Dan, Barry and I hosted the Technical Services Brown Bag Lunch held today. Following is a summary of the discussion:

Calendar Standardization: It was decided that UEN Technical Services will standardize on using Groupwise for our calendaring program. The transition will be completed by the end of February.

We will need to provide training for the staff. Lou and Cindy will be trained in the functionality and decide how best to involve the staff in training. Our goal is to use the automated features to assist in scheduling meetings. This action is in response to the stated value of working together. It is a practical way to address that issue.

Motivation to add non-educational sites to the UEN network: A question was posed by Jeff Egly regarding our motivation to add non-educational facilities to the UEN Network. I fielded this question. Many of the non-educational sites were brought on before I arrived at UEN.

Those sites that have been added since are generally taken on a case-by-case basis. Considerations are given to special projects that reflect community needs. There are also political realities that we must address. There is no specific, targeted effort by UEN management to solicit additional entities or sites. Many of the requests have come directly from our stakeholders, members of the legislature or other political figures.

Status of Rural Telco Ethernet Projects. Dan gave a status of the Rural Ethernet Projects. He has been finalizing the contracts with many of the URTA members. This is a promising project. We are anxious to install GigE circuits in all regions of the State. URTA members have been actively negotiating, engineering and planninng this project with us.

On a related note: E-rate contracts must be signed the end of next week. We realize that the State is strapped for cash. There is a compelling story to be told by UEN. With e-rate we qualify for federal dollars for many of the UEN sponsored circuits. This amouts to a 67% or greater discount on all Internet and Telecommunication services.

The best point we can make is that for every dollar the legislature allocates for circuits, the Feds will match with two dollars. That money will go into the pockets of the Rural Telcos (and Qwest). This also enables our local telcos to build infrastructure that can benefit commercial businesses. Best of all, the schools will get big pipes in the last mile that should meet their needs for years to come. Everyone wins in this situation.

Recognition: Dan and I spent a good deal of time yesterday talking about staff recognition. We presented the idea of two awards. One is the Geek of the Week. Some UEN staff have expressed a dislike for the Geek-o-Week designation. The consensus of the group is that we keep the name. We will designate a Geek-o-the-Week and give the recognition every Monday.

The other award is affectionately called the Dufus Award. This is not a weekly award. The idea here is that we all make mistakes and at times we tend to dwell on these mistakes in a negative way. The Dufus Award is meant to be a light-hearted way to face our mistakes and make light of them. However, we are serious about eliminating dufus actions that take down the network or in anyway compromise our service.

One important ground rule of the Dufus award. It can only be sanctioned by Dan, Jim and Barry. We must have a 2/3s agreement between the three of us to make it official. There will be some icon developed and given to the recipient on a Friday. If the recipient brings donuts to the stand-up meeting on the next Monday, the Dufus Symbol will be removed. If there are no donuts, then the symbol will accompany the award recipient until donuts are supplied or another Dufus Award is given.

We hope to have some fun and develop teamwork. These recognitions should be interesting and helpful.

Foundry Training: Pete expressed appreciation to everyone who participated in the Foundry training yesterday. Pizza was provided, along with the training.

Hosting NANOG: Pete and Jeff Egly worked on verifying connectivity to the downtown Marriott today. If network access can be secured then UEN will host the NANOG conference in June. This will give us an opportunity to participate in a very geeky event. Cool. It will also allow a considerable number of our staff to attend for free. This should be a great project.

National Light Rail and the Intermountain GigaPoP: Dan has expressed interest in learning more about the Intermountain GigaPoP Project. Pete and I have been working with the Westnet group, Bill Jahsman and others on this project. National Light Rail is part of the plan. This will be a main topic of discussion at our next Brown Bag Lunch.

I will be out of the office next Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. That means we will need to reschedule the February 7th Brown Bag. And moving it to the 5th or 6th is not an option. Please look for an announcement early next week.

That's all for now.........
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