Giving Back - Continued
March 26, 2008
I was checking out our new blog today, and saw a post by one of our newest employees, David Bowman. It is great to hear about people in our company giving back. It is an important part of our culture and frankly, it’s one of the most special parts of living on this earth.
I guess when I think about giving, I go back to my parents and the stories that they taught me about their growing up in the Great Depression. In today’s world and the complex financial crisis that the sub-prime mortgage market has along with the recent failings of some of Wall Street’s giants, I have to admit: I still think we as a society have no clue about the real impact of what our families and relatives went through in the Great Depression. My parents were fortunate. My mother is First Generation American. Her parents immigrated from Eastern Austria-Hungary and the Ukraine shortly after the beginning of this last century. Coal-miner, shoemaker, Goodyear Rubber & Tire factory work, her parents always put food on the table and had a modest life of comfort and stability. During the Depression, they constantly had people coming to their door asking for chores. Back then, pride was 100% of your character. One never took hand-outs. You would not take “free food” even though my grandparents were willing and able to share. My father grew up the 6th child of a Southern Alabama farm family. Again, lots of people were very unfortunate in the South during the Depression. He learned to give to his neighbors and support the community. This was a practice that he continued throughout his entire life.
Fast forward over my years growing up with them. My 2 brothers and I were in Boy Scouts in our formative years. Outside of camping in the Upstate New York Adirondacks once a month, community service was the core of our activities. Weekends were spent participating in newspaper drives, helping in the neighborhood parks, cleaning up the “teen center” and many other volunteer activities. We learned to support our community.
Fast forward to today: I still have it in my blood. LUCRUM is committed to participating in Community Service through providing 4 approaches: economic, leadership, professional, and material assistance to local and regional organizations. Economic simply means donated cash. Leadership is where people in our firm invest their time in guiding, assisting, participating in community organizations. Professional is where LUCRUM provides consulting, web development, and general software development services. LUCRUM’s community support initiatives have recently included: The United Way(www.uwgc.org) and the Tocqueville Society Campaign, the Central Clinic (www.centralclinic.org), the Boy Scouts(www.danbeard.org), the Evans’ Scholar Golf Outing, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Cincinnati Art Museum (www.cincinnatiartmuseum.org), the Fine Arts Fund (www.fineartsfund.org) and their new Technology Sector campaign, and the National Father-Son Tennis Tournaments to name a few. As you can imagine, it’s contagious with our employees and their commitment to the community amplifies ours.
So, “thank-you” David Bowman. “Thank-you” to all of our LUCRUM professionals in their commitment in supporting our community.
People, Technology, and Learning
March 25, 2008
As the new marketing manager for LUCRUM, there is so much that I do not understand about what we do. Here is the good news. I know that I can learn. I was reminded of this as I was reading one of Seth Godin’s latest posts about learning. There has never been a time in history where knowledge has been so readily available. The problem now becomes one of attention - picking what to learn out of the vast choices of information. I am lucky to be surrounded by technology experts, all willing to share information about the technical aspects we deliver to our clients. Here at LUCRUM, we regularly have employees present internally on emerging technologies through our Lunch and Learn and Brain Brew programs. Learn by teaching is deeply engrained in our culture. This only helps to make our consultants more effective with our clients, and our team better equipped to meet the evolving needs of business. I know I have a lot to learn. What is better is to know that I work somewhere where I am not only encouraged to learn, I am expected to. Combine the culture I work in with the endless knowledge provided on the web, and there is really no excuse not to learn something of value every day. Occasionally, I might test that knowledge here - soliciting your feedback to yield even greater understanding. What an amazing time to be alive, and what an amazing place to be living it!
Seth’s Blog: Things you don’t understand
Blog Training at LUCRUM
March 25, 2008
Today, I was given the distinct privilege of presenting to my fellow LUCRUM employees on blogging. More specifically, I was tasked with teaching them how to blog. I was given 90 minutes, which is a long time to talk about something that is really quite easy to do. I spent some time discussing why it is important to blog. I touched on the changing state of marketing from that of a dialog to an interactive monologue, and stressed that their voices matter. I then went on to talk about ways to construct posts, do’s and don’ts of blogging, and then showed them just how simple it is to use WordPress. We touched on tools like RSS, digital cameras, Google Blog Search, and plain old note cards as ways to develop content. We even got into some emerging tools like Alltop and Snipshot. Overall, I think that everyone was interested. It is tough to present to such a diverse group - especially when many are far more versed in technology than I. The true test of the presentation will be very easy to measure. If you see more posts from more people, it worked. If not, I will go back to the white board. I am convinced that the people here at LUCRUM are some of the best and brightest in the world. My challenge is convincing them to share that brilliance with the rest of the world. If I can, what an amazing experiment this will turn out to be. Hopefully today was the first step in making that happen. Thanks to everyone who attended. You were a great audience.
Giving Back
March 19, 2008
The purpose of this post is twofold. First, I want to use this platform to promote an upcoming charitable event that I am involved in organizing. It is a pancake breakfast that is going to be held this Saturday, March 22nd, at F&S Harley Davidson in Dayton, Ohio. The event is being held to raise money for the Epilepsy Foundation of Western Ohio, a group with which I am proud to be involved. It is going to be from 8:00am to 11:00am. It should be great fun, and if you are interested in finding out more or RSVP’ing for the event - visit PancakesPancakes.com I hope you can join the fun and contribute to a great cause in the process.
More importantly is the second purpose of my post, which is to talk about how rewarding it is to work at a place that encourages employees to get involved in making the community better. During my short time here at LUCRUM, I have been encouraged to continue my work with the Epilepsy Foundation. Many of my co-workers have gotten involved as well. It has been very moving to get such an overwhelmingly positive response from people whom I just recently met. Many are even getting up early on Saturday morning - sacrificing free time - to come to Dayton for the pancake breakfast. Pretty amazing. What’s more, shortly after starting here, I learned that LUCRUM is actively involved with supporting the Epilepsy Foundation here in Cincinnati - a coincidence that made me feel even better about my choice to come to work here. From the Fine Arts Fund to the Boy Scouts to countless other community organizations, we demonstrate our commitment by contributing time, money, and effort to the cause.
Some will ask “Does this take away from profitable, billable time?” Yes, of course. However, the value of giving far outweighs the cost of some billable hours here and there. It adds meaning to our work and out lives. This is something that makes our company unique. I am thankful to senior management for their commitment to the community, and their willingness to let everyone make a difference. I appreciate it, and I just wanted to let you know. Not only to I love the work I get to do, I am proud of where I get do it.
Why I Chose LUCRUM?
March 5, 2008
My name is Julie Grant, and I am the newest addition to the business development team at LUCRUM. Yesterday was my first day, and I wanted to take this opportunity to tell the world why I made the decision to join LUCRUM.
First, a bit about my background. I have 15 years in software, hardware and consulting sales. I’ve spent the majority of my career selling storage management software and tape/disk libraries to SMB and enterprise accounts in the commercial market. I also spent time concentrating in the Federal space, traveling to DC on a regular basis and selling into accounts that included DOD, DOL, NSA, and NASA.
Now you know a little about where I’ve been, so lets talk about where I am going. I want to start with discussing the IT Consulting industry. The thing that interests me most about the IT Consulting Industry is that the environment and technology are dynamic - everything is constantly changing. Consulting sales exposes you to several technologies, based on the different needs of your many clients. I like providing solutions for those needs and knowing I’ve helped a customer.
So, “Why Lucrum?” Lucrum has been a part of the Cincinnati consulting industry for some time now. I like the idea of joining an established company - known specifically in the Cincinnati marketplace for quality IT services. I also like the philanthropic activities of Lucrum. I admire how Lucrum serves both the Cincinnati business and social/philanthropic community.
I am glad to be part of the LUCRUM team, and I look foward to contributing to the continued success of the company and the community.
No Whammies! No Whammies! Stop!
February 24, 2008
There are two words that can strike fear in the heart of the most seasoned of managers: PERFORMANCE EVALUATIONS. But why is that? Companies spend countless dollars each year training their managers on how to do evaluations and refining their performance evaluation systems, but has any of it really made it easier?
When it comes down to it, we as human beings, no matter how many courses we’ve taken, or books we’ve read, we are just not “wired” to give very direct, honest feedback. Think about it. How many times as child did you say something brutally honest only to be told by your mother “that’s not a nice thing to say”?
How many people go home at night to their spouses and initiate a conversation something like this: “honey, I need to give you some feedback on how you’re performing as my significant other”? Sounds crazy, right? (Can you predict how that feedback would be received?)
And yet, that’s what good managers are supposed to do for their employees on a regular basis. It’s only fair to let people how they measure up to the company’s expectations- not to mention that it’s typically the basis for performance increases.
The consulting environment adds another quirk that most corporate managers do not face with the same regularity- and that’s the challenge of managing people that we may never work with directly. In the consulting environment, most of our managers are billable consultants first then managers second. They typically maintain their own client engagements which may never cross paths on a daily basis with their direct reports. So how do you provide feedback on people you don’t work with everyday- or whose work you don’t supervise?
Forget annual evaluations! In my opinion, performance feedback- both positive and constructive- should be given monthly. Yes, I said monthly. And, yes, I know how much work evaluations are to do annually. And yes, I know how busy everyone is with their “day jobs.” But, even in an informal fashion, monthly feedback will help to make the annual evaluation a review of the year versus the annual WHAMMY that most evaluations turn out to be. An employee who has received nine to twelve pieces of feedback on their work has headlights as to what is working and what needs to be adjusted in order to meet the company’s expectations.
When it comes to evaluations, a good manager knows what they don’t know, and seeks input from others in order to provide the most accurate feedback to their employees. They seek out client opinions, colleague opinions, perhaps even peer opinions- even if it means bucking the internal HR systems a bit to do so (apologies to my HR brothers and sisters out there!).
At the end of the day, giving direct feedback will never feel especially comfortable to most of us. But most people don’t like surprises- especially when it comes to their performance evaluations. No matter how you give the feedback- formal process, casual conversation- it doesn’t matter as long as you are giving your feedback frequently. So leave the WHAMMIES to the game shows, and don’t even think about giving your spouse their performance evaluation!
More Birthday Fun
February 18, 2008
More birthday fun, courtesy of LUCRUM recruiter / amateur videographer Andy Erickson. Here is a clip from our birthday lunch last week. Note that the most popular response to “what do you love about LUCRUM?” was the people - with Andy’s mom coming in a distant second. All in good fun. It is a great place to work. I just surpassed 15 days (business days) with the company, and it is already clear to me why the company has been around for that same number of years. Great people. Thanks for the footage Andy.
Happy 15th Birthday LUCRUM!
February 15, 2008
Today is LÛCRUM’s 15th birthday. I have been fortunate enough to be with LÛCRUM for 10 of those 15 years. It has been quite a ride. We have had great success and we have seen some truly “downer” moments. People have asked why I stay. The answer is simple, LÛCRUM provides me with a company that cares about what I have to say and gives me room to chart my own course.
I started my career in a Fortune 100 company. I was making half as much as peers of mine out of college, but I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be “when I grew up”. While there, I changed positions a few times, but never saw a change in my income that got me closer to my peer group. Challenges where there when I asked, but the rules were pretty severe. I moved on…My next company was a small, privately held, poorly run firm. I loved the job! I had all the flexibility that I wanted and I was challenged every day. Unfortunately, my employer had routine cash flow issues that impacted the regularity of my pay. I moved on…I went to work for a small manufacturing firm. I was again given a lot of flexibility, but they weren’t able to keep my interest long. I moved on…to LÛCRUM.
While at LÛCRUM, I have see it all. I’ve had great success, I’ve experienced failure. Through it all, LÛCRUM has believed in me. I have learned that perseverance does pay off, and good ideas only get better when you share them.
I’m really excited to see what the next 15 years bring to LÛCRUM. We are growing out of adolescence and we are well into our teens. As with most 15 year olds, what you see may not be “finished”. We have our share of ugliness…things we’d like to change about ourselves, things we know we can do better. We’re finally figuring out what we’re really good at doing and we’re starting to repeat our success. For our next big birthday, we’ll be 20. 20! Can you believe it!?! Imagine all the maturity that we’ll have then!
Happy Birthday, LÛCRUM!
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