Trillium Solutions Group

Are You Playing Defense

Steve Adelstein — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 07:14:39 +0000

Bill Fraser, a Trillium Director, in his article Adapting to Economic Crisis wrote a very insightful piece regarding the different approaches that Associations are using to deal with the economic downturn. Some are taking a wait and see approach and are trying to ride out the downturn. Other Associations are using this as an opportunity to challenge the status quo, and those Associations are the ones that are moving ahead and will be better positioned to deal with the uncertainties of the economy.

Managing Vendors To Get Results

Jennifer Hill — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 20:31:54 +0000

How do companies with different delivery models, and different standards work together effectively to deliver a product for a customer?

Changes in economic conditions, the desire for efficiencies, and the need for specialized expertise are just a few reasons why companies are turning to vendors and partners to develop and enhance products for their customers. These external organizations demonstrate outstanding skills within their niche. How do you know that your company is working effectively with the vendor or partner? It is increasing difficult to make sure that all of the pieces fit together so that a product can be released to the market on time and with quality. To learn more about the Trillium Solution Group’s approach to Vendor and Partner Management, see the Management Case Study.

There are three key factors that will greatly increase the likelihood that your IT department is teaming effectively with the partner/vendor to deliver your product according to plan. The factors are: (1) Know your partner – Culture Management (2) Technical Planning – Tactical Management and (3) Executive Sponsorship. For this initial blog entry, we will examine the first.

Know your partner – Culture Management: As defined by Barrons, “Corporate culture is the total sum of the values, customs, traditions and meanings that make a company unique. Corporate culture is often called “the character of an organization”…. (Montana, P., and Charnov, B. (2008) Management (4th ed.), Barrons Educational Series, Hauppauge:NY)” For example, is your vendor or partner’s culture heavy into processes or more fluid? Is it more accepting of change or resistant to it? How long has your vendor or partner operated and what growth has the vendor or partner experienced in the last 2, 5, 10 years? All of these contribute to the overall corporate culture.

A common disconnect across vendors or partners is at the point at which the contracts are signed and the requests are handed to the delivery teams to build the product(s). As the teams begin to build their relationships and learn how to work together effectively, one of the best ways to minimize the risk of delivery disruptions and gaps is to adapt a consistent strategy with the vendors and partners:

(1)     accept the risk of delivery alignment up front

(2)     spend the time to understand the benefits and disadvantages of your partner’s culture

(3)     consistently leverage the knowledge to build vendor/partner specific schedules, quality protocol, and delivery priorities and expectations

There will be growing pains in any relationship. Taking the time to understand the culture of the organization and how that culture impacts the delivery characteristics is critical to building a successful short and long term relationship.

Social Media Explorer – A Blog to Follow

William Fraser — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 15:57:18 +0000

As organizations implement and improve social media in their marketing, brand building and communications strategies, there is no shortage of advice or subject matter experts; however one Blog stands out. I would recommend you add Social Media Explorer to the sources of information you follow concerning social media. This site has a wide range of post on topics ranging from how social media can help your organization to the possible pitfalls in your social media approach.

Social Media Explorer is authored by Jason Falls, Director of Social Media at Doe Anderson and ” is one of the most widely read and rated in the social media, marketing and public relations category and can be found in the top 20 blogs on the Advertising Age Power 150 list.”

Companies using more Contract Labor

Steve Adelstein — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 05:41:07 +0000

As the economy slowly improves, companies have begun to use contract labor as a means of test drive the need for a position, before they use their formal HR process to hire a full time person 6 Staffing Trends. Market conditions are improving very slowly, and using contract labor enables a company to get highly experienced personnel that they may not be able to afford, in an attempt to leapfrog their competitors. This approach also enables a company to learn best practices, as well as hone the job requirements more fully, so that the permanent hire is an even closer fit for the requirements of the organization.

New Media 3-Screen Live Events

Steve Adelstein — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 16:05:46 +0000

Trillium used its Project Recovery framework to successfully manage the implementation of the concurrent viewing of a live International Golf Tournament for three viewing screens – TV, Computer, and mobile wireless device. The integration process that provided golf fans with extensive live coverage and on demand content from the course. Wireless customers had exclusive access to live and on-demand Masters programming from their wireless devices.

Technology Executive Brian Fippinger Named Director of Staffing for Trillium Solutions Group

William Fraser — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 04:40:11 +0000

Chicago, IL – October 1, 2009 – Brian Fippinger, formerly of FTR, has been named Director of Staffing for Trillium Solutions Group. The announcement was made by Steve Adelstein, President and CEO of Trillium. “We are very pleased to have Brian as part of the Trillium team. Our clients are going to be very excited about Brian’s ability to build strong relationships with them and to provide them the top talent they need.” Trillium’s staffing group assist clients with both contract professionals and permanent placement searches.

Mr. Fippinger has been a recognized technology leader in the Chicago area for over twenty years with companies such as Microsoft, General Electric, AT&T and Cap Gemini. He brings a unique set of experiences, understanding and talent acquisition expertise, from the perspective of both a hiring manager and recruiting professional. In addition to his work in technology, Brian is also a published playwright and author.

In a related move, Brad Vollmert, a Trillium executive, has been named Director of Development for Trillium. Brad will be primarily focused on working with the needs of Trillium’s association clients and was recently named Chair of the Supplier Partner Special Interest Group for the Association Forum of Chicagoland. In the announcement, Trillium CEO Adelstein noted, “Brad has been instrumental in our successful work with association clients and will continue to help associations meet their challenges for growth and development.”

Prior to joining Trillium, Mr. Vollmert held leadership positions with companies such as MRI, Herman Draack, and Nims Associates. Brad received his Bachelor of Science in Marketing/Sales from Northern Illinois University (NIU) where is a regular guest lecturer. He is an active member of Project Management Institute (PMI), Technical Leader Association (TLA), and International Institute of Business Analysis (IIBA). Motivated by his nephew with special needs, Brad is committed to supporting the Special Olympics at the regional and state levels of competition.

About Trillium Solutions Group

Trillium Solutions Group is a professional services firm headquartered in Chicago which provides business and technology solutions to associations, financial services firms, media and telecommunications companies, and healthcare organizations. For more information, visit www.trilliumsg.com.

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Twitter More Adult Than Teen

William Fraser — Thu, 27 Aug 2009 16:23:09 +0000

Do you have people in your organization’s leadership that still think social media is a technology just for teens? A recent New York Times article found that for Twitter “just 11 percent of its users are aged 12 to 17″. This is not only true for Twitter, but the result of the maturity of other social media as well. “In fact, though teenagers fueled the early growth of social networks, today they account for 14 percent of MySpace’s users and only 9 percent of Facebook’s. As the Web grows up, so do its users, and for many analysts, Twitter’s success represents a new model for Internet success. The notion that children are essential to a new technology’s success has proved to be largely a myth.”

Trillium Successfully Delivers a SaaS CRM Solution for a Healthcare Information Company

Steve Adelstein — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 20:48:42 +0000

Having grown through merger and acquisition, a major Healthcare Information company had multiple, disparate sales and CRM systems. They were in the middle of their third attempt to internally implement an enterprise-wide CRM application and were again encountering roadblocks primarily due to the lack of executive sponsorship. The effort was falling dangerously behind schedule. Trillium used its Project Rescue Assessment to identify the root cause for issues that were impacting the project and developed a comprehensive project plan to deliver the solution. Trillium successfully managed the implementation of to a successful conclusion.

Social Media: Managing Twitter Accounts

William Fraser — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 19:59:44 +0000

A new application group is growing up around the management of Twitter accounts. If your organization is seeing growing use of Twitter, check out this CIO.com drill down link for some possible options for account management. An application named CoTweet is getting much of the media attention and big corporate users so far, but it is early in the maturity process.

Process Improvement Reduces Defect Correction Time by 50%

Steve Adelstein — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:52:34 +0000

Our process improvement, communication and organizational design recommendations allowed a large telecommunications client reduce defect resolution times by 50% and improve the accuracy of root cause analysis by 20% in their production environment.