Technocom Blog

Managing during a recession

As VP of sales I’ve tried to think long and hard about how to motivate during this slowdown in the economy.  More companies are bidding on fewer jobs, and the ones that are won tend to have smaller margins.  It gets discouraging for the sales staff and the one thing you want to do is keep a positive attitude with your team because this comes across to potential customers.

There are only so many rah rah sales meetings you can have so I’ve decided to motivate on a more personal level.  Spending more time with each individual account executive, tell them how appreciative the company is for the effort that they are putting in.  Personalizing the jobs they are proposing by asking how the process is going, giving them any additional support they may need and encouraging them by being positive.

As much as there is a tendency to want to beat up your staff because sales have slowed down, to punish rather than praise, we should be mindful that the people we manage aren’t trying to not bring in business.  To get through this downturn we must work smarter and keep the attitudes of those around us in the right place.  Remember, employees are the ones selling the company.  Clients don’t just buy product, they buy from people and having a positive sales force will help get businesses through these tough times.

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UGuardU is watching LOIS

The City of Lake Oswego, OR began construction of the Lake Oswego Interceptor Sewer (LOIS) project in June 2009.  “The LOIS system will replace the interceptor sewer line, the backbone of the City’s wastewater system, located in Oswego Lake. Replacement of the interceptor is critical to ensuring the environmental protection of Oswego Lake and maintaining sewer service for residents. The existing interceptor is undersized, resulting in overflows during heavy rains, and is vulnerable during an earthquake.” (LOIS, 2009)

When engineering realized the investment of time required to monitor the construction of more than 18,000 feet of new wastewater pipe across the lake, they sought a better solution.  Driving a boat across the lake every day was not an efficient use of their time and there must be a better way to keep an eye on construction!
The City asked UGuardU to engineer a multi-camera solution that can watch the progress of LOIS’ construction, be viewed remotely, and store the recorded pictures.  The difficulty in developing this solution is needing to stage cameras at multiple locations and stream them back to the custom UGuardU server at the City’s headquarters.  For an additional challenge, the cameras need to record in 1080i high definition which takes a large amount of bandwidth at multiple locations and storage space.

In order to give them the detail they needed, we installed Axis Q1755 HD cameras which will provide the viewer with a zoom capability to reach great distances for fine details at the opposite end of the lake from the camera.  It needed to go a step further however.

When UGuardU was asked to add a pan and tilt capability, we added a motor to mount to the camera that allows the engineers to remotely move the camera left / right / up / down in addition to the zoom feature, without having to be at the cameras location making manual adjustments.  The engineers are thrilled at the new feature.
The recordings are equally essential to the project.  They are utilized by the engineers on the project to verify progress and create a “time-lapse” video of the construction after completion.

Now the City can access the cameras from any location with internet access, log in to their private account, and be in touch with the project from start to finish using only a finger… and UGuardU!

For additional information on the LOIS project, please visit www.lakeinterceptor.com

For additional information on UGuardU, please visit www.uguardu.com

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“UGuardU goes Wireless”

Technocom, Inc. of Wilsonville, Oregon is proud to announce our ability to take our UGuardU camera system almost anywhere.

Technocom has successfully tested one of its UGuardU cameras on the road. We used a broadband network access card and a power converter from the battery in order to provide live streaming video.  Multiple viewers were able to “view live” through an internet connection or PDA device, simultaneously.    All of which was recorded on a server for potential play back.

Product Manager, Matt Mosley stated that “we have continued to expand our capabilities; we are now able to place our camera where ever an internet access card will provide us with access together with some sort of power source.  This brings mobility to a once stagnant image.   You can image the possibilities.”

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UGuardU - KATU Weather Camera

Have you been watching the news lately on ABC channel 2 in Portland, OR? If so, you must have seen the latest edition of UGuardU HDTV cameras looking at Pioneer Courthouse Square!

KATU channel 2 has partnered with UGuardU to provide a live HD feed of the weather conditions in the heart of Downtown Portland, OR using an Axis Q1755 HDTV camera during their broadcast.

In regard to the importance of Pioneer Square, it is known as “Portland’s Living Room,” and has more than 26,000 people passing by it every day. Time magazine recognized it is “one of the ‘Ten most notable design achievements’ in the country.” UGuardU is now proud to give a bird’s eye view into this landmark of our hometown.

To get a bird’s eye view of your own living room and landmarks, email sales@uguardu.com or call 503.454.7315.

See more at www.uguardu.com

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UGuardU and KATU Television in Portland, OR

The power of UGuardU is now visible to the masses via KATU’s new weather cam.  We are proud to be partnering with KATU and Freewire Broadband to bring Portland’s living room to the air waves.  You can see Portland’s Pioneer Courthouse Square live!  We have the camera placed four blocks away to look right down on the action in the square.  Of course, you can see the bronze scupture of the man with the umbrella too (not much action with him)  You can also see this view at www.UGuardU.com.  Check out the demo cameras at our web site!

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A “Live View” of Portland Going Green

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vRNaVFSKS_Q

Friday morning at 7am, you can tune in to see the final installation and start of the first group of “small-scale urban wind turbines in the US” on Twelve | West tower in Downtown Portland, OR.

There are a total of four wind turbines, each costing about $10,000.  They are being installed to offset the electricity needs of the buildings office space and 273 apartments.

We will be streaming and recording the live feed from a UGuardU HDTV camera (using the UGuardU service), which was recently installed to view Pioneer Square.  For this event we will be redirecting it to face the Twelve | West tower to witness the final installation of the turbines, and see them turned on.

The full story will be featured as the centerpiece in the Sustainability section of Friday’s Oregonian.  This is a landmark achievement for Portland, and we hope to see National Press for the installation in addition to substantial local coverage.

You can access the demo cameras supporting the Live View at www.uguardu.com.  Login with user name: demo@uguardu.com password: seeprotect

For more information on UGuardU, please visit www.uguardu.com, email sales@uguardu.com, or call 503.682.4195.

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Portland’s first wind turbines - see them at UGuardU.com

Portland’s skyline will transform with the silhouette of four wind turbines on top of Twelve West (formerly 12W), making it the first urban high-rise building in the U.S. to have a small-scale wind turbine installation! You can watch the progress LIVE the morning of Friday Aug. 14 from our UGuardU.com website.  Log on to the demo cameras to see history in the making.

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UGuardU Website getting better all the time.

We have been working on the website to make it an even better place for you to get information.  Check out the live views of the car dealership in Newberg, Or. or the view of “Portland’s living room”.  We are really excited about it.

If you want to get the UGuardU system in your hands right away go to Amazon and type in “UGuardU”.  Do your shopping and have it delivered directly to you.  No fuss!  We are always here to answer your questions if you have them, even if you do shop at Amazon.

Imagine all the ways you can use the UGuardU solution.  It is a great way to keep an eye on places you just can’t be at all the time.  Your kids are ready to go back to school and who are they bringing home with them when you are at work? Nursery’s in our area are having stock stolen, I saw on the news that cow’s are being stolen and sold at auction.  Just set up a camera and you can log into your browser to see the images.  What have you got to loose?
See. Protect.

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“Troubleshooting Detective” - Phone System or Carrier?

Hello again fellow detectives!  I have a short training for you today.  We get many calls with issues that can be confusing as to who is the culprit, the phone system or their carrier provider. 
Before you go hating on your phone like this girl.
There is something to keep in mind when the problem arises.  If you make a phone call or someone calls into your business and you hear a message.  The magic word there is “hear”, something like “the number you dialed is not is service” for example or click on the link and you can actually hear what one would sound like (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sl6j67zJP9w).  Anytime you hear a message, typically this is going to be a carrier issue.  Why? Because the phone system does not have the ability to give out audio messages but the carrier, can only send audio messages.
When making a call, you see a message on your phone display or it just hangs up on you or you hear sounds, which could be your phone system.  I  say “could be” because of course to all these rules there are exceptions being that we are dealing with electrical systems that sometimes seem to have a mind of their own. 
 

Even though these clues will help you determine what is causing the problem sometimes it’s even hard for us to figure out which of the two is the culprit so when in doubt call your carrier.  They can typically look at your account and see if there are any errors or they can also tell you if they are having difficulties in your area and they will not charge you for checking (it can save you a service charge from us if we go out there and it ends up the problem was the carrier).  If after talking to them they say that they see everything good on their side, next step would be to give us a call with as many details about what you heard or happened as possible.  Remember!   Think like the phone, be the phone!  Ask, ask, ask as many questions as possible.
 

“when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth” – Sherlock Holmes

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Why recycle?

I recently attended a tour at Glacier Recycling in Auburn through ABC Associated Builders and Contractors, Green Council.  I have to say even though this event sounded like it was going to be boring, it was actually interesting so I decided to write a little something about recycling.

Let’s start with, what is recycling?  Recycling is the process of making or manufacturing new products from a product that has originally served its purpose. If these used products are disposed of in an appropriate, environmentally friendly way, that my friend is what you call recycling.

A large amount of people are starting to realize how important recycling is, however, there are many that remain unaware or simply think it is too much of a bother to take the time.   They believe the trend is growing, however and that proactive individuals and alternative energy companies are starting to step up in a big way.  Here are some eye opening facts.

Recycling Statistics in the US

*  82 million tons of materials are recycled in the United States. 

*  53.4 % of all paper products are being recycled.  Technocom only uses recycled paper!

*  There is about 100% increase in the total recycling in the United States during the past decade.

*  Each person produces 4.6 lbs. of trash per day in the United States.

*  United States recycles about 32% of its waste today.  Come on people, I know we can do better than this. 

Interesting metal recycling facts

*  Recycling steel and tin cans saves 74 percent of the energy used to make them.

*  Americans throw away enough aluminum every month to rebuild our entire commercial air fleet.

*  Americans throw out enough iron and steel to continuously supply all the auto makers in the entire  nation.   Interesting….do I really need to say what everyone is thinking??

*  A steel mill using recycled scrap reduces water pollution, air pollution, and mining waste by about 70 percent.

*  When you throw away an aluminum can you waste as much energy as if you’d filled the can half full of gasoline and poured it into the ground.

*  Americans use 100 million tin and steel cans each day.

*  Recycling one aluminum can saves enough energy to run a 100 watt light bulb for 20 hours, a computer for 3 hours, and a TV for 2 hours.

I know most of this information is about general recycling.  I also wanted to focus some attention to copper recycling because well, that is one of the materials Technocom is responsible for recycling when we do a demo of cable.  Did you know that scrap consumption over the past 20 years has provided between 44 and 54.7% of the total copper consumed in the U.S.  To learn more about copper, copper recycling and all other copper facts check out www.copper.org. 

 
Some other interesting websites on recycling:
http://www.binfordmetals.com/contact.html
http://www.glacierrecycle.com/welcome.html 

Visit out Facebook Page to see all of the pictures I took during our Glacier Recycle tour.  http://www.facebook.com/pages/Wilsonville-OR/Technocom-Inc/57090862390?ref=ts

Remember…..…reduce, reuse and RECYCLE!
 

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