Global cloud spending surged 21% in Q3 2024
In Q3 2024, global spending on cloud infrastructure services increased by 21% ...
17 Nov, 2013
By Donna Sudderth on October 27, 2013 in News and Press, SimpleSignal
When SimpleSignal CEO Dave Gilbert was founding SimpleSignal back in 2004, he needed engineers and technologists who had experience with IP-based communications. It turns out that with two significant Internet Service providers (Level 3 and New Global Telecom) in the Denver area, he could find the technology and business management experience necessary to build out what has become a unified communications service provider servicing over 2,000 small-to-medium business customers. Today SimpleSignal’s Denver office is responsible for all of SimpleSignal’s operations activities: provisioning, customer service and network operations under the leadership of Chief Operating Officer Judy Kimminau. However, with our growing customer base we have outgrown our current first floor office space in southeast Denver. Fortunately our landlord had available much larger space on the fourth floor and we are currently in the process of tripling our footprint to over 13,000 sq. ft. But it’s not simply a physical move. With this move we have taken measures to ensure our team can work more productively and with additional resources. According to Judy: With our new space we have divided the work areas to accommodate function. The Support area (service delivery) will be closer to Engineering for case escalations; it will also be set up so that the team can collaborate easily to resolve technical issues more rapidly. We added a more traditional “cube” feel to this group so that personnel within this group are more isolated from the background office “buzz” and can focus on their immediate customer issues. Given the sense of urgency around technical issues, especially escalated customer issues, this group needs to be able to openly communicate yet not worry too much about disruption by background conversations. So, our goal was to allow that to happen. On the other hand our Provisioning team needs to be more collaborative in innovation, product design and conception as well as ability to cleanly and seamlessly implement. This team is set up in a more modern, techie, edgy look and feel within a more open, collaborative space. They are located close to our new lab and to our “idea walls” Idea walls are walls in, say our conference room, staff room or other relevant locations, that are effectively whiteboards. Supporting brain storming discussions, employees (and business visitors) can walk to a nearby wall to draw and modify discussion points and technical designs for implementation or technical resolution of customer and product issues. Finally, two more new resources. We have our first ever designate training room incorporating the appropriate resources for training sessions. Judy further explained: Our new space is designed to be very customer facing while located near the entrance to our office. We will have a conference room and training center to host customer functions. We recently hosted an onsite training session for customers and it was in a traditional conference room setting in our former office. With our new training room we hope to achieve a more interactive, truly educational training environment. By moving to the fourth floor we’re no longer potentially subject to flooding and we’ll have to find a new way to test out our disaster backup response capabilities. And while not co-located with the operations offices, one of Simple Signal’s essential communications services hubs is also located in Denver. In sum, Simple Signal has a lot going on in Denver. We’re still in the throes of finalizing the new office enhancements and hope to move upstairs in early November. Once there, we look forward to being able to increase both our productivity and effectiveness. It also provides the space to triple our staff resources as our customer base grows over the next couple of years. And to top it off, we’ll come back with some photos in a future blog post. More at
www.simplesignal.com
When SimpleSignal CEO Dave Gilbert was founding SimpleSignal back in 2004, he needed engineers and technologists who had experience with IP-based communications. It turns out that with two significant Internet Service providers (Level 3 and New Global Telecom) in the Denver area, he could find the technology and business management experience necessary to build out what has become a unified communications service provider servicing over 2,000 small-to-medium business customers. Today SimpleSignal’s Denver office is responsible for all of SimpleSignal’s operations activities: provisioning, customer service and network operations under the leadership of Chief Operating Officer Judy Kimminau. However, with our growing customer base we have outgrown our current first floor office space in southeast Denver. Fortunately our landlord had available much larger space on the fourth floor and we are currently in the process of tripling our footprint to over 13,000 sq. ft. But it’s not simply a physical move. With this move we have taken measures to ensure our team can work more productively and with additional resources. According to Judy: With our new space we have divided the work areas to accommodate function. The Support area (service delivery) will be closer to Engineering for case escalations; it will also be set up so that the team can collaborate easily to resolve technical issues more rapidly. We added a more traditional “cube” feel to this group so that personnel within this group are more isolated from the background office “buzz” and can focus on their immediate customer issues. Given the sense of urgency around technical issues, especially escalated customer issues, this group needs to be able to openly communicate yet not worry too much about disruption by background conversations. So, our goal was to allow that to happen. On the other hand our Provisioning team needs to be more collaborative in innovation, product design and conception as well as ability to cleanly and seamlessly implement. This team is set up in a more modern, techie, edgy look and feel within a more open, collaborative space. They are located close to our new lab and to our “idea walls” Idea walls are walls in, say our conference room, staff room or other relevant locations, that are effectively whiteboards. Supporting brain storming discussions, employees (and business visitors) can walk to a nearby wall to draw and modify discussion points and technical designs for implementation or technical resolution of customer and product issues. Finally, two more new resources. We have our first ever designate training room incorporating the appropriate resources for training sessions. Judy further explained: Our new space is designed to be very customer facing while located near the entrance to our office. We will have a conference room and training center to host customer functions. We recently hosted an onsite training session for customers and it was in a traditional conference room setting in our former office. With our new training room we hope to achieve a more interactive, truly educational training environment. By moving to the fourth floor we’re no longer potentially subject to flooding and we’ll have to find a new way to test out our disaster backup response capabilities. And while not co-located with the operations offices, one of Simple Signal’s essential communications services hubs is also located in Denver. In sum, Simple Signal has a lot going on in Denver. We’re still in the throes of finalizing the new office enhancements and hope to move upstairs in early November. Once there, we look forward to being able to increase both our productivity and effectiveness. It also provides the space to triple our staff resources as our customer base grows over the next couple of years. And to top it off, we’ll come back with some photos in a future blog post. More at
www.simplesignal.com
