What I Do

I am an infrastructure manager, by trade and have worked in senior and middle management now for about 17 years.

I’ve managed teams from the help desk and asset management, to server and development teams.  I’ve run groups of 8 as well as groups of up to 90+ individuals in multiple countries.

I believe strongly that you’re only as good as your team is and I’ve been very fortunate to have some great teams working for me, thereby making me very successful in my endeavors.  People make things work and if you don’t understand people, you’ll never get the work done, at least not properly.

Cultural differences can be roadblocks as well, if you don’t take the time to study them and truly understand how to relate to people of different origins.  I was fortunate enough in one position to be dealing with people on three different continents at the same time and it taught me a lot about interacting with people of different nationalities and cultures.  It also taught me that there is a big difference between the mindsets of people; for example, the differences between those from Europe, North America and the Far East as well.

What I do is build teams.  I build teams and improve processes and flow.  I also focus on the customers- something which not a lot of IT really pays attention to.  I think it’s important to market IT services to the end customers so that their perception of IT is more positive.  They don’t NEED to know whether their issues get handled by the help desk, by application support/development, or whoever.  They just need to know that it gets taken care of.  Giving the customers a transparent look into IT and giving them an opportunity to say what works well for them along with, most importantly, what DOESN’T work well for them, is invaluable.  IT too often just measures itself with metrics and if the numbers look good, think that it’s doing a good job.  Sometimes the numbers say IT is doing well, but the customers don’t think so.  Opening a dialogue is the best way to positively influence that customer perception of IT, as well as to identify areas where improvements can or need to be made.  You can’t do that without regularly talking to the customers.  I think of it as ‘IT Marketing.’

I also do development for the iOS platform and I hope I can help some others who are trying to learn this challenging and rewarding skill.  I used to program a lot in machine language, assembly and BASIC, but over the past year updated my skills to allow me to produce applications for the iPhone and iPad.  I’m learning and learning fast but still have a ways to go.  Hopefully I can help some folk out along the way!