the iCompass group was Lorraine, a 'Movember' Sista, who was a constant supporter and active fundraiser, despite not growing a moustache. In total thirteen iCompass staff members showed their support by growing moustaches including the entire management team.
Branden Moskwa, Implementation and Training Team Lead, was the iCompass Mr. Movember topping the team by raising $420.00. Branden was married a little over a month ago and got involved with the cause when one RSVP came back with the news of a very dear friend that would be unable to attend the wedding due to his current struggle with prostate cancer. This got him thinking and before he knew it he could name 6 direct relatives off the top of his head that have suffered from prostate related illnesses.
With the help of Branden and many other iCompass staff the iCompass 'Movember' team was able to raise a total of $1,080.00 for Prostate Cancer.
To read more about the iCompass 'Movember' team visit: http://ca.movember.com/mospace/members/search/q/iCompass
