How do you handle mistakes?

We all make mistakes. Someone once said that the only person who has not made a mistake is a person who has not done anything. The true measure of a person (or a company) is in how he/she handles the mistake.

• Experience is the name everyone gives their mistakes.— Oscar Wilde
• Experience is what enables you to recognize a mistake when you make it again.—Earl Wilson 
• When a person with money meets a person with the experience, the person with the experience winds up with the money and the person with the money winds up with the experience.—Harvey Mackay.
• One of my goals is to make only original mistakes. —Unknown

A Celebration of GIS Day

GIS stands for Geographic Information System.  Today is a celebration of the technological GIS advancements that have made a difference in our day to day lives.  GIS allows users to interpret geographical data visually and in multiple layers.  We, as a technological society, rely heavily on GIS information whether we realize it or not.  GIS is used to predict the weather, locate an address on your GPS, or determine the demographics of a specific area, just to name a few capabilities.

USI uses GIS to provide valuable information to our municipal clients.  Our GIS services include: field data collection, infrastructure inventory, needs assessments, and database design, population, and management.   We also use GIS for various engineering applications such as watershed modeling.  Allow USI to assist your municipality with its GIS needs.  Click here for our contact information.

If you’d like to discover more about GIS, follow this link: http://www.gisday.com/discover.html

Photo courtesy of ESRI. www.esri.com

5 Characteristics of a Professional

1.  Take Advantage of Every Opportunity.

I started my career as a hairstylist. At conferences I am often asked how I became a speaker, author, and executive speech coach? By noticing and using every chance that turned up. Opportunity doesn't knock just once. It knocks all the time, though you may not recognize the sound. One technique is to learn from successful people by finding out how they achieved their success.

2.  Start By Asking Questions.

Successful people will share their knowledge and experiences with you if you ask good questions that stimulate their thinking and responses. The quality of the information you receive depends on the quality of your questions. The key to connecting with others is conversation, and the secret of conversation is to ask the right questions. A conversation can lead to a relationship, and a nurtured relationship can produce amazing results.

3.  Dedicate Yourself.

Two questions you should ask yourself on a fairly regular basis are, "What can I do to contribute to my profession--to my employer and my professional association?" & "How can I be professionally accountable?" When you can do this, you'll get so much more than you give.

4.  Use Stories.

Be inventive in selling yourself and your profession. Learn to network, one on one, by using memorable stories. Sometimes, it's appropriate to fade into the background. Most of us are shy in some situations. But, to be professionally accountable, you must be able to stand out and speak up. When you are in any situation where you're meeting the public, how do you introduce yourself? When people ask what you do, can you tell them in a way that will stick in their minds? I challenge you to come up with a one-sentence way of presenting yourself and your profession so that people will never forget. Create a vivid, visual picture of your job, its challenges and triumphs. People will remember the picture you create in their minds, rather than your words.

5.  Develop Your Persuasive Powers.

Being professionally accountable means knowing how to influence people. President Dwight Eisenhower, said, "Leadership is the ability to decide what has to be done and then getting people to want to do it." How do you influence people? One of my clients is Horst Schulze, president of the Ritz Carlton hotels. He advises prospective employees, "We are all ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen. Our guests pay our prices to have an experience, and it is your job to be part of that experience. You will never say, 'That is not in my job description,' and you will never bring your own problems to work." Obviously, this works at the Ritz Carlton. Do you have a similar motivator for yourself, your colleagues, and your fellow professionals? Are you persuasive in representing my company, department or association in public?

Article by: Patricia Fripp, CSP, CPAE  www.fripp.com  PFripp@Fripp.com

Having A Plan - Pavement Preservation

A proactive plan to pavement management starts with a pavement condition survey (PCS).  A PCS conducted by USI’s experienced staff provides an agency with an unbiased, objective, and non-political pavement condition rating (PCR) which:

• Raises pavement condition awareness,
• Helps stretch maintenance funds,
• Builds a defensible case for additional program funding,
• Provides a prioritized repair program with estimated costs and maintenance activities, and
• Is the backbone of an effective pavement maintenance program!

 Once the condition of the roadway assets is known based on a rating system that is used by most municipalities in North Carolina, a municipality is able to compare their PCR to other municipalities or to prior surveys.  This allows a municipality to see if their pavement maintenance program is effective or if additional funding is necessary to keep these assets.

Delegation

     

A utility company superintendent took two crews into the field to install poles.  He gave each foreman his assignment and then left to attend to other duties.  Upon his return, he asked one foreman how many poles his crew had installed.  The first foreman replied, “Twelve.”

After inspecting the work, the superintendent went to the second foreman to make the same inquiry.  The super was surprised to learn the second crew had only installed two.  Naturally, the super asked the second foreman, “Why just two when the other crew installed twelve?”  “I know,” said the second foreman, “but look how much they left sticking out of the ground.”

Certainly, there can be pitfalls to delegating.  Yet many successful business people learn the power of leveraging your workforce through delegation.  The benefits of delegation include:

• Saving time for other pressing work.
• Increasing effectiveness by matching the right job and the right worker.
• Providing on-the-job growth opportunities for workers.

Here are a few ideas to increase your effectiveness when delegating:

• Choose people who will take responsibility-Demonstrate trust and faith in others.
• Match assignments to people’s skills - Delegate to people’s strengths, skills, and experience.
• Communicate expectations, not procedures - Provide guidance as needed or requested.
• Don’t expect perfection - Accept that your way is not the only way and weigh the differences.
• Allow for creativity - They may find a better way to do it.

Beautifying Our Cities One Neighborhood At A Time

Cities and towns around the country are recognizing the value of revitalizing our urban neighborhoods which have been in decline as people moved to new housing in the suburbs. Many of our urban neighborhoods have suffered from high crime and declining housing and infrastructure as the areas have been neglected for years.

Cities in our region are involved in efforts to improve housing, rebuild streets and sidewalks, and encourage community pride. The City of Charlotte through its Neighborhood Improvement Program has identified neighborhoods where streets and utilities are being upgraded along with landscaping, neighborhood parks, and housing to offer an improved quality of life for its citizens. USI has assisted the City of Charlotte on six of these neighborhoods by planning and designing improvements to sidewalks, roadways, storm drains, and utilities including replacement of undersized water mains. Four of these projects are completely constructed and two are under construction.  In Greensboro, USI assisted the City with redeveloping the Morningside area as a Hope VI project. This project involved replacing a public housing area with new streets, utilities, landscaping, and housing to offer residents a better way of life.

These neighborhood improvement projects along with the movement to revitalize our center city areas are important to the citizens who live there as well as others. USI’s staff is proud to be a partner in rebuilding our infrastructure and understands the engineering and social issues that are involved in working with local neighborhoods.

How a Municipality can benefit from an On-Call Engineering Contract

• The process for selecting an engineering firm can be conducted annually, bi-annually, or as needed. Time spent by municipal staff is reduced because the selection process is not needed each time a project arises.
• One engineering firm can be selected to handle all projects, or several firms can be selected based upon their special services or particular strengths.
•  On-call contracts provide as-needed resources for smaller municipalities who do not have budget for full time engineering staff.
• Engineering contract is in place when projects come up.

If you think an on-call agreement might help your agency meet demands for engineering services, please contact John Fersner (336-272-3402) or Bonnie Fisher (704-342-3007) for more information.