We received several calls after the latest wind storm asking for suggestions on building Communication Disaster Plans for businesses.
Technocom learned several things from businesses that were able to restart within days of Hurricane Katrina:
- Have a good UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply) system that will last at least 4 hours. In most cases, this will give you time to access the situation and make necessary arrangements.
- Ensure that you set up a separate employee message group through a free web-based product (Yahoo, G-Mail, etc.) for email communications, especially if you manage your own email server.
- Ensure that your data backup system is maintained at an off-site location.
- Text messaging can often be the first service to come back online. Many people forget that cell phones only work when towers are in place and have electrical power to them.
- Key employees and managers need to carry a Broadband wireless card. Satellite email access could be important and possibly the first available communications method.
- Consider posting a toll-free information number for customers that is hosted off-site.
- Consider having your server hosted off-site, or make arrangement for an off-site back-up.
- While not strictly a technology issue, no disaster plan would be complete without mentioning that critical documents should be protected. Copies should be stored off-site, with on-site documents stored in a safe, water-tight environment. When a sprinkler system goes off, even a few well utilized large sandwich bags in your file cabinets could prevent weeks of headaches.
Technocom: a Wiring Company that Can Make You Wireless!
While the backbone of every technology application is a sound structured wiring solution, many of our customers are finding the freedom of a quality wireless solution to benefit their companies. Technocom has significant experience in residential and commercial applications. Two of our installations demonstrating our versatility, include Oregon Golf Club, which features a 3COM solution and a newly acquired Women’s Health Associates project, which will feature a state-of-the-art Meru solution.
Go wireless with Technocom!
Is Your Business Utilizing Today’s Technology?
Sure, Technocom may have installed your structured wiring, we may have provided you with a phone system, we may be managing your carrier services and we might even be providing you with security or IT needs. Those are all important infrastructure technology needs that are critical in today’s businesses. But, did you know we can also provide the more visible technology solutions that will make your presentations more lively and your business more noticeable? Need a wall-mounted flat screen in your waiting area or board room? How about room to room audio throughout your office or business? Imagine a presentation room featuring shade and lighting controls and a projection video system, all operated at the touch of a button. Our Business Technology services can help you build a new exciting environment! For more information, check out our website: http://gotechnocom.com/businesstechnology.html
Technocom Pride in Customer Service
At Technocom, we are proud of our commitment to Customer Service. Our Customer Service team has tremendous pride in how they handle customer issues. This pride is a derivative of hard work and of truly caring people who do their best to find quick and appropriate solutions for each customer.
According to our Oregon Commercial Customer Service Manager, William Wild, there are a few other characteristics of Technocom Service that set us apart from our competition:
- We resolve customer issues over the phone whenever possible.
It is in everyone’s best interest to get our customers up and running as fast as possible. Many times, an issue can be resolved in a phone call. Technocom features a Customer Service team who can often make this happen. - When on-site service is needed, our service team is very responsive.
We treat your issue as our own and have procedures in place to be quick to respond. To the extent possible, we schedule telecom technicians the same day or next and cabling technicians within three business days. - Our service department is accessible 24x7x365.
We know many of our customers need service 24 hours a day, and many every day of the year. Telecommunications down time is usually not an option with most businesses. So, we’ll be there for them, every day, all day.
Need to schedule service?
Contact us at: http://gotechnocom.com/service_request.html
Technocom Continues to Lead in Safety Arena
Safety is important to contractors and safety is very important to Technocom. Employees are our most valued asset, and we want to ensure that each employee makes it home safe each night. Each winter, we offer First Aid & CPR training to our employees. Although it is a requirement for Oregon Limited Energy License holders, (our technicians), we extend training to all of our employees – office and field staff alike. We know that planning and training will make the difference when an emergency situation arises. Whether the training is used on the jobsite or at home, we are thankful that our employees volunteer and learn these life-saving skills. We all benefit from the knowledge.
While "Safety Starts At The Top" with our executive management, our monthly safety committee meetings, weekly safety topics and tailgate meetings at jobsites are a few ways that we share the responsibility for safety at Technocom. It is a group effort that encourages suggestions from employees and that assists in the sharing of advice and information between offices. Recently, a technician made a suggestion to improve our documentation process. Teamwork is what safety is all about! Our crews are also equipped for the adverse driving conditions, so we’ll be available to provide services when you need us. Don’t hesitate to contact us on those snowy days!
Technocom in the Community
Dress for success® — In September, Technocom’s Kent office created a partnership with the Seattle branch of Dress for Success®. In an effort to help disadvantaged women achieve economic independence, Technocom is now a collection site of interview appropriate clothing for women of all sizes. Dress for success® is an international non-profit organization created to fulfill a mission to promote the economic independence of disadvantaged women by providing professional attire, a network of support and the career development tools to help women thrive in work and in life.
Sunshine Division — Technocom employees are assisting the Portland Police Sunshine Division with its "Hope for the Holidays" campaign this year by hosting a food barrel at both its Tigard and Wilsonville locations. The company is giving its employees the opportunity to give to this very worthy cause and will accept non-perishable food items or cash gifts from visitors at these locations. This year, the Sunshine Division has distributed 4,000 food boxes to needy families and last year, the agency distributed more than 1.5 million pounds of food to families in Portland and its surrounding communities
The Sunshine Division began helping needy families with emergency food and clothing in 1923. Since then, the Sunshine Division has grown into a major charity, helping more than 25,000 people and 40 other charities annually. Find out more at the Sunshine Division website: http://www.sunshinedivision.org/
Toys for Joy — Technocom's Kent location along with all fire stations, City Hall and the Centennial Center are drop off sites for the annual Toys for Joy campaign. Kent Fire / Fire District 37 partners with the Kent Food Bank to assist families in need during the holiday season with gifts and food baskets.
The wrapped toys and food baskets are delivered to the Kent Food Bank by Santa and a caravan of Kent Fire Department personnel. Seeing the happiness, joy and appreciation on the faces of the recipients is a wonderful sight to behold. Find out more at the City of Kent website: www.ci.kent.wa.us/fireprevention/education/CurrentEvents/
2. Start Any VoIP Project with a Pre-assessment of your Network. Don't assume your network is ready to handle VoIP. It may have lots of issues that don't have an impact on data traffic but could cause a VoIP deployment to fail. Cabling issues, full/half-duplex mismatches and inadequate bandwidth are just a few of the things that can create problems for VoIP traffic.
3. Don't Assume You'll Be Saving Big Bucks Initially on Toll Bypass. You'll most likely have to upgrade your network to support VoIP and, at the very least, add PoE (Power over Ethernet) to support it. Those upgrades, along with the need for better monitoring of VoIP traffic, will likely eat up any savings you'll get at first.
4. Plan, Plan, Plan. It's important to know what you want to accomplish and why, and then define your scope of action before you perform a VoIP deployment. Said one veteran implementer, "You can't be successful unless you know where you're going and why."
5. Datacom, Telecom and the Skills Gap. It takes skills and expertise in both the data communications and telecom worlds to adequately support any sizeable VoIP deployment. Be willing to train support staff to develop those skills. And if your organization is merging the data communications and telecom departments, you may have a culture clash to work though. Monitoring tools that give greater visibility into VoIP can help reduce finger-pointing conflicts.
6. Don't Forget a Disaster-Recovery Plan. Make sure you have some kind of backup for your voice traffic, whether that means you having links to a legacy PBX or making sure your existing network can handle any kind of outage-including a power outage-and keep running.
7. Research E911 Requirements. You'll have to research E911 (Enhanced 911) requirements, which vary from state to state. Some states will require the ability to identify the physical address of an E911 caller; others require the ability to locate the room or cubicle from which they're calling. If you are implementing VoIP on wireless, it gets more complicated.
8. Wireless VoIP Adds Yet Another Wrinkle. If you're implementing wireless VoIP, you may need to revisit your access point coverage to make sure it's wall-to-wall. Users will invariably try to work in places you might not have thought about.
9. What about the Wiring Closet? Will your wiring closets be big enough to accommodate any equipment you may need to add, such as local gateways and UPSs (Uninterruptible Power Supplies)? And, with the additional heat generated by PoE, you may need to think about adding some climate control.
10. VoIP Is Not Secure. Just like data packets, VoIP packets can be sniffed, so it's important that sensitive conversations and signaling are protected through encryption. You may want to consider authenticating users and establishing authorization into the VoIP system.
Safety — Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Safety Training and Evaluation Program (STEP) award. In recognition of its ongoing efforts in the development of a quality safety program, Technocom was awarded the Silver Level of achievement.
STEP is a self-evaluation process that is intended to help construction companies achieve the highest safety levels possible. At Technocom, safety comes first. The company holds safety committee meetings once a month and provides weekly safety meetings and first-aid classes to all employees. More than 60% of all Technocom employees have their first-aid/CPR card presently and the goal is to increase that percentage.
"Through Technocom’s partnership with ABC, we have been able to vastly improve our safety program," says Kevin Doherty, President of Technocom. "Through the efforts of Cyndi Kracke, our Safety Coordinator, the safety committee and ABC, we have been able to reach our safety goals for the first time. Focusing on safety first benefits not only Technocom employees, but also our customers and vendors."
Sustainability — Demonstrating a continued company-wide goal of increasing sustainability practices, Technocom was selected as a G/Rated vendor at the recent 2007 Home Improvement and Remodeling Show. The show was the 32nd annual event and was sponsored by the Oregon Remodeler’s Association.
Technocom was one of almost 250 exhibitors at the four-day show held at the Oregon Convention Center, but was one of less than 20 who were given the G/Rating. G/Rated is a program sponsored by the City of Portland Office of Sustainable Development and provides green building design and construction strategies; training & presentations and access to case studies, research, resources and a variety of publications. Technocom, Inc. is registered with the Northwest Green Directory.
Philanthropy — Technocom was recently listed among the top philanthropic companies in Oregon. Technocom’s donations of cash and in-kind gifts earned them a spot on this first-ever list published by the Portland Business Journal. The publication also noted the giving of large and small companies, as well as corporate foundations, all who excel in donating back to their community through cash and in-kind gifts to Oregon and S.W. Washington non-profits.
Regarding his company’s support of local non-profits, Rick McCloskey, Technocom CEO, pointed out, "Our company vision statement includes our commitment to supporting our community through donations and service and it’s been the passion of our employees that have enabled Technocom to be recognized is this fashion." Every year Technocom supports several local non-profit efforts. Here is the full PBJ philanthropic companies list: Click to view it