So I’m not going to lie, I am a little new to this whole world of blogging. Don’t get me wrong though, I am a super awesome guy and actually should have been blogging about my life experiences for years so that others could learn from my awesomeness. More than likely it would end up being a “there is a smarter way to do this” blog. Regardless, I do happen to be an excellent rambler…hopefully that works in my favor this time.

I have been bouncing around a lot of topics over the last couple of weeks and have chosen one that is more near to my heart than anything. Before I suckered Brad into hiring me on here at The Garland Group, I chose to work in Alaska right out of Grad school (as in the movie You, Me, and Dupree, I was finding my “ness”) and that was an eye opening experience. I found that more people than I would ever have thought are just upset to be on vacation. I ran an off road Jeep safari working with tourist every day and it was sad at times. I mean we are surrounded by mountains in the middle of some of the most raw, beautiful, and natural land we have left and people are complaining because we don’t have a Starbucks or they might have walk outside to use the bathroom (don’t worry not talking about a tree). I warned you about the rambling (you should see me in person sometimes!) but I eventually might make it to my point….hopefully.

What I am getting at is that sometimes we focus so much on what isn’t going right and how much we have grown accustomed to instant this and that, that we forget about how great we have it right now (minus the whole economy thing…that’s a bit of a bummer).

I received an email years ago that oddly enough has stayed with me to this day. The short version is that we have a choice every day to wake up and make this a good day. We have a choice to become a victim of a situation or to learn and grow from it. We have the choice how to react and view the issues in our life and others both good and bad. I smile and chuckle a lot anyway but being able to smile and move on has gotten me further in life than complaining ever has. So make today a happy day.

Roz sent us a video that I’m sure some of you have seen but it falls right in line with what I’m going for. Check it out and hopefully it will bring a smile or chuckle your way!

Told you I was a bit of a rambler.

Core processing vendors have become commonplace for a one-stop shopping center for everything from core processing to firewall-network support. It’s hard not to pass up such a packaged deal that would allow all IT services outside of core processing to be bundled and packaged on one nice invoice that can be accompanied with discounts for extended years guaranteed. Sometimes it just makes sense to bundle it all from a financial and vendor management position.

However, one must take into account things such as, what is the main function of the company, how many other customers are signed up for the same package as my bank, how is the quality of IT network service compared to
other vendors, who’s prime function is IT network support. These are just some considerations to take when evaluating a bundled service from a core provider.

We here at The Garland Group are a pretty tech savvy lot, and we like to use social media tools to stay in touch.  Many of us use a very popular service called Twitter.  In fact, we use it so much, we forget that not everybody knows what Twitter is all about.  The concept is really simple, but it is really difficult to explain why it is useful.  Twitter has showed up in the news quite a bit lately as journalists have tried to report on the phenomenon, but those reports often leave people asking, “why?”

So, first, what is Twitter?  Twitter is a micro-blog where you can post (or “tweet”) messages up to 140 characters in length.  You can follow other users, and Twitter will show you their tweets.  The idea is that you tweet about what you are doing or what’s on your mind, and others can choose to listen.

How is this useful?  Have you ever been asked, “what are you up to?”  It comes up all the time in conversation.  Friends like to know.  It’s just not practical to call or message friends all the time to tell them what’s happening.  I want to stay connected with my friends, but I would be awfully annoyed if they each called or emailed eight times a day to keep me informed.  Twitter makes that connection easier.  This video by commoncraft illustrates it very well:

Twitter is more than a web site.  It is a utility.  All the cool kids use programs like TweetDeck  or Twhirl on the desktop.  The really hip and cool kids use twitter from their mobile phone.

Twitter is even used for business.  A shop can tweet a 2 hour discount sale when business is slow.  CEO’s and sales people build relationships with clients by sharing their daily lives.  Our own Banktastic tweets new activity at http://twitter.com/banktastic.  Check it out.

If you happen to see one of The Garland Group employees hobbling around this week, it’s because we’re still recovering from skiing, snowboarding and snowmobiling last week in New Mexico! We had our second annual retreat last week at the The Lonestar Lodge, our “other” office settled nicely on the mountains of Angel Fire, New Mexico.

We spent a couple of days together learning about one another, discussing plans for our company, and even having our own mini BarCamp. When we weren’t working, we enjoyed the free time by playing in what snow was left (everything had started melting).

I was in charge of getting photos of the gang, and you can browse through the entire collection here. In the meantime, here are a few of my favorite shots!