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16 Sep 2008
Flat Henry
I found out that the National Guard provides an infrastructure of regional family support advocates. Last Friday evening, I fired off an email to an address in Abington, and actually got a response within minutes, loaded with useful resources...including a reference to Elaine Dumler's "flat daddy" photo. The idea is that a life-size cutout of your soldier can be photographed with your family and shared with others, creating a virtual presence, and generally make life apart a little more bearable.
Well, what a good idea! So I shot several photos and fired off emails to several local graphics companies. Tech Express refered me to Radford's Sign Systems and a DC firm. The DC firm responded the next day with a decent quote, and agreed to go a little extra: we made a flat Henry with a big smile on one side, but precisely fit the back with an angry flat Henry! This one is for use at work: the flat Henry sits in my office, smiling his normal self, until some month in the future, I get a note that profits are down. I'd email Angela, our CFO, and say, "Turn the Henry around!" and out comes flat angry Henry. Angela was good enough to even practice: she held it in front of her and went office-to-office and in her best angry voice (well, there was quite a bit of laughter mixed in) said, "Get to work! Earn more money!"
Well, a few days later, the fine folks at Sign Systems in Radford generously provided my family with all three flat-henry versions: the "happy henry", "concerned henry", and "angry henry." They printed each and mounted them very professionally (of course), and got it done quickly.
 
ACI , Army Deployment , Family , General
posted by  henry at  21:03 | permalink | trackbacks [26705]



13 Sep 2008
Technology Showcase, or Thanks for calling Tech Support. How may I abuse you?
The NewVa Corridor Technology Council found a great way to help promote technology in our region! The technology showcase on September 5th put all of us in a room and made us geeks talk to each other. Many companies brought their marketing folks, but for ACI and many others, everyone is front-line infantry! Proving that we can actually interact with other humans when you turn the voltage up high enough, I got to walk through the exhibits and saw that Dan Smith is establishing the Valley Business Front. He mentioned a PC problem with his email, and I must say I was reluctant to try to diagnose the issue. But I lucked out, fixed the problem and walked away with a virtual medal: he blogged about me. Cool!
 
ACI , Army Deployment , General
posted by  henry at  10:26 | permalink | trackbacks [7384]



29 Aug 2008
Our Advisory Board
Since 2004, we've practiced something called Open Book Management. Our financials are prepared monthly, and we sit down first at a leaders' meeting, then with the whole company, to pour through the results. It's not unlike an Army AAR (after action review): everyone has an equal say, anyone can ask questions, and it's not a blame-storm event. We honestly look at ways to improve ACI's bottom line. So that's a perfect way to inject our advisory board, plus keep everyone flowing on our regular rhythm. "Battle Rhythm" is a popular Army term now. It's not that I run my company like a military operation-- far from it. But I think the Army runs its military with a great deal of business best-practices. Or maybe business best-practices come from the disciplined look at process improvement brought about by military training.
Anyway... For two hours, we met with the board and went through the description of each division's revenue models, employees, current activity, and the past financials. And some great questions came out, plus some very positive feedback. This was an opportunity for me to help transition the team, while I was still available.
Our next advisory meeting will be in mid-September, after we've got the August results.
Thank goodness for the 8 week notice! John Phillips told me that one of his notifications went along the lines of blunt phone call, "Why aren't you here yet?!" It seems the orders had been lost in the shuffle.
I took an 11-page estate planning document prepared by the good folks at LeClair Ryan, and reduced it to this management diagram. Click to see the full picture.
ACI Management Succession Diagram
 
ACI , Army Deployment , General
posted by  henry at  21:12 | permalink | trackbacks [60673]



26 Aug 2008
Employees at ACI
In a company meeting on Monday, Lisa and I first met with Dale, Laureen and Angela. Dale has been running MatWeb since its inception in 1996. Laureen has managed our commercial operations since we started offering web design and development commercially (besides the military) in 1998. I got an immediate sense that they weren't too afraid to step into more of a leadership role when I opened it up to questions. One of the first questions was, "What will you change your telephone message to?" OK, good question. Easy fix.
So Dale will continue to run MatWeb, Laureen runs commercial, and Angela continues as our CFO but with perhaps a bit more leadership. Lisa will review major expenses, salary, etc. and Chip Warren will visit the monthly advisory committee meeting, probably once a quarter.
We've added two external advisors to our steering committee to make the advisory board: Dr. Dick Daugherty, from the CRC Business Technology Center, and John Phillips, from Premier Transfer. Both have been with me in the VTKW President's Council. Dick has consulted with us on MatWeb before, and John has done both economic development for Va Tech as well as running a services business while deployed. Great people to have on our team, and maybe the deployment was just an excuse to get them involved!
 
ACI , General
posted by  henry at  18:25 | permalink | trackbacks [4660]



25 Aug 2008
Henry the Pointy Haired Boss
The tweaked Dilbert cartoon from Friday's post was inspired by one of my favorite Dilberts: I've had it on my office door forever. PHB walks in and says, "What happened while I was in jail?" So the funny thing was, this was from my old 2005 Dilbert desk calendar, and was dated November 5th. Spooky, that it's approximately the date I'll return from this assignment. Well, that was just too cool to leave alone. A quick photoshop tweak, and PHB is just coming back from a 13 month Iraq deployment, and completely clueless that his office works so much better when he's away.
 
ACI , Army Deployment , General
posted by  henry at  16:44 | permalink | trackbacks [318]





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