Are Your Words Meaningless?

After last week's Customer Service Tip, you may have wondered if a similar study was done where researchers were evaluating how people judged each other based on a face-to-face conversation. The answer is yes.

Several years ago, researchers also conducted a study where they setup conversations between two people who had never met before, but these conversations took place face-to-face; so body language and facial expressions were involved. We'll still call the participants Jane and Joe and Jane and Joe would meet and carry on a discussion about whatever they wanted to talk about, and then they'd end the conversation. The next day, the researchers would go to the person in the role of Jane and say "Jane, tell me about Joe. What is Joe like?"

And Jane would describe Joe as funny or arrogant or dull or interesting or odd or lively or whatever adjectives came to Jane's mind. Then the researchers would ask, "Well, Jane, what was it about Joe during that face-to-facec onversation that gave you the impression that that was the kind of guy that he is, that that's his personality?"

A certain percentage of those folks in the role of Jane focused on Joe's mannerisms or his expressions (we'll generically call this his "body language"). Another percentage of the people in the role of Jane focused on how Joe's voice sounded, judging his personality based on his tone of voice.

Finally, the remaining people in the role of Jane focused on the actual words that Joe used, feeling like "these certain words" or "these certain phrases" helped the other individual to judge Joe's personality.

Out of 100% of the people in the role of Jane, what percent were judging the other's personality based primarily on his body language? Wha tpercent were judging the other's personality based primarily on how his voice sounded?The results? For body language, the percentage was 55%, tone of voice was second with 38%, and the words were last with 7%.

Does that mean that your words are irrelevant? Not at all. Your words are very important. They are the answer to the question; in the information age, the words are often the product. But the body language and the tone of voice are often what others judge us by - especially if they don't know us well - in terms of how service-oriented we are and in terms of HOW we delivered that "product."

When you're communicating with others, think about what you say, but be self-aware of how you're coming across to others with your body language and tone of voice. Those are the biggest determining factors in HOW your information is received.

Quick SharePoint Tips

To Upload a Document:
1. From the menu bar, go to Documents and Lists.
Find a document library to use and click on its
name.
2. To upload a document from your local computer,
click Upload Document button. Browse to find the
file you want to upload and click Open. Click Save
and Close.
Editing a Document:
When you check out a document, other users cannot edit the document or see your changes to the document. If you later decide to check in the document without saving your changes, you can use the Discard changes and undo check out option on the Check In page. You lose any changes made while you checked out the document. The document reverts to the last checked-in version, and no version history is kept for the unsaved changes.
1. From the menu bar, go to Documents and Lists.
Find a document library to use and click on its
name.
2. Move the cursor over the document you want to
edit. A drop-down box will appear. Click the down
arrow of the drop-down box and select Edit to edit directly in SharePoint.
3. The document will open in the appropriate application. Go to File, Check Out. This will check the
document out to you and no other author will be
able to modify the document.
Adding Alerts and Announcements:
Alerts enable you to be notified by e-mail of any changes made to the content of your site. You can create alerts for lists and libraries, as well as for individual items and any files in them.
Adding Alerts:
You can specify how frequently you want to receive alerts. When you no longer need to follow changes for the list, library, item or file, you can delete your alerts at any time. Go to the page that displays the list or library for which you want to add an alert.
1. Under Actions, click Alert me.
2. In the Send Alerts To section, confirm that the
destination e-mail address is correct.
3. In the Change Type section, specify whether you
want to be notified when items have been added,
changed or deleted or click All changes to be notified
whenever any type of change occurs.
4. In the Alert Frequency section, click the number
that reflects how often you want to be notified of
changes.
5. Click OK.
Creating an Announcements List:
1. In the top link bar, click Create.
2. On the Create Page page, click one of the following
for the kind of list that you want to create:
a. Announcements
3. In the Name box, type a name for the list.
a. This field is required.
4. In the Description box, type a description of the
purpose of the list.
a. This field is optional.
5. In the Navigation section, if you want a hyperlink
to this list to appear on the Quick Launch bar, click
Yes.
6. Click Create.
Please visit http://newmeckweb/help/Training/Quick_Tips_for_SharePoint_End_Users.pdf for more SharePoint tips and hints.

Meet: Amy Jones

Time with the County: 1 year & 2 months
Position Title: IT Buyer
Job Description: As an IT buyer, I create quotes for customers, make purchases and help manage assets.
Best thing about working for Mecklenburg County: All the great people I've met.
Hobbies: Reading Favorite Movie: Gone with the Wind
Last Book You Read: Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
What one item in the kitchen best describes you and your personality? Blender
If you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be? Alaska
What CD would your friends be surprised that you own? Michael Buble

IST Technology Services Center Opens Doors

The new IST Technology Services Center opened its doors on Monday, August 13. The new IST Technology Services Center opened its doors on Monday, August 13. Located at the Hal Marshall Annex, the new center houses the newly consolidated Help Desk East and Central staff members, along with Desktop support Central, SMS, and Core Process teams.

On Monday, Senior IT Manager Jeff Vince hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony for staff with a luncheon. Stay tuned for details about an open house the team will be hosting on September 6.

DSS and IST Partner to Launch ISSI-CW

On August 6, Youth and Family Services became the final division of DSS to gain access to a new, fully integrated case management system.

Integrated Social Services Information (ISSI) is a joint effort between DSS and IST and was first launched in 2002 by DSS’ Fraud division. Mecklenburg County partnered with Buncombe County to develop the Youth and Family Services version of the ISSI system and it is the largest application ever developed and implemented by Mecklenburg County. ISSI Child Welfare was a $2.4 million project with a projected return on investment of $1.2 million a year. The expected lifespan of ISSI is over 10 years.

With all major areas of DSS using ISSI, information about clients and the services they receive will be easily shared between divisions, providing improved care coordination, convenience for clients and time savings for staff.

"We are extremely excited about our child welfare ISSI system. This software will increase our agility, mobility and productivity while enhancing our ability to serve customers in their homes and community,” says DSS Director Richard "Jake" Jacobsen.

ISSI is also available to DSS staff remotely, allowing them to access case files from their homes or out in the field. Employees will also be able to access ISSI from their cars, thanks to aircards, which use mobile phone technology to connect to the County network.

Remote access to ISSI Child Welfare will also reduce traffic congestion and air pollution and reduce the amount of office space needed by DSS.

ISSI allows staff to input customer and case information, manage their caseloads efficiently, coordinate services with other DSS units and generate forms, letters and reports.

"ISSI Child Welfare helps DSS keep children safe by allowing case workers to spend more time with children and families and less time with paperwork,” says IST Applications and Data Director Brian Sturgill. “The ISSI solution combines the power of a single integrated database with work process automation. Case workers will now have access to up-to-date reliable case information to provide the best benefits available for children and families. Additionally, many time consuming process such as intakes, state form generation and assessments have been automated, providing a higher level of speed, consistency and reliability."

ISSI users can also fax and e-mail data from a desktop or laptop, send and create alerts, bookmark their most recently used cases and take advantage of extensive search capabilities.

“ISSI represents the best partnership between two County departments, DSS and IST,” says IST Project Management Division Director Gwen Simmons. “I am very happy to have been the executive project manager for this project.”

IST Director Jerry Pinkard and Brian Sturgill recently met with a leading national human services software vendor to provide an overview of ISSI. The vendor, who provides services to states and counties throughout the country, was very impressed with our system and stated in a memo to Jerry, “The system the County has put together for Child Welfare is certainly heads and shoulders above anything else we have seen. Keep up the good work.”

“Hearing this from such an expert in this field is such a compliment to DSS and the IST staff that produced ISSI,” says Jerry. “I am very proud of their work.”

DSS and IST celebrated the ISSI-CW launch with a hot-air balloon celebration in the Kuralt Centre Ballfield.

Many thanks to the ISSI Project Team, who helped make the development and implementation of ISSI Child Welfare a success:


•Ricky Johnson – IST Project Manager

•Teresa Hosseini – DSS Project Manager

•Dallas McCollough

•Brent Cook

•Kathy Williams
•Leo Bohland

•Laureen Ekeze
•Bronia Ashford

•Charles Bradley
•Cindy Brady

•David Fee
•Betty Hooper

•Regina Jenkins
•Ramona Masterton

•Christine McSwain
•Wendy Noutsis

•Misty Perkins
•Joni Schriber

•Rachel Wells
•Joy Win

•Jeffrey Chen
•Lynda Perry

•Gwen Simmons
•Reggie Grier

•Ken McWhirter
Keefe Barnes

•Lisa Boldt
•Michael Piwonka

•Manju Chaturvedi
•Teddi Peters

•Tamika Tims
•Isa Mumoh

•Scott Newell
• Brian Sturgill

•Tom Turpin

•Frances Davis

•Jeff McIntosh
•Wayne Butler