APWA

A Look Forward: No Predictions, Only Productivity

Don't fall into the trap of thinking you know anything about the future. Sure, There's lots of neat confucus-iy quotes about knowing the future from learning about the past, or whatever. I've succumbed to the temptation myself to guess what will happen in the next 5 years. Here's the real deal. You can only control the "now".  Even then just a little tiny corner of your world. The future is ever changing,  take a lesson from Yoda.

Here at Cloudpoint, we are developing Principals to work by and not procedures or policies. We have no employee handbook or workplace guidelines. Even if we did it would be filled with bullet-point list of adages. For Example:

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  • Be Professional.
  • Work Hard & Be Nice To People.
  • Are you Productive or Just Being busy?
  • Make it Better. 
  • Why are you here?
  • When the door is shut, don't bother me.
  • Never Stop asking Questions.

When you feel like you can (or try to) predict the future, your pride gets in the way of actually making it happen. Somewhere inside you become a spectator watching life rather than a participant in it: "I knew this was going to happen!" Not helpful. A bit of personal humility can go a long way when you are assisting people with a new technology. Rather, when you set attainable goals you set a standard for yourself, a personal guideline. American author Mark Batterson once said (paraphrased): 'Goals are Just Dreams with Timelines' Well Said, Everybody needs dreams. 

This is what 2015 looks like for us. These are our genericized Goals: 

  1. Increase Benefits to Team Members
  2. Expand our Territory
  3. Hire
  4. 7+ Speaking Engagements
  5. Learn New Software
  6. Read 13+ Books
  7. Freely Distribute Several Useful tools
  8. Centralize Cloud Offerings 

There are others that I'm not willing to share, but this is most of the list from our first 2015 staff meeting. Some of them are personal, some are corporate all are real and attainable. 

Don't let the lure of trying to predict the future fill you with apathy and pride.
What are your goals? 

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So Where are Your Underground Utilities?

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How do you find your underground utilities?  Does your method of relocating them consist of your veteran public works director and the third-generation local excavator estimating them based upon a combined 70 years of memory?  We find this all to common in today's communities where their baby-boom staff will soon retire and take with them an incredible amount of "tribal knowledge".  Although they may have an incredible ability to tell where those 50 year old lines are at, someday these folks will not be available.  That's why mapping these utilities with GPS equipment is so critical!  Don't loose all of that valuable information, you just can't take that risk.  It doesn't have to be expensive equipment that costs thousands of dollars.  Even a simple $200 Garmin eTrex will get you headed in the right direction.  Today's GPS equipment can provide accuracies that vary from five feet to five millimeters.In addition if you are a local government agency that has a permitting process for underground utilities, why not start requiring the permittee to provide you as-builts with GPS coordinates.  You can do this with a simple ordinance update and even specify the accuracy requirements, and they don't have to be overly tight.  This is not an unreasonable request and will not place an "undue" hardship on them when the cost of GPS equipment is so insignificant these days.  The point is once you have the data it can be used in so many different capacities.  So why not set your agency on the right course today and make things better for the next generation!

Visit us at www.cloudpointgeo.com