As e-learning software company ANGEL Learning grows, it takes some creative thinking to foster customer interactions.

That’s why president and CEO Christopher Clapp created the ALL (ANGEL Learning and Listening) Tour, which hit the road for the first time this year.

Employees formed groups of three or four people from different departments and experience levels. Each group will visit schools across North America from Florida to Canada. The trip will help employees gain different perspectives from customers while having fun. Destinations were selected randomly at a staff meeting, giving some employees a coveted trip to Florida in February or a less glamorous visit to Iowa in July.

“One of the things that’s emerged is somebody bought a little gnome, and you have to take the gnome and put the gnome in a picture some place,” Clapp says.

The gnome even brings a passport so the schools can sign or stamp it from the visit.

After each trip, employees get together for a debriefing – sharing their experiences, photos and stories of fun. Also, the well-traveled can help prepare novices by offering tips on what worked during their visits and what didn’t.

“I think it’s illustrative of what we try to do as an organization – keep things stimulating, keep things fun, but keep them really focused on the work at hand,” Clapp explains. The experience helps employees learn the vocabulary used by customers, see what their facilities are like and understand their location.

With trips overlapping, ANGEL is dealing with one predicament. “We’re having gnome hand-off problems so we’re ordering a couple extra gnomes,” Clapp admits.

Read more about ANGEL Learning and what makes it a Best Place to Work in the May/June issue of BizVoice®.

Does the rising cost of health care make you feel nauseated? Does it make you feel like you have the flu, been punched in the gut, or just had to sit through a reality television marathon featuring "Keeping Up with the Kardashians?" The Indiana Chamber is involved with a coalition,  Indiana Employers Quality Health Alliance, designed to help employers deal with this pain. 

Below are just some of the components of the program, which is designed to improve the health care system while striving to control costs:

Leapfrog: The Alliance, working with the sponsorship of 155 Indiana companies, continues to lead the rollout of Leapfrog in Indiana. Leapfrog  is a national survey program designed to encourage progress by hospitals to reduce patient errors and better comply with quality measures. It does this by inviting hospitals to complete an online survey regarding their progress in these areas.

Indiana Health Information Exchange (IHIE): IHIE  is nationally recognized as the leader in applying information technology to health care. The number of clinical messages delivered to physicians continues to soar, with a cumulative volume reaching nearly 30 million by the end of 2007. IHIE continues to develop its physician performance evaluation tool known as Quality Health First.

Cooperation and Collaboration: The Alliance invited presentations from two successful coalitions regarding their structure and programs. Indiana employers were then surveyed about their health care goals.  These responses were evaluated by a task force, and a plan for future coalition activities developed.

Recruitment and Expansion: Initial discussions have taken place regarding a membership recruitment drive for the Alliance that, if successful, will enable it to become more directly effective in reducing health costs and improving quality for member employers. The Alliance plans to do this by recruiting, statewide, employers of between 25 and 3,000 employees, with a goal of new employers representing a total of at least 50,000 employees.

My family and I were sitting around the dinner table the other night discussing summer plans. Sprinkled in among sports camps, vacation destinations and family visits was conversation about my daughter’s upcoming internship. As executive director of Indiana INTERNnet, I know the power of internships and am confident that through this first of many internships she will gain real life work experience to complement her classwork at Purdue University. 

After a few nudges from mom, my daughter created her free student account, searched for and applied to four internships on Indiana INTERNnet. Within 48 hours, she heard back from all of the employers and ulitmately was offered an internship with Scott A. Jones. 

Indiana INTERNnet’s online matching system connects students and employers for internship opportunities, and as a complement to the matching system, Indiana INTERNnet offers free internship program assessments to employers wishing to implement or enhance existing internship programs. Addtionally, employer workshops are being hosted throughout the state over the next 60 days. 

Is your company planning to host interns this summer? If so, we’d like to hear from you and your interns. Post internship comments and questions on this blog today and inspire other Indiana employers to follow your lead of keeping the workforce talent in the Hoosier state. 

I don’t know about you, but starting the workday at 5:30 a.m. isn’t typical for me. I know it’s shameful, but that snooze button on the alarm is both friend and foe in the wee morning hours. Awaking earlier than usual for a drive to Wabash (for an early morning appointment and subsequent engagements), however, was more than worth it.

What brought me there were interviews for the community focus package of BizVoice®. One of the people I met was Richard Ford, a Wabash-born philanthropist whose contributions to the arts and historic preservation have made an impact locally, nationally and beyond. He treated me to a downtown tour of Wabash to see various revitalization projects, many of which he is leading.

Highlights included the Dr. James Ford Historic Home (think Civil War and a physician’s practice), the Wabash County Historical Museum and the Honeywell Center (you would be hard-pressed to find facilities the quality of these two in similar-sized communities around the country).

Read the article about Richard Ford to see how he is helping shape Wabash’s future.

"For the past half-century, free enterprise and what it stands for has been under constant attack,” asserted Walter Williams at the last Economic Club of Indiana luncheon of the season Friday.

Williams, a well-known political pundit, columnist, professor and occasional guest host of the “Rush Limbaugh Show,” presented his strong views on economic and tax policy in America today.

Williams employed obvious and often humorous comparisons to illustrate his message – at one point equivocating the federal government’s wealth redistribution programs to armed robbery with a benevolent motive. 

“We must ask ourselves, is there ever a moral reason for taking what belongs to one person and giving it to another?” Williams asked, reminding the audience that, “government has no money of its very own.”

As a promoter of individual liberty over intrusive government, Williams believes that charitable contributions and other financial transactions are most effective when people are free to participate in voluntary exchange.

Mandating what Americans save for retirement and enforcing it through Social Security taxes is just one of the ways Williams feels government is interfering with voluntary exchange.  He also asserted that the federal government has no Constitutional authority to collect taxes for three-fourths of the things it currently collects.

The next Economic Club luncheon season will begin with Eli Lilly president/CEO John Lechleiter on Sept. 24. He will be followed by editor of the The Weekly Standard (and New York Times columnist) William Kristol on Oct. 27, who will offer his political insights just before the 2008 election. Here is the current schedule, and new speakers are still being added.

Members of the Indiana Commission on Local Government Reform didn’t abandon the cause after coming up with their far-reaching and meaningful recommendations in late 2007. The six months of work in compiling the report obviously became personal for the commission members – co-chairs Joe Kernan and Randall Shephard along with Ian Rolland and John Stafford of Fort Wayne, Sue Ann Gilroy and Louie Mahern of Indianapolis, and Adam Herbert of Bloomington.

Kernan, at the Indiana Chamber’s request, jumped in early this year with a series of video messages and BizVoice magazine article emphasizing the need for reform and discussing the findings/recommendations in specific issue areas. The former governor – along with Shepard, Stafford and Mahern, in particular – has been out on the speaking circuit ever since the report was released. They, along with others, recognize the challenge. It’s fair to say they (again, along with proponents who understand the importance of modernizing a system that has been in place for more than 150 years) wished more progress had taken place during the General Assembly session, but as political veterans they also realize little could be done with the runaway train that became homeowner property tax relief.

It’s no secret that Gov. Daniels will be focusing on this topic in his re-election bid and, if successful, in the 2009 legislative agenda. The status quo must change – at all levels. The numbers are in the report; the message is the same as those four words from Kernan upon its release – “If not now, when?”

Matrix Integration, a voice and data solutions company in Jasper, made a repeat appearance on the Best Places to Work list this year. Here are a few examples from employees of what brightens up their work week:

• Every Friday employees can submit a “thumbs up” about someone else, which serves a pass to wear denim for the day. These positive comments are then posted on the company intranet for everyone to read.
• For Becky Schneider, her ability to balance her career and home life makes working at Matrix ideal. “I love the fact that they give the flexibility to have a career and a family,” she asserts. The five-year employee is expecting her second child this year. She has the freedom to make her own routine and doesn’t have to sacrifice her family or marketing career at Matrix.
• Workout equipment is available in the employee break room and healthy snacks (such as bananas and grapes) are available for free. Some employees meet after work for a fitness walk as part of the wellness program, Schneider shares.

Read more about Matrix Integration in the May/June issue of BizVoice®.