ImageBartBusyBody

Work Environment

Bart is a Project Manager/Office Manager at Adelante. In many ways, he is the glue that holds the organization together. As Office Manager, he coordinates the use of office resources including 3 conference rooms, AV equipment and the lounge area. He is also charged with lightweight IT support, helping less tech-savvy colleagues configure accounts, troubleshoot network issues and set up their computers. As Project Manager, Bart coordinates the flow of resources and deliverables between teams and between Adelante and outside vendors, clients and collaborators. Bart is the gatekeeper on all things that flow in and out of Adelante, ensuring that the organization's services and deliverables are consistent and professional. Bart also maintains project timelines to make sure they are realistic, up-to-date and clearly communicated to other team members.

Off all the people at Adelante, Bart is probably the most tuned into the nitty-gritty details of day-to-day operations and project status. Bart is so knowledgeable about the details of the organization that he is often contacted via several modes of communication for information on various topics (i.e. Where can I find the document about the latest medical plan changes? Where are the latest financial reports from that new Bolivian outfit?)

Personal life

Bart is 31 years-old and lives in San Fernando Valley. He commutes into the office by train every day and likes to read the news on his laptop. He has been married for 8 years and has a 4 year-old daughter, Kayla. He is active at his daughter's school. He is 5' 11, moderately athletic and plays squash once a week. He is also is an amateur musician and likes to play along to old LPs on his electric guitar. (Cream and early Prince.)

Bart and Technology

Bart is an experienced computer user and is agile of using the standard office tools to accomplish his job. He regularly uses email, calendaring, and todo lists. He also uses standard office tools like Excel and Word and deals regularly with a variety of documents (Some of these documents he owns, some he collaborates on).

Bart uses Smart Phones. Phones because he actually has several: a Blackberry, a Treo briefly and most recently, the Motorola Q, although he felt out-hipped by the salesperson when he bought it and is uncomfortable whipping it out in public.

He has a Dell Inspiron laptop at work as well as a pretty zippy Dell desktop machine.

He and his wife Millicent purchased an eMac a few years ago when they first had Kayla, but they quickly realized it was a bit premature and it has fallen into disuse. Bart finds all of the shiny graphics distracting. They mostly use a Windows desktop machine to organize their digital pictures and home videos. Bart has made A LOT of home videos of Kayla, which he burns onto DVD to share with grandparents and friends.

Communication and Task Management

Bart communicates with his colleagues at work primarily through email, which he receives on both his laptop and desktop machines at work and on his Blackberry.

However, he coordinates with his wife primarily through his cell phone or SMS, which he then jots down in an email and sends to himself as a reminder. He wishes she would email him more, but she's a third-year resident in obstetrics and doesn't spend much time in front of a computer. Besides, she operates primarily out of a 'paper organizer' which consists of napkins and envelopes stuffed into the pockets of her scrubs and as she likes to say, 'My brain works, I don't need a prosthetic one.'

Bart also writes things down onto sticky notes and sticks them to his monitor at work. However, he only does this with work-related things. He doesn't use the task managers that come with his various smartphones.

Bart has a pretty elaborate foldering system for keeping track of deliverables. He likes to keep a hard copy of all the forms, legal documents associated with the various projects he coordinates. This foldering system requires lightweight weekly maintenance to keep up-to-date and bi-monthly purges that can take up to half a day of his undivided attention.

Bart also uses IM, in particular Yahoo! Messenger to communicate with other people in the organization quickly. However, most of his IM buddies are co-workers, the only exceptions being his younger brother who is 23, his 60 year-old mother who is never on-line and never responds to IMs even when she is, and his 4 year-old daughter, who is more often than not, actually his wife.

Calendaring and Collaboration

Bart also maintains several calendars for the office including but not limited to, employee paid-time-off, office holidays and special events, resource availability and conference room availability, project milestones per project, etc. Bart sets these calendars up, but he relies on others in the office to keep them up-to-date. However, some people require a little extra nudge to do their part. Bart also manages an internal wiki that dispenses helpful information like: + What to do if the alarm goes off + HR-related forms + Templates for office correspondence + Legal forms + Expense sheets

Travel and Industry Ties

Bart doesn't travel very much for his job. He might attend a work-related conference every other year.Again, Bart is somewhat of a traffic officer at Adelante and when he is gone, the entire organization goes a little haywire. Bart has never gone on vacation for more than a week because he can't face the prospect of having to recover from more than a weeks' worth of information mismanagement. He would really love a collaboration system that made it easier for everyone else to stay organized while he was away.

Bart joined Adelante because he's good at what he does and he likes the idea of working for a company with a pro-social mission. However, he didn't have a particular interest in microfinance or developing world economies, so he's not particularly well-versed in industry specifics, except for what he's been able to pick up along the way, nor he is well-connected in the field. His contribution to the organization is primarily in his organizational skills and enthusiasm for a job well done.

Bart's House

Taken from here

Bart's Laptop

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Bart's Blackberry

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Bart's Q, Which He Feels Is Too Cool For Him

Taken from here