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Employee Spotlight: Jim Adams

Posted: Thu Jul 09, 2009 2:07 pm
by McDanielCA
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Question

What do you do at the Church?

Answer

As a member of the Information and Communications Systems department (ICS) Mobile Device Team, I help coordinate cellular communications for Church headquarters. That includes ordering cell phones and mobile broadband data cards for laptops, helping employees with an array of phone issues, and generally safeguarding the Church’s investment in this popular business tool.

Question

What role do you think the Mobile Device Team plays in the Church organization?

Answer

We try to make the employees’ mobile device experience as smooth and trouble-free as possible. For example, a lost, damaged, or stolen cell phone can represent a minor tragedy in the life of a citizen of the 21st century! We resolve problems as painlessly as possible by having a small stock of lightly-used surplus devices available for immediate replacement. This minimizes “phoneless” down-time. Without this service, hundreds of dollars would be spent on each replacement phone, so we feel we save the Church significant dollars as we help maximize employee productivity.

Question


How do you think mobile device administration is different at the Church?

Answer

In one word: service. For a few months, many years ago, I actually administered headquarters cell phones when we had 100 Motorola “bricks.” They were viewed as extreme luxury at a cost of $1,500 each. The same personal care approach has carried over to the present, where a mobile phone seems as necessary and natural as a right arm for many employees. Thanks to a long line of effective customer-service-oriented administrators – who I am still learning from – Church employees can continue their critical work with minimal interruption from the occasional technical difficulty.

Question

What is the most fulfilling aspect of your job?

Answer

The most fulfilling aspect of my job is the opportunity I have to be helpful. I am helpful by nature—my dear wife thinks too helpful sometimes! Here at work, I get to help people ‘till my heart’s content, and that is satisfying.

Question

Which ICS Cultural Belief has made the biggest difference for you?

Answer

I like “Receive Revelation.” We frequently see this scenario: a person comes to us needing a particular device or service. Whether it’s something we regularly stock but were momentarily out of, or a rare item, it seems another person has just dropped off that exact part at the exact right time! Now it doesn’t always happen that way, but it happens often enough that we sense our human offering is being supplemented.

Question

You have recently been given a new assignment of Chief Musical Officer for ICS in order to incorporate a more reverent environment in department “All Hands” meetings. What have you enjoyed most from this role so far?

Answer

I’m amazed by the wealth of musical talent there is here! I have enjoyed trying to meet our managing director’s challenge to me: to pick music that’s peppy and positive and not necessarily religious; and to perform it with excellence. So far we’ve dipped into serious Gershwin, musical theater, and folk song. With the depth of talent I referred to, I believe the result has met the stated goals. It’s been such a wonderful experience to be asked to develop and display our non-technical talents in the workplace. I wish to extend my thanks to Joel Dehlin, the ICS chief information officer, for giving me this challenge.

Question

How do you feel your experience as a vocalist with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir has influenced your professional life?

Answer

I have joked before, semi-seriously, that I work only to support my music habit! When someone is as musically-addicted as I am, you must have an outlet. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir has provided me the ultimate outlet for a choral singer. And that makes for a happy person in all the other realms of life.

Choir membership has had a practical work-benefit as well. On a choir tour in Seattle in 2005, I was able to meet the entire Qwest customer service team. I had counted them as friends but had never met them in person. I distributed choir CDs and got invited out to Starbuck’s – for a sweet roll and hot chocolate. And a couple days before that in Spokane, I was able to take a free morning and meet at LDS Family Services, where we sorted out major problems they’d had with their office phone system.

Question

Your working processes have recently changed. What were the changes and how have they made your team more efficient?

Answer

Gary Wixom, our team lead, has applied his broad IT experience and deep mobile device knowledge to totally revamp our order processes. His introduction of SharePoint has made us much more efficient. I’d like to take this opportunity to thank current and former members of the team.

What "apps" in use on phones

Posted: Wed Jul 15, 2009 12:10 pm
by atticusewig
Good article.

Quick question - with cell phones being more like
computers than phones nowadays, does the church
deploy any specific software to employee phones ?

( It would be funny if all church phones had a
digital copy of the standard works for employees
to read while they were on hold or a break. )

- Atticus