6 months? Seriously?

Wow. I am so sorry. It has been six months since I posted a blog entry. That is just not right. OK, here goes.

I got sucked in to being the IT Department Head, not just the "web guy" (with a really GREAT web team), and have neglected a few things for those of you who may follow this. And that shouldn't happen.

I am still working on the new site, the Drupal site, which will give us access to the elusive and much talked about Member's Only pages, including Bulletin Boards, and other protected content. You will need your member number as printed on the front of Scale Rails, and your Postal Code as identifying marks.

I guess I will also need to come up with a privacy policy to post, and a way for people to opt out of things. Once I can get his site to a CMS, things should become much easier and richer.

I have had a couple of emails about formatting the current home page, as well as content. There are currently a number of initiatives going on, and everybody wants top billing. There is the Regions and Divisons initiative, the Diamond Club initiative, the UP Engine thing, and the normal Regions focus. This led me to have a random image for you when the home page loads. Unfortunately, not all the images at the time are the same size, which is presenting problems. Yeah, I know. Trying to get that fixed, but in the mean time, you'll have a sloppy home page since my bosses want all of this displayed one way or another.

One thing stuck in my craw, I just read a post by the PNR Prez, Jack, who was telling the R&D group all the things which would make us great. What I DON'T have is an email from said PNR Prez offering his services to me to help realize that objective. OR, an email to me stating his dissatisfaction with the existing communications. It seems that it is easier to criticize than to help.

We are a young Department. I am still working to get it going. There was just so much wrong with things that need to be addressed at an operational level that the business of the membership is taking a back seat. I mean things like leases running out. Backups not happening. Software not paid for. These are the "heart attack" things I and my guys have been dealing with. The "common cold" things are lingering, and those are the things which you notice. But, I assure you, they are secondary to letting the overall organization fail.

We're getting better, I promise. It's just taking longer than I thought.

Anybody else want to volunteer to help?

Thanks, and see you next week (hopefully).