Additionally we will work with new clients who feel we can help them to achieve maximum exposure in the marketplace.

Biography:  Peter McGowan

Peter is a UK citizen who was educated in England and Wales, attended the Welsh College of Music & Drama, followed by the University of Wales, where he received a Post-Grad Teaching qualification in Performing Arts.

He moved to London where he appeared in the movie ‘The Great Gatsby’ with Robert Redford, subsequently working for 2 years with the BBC Radio Repertory company, as a Voice Actor and Presenter of radio documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and BBC World Service.

His classic theatre credits include Shakespeare’s Henry IV Part I, Twelfth Night and Julius Caesar.

He worked then in theatres around the UK appearing in productions of My Fair Lady, Le Misanthrope, Candida (G B Shaw), Loot and The Old Curiosity Shop (Dickens).

He lectured in the early 90’s at Newcastle College, to degree level in Performing Arts and Media Studies.

His TV work has included appearances in BBC’s Dr. Who, Cardiac Arrest, Our Friends in The North, Byker Grove, The Famous Five, Emmerdale, Heartbeat and he played the title role, in a TV drama for Channel 4 UK, about the life of Railway entrepreneur, George Stephenson.

Peter spent 3 years as a Theatrical Agent, representing Actors, Presenters and Film Script Writers.

He worked for the last 10 years as a freelance Actor, Voice-over Artist and Presenter for Radio and TV commercials, together with work as a role-play artist for banking corporations on middle/senior management communication skills, as well as a workshop leader on motivation techniques.

His recent work has focused on corporate marketing as a Presenter and Producer of corporate and real-estate marketing videos.

Peter is moving to Santa Monica, California in November 2011, to add a Los Angeles base to the Memphis based operation of JDResources Media.

This post was submitted by Jill Herrin.

We are also having fun doing more videos at JDResources Media.  Here are the latest ones:

DVD Promo for luxury property at Forest Hill Irene Rd., Germantown, TN. (6 min version)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5pjbb-cT8Q

Trailer of DVD Promo for luxury property at Forest Hill Irene Rd., Germantown, TN. (2 min)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy7EaorRqBk

Trailer of DVD Promo for luxury Lakeside property, overlooking Pickwick Lake TN. (2 min)

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

Please contact Peter.Mcgowan@jdresources.com if you would be interested in a promotional video or voice over.

This post was submitted by Jill Herrin.

JDResources Inc., an established Memphis – based Recruitment and Consulting Company, has proudly announced that, despite the recession hitting businesses across the US, they are expanding to meet client growth, needs and expectations.  JDR provides qualified candidates to companies in the areas of Information Technology, Healthcare, Engineering, Accounting and Supply Chain for talent requirements nationwide.

A combination of American assertiveness and European precision has been the keynote to the stimulating 23 years of JDR’s successful trading in Memphis, as demonstrated by JDR’s CEO, British entrepreneur Jill Herrin.

JDR’s business headquarters in Memphis are now actively adding to their award-winning team with additional experienced Recruiters and Account Managers, to expedite their growing client base and diverse operations.

Further expansion includes the addition of a Media division to their operations in Memphis.  This exciting new division will assist clients who wish to create corporate, promotional or marketing DVD’s of their products and services, as well as, TV/Radio commercials and staff training films.

JDR will also be opening up a new office in Los Angeles, to run alongside their Memphis operation by servicing their growing client base on the West Coast.  This West Coast office will offer the same Recruiting, Consulting and Media services, which are currently available to JDR’s Memphis and national clients.

JDR – Jobs, Dedication, Results.

This post was submitted by Jill Herrin.

JDResources, Inc. (JDR) is expanding our executive technology talent offerings to the US west coast by offering a new set of Information Technology (IT) leadership services provided by our pool of experienced Chief Information Officers (CIO) and Chief Technology Officers (CTO).  Over the years, JDR has been providing interim CIOs and CTOs for companies that need strategic business leadership combined with strong, hands-on technology experience.

Now, JDR clients will be able to choose specific CIO leadership services.  Such CIO services include Business Transformation, Mergers and Acquisitions, agile Business Intelligence, Security & Compliance, Enterprise Architecture, institution of PMO , IT co-sourcing, IT organizational composition, cloud computing initiatives & delicate SaaS  transitions, and much more.

JDR is pleased to announce that Dean Samuels will be leading the development and operations of these CIO services from San Francisco, CA. Recently as CIO at Genesys Telecommunications, Dean led the IT business transformation and information technology integration with Alcatel-Lucent, and leveraged IT to provide improved value from services to employees, partners, and customers.

There is a unique balance between JDR, our clients and our people.  In all the years of market growth and change, one thing has remained the same – JDR provides dedication and exceptional customer service.   A commitment to high performance and unsurpassed industry knowledge, personal service, confidentiality, and ethical, professional standards is the reason that our clients continually utilize all of our services and refer us to their trusted business associates and colleagues.

Founded in 1987, JDResources provides specialized consulting, permanent staffing, outsourcing, and C-level Executive services for Management, Technology and Supply Chain talent requirements.  Our mission is to understand your business initiatives, and make those initiatives successful by supplying the resources you need in a timely and cost-effective manner.  Over the past twenty-three years, JDR has cultivated an extensive network of diversified professionals that provide a broad array of expertise.  Our firm has a unique blend of European precision and American assertiveness enabling us to provide the very best people for our clients’ important positions.

JDR is providing a variety of CIO and IT leadership services to its customers to increase competitive value to the business and lower IT costs. To learn more about these attractive CIO level services from JDR, please contact Jill Herrin at (901) 753-0500.

JDResources and GetUsROI, the Warehouse Management System (WMS) experts, introduce a better way to get your WMS work done: MyWMSTeam.

GetUsROI LLC, of Montgomery TX and Brookfield WI, announces a more effective and inexpensive method to complete your WMS modifications and enhancements.  “It’s called MyWMSTeam” announced Mark Fralick, president of GetUsROI LLC. “It is the most innovative approach that we have used for our in-house customers over the past few years.  We are making it more public due to its tremendous success.”   MyWMSTeam allows customers of GetUsROI LLC to have access to their own team of WMS experts – but only pay for what they use.   “We apply the best resource depending on the assignment, providing the best ROI for the customer, “Fralick continued.  “Look, not all resources are created equal; some are great at reports, some at building components, and some at doing integrations.  With a team approach, we have more ability to assign a resource that has the best fit for what the customer is trying to achieve.”

“We’ve been working side-by-side with Mark and GetUsROI for several years,” adds Jill Herrin, CEO of JDResources.  JDResources, located in Memphis, Tennessee, provides specialized, technical staffing and has a thriving Supply Chain/WMS consulting practice.  “What GetUsROI have done with MyWMSTeam is removed the risk of getting inappropriate resources involved in task assignments due to incumbency.  One thing you don’t want to do, for example, is to put someone inadequate at integrations on an integration job just because that is the resource you have – this adds no value at all to the customer.” Herrin concludes.

MyWMSTeam is 100% free to start.  A private task website is created for each customer.  The customer creates tasks or even just asks for advice.  MyWMSTeam provides an estimate for the customer to review and give approval.  If the customer does not move forward with the work, they pay nothing.  Customers are billed at month end only for tasks that are completed and accepted.  “If the customer does not accept the changes, due to some error on our part, they do not pay until the task is completed to their satisfaction.” said Fralick.  “It’s only fair.  We are the experts here – we know what we are doing and have a lot of confidence that the work we do will be of the highest quality for a very fair price.  If there is an issue with quality or delivery, you don’t pay.  That’s the way it should be – don’t you think?” Fralick concludes.

Founded in 1987, JDResources provides specialized consulting, permanent staffing, outsourcing, and C-level Executive services for Management, Technology and Healthcare talent requirements.  Our mission is to understand your business initiatives, and make those initiatives successful by supplying the resources you need in a timely and cost-effective manner.  Over the past twenty-three years, JDR has cultivated an extensive network of diversified professionals that provide a broad array of expertise.  Our firm has a unique blend of European precision and American assertiveness enabling us to provide the very best people for our clients’ important positions.

The terms “integration” and “interfacing” are sometimes thrown around interchangeably when discussing this subject – but is there a difference in the real meaning of these terms?

The answer is definitely Yes.

Let’s take one specific example, which involves Warehouse Management Systems. When it comes to ERP/legacy to WMS interactions, there can be a huge difference.

Here are my observations about this.

Inexperienced people do “interfaces.” Also, unfortunately, many IT people think about connecting systems as “interfaces.”

But experienced people and people who have operational sensibilities think about things as “integrations.”

Here is an example: In a recent project where we were integrating a WMS with SAP, I was discussing the intricate nature of inventory recognition. Sometimes the lines of the warehouse boundaries can be a bit blurry and sometimes it is more like a hard line. In this specific case, the IT members of the team, all smart well-meaning people, insisted we do a particular interface a certain way.  What they were proposing would place an unreasonable burden on the receiving operations, in my opinion.

This caused me to pull out a couple of lines that, if you’ve done projects with me you know, I am famous for.  The first is “Information is virtual.  If we can’t figure out a way to not impact the physical part of the operation with requirements that are merely virtual – we are all a bunch of idiots.”

To which there was silence on the phone.  After some more discussion, a manager who should of known better said “You are doing the interface, you are not in operations.”

I thought this might be coming and got to use one of my other favorite lines. Unlike the first one, I cannot take credit for this. This is Brendon Sullivan in his defense of Ollie North in the Iran/Contra hearings of the 1980s:  “Because I, sir, am not a potted plant.”

In other words, I was not here just to do an interface. I was here to do a proper integration.  In an integration discussion, someone has to be the defender of the operation. I like to call this role the “operational conscience.”

The role of operational conscience is entirely about understanding, mitigating and/or removing the pain points that operations might feel when certain decisions are made by staff in other areas, such as IT, who although well-meaning have little domain experience.

In other words, there are a lot of good IT people doing interface work who have never set foot in a warehouse or DC. They do not understand the consequences of things like an extra keystroke or field entry on a mobile terminal.  They don’t understand that saying something as simple as “You’ll have to hold all of the inventory in receiving for a return until it is all ready to be processed in our interface” means a clogged dock.

Well-meaning does not imply well-versed.

So, how can you tell the difference between someone doing interfaces versus integrations?  One is just working on plumbing, the other is doing the plumbing and making sure it fits in the best way with the rest of the structure.

Good integrators are not, to borrow Mr. Sullivan’s line, “Potted Plants.” They are the operational conscience that determines the difference between successful integrations and those that do not serve operations the way they could.  When you are building an integration team, make sure you get integrators and just a bunch of “Potted Plants” writing interfaces.

http://www.scdigest.com/assets/experts/Fralick_10-04-08.php

The SBCA Best of Business Award Program recognizes the best of small businesses throughout the country. Using consumer feedback and other research, the SBCA identifies companies that we believe have demonstrated what makes small businesses a vital part of the American economy. The selection committee chooses the award winners from nominees based off information taken from monthly surveys administered by the SBCA, a review of consumer rankings, and other consumer reports . Award winners are a valuable asset to their community and exemplify what makes small businesses great.

A copy of the press release is available on the SBCA awards website listed below. SBCA herby grants J D R a non-exclusive, revocable, license to use, copy, publish, stream, publicly display, reformat, excerpt, and distribute  this press release. If you desire, a 2009 Best of Business Award has been designed for your place of business and can be obtained by pressing the receive awards tab while retrieving your press release from the SBCA awards website. Additionally, a Web Logo proclaiming your 2009 Best of Business Award selection can be obtained through our website as well.

When I am hired to do Change Management for an IT Project, clients ask me to create a Communications Plan.  That plan includes key stakeholders and the message or key points we want to communicate to each person or group.

What both of these scenarios show is that we are seeking to “talk” to “transmit” a message, but not to receive.  Where is the listening?

When I teach communications, whether asked to or not, I use a Listening Styles instrument and focus on teaching IT staff to listen.  As a rule of thumb we are supposed to listen twice as much as we speak.  I know of no one (including myself) who reaches this goal on a regular basis.

And in Change Management listening to stakeholders’ concerns, requirements and fears is equally as important as telling them what is coming.

Although listening is a “soft skill,” it can at least be measured, i.e.  you can test someone to see if they heard key information, if they noticed the mood the speaker was in (calm, agitated), if they saw a message in the speaker’s body language (nervous, worried, confident.)  The information they retain and the non-verbal messages they pick up tell you how well they were listening.

But in addition to listening, IT executives need to develop their ability to empathize.  And when I say empathize, I mean the ability to put one’s self in someone else’s place and relate to the way he or she feels.  For example, when IT is bringing massive change to an organization by implementing an ERP, how do the people whose work processes and daily life this will change feel about it?  Put yourself in their place and you may be asking – Will I be able to do my job?  Can I learn the new software?  Will I be able to compete with younger workers?  Will my business skills become obsolete?

Unfortunately, there is no way that I know of to measure empathy.  Either you are empathetic, or you are not.

But why does a discussion of “soft skills” like listening and empathy belong in a Career blog?  Aren’t these entries supposed to be focused on helping you find your next job?  Or at least focused on building your professional credentials?  What do listening and empathy have to do with this?

Actually, they may have a great deal to do with both finding your next job and building your credentials.  In a job interview most candidates are focused on talking about themselves and impressing the potential employer with their knowledge and experience.  Maybe instead you should focus on listening.  What is the employer really looking for?  If you listen, instead of talking, they will usually tell you exactly what they want and need from you.  And if you go one step further and empathize – what is this poor, bedeviled person interviewing you  feeling?  How is he/she coping without a <fill in the open job title.>  Whether the open position is a CIO or a Director of Application Development, they are probably feeling pain because this position is open.  There is work and leadership that are not happening because they are without a key person.

The truly excellent job candidate hears what the potential employer needs and empathizes with what they feel.   The exemplary CIO listens to his staff, to his stakeholders and to his service providers and uses his understanding of what each is looking for to run a better IT organization.

So focus, at least a little bit, on your listening skills and your ability and willingness to empathize.  You may find it makes you not only a better IT executive and job candidate, but a better person.

I went back to school for a Masters in Organizational Psychology once I figured out that I knew a lot about computers, but practically nothing about people – and that people-skills and human behavior figured prominently in the success of my IT projects.

But why blog about LinkedIn?  Because in 2009 I suddenly started getting requests for advice and training on LinkedIn.  Collaborative work supported by technology has been my primary interest for 20 years – starting with Groupware in the 80’s and culminating in today’s Social Media.  As a result I have run classes for IT professionals “In-Transition” (the current euphemism for suddenly unemployed) and have sat next to clients, friends and family members to help them understand and leverage LinkedIn.  I want to share with you some of the same things I have been sharing with my other friends and colleagues.

I have been promoting LinkedIn for 5 years – asking my clients, “Are you on LinkedIn?  If you are, connect to me.  If you’re not, you should be.”  I usually get one of two answers:

• Yeah, I have a profile there, but I haven’t visited LinkedIn in a
  couple of years.
• No, I don’t need to be on LinkedIn; I’m not looking for a job.

So let me explain what is wrong with both of these answers.  For the “I have a profile there” guy or gal, the problem is one of two things.  Either they have what I call a “place holder” LinkedIn profile (you know it, the one with no picture, only their current job listed and maybe where they went to school) or they have a decent profile, but they don’t actively participate in Groups, answer questions, update their status or interact with other people on LinkedIn.

What I want to know is whether anyone would hand out a resume that had only  their name, current position and where they went to school.  Because that is exactly what you are doing with a “place holder” LinkedIn profile.  People who are recruiting, people who might want to join your organization and vendors or clients  who might want to do business with you will judge you based on what they see on your LinkedIn profile, just as they would if they were reading your resume.  Treat your LinkedIn profile with the same respect you give your resume – and include the same kinds of information about your previous jobs, accomplishments and affiliations.

I have heard some people fret that they don’t want to put a picture on their profile because they don’t want anyone to “know how old” they are.  However, without a picture it’s difficult for people to remember if you are the Bob Jones they met at a conference or not.  The other implications of no picture are that you:

1. are not technical enough to upload a picture (a very bad thing for an IT exec)
2. are 90 years old (I’m not talking about 60 – remember 60 is the new 40!)
3. have something to hide – such as matching a Most Wanted poster

So find a recent, flattering business-appropriate picture and put it out there.

As for the folks who think they don’t need to be on LinkedIn until they are job-hunting, guess what?  The best time to “network” is when you are NOT looking for a job.  That allows you to participate in discussions (which lets you demonstrate how knowledgeable you are.) It allows you to be generous with your time and attention, to mentor others, to point them to jobs you know about – basically it lets you build your “LinkedIn karma” (metaphorically) so when you need it, a broad, geographically-distributed network of people who want to help you are ready and waiting.  The two to three years PRIOR to looking for your next position is when you need to be actively participating on LinkedIn.

Of course LinkedIn is only beneficial if you actually participate in the online community.  That means join Groups – not just your college and previous workplace alum groups, but groups centered around topics that interest you – whether that means specific technologies (e.g., Oracle apps) or leadership skills (CIO Forum) or hiking, you will find people in these groups who, one way or another, can help you find whatever information, advice or position you are seeking.

Of course I am not the only, or even the best, source of advice on using LinkedIn.  A friend of mine, Laurel Bailey, took a buy-out package from her VP job to “retire” and start a consulting firm.  Her blog, http://habaconsulting.blogspot.com/, has at least three entries from 2009 that are very relevant to this discussion:  June 8 “LinkedIn: A Networking Must,” June 15 “10 Ways to Screw-Up Your LinkedIn Presence” and July 20 “Weak Ties – Strong Benefits.”  The first two are self-explanatory.  The July 20^th entry follows an interesting thought that came out of a social networking study in the 70’s (yes, there were social networks before there was technology to support them; remember, people wrote letters even before there were typewriters, computers and email.)  The theory is that the connections on the “edge” of your network – those people who are friends of friends – are the ones most likely to produce results if you are looking for information, a job etc.  The reason is that you and your immediate friends (at work, in your neighborhood) have all the same information and connections.  The people at the “edge” of your network have a very different view and can help you more than those in your immediate circle.

What actions should you take after reading this?  Spruce up (or create) your LinkedIn profile.  Join a few groups. You can join up to 50, so err on the side of over-joining; you can always drop out later if the group is not interesting or helpful.  Answer some questions.  Look up people in your city who have similar backgrounds (using the People Search box at the top right of the Home screen) and either connect with them or join the same groups they are in.   Go look for companies in your area (using the Companies menu item under “More..” at the far right of the Home menu bar) that are either potential clients, potential vendors or possibly future employers for you. LinkedIn conveniently tells you where people worked before joining, and after leaving, a company so you can see where your colleagues go when they leave your company.

Besides why wouldn’t we, as technology professionals, be the best at online networking?   Go conquer LinkedIn.  You will be glad that you did.

Making Transformation Happen

Because we are in the business of providing products and services that make incredible service experiences happen, we are in a fortunate position to assist our forward-thinking customers in achieving their CIO-sponsored, IT-powered business and cultural transformations. Likewise, as with our customers, we leverage these same technologies to achieve our own transformational business goals and improve services to our employees, partners, and customers.

Given today’s economy, limiting the CIO to purely an operational function is not an option. Companies must embrace the innovations CIOs are uniquely positioned to deliver and capitalize on the strategic breakthroughs made possible as they truly create the Dynamic Enterprise.

If you’d like to read the full article, you can also find it at

http://cioleadershipcenter.com/images/Alcatel-Lucent_CIO_Business-Transformation.pdf