Community IT Innovators. Established 1993. Serving social mission organizations with integrated technology services you can trust.

Matthew Eshleman

Developing a Cloud Strategy

By: Matthew Eshleman

November 17th, 2011

I recently had the opportunity to speak at NTEN’s Cloud Summit held on October 26th at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York. This in-person event was a great follow-up to the series of Cloud Webinars that NTEN sponsored over the summer.

After the opening plenary by Ami Dar, the Executive Director of Idealist, I spoke on the topic of “Developing a Cloud Strategy”. This session was Livestreamed by NTEN and is available here.

I think that it is important to develop a little deeper understanding of what the term “Cloud” means, since most every IT solution that’s out there has slapped some blue skies on their landing page and dubbed their product a “cloud solution”. At its core a Cloud Solution is an architecture that provides scalable, Internet-accessible services. I like to use the terms Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (Paas) and Software as a Service (SaaS) to divide up the solutions that are out there. The solutions that fall in the IaaS and PaaS categories like Amazon’s EC2 Cloud and Microsoft’s Azure are typically not practical solutions for most organizations under 200 seats. Organizations in this category are typically looking at the Software as a Service where popular offerings such as Office 365, Google Apps, Salesforce, Box.net and Twitter among others are found.

While discussing semantics about what truly qualifies as a Cloud is quite fun most people just want a solution that works. I think that there are three main points to keep in mind when looking at migrating some, or all of your IT systems to the Cloud.

  • The Cloud is just another IT Tool :
    • Backup & Availability planning: Just because your data is in the cloud, does not mean that you don’t have to think about your data backup, retention and availability plan. Each vendor will provide different Service Level Agreements that specify how long they’ll store your data. When you read the contract make sure that the Service Level Agreement matches up with your expectation and business requirements. Basic questions such as “What is our email retention policy”, “what is our plan should our provider be down for a day” or “how do we roll back changes after a corrupt data import” are important to discuss; it is important to understand how the solution you have chosen will function.
    • Data portability: Cloud solutions are often very easy to migrate into, but are often quite difficult to migrate away from. Cloud solutions have the extra layer of abstraction so that you don’t have access to the underlying system. Instead of getting the actual SQL data backup you may be given a CSV export of your data, which can be much more difficult to migrate into a different system. Google has done a good job of identifying and working on this issue with their Data Liberation Project. Even with their resources not every Google App has an easy migration path out.
    • Total Cost of Ownership. Yes Google Apps is “free” for non-profits and the Salesforce Foundation will give you 10 “free” seats as a non-profit, but a solution is only free if your time is worth nothing. I think that both of those solutions provide phenomenal capabilities, but there could be other solutions out there, that for a price, will integrate better with your existing systems, allow your organization to work more effectively or provide better support. The term “Total Cost of Ownership” can be a nebulous and far ranging concept, but it is important to look at all aspects, people and technology, that will be impacted by moving to a new IT solution.
  • Cloud is outsourcing: Moving to a cloud solution puts one more layer between the end user and the solution provider. Instead of being able to walk down the hall and reboot a server or make a configuration change, that request needs to be routed to your vendor, who may or may not be able to accommodate your request. Moving your data to the cloud often means reading & agreeing to, or just agreeing to a lengthy terms of service contract.  These terms often provide much greater protection and leverage to the vendor than the customer.
  • IT becomes focused on the data not the system: As a technologist I love being able to see and touch the IT systems that I support. As more and more IT systems move from physical, on-premise solutions to hosted, “cloud” solutions my work has moved from setting up and installing servers to managing network connectivity and data integration between platforms. There will always be a need for a technically talented person to be able to troubleshoot and fix the PCs, laptops and tablets, but the frequency of that need will diminish. At the opposite end of the spectrum the skills required to implement, support and maintain a scalable cloud architecture are more sophisticated than those required for maintaining a small network in the closet down the hall.

The cloud is in some ways a circle back to the beginning of modern computing where small terminals were physically connected back to the main shared data processing system. We’ve been able to cut the cord and there are many more systems to connect to, but the model is still the same. Look forward for my blog on the power of local processing in 20 years.

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David Deal

Register for the Dec 1 seminar ‘Data to Story: Optimizing Performance Management Systems’

By: David Deal

October 24th, 2011

Community IT Innovators’ Sr. Consultant Katherine Mowers, and Sr. Consultant Karen Finn of Results Leadership Group are teaming up to lead a seminar hosted by Maryland Nonprofits: Data to Story: Optimizing Performance Management Systems. If you are seeking to better organize your data to help measure, understand and communicate your organization’s impact in the community, register to join in this seminar set for Thursday, December 1 from 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

In this seminar you will be introduced to the tools and business systems necessary to optimize your organization’s current data, enabling you to tell the story of your organization’s impact in a powerful way. This seminar will give you an understanding of which features may be most helpful to the specific needs of your organization and provide software solution examples available on the market (though it will not include a demo of software options).

This seminar is ideal for executive staff, program staff, and/or individuals responsible for managing a nonprofit’s data systems. The Data to Story: Optimizing Performance Management Systems seminar will be hosted  at the Maryland Nonprofits Baltimore office, 190 West Ostend Street, Suite 201 in Baltimore, MD.

 

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Katherine Mowers

Tools to optimize your data — to tell your story in a powerful way

By: Katherine Mowers

May 11th, 2011

We are sharing out the Simplifying and Maximizing Organizational Impact Data presentation — now publicly viewable — presented at the Not-For-Profit Leadership Summit IX in NY on Monday May 9, 2011. Around 50 nonprofit leaders participated in the workshop, engaging in conversation about:   performance accountability and establishing performance measures,  challenges commonly faced such as gaining consistency in collecting data, and how to select appropriate software to support nonprofit business processes and data collection needs. We also touched on the importance of staff participation in the ownership of data … and how when data is turned into useful information, helps you tell your story in a powerful way with current and potential funders, with staff and volunteers, and with other key stakeholders.

Anyone interested in more information, check out the slides and feel free to contact Karen Finn of Results Leadership Group or myself, Katherine Mowers of Community IT Innovators. … An added note:  the tools described – including Results Based Accountability – can be scaled, down or up, depending on the size of your organization. For small nonprofit organizations — there are affordable software options for you to track your data! … Or you can assess and improve the use of what you have.  We can do creative thinking with you, to find a way to plan and implement what you need within your budget, or get you the information you need to obtain funding for these capacity building initiatives. If you have the will, we will partner with you to find the way!

| Tags: , , , | Posted in consulting, Fundraising, Information Management, Nonprofit management, Performance management, software selection | No Comments »

David Deal

NTEN IT Takeaways

By: David Deal

April 20th, 2011

A big thanks to everyone who joined us at the Nonprofit Technology Conference this year.  And an even bigger thanks to NTEN for putting on the biggest and best conference yet!

Community IT Innovators led three sessions on the conference’s “Technology Track” and it was interesting to see what aspects of these topics got the greatest audience engagement:

  • Virtualization: the pros and cons of desktop and server virtualization, leading software, and related issues.
  • Cloud Computing: hosted email, file sharing, apps, and related issues such as backups, vendor lock-in, and more.
  • IT Planning for “Small” Nonprofits: regardless of whether you have 5 or 85 staff,  if you don’t have an on-staff technologist in charge of IT/IS this is probably applicable to you.

If the Technology Planning for Nonprofits panel discussion interests you, you can watch a recording of the session. Or, check out the presentation and this basic IT budget template. There was also question during the session regarding PCI Compliance and a potentially useful website was identified by a member of the audience.  For more information or questions, please contact Johan Hammerstrom.

The virtualization session notes, including Twitter feed and links, are available at the conference website.  Topics that got the most airtime included desktop virtualization and backup of virtual environments. The cloud session notes are also available. Topics in this session included vendor lock-in, backups, cloud-based file sharing, single sign-on, and rich media backups.

Finally, I was at the IT Directors Affinity Group meeting, where a theme seemed to be the changing role of IT in nonprofits. A few observations:

  • There were about 100 attendees, most of whom described themselves as “IT Directors.” About 40% of those were representing organizations with over 100 seats/users/computers.
  • Surprisingly to me, almost half indicated that they report to the CEO/Executive Director. This is encouraging since it implies a more strategic view of technology, rather than the traditional “cost center” approach that is more typical when the IT Director reports to the CFO.
  • Several mentioned feeling marginalized within their organizations. “Corporate” IT, at the levels of funding it commonly receives in the nonprofit space, is hard pressed to keep up with the technology expectations of staff. Challenges include the pace of change in consumer IT and the introduction of those technologies into the enterprise, and the expense and difficulty in migrating integrated, enterprise-wide systems to newer technology platforms. They feel pressure to keep up despite the lack of funding for or strategic focus on the effective use on technology.
  • Moving apps to the cloud and/or outsourcing does NOT mean that an organization does not need to oversee those things.  Several shared stories affirming the need to provide ongoing oversight of hosted apps and service providers.
  • The role of IT Directors is changing, and some feel threatened while other see it as an opportunity to shift their focus to more value-adding work (if organizations will maintain their investment in the role!).

There’s no doubt there are major changes underway in the technology world, and that roles in the IT department are shifting. I believe the pace of change is frequently overstated, and that this will be a slow and incremental process for most organizations. Nevertheless, organizations need to be thinking about the changes and the opportunities now.

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    Steve Longenecker

    Email Solution Choices

    By: Steve Longenecker

    March 31st, 2011

    What email solution is best for you?

    There are a number of email solutions that Community IT Innovators deploys, supports, and recommends. Which we recommend to various clients depends on a number of factors. We ask our clients what collaborative functionality (shared calendaring, shared address books, etc.) the email solution needs to have and how loyal to Outlook the organization’s users are. We consider the organization’s size, and whether it works better for them financially to pay for email as a monthly subscription or as a large overhead investment every 3-5 years. We
    discuss business continuity requirements, tolerance for hosted solution latency, main office Internet performance, and any privacy/control concerns that they might have. Email definitely does not have a one-size-fits-all solution and CITI works hard to find the solution that is “just right” for our clients.

    The solutions that CITI works with most often are:

    • Google Apps
    • Local Exchange
    • Hosted Exchange provided by third-party vendors
    • Hosted Exchange provided by Microsoft

    Yes, we do sometimes get calls from organizations that still POP their email from webhosts and a few of CITI’s own technicians are interested in the open-source Zimbra solution, but for the most part our clients work in the environments first mentioned. Which is best? It depends.

    Larger clients go local

    Not so many years ago, hosted services were rare and organizations that wanted the functionality of Microsoft Exchange needed to install it on a local server. For larger nonprofits, it was Exchange 2003 Standard Edition (or Enterprise occasionally) running on a separate mail server, while at a smaller scale Exchange was most affordable as part of Small Business Server 2003. For those larger nonprofits, the investment in building and maintaining local Exchange made (and makes) sense. The cost to buy and configure an Exchange server is more-or-less the same whether you are doing it for 10 users or 100. There are licensing costs that vary by number of users, but at charity pricing, that part of an Exchange project price tag is actually fairly minor. So for larger nonprofits, building and maintaining a local Exchange server is often the way to go; the price per user is competitive with almost all other solutions.

    Smaller clients leverage hosted environments

    For smaller nonprofits, though, that same fixed cost for a local server is spread across far fewer users. These days, pretty much the same Exchange/Outlook experience that many nonprofits have become used to is available for a per mailbox, per month subscription fee. Standard administrative tasks are handled through a web console (CITI still performs those tasks for many of our clients). Users can access email from Outlook, Outlook Web Access from a browser (Internet Explorer working much better than alternate browsers), or a mobile device. The cost is approximately $10/user/month, varying by mailbox size requirements, spam filtering solution, and mobile device support. Vendors that CITI has worked with include Rackspace and Mailstreet.

    For organizations that buy Microsoft licenses at retail prices, the hosted solution model is competitive even with quite a few users. Since most nonprofits obtain Microsoft licenses at very low cost, however, the point at which on-site Exchange makes sense is generally lower. CITI often recommends on-site Exchange for nonprofits with more than about 20 users that want Exchange/Outlook functionality. For less than 20 users, hosted Exchange is often the way to go. The line at which the recommendation changes is not a sharp one, however.

    Backing up your email

    An organization’s backup infrastructure affects and is affected by this decision. For a smaller organization, moving Exchange to the cloud can reduce backup requirements considerably. Often the only data left on the local network are file shares, which can be easily backed up to hosted backup solutions such as iBackup, MozyPro, and Rackspace Server Backup. These solutions are very inexpensive but not recommended by CITI when a local Exchange server is present.

    Other considerations

    There are other considerations when choosing between hosted and local Exchange. In general, hosted solutions offer better business continuity. Local servers break, and while hosted email is not unbreakable, hosted solution providers often have multiple levels of redundancy simply unavailable to organizations operating at the scale of the single server room. Hosted Exchange has the disadvantage that Outlook can be slightly slower for end users
    since it connects to the mailbox across the Internet and therefore is subject to bandwidth limitations and routing congestion.

    Microsoft’s cloud

    Microsoft now offers its own hosted Exchange service. The advantages offered by their service are a significant price drop (their service is $5/user/month), extremely large mailbox capacity (25GB), and some very slick migration tools that make a move to Microsoft less expensive than migration to other hosted solutions would be. They also offer a full suite of online services for only $10/user/month that includes SharePoint and Office Communicator. The downside to their service is that because the Microsoft party line is that Exchange public folder functionality should now be replaced by SharePoint, their service does not provide public folders at all. It’s a solution that’s attractive in some situations but certainly not in all.

    Go Google?

    Finally, the solution that in some ways may make the most sense for many of CITI’s nonprofit clients is Google Apps. Google has made their Education Edition of Google Apps, a hosted solution, available at no charge to 501(c)(3) organizations. It comes with industry-leading Postini spam filtering included, very large mailbox capacity (7.5GB), and provides most of the same functionality that Exchange provides. Plus, it comes with a suite of hosted applications. And once a migration is paid for, it’s free for nonprofits.

    So why haven’t all of CITI’s clients signed up? In most cases, because it is a different experience for end users. Google Apps works best from the browser interface, and CITI does not recommend its integration with Outlook. Giving up Outlook is something many CITI clients are not willing to do because the end-user human costs are generally greater than the financial savings realized. For some CITI clients, however, it has proven to be the best-fit solution.

    Each solution has its pros and cons and CITI is loyal to each only insofar as they meet our clients’ needs to the greatest extent possible. It is certainly not a decision to be taken lightly – the migration costs of changing from one type of solution to another are substantial. CITI does its best to provide clients with the information they need to make the right decision for their particular organization.

     

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    David Deal

    eCycling and Job Skills Training

    By: David Deal

    March 9th, 2011

    Here’s a really interesting approach to job skills training for homeless people, combined with e-waste recycling. Wilderness Technology Alliance (Wildtech) and CCNV are hosting an eCycling event next Thursday in conjunction with the NTEN Conference’s Day of Service. Wildtech has a worthy mission to “pioneer character and technology education programs through service learning.” As a result of this eCycling event, Homeless and unemployed people will have the opportunity to learn job skills and earn an income by refurbishing computers that will be provided to low-income families, and unusable electronics will be recycled.

    It’s free to drop off “surplus computers, monitors, printers, empty toner & ink cartridges and peripherals,” although a donation is suggested.  They also request that you give them a heads up about what you’ll be dropping off.

    They’re accepting e-waste from 7am to 6pm next Thursday, March 17, at Community of Creative Non-Violence (CCNV) Homeless Shelter, 425 Second Street NW, Washington DC 20001 (rear parking lot accessible from “E” street near 2nd NW).  No, it’s not coincidence that a “greening” event is scheduled for St. Patty’s Day!

    Props to Wildtech-CCNV for a worthy and creative effort, and something worth our community’s support!

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    David Deal

    “Simplifying and Maximizing Organizational Impact Data” Workshop in NY

    By: David Deal

    March 8th, 2011

     CITI’s Katherine Mowers, Sr. Consultant/Project Manager, and Karen Finn, Partner at Results Leadership Group, will be jointly leading a workshop titled “Simplifying and Maximizing Organizational Impact Data” at the Not-For-Profit Leadership Summit IX in Tarrytown, New York set for May 9, 2011. The interactive workshop will introduce participants to the tools necessary to optimize their organizations’ current data, enabling them to turn data into information to tell the story of the organization’s impact in a powerful way. 

    During the session Katherine and Karen will introduce participants to a method to:

    1. Identify their most important impact performance measures;
    2. Assess their current organizational data and business systems in light of these performance measures;
    3. Learn about software options used to support performance management, demonstrate impact and help to strategically plan for improvements.
    4. Learn a process to review software and determine a system that will be most useful to the organization’s operations.

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    Katherine Mowers

    Sustaining nonprofit leadership: highlights and insights

    By: Katherine Mowers

    March 4th, 2011

    Reaching out to others with compassion and care, speaking well of others when they are not around, and taking interest in others, these are all traits of leaders who value relationship. In these times when the focus is on “getting things done”, it is easy to loose sight of people – and regardless of the mission an organization has, it is in the people business. Darryl Jones, Sr. Vice President of CEO of Maryland Nonprofits shared these and many other thought-provoking words in the opening session at Maryland Nonprofits’ Annual Conference. Dave Deal, CITI’s CEO, and myself participated in the one day conference centered on the theme “Sustaining Nonprofit Leadership”, held on March 2, 2011. Here are a few other take-aways:

    Leaders are good listeners, and listening supports learning.

    Leaders stay in touch with emerging trends and issues, to help determine what talents and resources they will need to address them.

    Leaders clarify vision, communicate the vision, and align daily activities with that vision.

    Leaders need to build up their resiliency ahead of time, so they can be ready for a crisis when it comes.

    It is okay to have plan A, B, C and D and to know that you may have to jump to next plan. The main thing is: have a plan.

    One’s leadership style may need to shift to support each generation … from a talk by afternoon keynote speaker Peter Brinckerhoff, author of “Generations: the Challenge of a Lifetime for Your Nonprofit“:

    • Baby Boomers: born between 1946 and 1964
      There are 80M

      Boomers had the technology innovation of the television during their formative years. They saw the same shows at the same time, and television as a technological innovation brought them together. Boomers in their collective wisdom believe they saved the world in the 1960’s. Engage them to come and save the world with us again.
    • Generation X: born in the 1960s and 70s, ending not later than 1982 (The X stands for 10th generation after the Declaration of Independence)
      There are 45M

      For Generation X, the technology innovation that occurred during their formative years was the personal computer. They remember what life was like before computers. What is important to them: they think “How can I make technology work for my community.” Generation Xers need to know they are valued. They value independent thinking, contributing their ideas and participating in the organization, and they value work-life balance.
    • Generation @, or also known as Generation Y: born after the mid 1980’s through to the early 2000’s
      There are 75M
      Generation Y was born into technology, it is like air to them and there is no drastic technology innovation during their formative years, so they can’t remember what it was like before technology. They make decisions based on their access to technology. What is important to them: they need to be connected all the time. They also have high expectations for what they should get out of their workplace.
    • Micromanagement is out: This style does not work with Generation X or Generation Y. Allow them to work. And seek them out for input – say “Here’s our Fundraising Plan (or any other plan), what do you think?”
    • Board Diversity — How to get younger people to join aging Boards: All those Baby Boomers are eventually going to have to retire. Getting younger Board Members is hard because when they come to a Board meeting, to them it is a meeting of their parents. Bring younger Board Members onto the Board in pairs, this seems to work well, and helps them feel they have a peer.

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    Katherine Mowers

    Performance management: You want to show results

    By: Katherine Mowers

    January 3rd, 2011

    “… leadership is defined by results, not attributes.” — words by the famed Peter Drucker who is described rightly so by The Drucker Institute as being a person focused on relationships among human beings, rather than focusing on number crunching. He also focused on how organizations can bring out the best in people.

    Drucker though wouldn’t toss number crunching to the wayside. Numbers are needed to know results, to guide staff, make decisions about program direction, and determine improvements. Nearly every non-profit organization seeks to do “outcome tracking” to “show impact” and has “performance measurements” to produce numbers in order to understand organizational results. Such numbers also help organizations tell their story to aid fundraising efforts.

    Performance management – got to have the right measures
    Performance management depends on the existence and use of performance measures. A performance measure is a mechanism for knowing how well the organization is doing. According to the Results-Based Accountability method, outlined in the book Trying Hard is Not Good Enough, a performance measure (or it can be called a “performance metric”) uses these questions as a foundation for developing different types of performance measures:

    • How much did we do? – these show up as numbers of people served and number of activities. For example: how many events did our members/clients/constituents attend.
    • How well did we do it? – the quality of what we did by a ratio % of activity, for example % of people who came to three or more events over a set period of time.

    • Is anyone better off? – these are results shown by behavior change, attitude change, skills/knowledge increase, or change in circumstances. For example: % of people who now own a home, or % of people who say they feel more economically secure.

    A few months ago I discovered that the Annie E. Casey Foundation is using Results-Based Accountability. It is certainly a practical and easily understandable approach, and is a method that people at all levels of the organization can connect and relate to.

    Some precautions when looking at performance management software systems
    There are performance management software systems in the form of constituent relationship management software and case management software that do “outcome tracking”. This is excellent! However, one must be careful to look closely and see if the outcome tracking features gives your organization the ability to track performance measures the way you want to.

    For a cornerstone, if we use the Result-Based Accountability definitions for performance measures, “How much did we do?” is easy to track in such systems and is almost always in the reports and/or dashboard section of the system. If you want to know quality of service – “How well did we do it?” – and especially “Is anyone better off?”, these are not always as evident in these systems and require closer inspection. You may see wonderful charts and graphics in the demonstration of the system, and descriptions of various scales, however it is important to take a closer look.

    More importantly, a business decision needs to be made – do we have the system dictate our performance management method? Or do we decide the performance management method, and we use the system to give us what we need? You could also take an approach to have one inform the other. Neither is more superior, it is just important to make a clear decision on this rather than end up one way wishing you had taken the other.

    A related topic is the common jumbling of terms in the sector: “results”, “outcomes”, “measures” are used interchangeably. The best advice I have heard from Karen Finn, a Partner at Results Leadership Group, is: establish your own internal definitions and have discipline on using the terms consistently. When your funders use various terms, then you will have more clarity on what you are giving them, and can provide them your equivalent definitions to truly communicate impact.

    Community IT Innovators’ team of Sr. Consultants has expertise in selecting software that helps nonprofit organizations solve their business challenges, including selecting performance management solutions. If you would like to have a conversation about your performance management vision (or struggles), contact us.

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    Katherine Mowers

    Seeking Relationship – is it Transactional or is it Real Commitment?

    By: Katherine Mowers

    December 3rd, 2010

    We care about many relationships – with loved ones, and with the professional relationships we have with staff and colleagues in our fields of expertise. We have certain expectations in relationships. And who is not looking for trust in a relationship? Though it sounds a little contrived, the same care about relationship holds true for the relationship you have with companies contracted for your business needs – be it a fundraising system, case management system, Constituent Relationship Management (CRM) system, Association Management System (AMS) or other software that helps support your operational processes.

    In talking recently with more than 10 vendors as part of a software selection project for a national non-profit organization, I was quite disappointed at the transactional nature of at least three of vendors – and these three are no small peanuts in the industry. Their behaviors created an immediate red flag. When making such a significant investment in money and people-time for the implementation, it is critical to know that the vendor can be trusted in a relationship for the long haul – we are talking 3 – 4 years, maybe even 10 years.

    When looking for Software as a Service (SAAS) (SAAS is software deployed over the internet that the vendor typically hosts or recommends a hosting facility), or for other software solutions, there is the official discovery of business requirements, documentation of those requirements, and the prioritization of needs for comparison with the vendor’s product. This is necessary to understand whether their solution will help solve your business challenges. In addition there is the official, yet more intuitive, discovery of the relationship. Many of our clients care about the relationship aspect as much as the solution – there is wisdom in this approach. Here are a few questions to keep in mind if you are going through a similar process, or plan to be in the future:

    • Does the culture of this vendor company have any blend with our organizational culture? Do I feel the vendor is interested in our mission?
    • Does the vendor demonstrate interest in wanting to help us make improvements in our processes?
    • Does the vendor freely tell me about their product, and does so without using pressure to purchase?
    • Does the vendor act respectfully towards me and my staff? Do they engage in genuine small talk and seem interested in learning more about us?
    • Does the vendor get back to me in a timely manner? Is it same day, by the next business day, or at the very latest 2 business days?

    When you are making your final decision, consider what weight you are giving the relationship in your decision making process. Consider your expectations and what behaviors you are comfortable with, what you can tolerate, or what is unacceptable and clearly not a good match for your organization. Relationship truly matters.

    Katherine Mowers is a Senior Project Manager with the Community IT Innovators Consulting practice.

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