Back to School Bundles | In the Movies | Microsoft Teams
Happy Thursday!
Welcome to the CablesAndKits CEO daily email. Read more about this email by scrolling to the very bottom.
What a strange day yesterday. It turns out the car I bought with the motorhome had a salvage / rebuilt title. The seller didn’t tell me that, and later said he didn’t know. I could swear I ran a carfax on the car. I absolutely ran one on the motorhome. Anyway, whatever, I got a good enough deal that it doesn’t really matter. When I went to transfer the title and get a tag that’s when it came up and they won’t do it unless you have it inspected. So, this morning was inspection day. You’re to show up at a particular body shop at 8am and get a number. They take you one at a time and do the inspection. Never having done this before I had no idea what to expect. When I got there, there was hardly anywhere to park. When I got my number I was number 18.
My expectation was to be in and out of there in an hour. Wrong. I was there till 2pm and most of that was sitting or standing outside a fence waiting my turn to be let in. It’s a darn good thing we work remote and I had my laptop and can tether to my cell for WiFi. I was able to do all my work as usual, just from a different place.
I still haven’t determined what was supposedly wrong with the car for it to have a salvage title but they found nothing wrong in the inspection and no sign of previous damage. I’ll try to see if someone can tell me but who knows. I have the paperwork I need to get my title and tag and that’s all that matters at this point.
Act 2: Our house is on a small lake with great views and when we moved in I decided to list it on a site for movie / film locations. Basically, if someone were filming a movie or show and needed a lake view in a private setting they might find and want to rent my house for a few days or weeks. It might be cool and you make a little money doing it.
Well today I got an inquiry but not for the house – but for the driveway. They want to shoot a music video and there is a scene with a wrecked car and someone being rescued. How cool. I met the director at my house in the evening and then took him to some acreage we still own that’s for sale. On that property there is a driveway even longer than what’s at my house that is perfect for what he wants to do. They want to shoot next week! I’ll keep you updated!
I don’t know if it’s true, but I heard …
The average American child is given $3.70 per tooth that falls out.
Today’s Product Spotlight from Rerun (AKA Rebecca):
CP-7962G
Happy Thursday folks! Today’s product spotlight features one heck of a phone for one heck of a deal! We are talking about the Cisco C7962G Six Line Unified VoIP Phone, CP-7962G! This full-featured classic IP phone features 6 lines, a hands-free speakerphone, and a handset that was designed for hi-fidelity wideband audio which comes standard on this 7962G phone. In addition, the phone features a large grayscale graphical LCD display that features critical info such as date and time, calling party name, number, etc.
This phone has everything you need to stay productive! It’s no wonder that it’s such a classic model! Be sure to grab yours now as they are on sale for only $39!! (Pro Tip – they’re even cheaper if you purchase them in a 4-pack!)
From Joe, our friendly Safety Supplies Product Marketer:
Good morning! You guys seem to be loving the Clorox Wipe sale going on which is awesome! These will most likely only be on sale through Friday so now’s your chance to take advantage! One other thing I found today that I wasn’t too happy about was there must have been a glitch somewhere in our system which caused our 50 pack of Children’s Masks to be taken off the site. Don’t worry, I have them back on the site ready to be picked up! These are perfect for keeping on hand for all the little ones!
While on the topic of children I’d like to remind you guys of one of our favorite bundles! The Back to School Bundle is perfect not only school but any daily activities your children participate in. Whether it be for school, camp, a day with the babysitter or even tee-ball practice, this bundle is for you!
We’re Hiring for our Product Department! We have an opening, as detailed by Rerun (AKA Rebecca), below. Is this you or someone you know?
Product Marketing Specialist – Fiber Cables
Have you been reading these CEO emails thinking “Wow, CK sure sounds like a fun place to work! Wish I could be a part of the team and contribute to the CEO daily email like Joe the friendly Safety Supplies Product Marketer does!”? Do you love product marketing? Do you revel in the recurring nature of processes and relish accountability? If so, listen up! We are looking to expand our Product Team by bringing on a Product Marketer for Fiber Cables. This is a very process driven role in which the goal is to grow Gross Profit $ and increase inventory effectiveness by effectively marketing the products. We are looking for someone who is exactly like Joe… err… I mean, we are looking for someone who is hard-working, dedicated, diligent, organized, analytical, a great written communicator, and has a GREAT attitude and “can do” spirit! If you are still intrigued, please review the job post (and pay extra attention to the part about the CK Way – We take culture seriously here and are looking for team members who truly “fit”). If you think you do fit and are interested in the position, please send us your resume at [email protected] along with a written note telling us the character attributes, values, and interests that describe you and influence how you approach life and work. Who knows, you could be our next friendly Product Marketer!
How we use Microsoft Teams at CK – by Gary Epp, Chief Administrative Steward
This post is another instance of sharing our internal practices so that you might learn from us and (fingers crossed) you might give us some feedback on getting better. We adopted Slack in 2017 but then switched to Microsoft Teams in the summer of 2018 as an expense reduction move. The transition was a bit rocky, because the fundamental design structure of Slack varies from Teams. Nonetheless, we accomplished our core objective, which was getting people out of their email inbox for internal communication. In fact, we now occasionally find ourselves missing an email, because we are living in Teams and not checking our inbox every five minutes. Haha.
We are still trying to figure out the best balance of Teams versus Channels and probably use the private chat feature more than we should but find our overall collaboration is much improved. For now, have five different types of teams:
- An All Hands team with a wide variety of channels, including Announcements, the Hangout, Prayer requests, and a series of “help” channels where we post tips/tricks for using our shared technology platforms.
- Lobbies is a companywide team with one channel for every different functional team in the company. It operates similar to the lobby of an office building where anyone can enter but needs permission to proceed beyond the lobby. In the lobby channels, team members can leave a message for someone on another functional team while allowing the functional team to have their own internal team workspace.
- Functional or Unit teams; e.g. Accounting, Marketing, Business Unit X, etc. These teams end up with customized channels that suit the nature of their work. Only members of each functional team have access to this team in Teams (Go Team! I thought you needed another “team” reference in that sentence. Haha)
- Project teams. These teams get opened and hidden as the need arises. Hopefully Microsoft will someday soon develop the capability to archive a team. These teams typically have a relevant Trello board (our project management app) linked to them where we actually project manage the related tasks.
- Process teams. We have an opportunity to improve by using our Process teams more frequently/effectively. We added these cross-functional teams several quarters after we began using the Teams app, and by that point had fallen into the habit of using the Lobbies team/channels for a lot of our cross-functional communication. Consequently, team members have been slower to adopt the process-focused teams.
Many, but not all teams have a OneNote notebook linked to the Team where we keep meeting agendas/notes, and other long-form documentation. We sparsely use the Wiki feature. We had previously sorta kinda used SharePoint; so we attached existing SharePoint document libraries with substantive content to the relevant team.
One technique we have found immensely helpful is using the “thumbs up” emoji to signal that we’ve read someone else’s post. This provides efficient closed-loop feedback.
Most of our meetings are now conducted via video calls through Teams, and we LOVE it! Our weekly Townhall is the only recurring meeting for which we use the Zoom platform. Most other meetings have fewer than nine people; so the Teams upgraded 3×3 image array is sufficient. The calendar management features of Teams still lag behind Outlook but are catching up.
Finally, our familiarity with the Teams platform enabled us to seamlessly switch to working from home when the coronavirus pandemic hit back in March. In fact, we have now committed to a work from home structure indefinitely.
We would love to hear from other Teams users on methods and structure you have found useful in your organization.
I hope you are enjoying these emails. If you are, I appreciate it when you let me know! If not, or if you have ideas for how to improve, by all means, please let me know! Sometimes I “can’t see the forest for the trees”.
As always, please let me know how I can be of service to you. If you need assistance with something, advice, or even if you just need someone to pray for you, I am here and listening.
Blessings,
Craig Haynie – CEO
CablesAndKits
P.S. Don’t forget to go follow us on Facebook here: CK Facebook Page.
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Need safety supplies for your business, school, or family? We got ya covered!
Main Safety Supplies Landing Page: https://www.cablesandkits.com/c/safety-supplies
