I spend a lot of time analyzing how much time we spend moving forward strategic initiatives, versus support and minor enhancement work.  As I have looked at our various operations over time I have found that number fluctuates between 15% and 25%.  So, if you have 10 analysts in an IT department, your only getting 1.5 to 2.5 FTEs of project work.  Hardly enough to accomplish a big project.

We spend a lot of time talking about how we can get that number higher. And like anything you want to improve we have to measure it.  Our IT team track all of their hours so we can analyze the data.

This year we are estimating that we have the capacity to work on 100,000 hours of IT projects.  But, the nature of that work is that there is a lot of inefficiencies.  Folks are not on an assembly line waiting for the next part to arrive.  There are a lot of stops and starts.  It will be interesting to see how much project work we actually complete.  I would not be surprised if it is less than 50,000 hours.  I will let you know.

Managing vendor performance is a key part of my job.  When a vendor does not meet expectations they are placed on “The List.”  I tend to have a long memory and it can be hard to work your way off the list.  Especially since it means we don’t allow those vendors to bid on work.  I need to validate my worth to my organization every day.  I have the same expectations of our vendors.

I see my old friend Rob Petershack has started a blog at:

straighttalk-aboutitandip.blogspot.com

Rob is a healthcare IT attorney that I have always enjoyed working with.

In general I don’t use outside legal assistance when I am negotiating a contract. But I do think it makes sense when you are negotiating a large deal. Using an attorney with healthcare IT experience is great.

The trickiest part of negotiations is taking a mutually agreeable concept, like system availability, and developing mutually agreeable language. A really good attorney will bring a bag of scrubbed clauses that really help you get from idea to written agreement.

Rob has always done a good job of organizing the discussion and proposing workable language. He also used to be internal counsel for one of the larger HIS vendors, which can only help. Rob is at Axley Brynelson now (based in Madison). You can track him down at www.axley.com.

There are a lot of parallels between the IT and Legal departments. In both cases business leaders are often willing, even expecting, IT to take make business decisions on their behalf to finalize a broad concept. We both struggle with keeping our customers engaged once the initial glamour of the new effort is gone.

As I was cleaning out my inbox spam I came across this press announcement:

“I am very pleased to announce that SWC has received the Microsoft Central Region Partner of the Year Award for Loyalty.  In receiving this award SWC has been recognized from a community of over 12,000 solution providers in 18 states. This is a great honor for our organization and one that marks a tremendous period of success and accomplishment.”

I am not sure what SWC does.  But, this press release makes me less likely to find that out.  I want a technology partner that is loyal to me, not Microsoft.

I was looking at cheap services to transfer large files (home videos) and I stumbled across the mailbigfile service.  I was checking out the FAQ, which is actually a forum.  The first entry I read was very scary.

If you don’t feel like following the link, I will summarize.  This user was asking how long the service would retain his file named “ Admission, Discharge & Transfers.doc ”  Yikes, this dude is sending his hospital patient data using this free service!

This service does not use any encryption or passwords.  It just puts the file in a publicly available web server using a funky web address like: http://www.mailbigfile.com/309744be27e1b1c2800553375d0ca99b/download/826733/will_bellin_2007.png

These are the kind of links that people believe are undiscoverable, but googlebots find them all the time, and then heads roll.

Cute video regarding common PowerPoint mistakes.  Forward it to your favorite offender:

How NOT to use Powerpoint by David Airey of Creative Design

I would add my own presentation tips:

• NEVER use animation – life is too short
• Don’t use notes – they kill the spontaneity
• Don’t over-rehearse – I don’t like robots
• If you find yourself saying “again” you are being redundant, it is OK if the presentation goes quickly

Particularly in IT, the grass is always greener on the other side.  The bottom line is that complicated IT systems all have their flaws.  It takes a lot of effort to make sure you are not swapping out a set of existing frustrations for a new set that are different, but equally frustrating.  And, the cost of that swapping is enormous.

Sadly, I won’t be attending HIMSS this year – too many big projects. I can’t say I have ever taken full advantage of the event, but as I get older the networking means more to me.

There is going to be another blogger meet-up at HIMSS this year. Last year we pulled something together at the last minute and it was really enjoyable. I found those in attendance to be sincere people that were at HIMSS to discuss healthcare IT. Thanks to Shahid Shah for keeping this going. Shahid is also writing the HIMSS conference official blog, check it out.

Did anyone else get this invitation to lunch with Steve Ballmer? I ask the question for two reasons:

• this could be a setup to kidnap me since I am Microsoft’s biggest critic in healthcare.
• I was wondering if one would really get face time with Ballmer, or if I would be in a crowd of 1,000 other schmucks.

I wonder how much time Ballmer does stuff like this. I am sure he does a great meet and greet.

My BlackBerry is my favorite gadget of all time. I don’t even have a fancy one, just a 7250. The ability to check email at any time is wonderful (to me).

Of course BlackBerry etiquette is something I have to constantly keep in mind. It is probably not a good idea to pull out my device and check my email in the middle of interviewing a candidate. Nor is it a good idea to do so when my mother-in-law is talking to me. In fact, I have found there are all kinds of less obvious siutations where it isn’t appropriate to use my BlackBerry. Luckily, my wife is often there to provide me guidance.

I have had a lot of devices including Palms and iPaqs. But the BlackBerry is far superior. Firstly, the devices can be remotely managed using the BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). Secondly, wireless email access over the wireless carrier network is a must (but now available in the other device flavors). Lastly, I have found the BlackBerry to be robust, but very reliable. While it isn’t quite bulletproof, it is much more reliable than the other platforms. My iPaq was not acceptable.

One of our executives is quick to point out that a BlackBerry only makes you more productive if you are the only one that has one. If everyone has one then you are only keeping up with the additional emails that everyone else is cranking out on their BlackBerries.

I highly recommend one if you have the means (Ferris Beuller reference).

eWeek.com has a slide presentation on The Best IT Advice I Ever Got. I thought it was excellent.

What would you add? Some thoughts (I hope to add more later):

• Over-communication is not effective communication
• Don’t under-estimate your talent. Your IT team will raise their performance to meet your expectations, even when you don’t expect that to happen.
• If your leaders can’t describe the problem, they can’t solve it – no matter how much software you buy.