Where has all my good time gone?

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy

I often wish I had a big box of time. On a rare trip to a local hostelry last week, conversation turned to everyone's lack of time and if anyone had any top tips to squeeze just a bit more out of the day. Some pretty sensible ideas came out of it. Worth sharing I thought. While I am sure many readers of this blog take advantage of many of these already, there might be a few useful gold nuggets here.

Feel free to share any new tips too.

1) Don't let the demands of others burn up your time. If someone asks for a meeting, offer them5 minutes (& keep to it), or a formal 30 minute meeting next week or booked in the diary.

2) Make sure all meetings result in actions to stem from decisions. Use a flip chart to record action points, who and when the target to complete is

3) Start & finish meetings on time. If the chair is late, start it on time and chair it yourself. Always ensure minutes are taken

4) Arrive at meetings 20 minutes early to sort out any issues. E.G. to curtail the current meeting on time or get the equipment connected & working.

5) Learn to delegate often and let people know how much freedom they will have in achieving the outcome, by a stated target date.

6) When delegating, keep control of the task, rather than leaving staff to sink or swim. Make sure when finished, they get a personal "ThankYou".

7) When working from home, keep a set routine to separate home & work. Start & finish at the same times, have lunch at a regular time, so colleagues know when you can be contacted or probably not.

8) When working from home, make a 'Do not disturb' sign to display when busy. Differentiate when working by closing your working room door (, or leaving it open when you are not).

9) When working from home, unless you expect work visitors, don't have a visitors chair, it will attract distractions from family etc

10) For amending documents, learn how to use Microsoft Word's mark-up feature properly, use it and read again in detail one more time afterwards.

11) Decide when to cherry pick from a document, skim read or plough through the whole document. Sometimes, diagrams & graphs will summarise the general meaning.

12) Relax with email, checking it possibly just twice daily, e.g. First thing in the morning and at lunchtime. Keep it closed otherwise, to reduce distractions.

13) Use your email program's address book. So many people I know rely on email address autofill, which can make it easy to send email to the wrong targets. Also, the address book will hold contact and address details, making CTI possible.

14) Set up and use email filters properly to segregate and auto-file common types of messages. For example I do this where subscribing to e-procurement websites. Opportunities can be reviewed together, rather than mixed up with all the other more important emails.

15) Always carry a good sized USB stick (32GB or larger) on your bunch of car keys, always available to move larger documents, images and files around.

16) Say 'No' more often. Particularly if saying 'Yes' is leading to work overload, poor productivity, you letting people down or working late too often. It's OK to say No, but tell people why and suggest an alternative work reason.

17) If you are easily distracted on to other tasks, as they pop into your head, record them in a personal notebook, or an app accessible from mobile tablets, phones & laptops, like Evernote. These can be returned to at a more convenient time.

18) Disconnect instant messaging. Don't instantly give others your attention unless it's crucial

19) Avoid wasting time on the internet. Block out other distractions like Facebook and other forms of social media unless you use these tools to generate business.

20) Finish your working day at a fixed time. Do not let work creep to fill your evening. Consider  two finishing times. One tuned for an ideal day, then one latest time that you won’t work past.

Related Post: Are you controlling the paper in your organisation?

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I would be pleased to connect with you on LinkedIn - http://uk.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Message me with any issues or queries, you would like to be explored in this blog. We generally receive a couple of suggestions each month.


David Bowie - Where have all the good times gone.
(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009


Access a quick list of our Social Housing ICT blog posts here
Could we help you or your organisation? Our contact details are here , get in touch we will be pleased to chat about your problems and help with your organisation issues.
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Jack In The Green

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK
or LinkedIn here uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/

 
The cost of heating our homes and the phrase 'Fuel Poverty' has gone mainstream lately, has it not?

I remember Ed Milibean being derided as a communist, at the labour conference, when he suggested freezing energy bills. Just 9 weeks later, our coalition government, always keen to encourage the free market, are quietly asking energy companies for restraint and considering shifting green taxes away from our bills. A saving of a whole £50 (barely 4% of the average bill). Not surprising most people are angry, not grateful.


Nobody I notice has been trampled in the rush to sign up to the 'Green Deal' either. An expensive scheme that barely 594 people in the UK had indicated interest and only '360 wished to proceed'. Window dressing at best, more than likely it costs more to administer than actual benefits achieved. It certainly was not the same as the solar PV gold-rush back in 2011. We narrowly missed leading a whole new innovative history there. Grab the Allen key people, hopefully we can rely on our favourite flat pack furniture shop to make PV sexy again - http://www.ikea.com/gb/en/about_ikea/newsitem/ikea_hanergy_solar_panels

Well what of our residents on the breadline? The ones spending far more than 10% on fuel and day to day deciding if to eat or to feed their expensive prepay meters? How should landlords tackle it? What can we all do to help? How can IT and systems help?

At first glance, there's plenty of silver bullets out there for sale. If you have deep pockets and not that bothered about integration that is. Even some 'energy' modules for better known third party asset applications, don't integrate too well together with their core applications. I won't embarrass anyone by naming them, but if you have purchased them, you have surely rumbled it by now. Even if you get that bit right, the elephant in the room is being able to mash up data with your housing management system, to obtain some decisive insights.

Last Friday I had a really productive day with some asset managers wrestling with energy efficiency in a rural setting. No surprise that residents cite high cost of heating their properties, as their number one concern. Not everyone is on mains gas and not everyone can have insulation due to asset archetypes and build standards. Oh, and budgets getting tighter, the board want more done with less. Have you got one like that? (Thought so).

Like in most asset teams these days, the EPC collection is building up. How can IT assist to support the asset team to reach their goals and pull the maximum residents out of fuel poverty?

Many RSLs I come across record a PDF of the EPC, the RDSAP rating (e.g. 49, band E) and date issued. Limiting details recorded to this, does however miss a trick. The EPC is a rich source of data to model. Capture a bit more of that data and we can turn that into some really useful insights. For example, the potential energy efficiency rating, standard recommended measures/indicative costs, typical energy bill savings etc. 

Recording against each EPC of these potential improvements can easily form the basis of our asset energy modelling. Most of the common integrated HMS systems out there (OpenHousing, Orchard, QLX, iWorld, UH etc) can be configured to record these against asset components and attributes. The extra admin of manual entry or the provision of a regular import (where your EPC supplier can provide it) of these fields, makes the job somewhat easier.

Once it's in your database, it's a relatively swift task to combine all related details in a database view to provide a helicopters eye view of your stock. By related details I mean HB status (full/partial/none), primary method of payment (Allpay, Direct Debit, Cash etc), recorded economic status (Inactive, retired, working full/part time etc), area, HO patch, asset archetype etc.

A bit of added work if you are lucky enough to have a GIS system or can find time on Google maps satellite view, can identify any of your south facing roofs, suitable for solar PV. While not the cash-cow it was, it's still an option to offset your residents fuel bills.

On sign up, you may well be helping your residents to account for their new tenancy/shared owner property, pointing them to the local credit union or other places. Data collected during this process could also assist in identifying need. Also the resident age range and type of household, most likely held within your contact details. IE young families, single disabled elderly etc.

In the future, energy companies may well also provide anonymised energy expenditure data to you about your residents. Coming soon the 'internet of things' (due before the 'Jetpacks' they promised hopefully), might allow us to also monitor usage by boiler, live room temperatures etc.  

As you probably realise, this creates access to a pretty comprehensive picture. So should we aim to do with your 'mash-up' view? Well, we can determine where the best result can be achieved for minimum outlay, for the most deserving residents. It creates a concrete case for expenditure for your board and the improvements that can be expected.

Each organisation will be different, but this joined up approach allows facts to drive the improvement process. Another way that housing IT can help make a difference to your residents lives

Read on to: Asking those questions - collecting satisfaction better

You can link with me on LinkedIn here - uk.linkedin.com/pub/tony-smith-bsc-hons-acih/a/979/351/ It would be great to connect !

Jethro Tull - Jack In The Green .


(c) Tony Smith, Acutance Consulting www.acutanceconsulting.co.uk 07854-655009

PS As usual, if there are subjects you might like me to tackle on this blog, please get in touch and let me know!

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Look to Your Orb for the Warning

If you do the Twitter thing, follow me at @hotpixUK

It was a great feeling to see Orbit Group this week scooping Housing Heroes and the Housing Excellence awards.  I would like to wish everyone from David Leach down, Angela Adderley and Roy Evans, the very best, it was so deserved.

I have rich experience of Orbit as a customer, departing customer and a returning customer during my tenure at MIS Active Management Systems.  No legal restrictions bind me from talking about that, feel free to get in touch to discuss further.

I have worked personally with the IT team there at Orbit for over 14 years, during my previous life at MIS and have great respect for them. After over 3 years of trying hard to implement a rival housing system, they reconsidered options. I was there at every point of that really rewarding project and proudly was there the Friday, the new system was delivered live after just over 100 days.

I am not surprised that despite stiff competition that Orbit won through. I have no doubt that the Orbit IT team had also comprehensively underpinned the new CRM system delivery, a resident self-service portal which formed “a bursary for residents to improve their own lives or the lives of those living within their communities”

The Orbit experience reflects a number of factors that I am sure other organisations can take on board to leverage similar benefits.

Firstly, get your housing systems in order. The right degree of integration works wonders at the right price. Your IT team are valuable and expensive in equal measure.

Keep them content and let them contribute to your business objectives. That is one of the key areas where Orbit and David Leach has connected with the main business of Orbit and helped to deliver savings as well as efficiency.

One of the sexiest things that Orbit introduced was iPads. Now this is not new. DFS famously asked staff to purchase their own iPads, Orbit provided them with Citrix access to their main desktop systems. The savings of mileage claims alone were enough to cover costs within four months. Staff are more inclined to work from home, or not come via the office every day. It’s a fact, Orbit have the numbers.

Now, let’s not deny, Orbit at 39,000+ homes is quite large. Although, any RSL with Citrix already, could already deploy this type of solution at little more than the cost of an iPad or Samsung tablet, to deploy their full housing system . Why are you not considering this?

Monster Magnet knew what was going down...




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