Survey

Do you have your summer vacation planned and scheduled?

Yes
No

Results from last issue's survey question: Do you perform any type of regular exercise (30+ minutes two or three times a week)?

There were 52 responses. 41 said "Yes" and 11 said "No."

Staff Profile

Tom Prussing

 

Tom Prussing began working at Stanford in 1974.

 

 

 

How would you describe your current job responsibilities?

I am a team member of Technical Facilities. As Facility Manager for Forsythe Hall, I am responsible for maintaining the building infrastructure that supports our data center and the University's campus-wide IT capability. This is a 24x7 job.

I coordinate the technical work by contractors and the Stanford Operations and Maintenance (O&M) shops to maintain the Forsythe 1,000 and 1,500 amp. power sources, the three backup generators, the three corresponding UPSs and supporting battery systems. Building lighting, building DC and AC electrical distribution, hot and chilled water availability, gutters, roof, and structural integrity also fall under my umbrella. I insure that there is sufficient candy in the vending machines and adequate restroom toiletries.

The nine ECH (Electronic Communication Hub) locations and their infrastructures are also part of my responsibilities.

I am the team leader of the IT Services Emergency Response Team. We have been trained by the Palo Alto fire department to respond to a major campus disaster. Our mission is to provide emergency instructions to staff, to assist in building evacuation and light search and rescue, to provide triage and first aid where necessary, to establish communications with our Satellite Operations Center and to prepare shelter operations for two hundred staff members for five days.

Which aspects of your job do you enjoy the most?

I am fortunate to focus my skills in these fascinating arenas:

  • Working as a team with Bob Moya and our excellent staff.
  • Overseeing specific infrastructure projects to keep the Forsythe environment in the 21st century.
  • Coordinating the professional men and women who are our contractors and members of the Stanford O&M shops.
  • Presenting the Forsythe facility tours, which we have offered in eight languages to date.
  • Attending facility education programs at the University of Wisconsin and North Carolina State University.
  • Leading and training with the Emergency Response Team.

What did you do before you came to Stanford?

I have been at Stanford for quite some time now, but long ago I was the shift lead at the IBM Communications Center in Palo Alto.

What do you like to do when you're not at work?

When I am not at Forsythe Hall, I conduct a weekly meditation class at the Vallombrosa Center in Menlo Park and work with cancer patients in the Healing Partners Program of the Stanford Cancer Center for Integrative Medicine. I also teach coping skills to boys (6-10 years) with ADHD and whose parents do not want them on Ritalin. I barbecue, and chase snails and gophers in my vegetable garden.

What is your favorite movie, book, song?

My favorite book is "Cloud-hidden, Whereabouts Unknown" by Alan Watts.

My favorite movie is "What Dreams May Come."

My favorite song is "For What It's Worth" by Buffalo Springfield.

Staff Happenings

Sunny Sopapunta has joined the Technical Analyst Group in Client Support. Sunny comes to Stanford from Boston, where he provided desktop support on Macintosh and Windows to faculty and staff at the Harvard Business School. He graduated from Boston University with a degree in Psychology but was already doing computer support. He started with Harvard Business School in 2000 and handled a lot of phone support as well as hands-on assistance. He comes to Stanford with a wealth of experience, a great customer-service attitude, and a very infectious smile.

Sunny's first day was April 9 and he is in Oak-117. Stop by and say hello. Welcome, Sunny!

- Tom Goodrich
Client Support; Help Desk Services

It’s an end of an era for Bill Bauriedel who, on April 20th, will retire from his position with the Application Support team. Bill, a Stanford graduate from the class of 1964, has contributed not only in his support of the University’s applications, but has also supported Stanford by volunteering with the Annual Fund. Bill has been a Stanford employee for 33 years.

In his retirement, Bill plans to continue to volunteer his time supporting Stanford. However, now it’s time for him to learn and enjoy new things…like ballroom dancing with his wife Marilyn. He and his wife are both docents with the Mid-Peninsula Regional Open Space District and they lead hikes in the foothills and Baylands about eight times a year.

Please join us in celebrating Bill’s retirement on May 10th, from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. on the lawn outside of Turing Auditorium. Bill would like to create a scrapbook of the people he has worked with over the years. He asks that you either send a digital picture of yourself to him or bring a photo with you to his retirement party.

- Anne Pinkowski
Shared Communication Services; Application Support & Database Administration

CRC is excited to welcome its newest member, Varun Tansuwan. Varun joined the Humanities and Sciences field service team on April 12th. He will be making the move from St. Louis where he was working as a User Support Analyst at Washington University. He is very excited to work here in the Bay Area and we are equally excited to have his incredible level of technical skills on the PC and Mac platforms, as well as his client-focus to add to our CRC team.

Varun was working in the School of Medicine, Department of Anesthesiology and has quite a few stories that we can all relate to and laugh about when it comes to making computers work with strange medical equipment. Just ask him about his recent experience with a Patient Simulator!

Welcome Varun.

- Kim Seidler
Client Support; Computer Resource Consulting

Please join me in welcoming Jay Hsia to the Storage Group. There has been a lot of movement in the storage group, and I would like to say that we are glad to have Jay on board as our latest addition.

Jay comes to Stanford with quite a bit of experience in a storage environment that was similar to ours (at Clorox) and has some great experience with the equipment and software we run in our system. You can find Jay in Polya Hall, Room 212. If you did not get the chance to meet him at his welcome breakfast, stop in and say hello.

- Dan Stillmaker
Shared Application Services; Backup and Storage

Comings and Goings

The following people recently joined Information Technology Services. Welcome!

  • Chai Lee Ho (Joyce Dickerson)
  • Pamela Harris (Carolyn Kane)
  • Jamie Thornton (Carolyn Kane)
  • Roderick Burns (Carolyn Kane)
  • Jon Cereghino (Carolyn Kane)

The following people have left Information Technology Services. Please contact their manager if you need to follow up on any open items.

  • Aamir Chaudry (Dan Stillmaker)
  • James McMahon (Rocco Petrunti)

its in bits welcomes more detailed employee news submissions from all staff. Please submit to itsinbits-submissions@lists.stanford.edu

Tech Sessions

Tech Briefings

Fridays
2–3:30 p.m.

Turing Auditorium

April 20: Creating Demos and Tutorials using Captivate, Camtasia, or Snapz Pro.

Screencast software is used for a wide variety of reasons: creating engaging animated demonstrations of web-based tools, software, and hardware for training purposes; adding voice and/or video to PowerPoint Presentations; demonstrating processes and tasks for other employees including temporary employees; to serve as a procedural manual.

Presenter: Mark Branom.

Tech Express

Thursdays
12–1 p.m.
Turing Auditorium

April 19: Using Open Source Software and Other Freebies (aka Alternatives to MS Office)

Do you wish you had office applications at home? Is your department running out of funds because you're spending too much on licensing fees for tools like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Access? Mark Branom will demonstrate Open Source and other free alternatives. Topics will include OpenOffice.org, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, and Google Page Creator.

For the complete schedule, a map to Turing Auditorium, times, and a list of topics, visit the Tech Briefings site.

Technology Training Courses

Upcoming Classes:

  • Thu, Apr 19, Adobe Acrobat: The Basics of Using the Full Version, 1:30 p.m. to 04:30 p.m., $150
  • Thu & Fri, Apr 19 & 20, Photoshop Levels 1 and 2, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m., $500
  • Thu, Apr 26, Securing Windows Systems and Domains, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Free
  • Thu & Fri, Apr 26 & 27, Mastering Dreamweaver Levels 1 and 2, 9:00 a.m.
    to 4:00 p.m., $500
  • Fri, Apr 27, Securing Unix and Linux Systems, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Free
  • Mon, Apr 30, Access Lite, 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., $150
  • Wed, May 2, Tips and Tricks In Sundial, 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., Free
  • Thu, May 3, Excel for Finance, 9:00 a.m. to 0:00 p.m., $275
  • Thu, May 3, Web Design Level 2: Making Your Website Work, 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., $150
  • Thu, May 3, Windows Vista for IT Professionals, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Free
  • Fri, May 4, Web Design: Protecting Documents on the Web and a Bonus Lesson on JavaScript, 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m., $150

Please see the registration page for complete information on using STAP funds and signing up for classes.

- Leni Silberman
Technology Training Services

IT Employment Opportunities

There was one addition to the IT Services job requisition postings for this week.

Req.#24936: Computer Info Systems Analyst, 100%FTE, continuing position, Range 4P2, Shirley Hodges, hiring manager.

This position provides computer support including desktop and local server consulting with expertise in Mac and Windows desktop computers, as well as Windows and Mac-based servers. Computer Resource Consulting supports University schools and departments on a full-time or half-time basis, or for short-term projects.

To view the complete listings or to apply for a position, visit the StanfordJobs web site at: jobs.stanford.edu.

There are other open Information Technology positions at Stanford. To see what other opportunities exist on campus, link to the full list of open positions from: itss.stanford.edu/staff/itssjobs.html

Quote of the Week

“I've always found that the speed of the boss is the speed of the team.”
- Lee Iacocca

News

A Note From Bill...

Though a little later than I had hoped, we have received the response summary from the recent employee survey and have started the process of using the results to help us make IT Services an even better place to work. I have met with the executive directors, directors, and managers to distribute and review the information. In the coming weeks, your workgroup will get together to review the results and develop actions that I hope will further improve your satisfaction with our organization.

As your workgroup prepares to discuss the results, I want to quickly mention some thoughts I had while reviewing the information. My first inclination was that we should focus—both in workgroups and as an organization—on those areas where results indicated greater dissatisfaction, and certainly such areas should not be ignored. However, we should not allow those areas to cause us to lose sight of those areas where we are quite satisfied—our current strengths as an organization! We can build on these, and in the long run we might even make greater progress toward improving the organization by doing so.

As an example, staff generally indicated dissatisfaction with the availability or clarity of some HR policies. Well, we could work very hard with HR on this, but because these policies apply to such a diverse population at Stanford and are established at a broader University level, our efforts might result in limited progress. Alternatively, one of our strengths is communication within workgroups. Capitalizing on that strength by looking for ways to extend it to improve cross-workgroup communication—an area in which we could use improvement—could likely have an incredible effect on both staff and client satisfaction.

Certainly, the key to making progress in our quest to be the best service organization at Stanford is for us to get as specific as possible in each of our workgroup discussions. What are the tangible action plans that will make things better here? We have made some real progress over the last two years. How do we build on that to maintain momentum over the next two years?

This is an exciting time to be in IT Services at Stanford. Our organization continues to grow in its importance to the University's central mission. Computing is a critical component in research, in teaching, and in learning. It touches the daily lives of students, faculty, researchers, and staff. It affects every discipline and is instrumental in allowing for cross-disciplinary collaboration. We are vital to the success of the University.

Thanks to all of you who participated in the employee survey, and also for your help in discussing the results and developing plans that will make IT Services an even better and more successful organization in the future.

- Bill Clebsch
IT Services

OMR: Review and Next Steps

At publication, Order Management Redesign has been live for 16 days with our new order management process and redesigned OrderIT site. It has been quite a journey! There's nothing like change for bringing out issues and opportunities, and this has been a big change for workgroups across IT Services. Roles and responsibilities have been clarified for some, while others are needing further discussion and refinement.

Orders are moving through the process, but more slowly than we'd like. There's plenty of room for improvement in our processes. Thanks to everyone involved for your patience and hard work over the last three weeks.

Here's some information we'd like to share on how we're moving forward:

1. The Order Management Governance (OMG) group meets weekly on Tuesdays at 9 a.m. to discuss how things are going across workgroups. Membership includes: Vicki Hallett, Rick Lowe, Chris Lundin, Nan McKenna, Steve McLenegan, Rocco Petrunti, Suzanne Schiessler, Erich Snow, and Christine Soldahl. Jay Kohn, Bryan Wear, and Sam Steinhardt stay involved by being on our distribution list.

2. There is a working list of items that were ruled out-of-scope for the March go-live, but that still need to be done. Priorities will be set for this list by the OMG group, and we will work with the Pinnacle Working Group to plan and start work on these requests. This list can be viewed on DocuShare.

3. We will be setting up some additional training sessions. It's rough when the "rubber hits the road" and everything goes from theory to reality. Look for an opportunity soon.

4. We will be setting up ongoing meetings with Account Managers, Service Consultants, and Order Processing to streamline our Data Center order processes. There is still confusion on how this process works.

5. OMG will continue to review our order metrics and look for ways to streamline and improve processes. We will want to have 30-60 days of information to review before we start making any changes to process. We need to give it time before we change it.

If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to ask!

- Suzanne Schiessler
Shared Communication Services; Order Management

- Nan McKenna
Client Support; Client Relations

Employee Survey: Next Steps

Thank you again for taking the time to provide your input by completing the Employee Survey that was conducted from February 1-9, 2007. We have now received the analyzed data from HR Solutions, the company that administered the confidential and anonymous survey.

Managers have begun meeting with their staff to share workgroup-specific findings, and to begin discussing what is working well in their workgroups and how to make those workgroups even better. These meetings should occur no later than 4/30/07.

One of the outcomes of these initial workgroup meetings is to put together a 90-Day action plan for each workgroup. These action plans, which should be no more than three specific actions (e.g., "quick wins") and three specific commitments that the workgroup can accomplish in the next 90 days, are due by 5/9/07. Action plans will be completed during May, June, and July.

The Employee Survey was one important way for staff to provide feedback about their workgroups and IT Services as a whole. It was an opportunity for staff to provide anonymous feedback. These workgroup meetings are another way to provide feedback and to inform us about which strategies and actions are needed to make IT Services a better place to work. Thank you again.

- Dani Aivazian
Client Support; Organizational Effectiveness

Integrated Email and Calendaring Project

The SGG (Systems Governance Group) sponsored Integrated Email and Calendaring Discovery project is well underway, and much has been accomplished to date. We've met with many stakeholders across campus (~35 business units, departments, and schools) to collect input on the considerations and requirements. We have also held a cross-campus session to gather input, and presented to the Faculty Senate subcommittee, C-ACIS, to get their views. Business, functional, and technical requirements were compiled from these meetings, along with industry analyst input, and direct input from peer institutions. RFPs have subsequently been distributed, and we are now in the process of reviewing responses from these potential vendors.

The next steps include the preparation for a series of scripted classroom pilots, followed by review of the pilot results, RFP responses, and selection committee inputs. Ultimately, these project efforts will culminate in a proposal to SGG in early June of 2007.

For more information on this project, feel free to contact me or our Project Manager, Larry Ebert.

- John Freshwaters
Shared Application Services

Hawaiian Bowling: Party Time

bowling graphicIT Services held the Second Annual Bowling afternoon at the Palo Alto Bowl Thursday, April 13th.

The theme this year was "Hawaiian Bowling" and instead of pineapples for pins and coconut bowling balls, those who showed up were greeted with leis and some rather amazing decorations.

If you missed it, had too many Mai-Tais, or just want to remember the fun, pictures and a slide show are available.

- The Editors

Client Interaction Skills Project

The purpose of the Client Interaction Skills project is to improve our customers' experience in each and every customer interaction. This project is about enhancing and building on the great client skills IT Services staff already have, as well as addressing gaps where they exist.

Because a large part of this project is focused on making our client interaction skills more consistent across the organization, we have collected and documented IT Services best practices, including best practices for handling email, voice mail, and face-to-face client interaction. We have summarized the key best practices on a "client skills card" that is being finalized and will be distributed to staff this May/June.

Another key part of this initiative focuses on customizing and implementing skills training for each workgroup, using examples and scenarios relevant to that workgroup's experiences. We are on-track to complete the interviews with all Directors and Managers who are shaping these customized 30-minute workgroup meetings.

We will have completed the "library" of reference and training materials, from which we will customize sessions for each workgroup in IT Services. We will conduct workgroup meetings in May and June.

The Client Interaction Skills project team—Jan Cicero, Nan McKenna, Liz Goesseringer, Chris Lundin, Dave Ream, Nilda Bonet, and Dani Aivazian—is building a web site for the project. its-workskills is the vanity URL name and it is available now.

If you have any questions or concerns about this project, please talk to your manager or contact any member of the project team.

- Dani Aivazian
Client Support; Organizational Effectiveness

Preparing for Flu

The Santa Clara County Public Health Department has produced a pamphlet containing useful information to raise awareness of the actions we should all take to help prepare ourselves for the possibility of a pandemic flu. The Admin team has requested copies of the pamphlets from the Stanford Environmental Health and Safety organization, and will soon be delivering one to your mail slot. Please take a few minutes to review the material and share the information with your family. Taking the time to prepare now could really make a difference in the eventuality of an actual pandemic.

If you live in Santa Clara County, you may have already received a copy of the pamphlet. If you don't need the new copy, please leave it by the mail slots in your area, and the extras will be collected.

If you have questions about pandemic (or other disaster) planning here at work, please contact the ITS/AS/ISO Satellite Operations Center team.

-Bill Heiser
Shared Application Services

About its in bits

A regular summary of IT business, news about personnel, and pointers to other information of interest to IT Services staff. Coordinated, compiled, and published by the Communication Strategy and Standards Team. its in bits is published on the first and third Wednesday of the month.

Submissions are due by Noon on the Friday before the scheduled issue, to itsinbits-submissions@lists.stanford.edu for consideration. its in bits is distributed via email to its-all-staff@lists.stanford.edu and the new subscription list itsinbits-subscribers@lists.stanford.edu. People outside of IT Services can self-subscribe via majordomo.

The next its in bits will be published on Wednesday, May 2, 2007