Tony Dye

Did You Know That I Am For Hire?

I may not have done a very good job of letting EVERYBODY know that I'm for hire. Many of you already know this, so hopefully you won't see any surprises here.

I am most definitely in a job search, with central KY being the perfect location, with a broader range of an area roughly framed by Louisville, Lexington, Knoxville and Nashville being "very acceptable." Asheville, NC and Charleston, SC are my wild-card cities.

I spent nearly 12 years as the IT Director for a mega-church in the Atlanta area. Now I'm transitioning back to a commercial organization. My background includes hardware, programming, testing & QA, IT, and technology in general, but generally doing operations and staff development. Technology is still the center of what I do with a bent toward better using it, rather than developing or delivering it. I continue to be closely connected with Church IT through my ongoing connection with the Church IT Roundtable and with my special focus on Church Management software.

My Passion is for helping people use technology better. It pains me how much trouble and irritation so many people have with technology. I'm specifically looking for an IT Management or other technology-oriented role where I can help people have a better experience. That role may involve training, process improvement, project management, research, or even technical marketing. For those times when an organization needs a little extra assistance, but doesn't want to make a new hire, I have an ever-growing network of outsourcing partners and I'll gladly step in to connect the parties for mutual benefit

My value: I provide ROI through better use of technology: by getting back minutes, per person, per day, the total savings to a company can be significant in both time and money.

Some organization out there desperately needs me and what I can offer them. I'm just trying to find the right organization. If you know of such an organization, please introduce me. I would be very appreciative! Of course, I'd welcome any other suggestions you might have.

By the way, if we're not already connected on LinkedIn, I'd welcome an invite. You can find me here. Please mention CITRT or my blog in your invite, and you can send it to me at TonyDye and I'm on Gmail. Easy enough?

Peroogle, 5 Years Later

Five years ago, today, Perimeter rolled out "Peroogle," the Google Mini to help with internal search.  Perfect answer? nope.  Big improvement?  You bet!  IMHO, internal search is still an area ripe for improvement.

Does it Well, Doesn't do Much

Here's an interesting statement received during a telephone ChMS survey, regarding a product I'll leave nameless: "It does what it does very well; it doesn't do much."  This respondent went on to say a lot more about this particular product, some good, some not so good, but I think I'll remember that statement the most.  I sometimes wonder if that's not a better starting point for more software -- to not try to be everything, but to do a small number of things extremely well.  The "less is more" concept.  It seems to have worked for 37Signals.  How many of us would be happy with a ChMS product that did less, better?  That's a hard question to answer.

Katharion is now GFI Max MailProtection

In case you missed it (I did), Katharion (hosted anti-spam solution) has been acquired by GFI, and now has the name GFI MAX MailProtection.

Details of the new hosted email security offering can be found at http://www.gfi.com/hosted-email-security, and the press release of the Katharion acquisition is at
http://www.gfi.com/page/27788/gfi-software-acquires-hosted-email-filtering-company-katharion- (yes, with a trailing "-")

LinkedIn Presentation for Stanford Rotary

First a huge apology to the members of the Stanford Rotary for mistakenly calling the group the Lincoln County Rotary!  Hopefully I've corrected all references.

Today I did a very brief presentation to the Stanford, KY Rotary regarding LinkedIn.  My basic premise is that YOUR connections in LinkedIn can be a great service to others who are job hunting, or otherwise trying to meet people in the area.  Actually, I gave three reasons, with helping others as the middle purpose.

Three good reason to be ACTIVE on LinkedIn

1. Be findable.  Be easy to find – both you and your business or other organizations.  {unless there’s a reason to hide!}
2. Help friends who are job searching.  YOUR network can be their life-saver
3. Search out information on companies, or people, who you might want to do business with

For anyone who might be interested, here's the word document with notes and handouts:
Download LinkedIn4StanfordRotary

Half Mute?

For anybody designing the next great TV remote control device, I’d like a “half mute” or “semi-mute” button.  As long as TV stations, or their advertisers, continue to have way-too-loud commercials, I want a way to quickly turn down the sound, then return to where I was when the real program returns.  True mute is too much – I just want less sound, not “no sound.”  Make sense?  When can I run out and buy one?

AT&T, Can You Hear Me Now?

Re: loss of cell service in South Casey County, KY

AT&T, do you care about your customers?  It sure doesn't seem so!  For more than two months, an area that previously had good service, has had nothing.

Let me be fair.  No, it wasn’t your fault.  Yes, it was nasty of your competitor to pull the plug like that.  I'm surprised there wasn't some sort of contract, but that doesn't matter any more.

Still, it’s YOUR current customers who are losing out.  As well as anyone traveling US 127 in the southern end of Casey county.  That would seem like a lot of people!  (I sure thought about that lack of service as I was driving through the area, in the dark, with snow coming down.  If I'd slipped off the road, I sure hope somebody would have noticed because I sure wouldn't have been able to call for help.

What did you do and what could you have done?
Was there any sort of intentional information sent to the customers who lost service.  No.  Was there ever any apology?  No.  Instead, you repeated standard marketing hype about how much you’re investing in your network.  That adds insult to injury -- $38 Billion spent, but how much of it here?  Um…zero?  Maybe you could release the MicroCell FemtoCell to this area so people could at least have service at home and at their offices.  But more than anything else, you could choose to engage with your customers.

I wish you'd take a lesson from Jeff Bezos.  He got down on his knees to apologize when Amazon messed up.  You could at least tell people you’re sorry.  Maybe even offer to credit back their monthly service until they have service again.  You could deploy an emergency tower -- you've talked about AT&T's readiness to handle an emergency.  Isn't this one?  There are so many things you could do to show people how much you care.  Of course, maybe that’s exactly what you have done – now we know how much you care.  Is there maybe a subtle hint -- if everyone moves off AT&T, then you don't have to worry about the cost of putting in a tower?  (I know several who have been forced to move already, so you don't have to worry about them anymore)

CathyLew, I know your function is marketing, not building towers.  Still, it pains me, for your company, to see this situation so seemingly mishandled, or ignored.  Please tell me I'm wrong -- you don't know how badly I want to be wrong here.

Let me balance this out just slightly so as not to be a full AT&T slam.  I was in Danville today and suddenly noticed that I had 3G service.  That was a very pleasant surprise!

AT&T Emergency Cell Service?

I just read a Wall Street Journal article about AT&T's preparations for handling potential weather related outages during snow storms.  Near the end of the article, there's a mention AT&T's storm preparations, which includes this interesting item:

"-- Staging mobile cell sites and portable generators in safe locations for their immediate deployment once a storm has passed."

So, does this imply that AT&T can quickly raise a portable cell site in an emergency situation?  So, if you previously had coverage in an area, and lost it, why wouldn't you use this type of technology to restore service?  What am I missing?

AT&T: More Bars, More Places?

Afraid that for the last month, AT&T has had fewer (as in zero) bars in an area that previously had good coverage.  Cellular One had previously provided decent quality roaming for AT&T customers in the Dunnville, KY area.  When they were bought out (by Verizon?), they turned off AT&T service, impacting several hundred residents, and all who travel US 127 through the south end of Casey County (including me!).  The Casey County News story is here: Look who's not talking.

AT&T is planning to build their own new tower in the area to restore service, but when?  Various reports indicate different dates in 2010.  So, for now, we're just out of luck?  AT&T, I don't know how you might negotiate with the existing provider in the area, but wouldn't it make sense to pay your competitor to re-offer the service, until you can replace it?  What is the cost of lost customer loyalty?  Of negative perception?  People who bought your service, and were receiving it, have now lost the basics.  This seems unconscionable to me.  Am I the only one?

By the way, if you want to check AT&T coverage for any location, they have a simple mapping tool here: http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/.

What are These Things?

I'm in Ruckersville VA today and noticing the utility poles.  They all have these extra posts sticking up from the top.  They are on EVERY wooden pole, but not on any of the metal poles.  What are they?  There's no evidence of a sharp point at the top, so probably not a lightning rod.  Any ideas?